CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A witness broke down in tears as she described youngsters carrying heavy objects on hilly terrain on the dwelling of a West Virginia couple who had been later arrested after two of their 5 adopted youngsters had been discovered locked in an outbuilding.
The trial of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz started Tuesday on greater than a dozen counts that embody pressured labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking and gross youngster neglect.
In her opening assertion, assistant prosecutor Madison Tuck stated proof will present the couple pressured the kids to work and used them “bodily, emotionally and mentally in order that they might comply.” She stated textual content messages between Lantz and Whitefeather talked about making the kids stand for lengthy durations of time and locking the 2 older youngsters, each youngsters, within the outbuilding.
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Whitefeather’s lawyer, Mark Vegetation, stated the case “is about adoptive dad and mom struggling to cope with their youngsters’s previous trauma and extreme psychological sickness.” He stated buddies and family members of Whitefeather will testify that 4 of the kids suffered “bodily, sexual and emotional” abuse by their organic mom, together with what he stated was the mom’s use of alcohol and medicines whereas she was pregnant.
“This can be a regular household,” Vegetation stated. “They’ve Christmases. All of them. They’ve Christmas presents. They’ve household holidays. They sit round dinner tables and eat.”
Lantz and Whitefeather are white. The kids, all siblings ranging in age from 5 to 16, are Black.
The couple adopted the 5 siblings whereas residing in Minnesota and moved to a farm in Washington state in 2018 earlier than shifting once more to West Virginia in 2023, when the kids ranged in age from 5 to 16.
Neighbor Joyce Bailey testified Tuesday that when the household first arrived on the dwelling in Sissonville, West Virginia, in 2023 in a automobile pulling a trailer for animals, it was raining and the kids had been instructed to line up exterior.
“You by no means see them discuss to one another,” she stated. “They didn’t discuss in any respect amongst themselves. You didn’t see them out except they had been working. They by no means performed.”
Bailey grew to become emotional a number of occasions in describing what she stated was the problem among the youngsters had in carrying fencing for the animals, propane tanks, full buckets of water and different provides between the house, a trailer and a barn as Lantz watched. Video of the bodily labor taken by Bailey was proven in Kanawha County Circuit Courtroom.
“He made them carry all of it, that heavy fencing,” Bailey stated. “They’d simply stand there and watch for him to inform them what to do.”
Bailey stated she additionally witnessed the oldest boy carrying a propane tank. The boy “might barely stroll. He acted like his ft had been so sore. He was dragging them,” Bailey stated. “Mr. Lantz was simply standing there. He by no means stated something, not serving to him.”
Bailey stated “it was tearing me up,” so she began to take video. When Lantz appeared over at her, Bailey stated, her husband instructed her to cease filming, however she continued, replying, “I don’t care.”
In September 2023, the couple purchased an even bigger home in Beckley and began shifting furnishings out of the Sissonville dwelling. A month later, Bailey stated, she noticed Lantz lock the 2 youngsters within the outbuilding and depart the property. Whitefeather left a short while later. Somebody referred to as police, and Bailey stated she noticed sheriff’s deputies knock on the outbuilding door for a number of minutes. A woman answered however indicated she did not have a key. Bailey stated she might hear the deputy speaking to the woman, then used a crowbar to get the kids out.
A deputy stated in a prison criticism that the kids had been in soiled garments and that the oldest boy was barefoot and had what gave the impression to be sores on his ft. Inside the primary residence, a 9-year-old woman was discovered alone crying in a loft with no safety from falling. A fourth youngster was with Lantz when he finally returned. Deputies had been later led to the couple’s 5-year-old adopted daughter.
Whitefeather and Lantz had been arrested and the kids had been positioned beneath the care of Baby Protecting Providers.
In accordance with the criticism, the kids had been disadvantaged of sufficient meals and hygienic care, and the outbuilding had no working water or rest room facility. Vegetation has referred to the outbuilding as a “teenage clubhouse” and stated there was a key inside. However Tuck stated the kids by no means knew a few key.
Vegetation stated the oldest boy had tried to run away from dwelling and that the lock on the outbuilding was aimed toward maintaining him from attempting it once more. The boy at the moment is receiving full-time care in a psychiatric facility.
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