Teenager describes tumultuous life at trial of adoptive parents accused of neglect and forced labor
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A teenager whose discovery in a locked shed led to the arrest of her adoptive parents testified Friday that she and her siblings lived tumultuous lives in substandard conditions, including being forced to sleep on the floor and use buckets as toilets.
The oldest daughter's testimony wrapped the first week in the trial of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz, who are accused of mistreating their five adopted children, all of whom are Black. Whitefeather and Lantz, who are white, each face more than a dozen felony counts that include forced labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking and gross child neglect.
During the couple's arraignment last June, Kanawha County Circuit Judge MaryClaire Akers said the indictment alleged the children were used as “slaves.”. Facebook messages seeking comment from attorneys for the couple weren’t immediately returned Friday night.
On the stand, the daughter, now 18, was the first of the siblings to testify. She described a difficult life over the course of years following their adoption. The children were made to stand in their rooms for hours “to prevent us from falling asleep,” she testified. They also were told to keep their hands on their heads, and Whitefeather would often use pepper spray on them if they didn't, the teenager said.
“It would be the entire day, then go to sleep and do it again the next day,” she said. During her testimony, the teenager described photos shown of the home in which she said Lantz yelled at one of the children for not listening and hit the boy on the head with a PVC pipe.
