Honk News (West Virginia 2025) – A witness became emotional while recounting the sight of children struggling with heavy loads on steep ground at the residence of a West Virginia couple, who were subsequently taken into custody after two of their five adopted children were discovered confined in a shed.
The proceedings against Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz commenced on Tuesday, encompassing over a dozen charges, including forced labor, civil rights infringements, human trafficking, and severe child neglect.
During her initial remarks, assistant prosecutor Madison Tuck asserted that the evidence will demonstrate how the couple compelled the children to labor and exploited them in ways that were physical, emotional, and mental to ensure their obedience. She indicated that communications between Lantz and Whitefeather referenced having the children remain standing for extended durations and confining the two older teenagers in the outbuilding.
Mark Plants, the attorney for Whitefeather, stated that the case revolves around adoptive parents facing challenges related to their children’s history of trauma and significant mental health issues. He stated that friends and family of Whitefeather will provide testimony indicating that four of the children experienced “physical, sexual and emotional” abuse at the hands of their biological mother, which included her use of alcohol and drugs during her pregnancy.
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Lantz and Whitefeather are of Caucasian descent. The siblings, aged between 5 and 16, are of African descent.
A couple took in five siblings while residing in Minnesota, later relocating to a farm in Washington state in 2018. In 2023, they moved once more to West Virginia, with the children then aged between 5 and 16.
On Tuesday, neighbor Joyce Bailey recounted that when the family initially came to the residence in Sissonville, West Virginia, in 2023, they arrived in a vehicle towing an animal trailer during a rainstorm, and the children were instructed to line up outside.
In September 2023, the couple purchased a larger residence in Beckley and began the process of relocating furniture from their Sissonville home. A month later, Bailey reported witnessing Lantz confine the two teenagers in the outbuilding before departing the premises. Whitefeather departed shortly thereafter. A call was made to the authorities, and Bailey reported witnessing sheriff’s deputies persistently knock on the outbuilding door for several minutes. A young girl responded but made it clear that she lacked a key. Bailey reported that she could hear the deputy conversing with the girl before using a crowbar to free the children.
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A law enforcement officer reported in a legal document that the children were dressed in unclean clothing, and noted that the eldest boy was without shoes and had what seemed to be wounds on his feet. In the primary dwelling, a 9-year-old girl was discovered alone, weeping in a loft without any safeguards against potential falls. Upon his eventual return, Lantz was accompanied by a fourth child. Authorities subsequently located the couple’s 5-year-old adopted daughter.
Authorities took Whitefeather and Lantz into custody, while the children were entrusted to Child Protective Services for their safety.