‘A teenage clubhouse’: Bail revoked for couple accused of locking adopted children in filthy shed, forcing manual labor

Background: The Sissonville, West Virginia shed locked up their adoptive children in 2023 (WCHS). Left inset: Donald Lantz (West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority). Right inset: Jeanne Whitefeather (West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority). Bottom inset: An interior photo of the shed taken by Whitefeather

Background: The Sissonville, West Virginia shed locked up their adopted children in 2023 (WCHS). Left inset: Donald Lantz (West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority). Right inset: Jeanne Whitefeather (West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority). Bottom inset: An interior photo of the shed taken by Whitefeather’s brother after arrest (WCHS).

A judge in West Virginia threw the book at a white couple who were convicted of using their five adopted Black children as “slaves,” forcing them to perform heavy labor and locking them in a filthy shed where they used buckets as toilets.

Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers on Wednesday handed down the maximum sentences to Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and her husband, Donald Lantz, ordering each to serve more than 150 years in a state correctional facility after they were convicted on multiple counts of child neglect and forced labor.

Whitefeather, who was convicted on all 19 counts charged against her, was ordered to serve up to 215 years and will be eligible for parole after 40 years. Lantz, who was convicted on 12 of 16 counts, will serve a maximum of 160 years and will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years.

The couple were also ordered to pay $280,000 each in restitution.

The judge did not mince words when addressing the defendants during the sentencing hearing.

“You brought these children to West Virginia, a place that I know as ‘Almost Heaven,’ and you put them in hell. This court will now put you in yours,” Akers said, according to a report about The Associated Press. “And may God have mercy on your souls because this court will not.”

Several of the couple’s adopted children penned victim impact statements that were read aloud by the court’s victim advocate while the eldest child, who is now 18, read her own statement.

“I’ll never understand how you can sleep at night,” she reportedly said to Whitefeather. “I want you to know that you are a monster.”

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