Free Republic

A white couple from West Virginia were collectively sentenced to 375 years in prison for forcing their five adopted black children to work on their farm as “slaves” while being berated with racial slurs. Jeanne Kay Whitefeather received up to 215 years in prison and her husband, Donald Lantz, will serve up to 160 years — the maximum sentence — after the pair were convicted of forced labor, human trafficking and child abuse and neglect in January. “You brought these children to West Virginia, a place that I know as ‘Almost Heaven,’ and you put them in hell. This court...

A wealthy white West Virginia couple forced their adopted black children to work as slaves and sleep in a barn, according to disturbing charges. Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather, pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges on Tuesday. Lantz and Whitefeather were first arrested in October after a wellness check led to the discovery of the couple’s five adopted children — aged 6, 9, 11, 14 and 16 — living in deplorable conditions on their Sissonville property. The indictment, which Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers said was one of the worst she’s ever seen, alleges that the...

A wealthy white West Virginia couple have been accused of forcing their adopted black children to work as slaves and live inside a locked barn. Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62 of Charleston, West Virginia, plead not guilty on Tuesday to multiple new charges after their kids were found locked in a dilapidated shed after allegedly laboring on the surrounding farmland. The judge presiding over the case said the couple targeted their five kids - aged 16, 14, 11, nine, and six - because of their race and they were 'used basically as slaves.' According to the...

A couple arrested after some of their adopted children were found locked in a shed at their West Virginia home are set for trial later this year on charges that a judge said involved their use as “slaves.” Donald Ray Lantz and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather face trial later this year after they were arraigned on 16 counts each accusing them of civil rights violations, human trafficking, forced labor, gross child neglect and falsifying an application seeking a public defender. All but one of the counts are felonies.