UPDATE: 1/14/2025, 7:28– Judge Maryclaire Akers and the 12-member jury continued hearing state witnesses’ testimony after they reconvened after lunch Tuesday afternoon.
After they reconvened, the first state witness, Joyce Bailey continued her testimony answering questions from Jeanne Whitefeather’s attorney Michael Plants and Donald Lantz’s attorney John Balenovich.
After the cross-examination of Bailey, the state called witness and neighbor Stacy Miller to the stand.
Where Whitefeather and Lantz house was, her house was just a little bit passed they’re on the same street.
She says she remembers when they moved in, around April or May of 2023, that it was raining, and she could see that the kids were soaked because of that rain.
And on that day when they moved in, she recalled the seeing the kids carry up big chain link panels up the hill to the house.
“One of the instances that we saw they had a big kennels that they had in their front yard, and we saw the children carry up every piece of kennel to set up in the front yard,” Miller said.
She says that seeing the kid’s behavior is what first got her attention and knew she needed to call CPS or law enforcement.
“The fact that the children didn’t play that a big thing of concern for all of us,” Miller said. “And just them wearing the same similar clothes every day, and standing in a straight line with their heads tucked.”
As evidence of the children standing in that straight line, next to the Porta Potty, the state showed pictures that Miller had taken on her phone when she had left the house and when she was coming back home.
Miller also said she remembers seeing one of the younger children pushing an antique lawn mower, which she said was not easy because they were hard to operate.
The third witness that the state called up was Eric Miller, the husband of Stacy Miller. He said that he noticed the kids also standing in the straight line on multiple occasions. He testified that he had confronted Lantz, after he had gone to get pizza and told his wife that if the kids were still outside just standing there, then someone needed to call law enforcement.
When he confronted Lantz, Miller asked him what he was doing with the kids.
“I said why are they standing in a line, why do these kids not play, and he said that they play all the time, and I said no they do not, I said they haven’t played since they moved in here,” Miller said.
Miller said that Lantz didn’t really respond to him confronting him.
Another witness/neighbor was Jeremy Reed, who at one time recorded Lantz on his phone going over to the shed and fumbling with the lock.
“I watched him fumble with the door lock, watched him lead three kids in and then was in there for a few minutes, he returned back out, the kids did not,” Reed said. “He walked towards the barn; I watched him come back and fumble with the doorknob again and walk away.”
After that he was asked if he knew at the time, that there was a key in the shed, he responded with no he did not know.
Reed, like all the other witnesses said, saw the kids carrying large items.
“I never notice the parents carrying anything, helping the kids at all carry anything up to the house,” he said.
Another witness, Candace Hilbert, who helped out Joyce Bailey and her husband take care of their son, was called up as the last witness for the first day.
She said that she also noticed the children doing physical labor, for instance pulling weeds and brush out of the ground with their hands.
She also says that she noticed that the children knew exactly where to go and what to do just by Lantz making gestures.
“I noticed he would snap his fingers and point, and then the kids knew where to go and what to do,” Hilbert said.
All four witnesses, say that they never saw Whitefeather with the children when they were outside working, only Lantz was with them.
The trial is expected to pick back up Wednesday at 9 a.m.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Opening statements being presented in the first full day of trial in the case of a Sissonville couple charged with multiple counts of child abuse-related charges.
The trial got underway before Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers and a 12-member jury Tuesday.
Jeanne Whitefeather and Donald Lantz are denying most of those charges in the 20-count indictment after two of their black adopted children were found locked in a shed on their property in October 2023.
Deputies then discovered three other children at the Sissonville home on 225 Cheyanne Lane. They are also adopted black children, all of them biological siblings.
The indictment alleges charges of child abuse, human trafficking, and forced labor with civil rights violations.
“You’re going to hear all of the evidence in this case ladies and gentlemen,” Kanawha County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Madison Tuck said during the opening day of trial. “I’m confident that once you hear all of this evidence, you will find defendant Whitefeather and defendant Lantz guilty.”
Upon the prosecuting attorneys presenting their opening statements laying down the background of the case, Whitefeather’s attorney Mark Plants gave his opening statement.
He asserted that during the time the five children were adopted by Lantz and Whitefeather in Minnesota back in 2018, to when they moved to a ranch in Washington in 2019, they were a normal, loving family, celebrating Christmas and taking family vacations together.
However, while the family were still in Washington, Plants said that’s when trouble began to unfold.
At this time, prosecutors allege the couple forced the children into “inappropriate farm labor” and made them sleep in an outbuilding on their Washington property. In addition, they said the children endured physical and mental abuse at the hands of Whitefeather and Lantz, who allegedly used cattle whips and bear spray on the children.
