White Couple Convicted Of Treating Adopted Black Kids As ‘Slaves’ Sentenced Over 150 Years
March 22, 2025
The white couple convicted of treating their adopted Black children as “slaves” received century-long prison sentences.
A West Virginia couple convicted of abusing their adopted Black children and treating them as slaves has each been sentenced to more than a century in prison.
The Independent reports that Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, and her husband, Donald Lantz, 63, were given maximum sentences to be served consecutively. Judge Maryclaire Akers of the Kanawha County Circuit Court sentenced Whitefeather to 215 years in prison and Lantz to 160 years.
Whitefeather must serve a minimum of 40 years before becoming eligible for parole, while Lantz must serve at least 30 years. Additionally, both will be required to pay $280,000 in restitution to the children.
Judge Akers condemned the couple for relocating the five Black siblings, aged five to 16, to West Virginia in 2023, where they were forced to sleep on the floor and use buckets as toilets. The couple was arrested after two of the children were discovered locked in a shed under unsanitary conditions.
“You brought them to West Virginia, a place I know as almost heaven, and you put them in hell,” Judge Akers told the couple before handing down the sentence. “This court will now put you in yours. May God have mercy on your souls because this court will not.”
The sentencing comes nearly two months after a jury convicted the couple on multiple charges, including forced labor, human trafficking, and child abuse and neglect. Whitefeather was also found guilty of civil rights violations related to race, which contributed to her longer sentence.
The couple’s oldest daughter had a chance to speak and confront her parents for their brutal mistreatment of her siblings in a letter she read in court.
“I don’t understand at all how you were able to treat any person the way you treated me and my siblings and then preach the name of God right after that,” she wrote.
“I feel like I went through a lot more mentally because I had to watch my siblings go through those things… I felt hopeless in those situations. I felt a lot of anger.”
In February, the eldest daughter, now an adult, filed a lawsuit against the couple, accusing them of severe physical and emotional abuse and neglect that has left her permanently scarred.
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