Indictment alleges West Virginia couple used adopted Black children as 'slaves'

[Bucky]

You have to read the whole story to get the deets. But seriously... you'll be Oh my Goding the whole read

Indictment alleges West Virginia couple used adopted Black children as ‘slaves’
Jun 28, 2024
by John Raby - Parkersburg News and Sentinel

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.

Akers said the indictment alleged the children’s “use as, basically, slaves.”
Authorities began investigating after they received a call to the home last October in Sissonville, near Charleston, from someone expressing concern about the children’s welfare. Sheriff’s deputies forced their way into a shed next to the home where a teenage boy and girl were locked inside. The children had been deprived of adequate food and hygienic care, and the room had no running water or bathroom facilities, according to a criminal complaint.

Inside the main residence, a 9-year-old girl was found alone crying in a loft about 15 feet (4.6 meters) high with no protection from falling. No adults were present at the home. A fourth child was with Lantz when he eventually returned. Deputies were later led to the couple’s 6-year-old adopted Black daughter who had been with acquaintances from the couple’s church.

The Daily Mail has a pic of the shed the two older kids were locked in as well as the longest headline in history

Family of white West Virginia couple Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather - accused of forcing their adopted black children to work as slaves and live in barn - insist they are not racists
By Emma James In Sissonville, West Virginia, and Shawn Cohen In Tonasket, Washington, For Dailymail.Com
10 Jul 2024

Friends and relatives have defended the white couple accused of keeping their adopted black children as slaves in a barn, telling DailyMail.com they are ‘not guilty and not racist’.

Donald Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Whitefeather, 62 of Sissonville, West Virginia, have been charged with child abuse after their five kids were found locked in a dilapidated shed after allegedly laboring on the surrounding farmland.

But Whitefeather’s brother, Marcus Hughes, 60, has defended his sister and her husband, telling DailyMail.com they are the ‘least racist people around’.

Ha! Around that area, he might be right!

‘They’ve been made out to be monsters which isn’t true,’ he said. ‘You're supposed to be innocent until you're found guilty.'

[Tadpole Raisin]

1. NO!! They are racists and monsters. End of story!

Throw the book at them!

[malaise]

2. I hope the cops investigate

Their church. This may well be policy.

[mopinko]

5. i wonder if that's how they got the kids.

whoever kept giving these monsters more kids need to b investigated.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. This is child abuse and child neglect on steroids, predicated upon

the principles of slavery. This is not a modern-day, non-fiction version of Sara Crew in A Little Princess. This is the reenactment of the childhood of Harriet Tubman.

A violation of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Throw the Book at them!

[JustAnotherGen]

4. I'd have mental health issues too

If I was,treated that way.

Plants added that there is a ‘mental health’ issue with the children, particularly their oldest son who is ‘very dangerous to his brothers and sisters’.

His comments come after concerns from Kanawha County prosecutors that their original cash bonds were obtained through trafficking profits after the couple was able to acquire the $400,000 bond money for their release from jail in February.

[Passages]

6. I cried reading their nightmare.

How does such an elderly couple adopt that many children? Once again, when children are in a fight for their lives, the state fails them miserably.

[dlk]

7. Telling a lie doesn't change the facts

As anyone who tortures and abuses children, they are the worst kind of monsters, even if they put on a good show in public. Innocent until proven guilty is a courtroom standard. There are other standards, as well. I hope these vile monsters spend the rest of their miserable lives behind bars.

[appalachiablue]

8. The abusive couple did the same thing with children at a property in Washington state.

They left that area to set up again in West Virginia from what I read. Awful predators.

[IronLionZion]

9. There was a Law and Order episode like this

it's disgusting to see it actually happen in real life.

[Bucky]

11. There was a real life case of a NY maid who was enslaved

Was the episode based on that case?

[IronLionZion]

12. No, the episode was white families adopting black children from Haiti

to use as slaves. Not to raise as family members. The kids didn't go to school or anything, just housework all day.

[70sEraVet]

10. I knew the answer to the question 'Why didn't teachers know',......

and in the second article, I found it:
"The mother told deputies the children – who were all homeschooled – actually 'liked' the shed they were locked in." (emphasis mine)
When are we going to quit allowing parents to use 'homeschooling' as a convenient protection from authorities?
I'm not saying that homeschooling shouldn't be allowed -- only that it shouldn't be allowed to serve as cover while parents abuse their children!