These abuse reports in Washington extend from October 2022 through April 2023.
Plants said this coincides with evidence of the children’s’ deteriorating mental health, particularly from the oldest son, who was reported to display signs of schizophrenia, hallucinations and combative behavior toward the other children and his adoptive parents.
“Evidence is going to show that this case is about adoptive parents struggling to deal with their children’s’ past trauma and severe mental illness,” Plants said.
Plants said the children were traumatized from previous physical, emotional and sexual abuse they endured from their biological mother.
In Minnesota at the time of their adoption, he said the judge, a temporary guardian of the children, and attorneys advised the couple to keep cameras on them at all times in order to keep them safe from the oldest son and each other.
Plants said the eldest sons’ mental health condition continued to get worse with puberty. He said he continued to exhibit concerning, at times violent behavior toward his family, attempted to run away, and was hospitalized a couple of times before being released and sent back to the family.
In May of 2023, the family then moved to the home in Sissonville, West Virginia.
While in West Virginia, Plants said the two oldest children made the decision to move into the shed, or what they referred to as the tack room, because they wanted more space.
He said all of the children slept on mattresses and initially, the door of the tack room was not locked.
The children continued to have to do farm labor while on their Sissonville property, attending to the several animals the couple kept, including goats and wallaby. This began to receive attention from multiple neighbors who made reports to Child Protective Services.
“CPS shows up because a referral from the neighbors,” Plants said. “All of the children are interviewed separately, none of them make any claims of racism or abuse.”
He said Lantz and Whitefeather deny those claims as well, along with pepper spraying the children, forced labor or human trafficking. Plants said in addition, there’s no evidence presented showing any signs of physical injuries on the children.
Plants said CPS said they could get help for the children, but the couple claimed to have never heard back from them.
When the oldest son continued to present concerning behavior, Plants said that’s when a lock was installed on the tack room door.
He said between September to October when the couple was arrested, they were in the process of moving to a more spacious location in Beckley, which is why there were no mattresses or furniture in the shed when deputies arrived to investigate.
Plants said evidence will show a different side to the story that will reveal more than what’s being presented at surface level.
“Ladies and gentlemen, based on evidence, the prosecutors failed to rule out the reasonable possibility that the children are exaggerating, misremembering, or being untruthful, because they don’t understand the past trauma or mental illness that’s at play here,” said Plants.
Next up in Tuesday’s trial, a neighbor who lived on Cheyanne Lane across from the family was brought to the stand, Joyce Bailey.
She said her and her husband quickly began to observe just how strange the situation was.
Bailey said when the family first arrived and were putting up fencing for their animals, her and her husband noticed the children had to do all of the work.
“He made them carry all of that heavy fencing and they would just stand there and wait for him to tell them what to do,” she said.
They then observed a porta-potty being delivered a few days after the family arrived in May.
The shed in Sissonville where two teens, ages 16 and 14, were locked in by their adoptive parents. PHOTO: WVMetronews/Kat Skeldon
Bailey said her and husband, who are both retired, sit on their porch often, and living right across the road from the family, they were able to see much of what was going on and how much the children seemed to have to work.
“It was like we were there now and watching this, and we kind of got caught up in it because it was something we had never experienced before,” Bailey said.
Most of the time, Bailey said she saw the three oldest children outside often carrying water to the animals, mowing the lawn, or doing some other kind of physical labor.
She said she often saw Lantz signing to the children, but not using sign language, just simple hand motions, never talking to the children. Bailey said the children never seemed to talk to one another either and certainly never played.
She said they saw the smallest girl least of all and when they did she was wearing the same dress and seemed to always stay with Whitefeather.
Bailey said she began to take videos on her phone of the children working, because the situation concerned her so much.
In one of the videos, which were shown to the court Tuesday, depicted the oldest boy having to carry heavy objects such as a propane tank.
Bailey said seeing the boy having to do this kind of labor was alarming given the state he appeared to be in.
“He was having to carry some stuff to that trailer,” Bailey recounted, getting emotional. “He could barely walk and he acted like his feet were so sore or something, he was dragging them.”
Bailey said they heard word that the family was going to move, but they never saw any furniture being loaded up from the home, just what appeared to be farming equipment from the shed.
She said the thought of them moving away concerned her even more.
“I was afraid that they would move away and those little kids, nobody would be there to help them,” Bailey said. “I wanted to make sure, I just prayed to God that he would give me a sign to get the police back there to get them before they left.”
She said the police then arrived right before the family were set to move.
The trial was expected to continue with more witness testimony Tuesday afternoon.