OAN Staff Brook Mallory
5:03pm – Friday, March 21st, 2025
The West Virginia couple was given a total term in prison for 375 years for putting five adopted black children in their farms as “slaves.”
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Following the January conviction of “forced labor, human trafficking, child abuse and neglect,” Jeanne Kay Whitefeather was sentenced to a maximum sentence of 215 years in prison, while her husband, Donald Lants, was given a 160-year term.
“You took these kids to West Virginia, a place you know as 'almost heaven' and you put them in hell. This court will put you inside you,” said Circuit Judge Mary Claire Akers, who spoke to the defendant on Wednesday.
“And as God has mercy in your soul, for this court is not.”
The court read aloud several letters the four children had written to their adopted parents. According to the children's letter, in the care of the couple, they experienced life-changing trauma that hurt them, leaving them troubled by nightmares and trust issues.
“I will never understand how you can sleep at night. I want you to know that you are a monster,” the oldest son, now 18, told the court.
The 18-year-old left her hurt forever last month, claiming that she had hurt her forever.
After recruiting five black siblings in Minnesota, the couple moved their new “family” to a farm in Washington state in 2018.
A few months later, in October 2023, Whitefeather and Lantz were taken into custody after a child welfare call revealed that the couple's eldest son and her teenage brother were trapped in their home shed.
When police finally arrived they reportedly found a Porta toilet, but there was no running water or light when using clover to pry open the barn door. One of the teenagers told police they went for 12 hours without food, whilst they were locked up in the barn.
Their adopted parents put them to sleep without a bed on a concrete floor, according to the brothers. The officer said in the report that both minors had a very irritating body odor and were wearing filthy clothes.
“Inside the main residence, a 9-year-old girl was found crying in the loft alone. Three hours later, Lantz arrived with an 11-year-old boy. Whitefeather soon followed with the 5-year-old girl. New York Post It has been reported.
Judge Akers argued that “these children were targeted for their race and were basically used as slaves,” following the couple's indictment last year.
Furthermore, the couple's neighbors testified through trial that they had never seen their children play, but they saw them lined up or doing labor-intensive work. Prosecutors alleged that when Lantz noticed his nose-rich, curious neighbor, he kept the children almost indoors.
The eldest son also said that much of the external labor took place in the family home in Washington. She said Whitefeather has been mistreating inappropriate racial slander around other children, and is abused “always,” “always,” “always,” and “always,” especially when she doesn't finish her workload.
Several children were reportedly forced to “stand in the room” for hours with their hands on their heads and were fed at times set primarily on peanut butter sandwiches.
According to court testimony, the two oldest children were forced to sleep on the floor of their shared room, using “same buckets” to go to the bathroom, while the other had to lift the seat to hide from the couple's security cameras.
The couple's defense attorneys have tried to argue that the couple has been overwhelmed after adopting children who had previously been abused by their former birth parents. During the closing discussion, White Feather's lawyer Mark Plant argued that the couple's main violation was just parenting.
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