UPDATE 1/17/2025 7:25– The eldest child and forensic experts take stand Friday afternoon in the trial of the Sissonville couple who are charged with 20 counts of child neglect, child trafficking and forced labor.
The testimony of the oldest child, now an adult but 16 at the time, took up most of the afternoon, where she spoke on her time in Minnesota, Washington and finally West Virginia.
She spoke about not having great living conditions, whilst in Washington and West Virginia, having to sleep in sleeping bags on the floor before moving to tents on a hill near the house. And having to use the bathroom in a porta potty. When she was asked why her four siblings and her had to sleep in tents, she said it was because Jeanne Whitefeather said that they “were dirty and stunk.” She even recounted taking baths in totes while they were sleeping in the tents and not being able to change clothes if they hadn’t bathed.
At the time they were sleeping in the tents, she said they were limited on what they could eat, often eating cereal or waffles, with water or juice. However, if they were working, they would get snacks in replacement of the meals.
Whilst they were living in Washington, they were forced to do physical labor, without the help from Whitefeather or Lantz, often having to pull weeds and work in the garden without any tools. She even recounted the time she ran away for two days because she got mad that Lantz hit her because she didn’t do what she was told to do, at the time which was to put her hands on her head.
And when they moved to West Virginia, she said that they had to figure it out by themselves because at this point Whitefeather wouldn’t speak to them.
When they arrived, the four older siblings lived in the van until the police were called, in which they were moved upstairs to a bedroom inside the house. She recounted the multiple times where they did not have free access to food or drink, besides the peanut butter sandwiches.
She also recounted the many times that Whitefeather would pepper spray the younger kids, which mostly occurred daily, because she would feel the aftereffects of it on her skin and in her eyes.
Prior to the police coming to the property and finding them locked inside the shed, the oldest said that they were living full time in the shed for two months, only being allowed out when she would drag out the camping toilet so it could be dumped.
When the police arrived later that night on October 2, 2023, they, being the oldest girl and boy, didn’t want to speak at first because they were worried that they would say something to make Whitefeather mad.
And when asked in cross-examination from Michael Plants, Whitefeather’s attorney, if they willingly went inside the shed or did anything willingly, she said “It was never voluntarily,”
John Balenovich, Lantz’s attorney did not ask her any questions.
Prior to the oldest child testifying, Jacob Hewitt, a digital forensic examiner from the WV Fusion Center, testified on the photos and the text messages that he saw on one of the defendant’s phone that was confiscated as evidence.
Balenovich was the one to cross-examine him in the afternoon.
He asked Hewitt if he knew who exactly sent those text messages and he responded with no he could not see who actually sent or typed out the text messages on the iPhone.
After Hewitt was done, another worker from the WV Fusion Center, Alyssa Ledbetter, a forensic analyst came to the stand to talk about the finances of Whitefeather and Lantz.
“Specifically, it was bank statements that were reviewed and prepared for the report that I had made,” Ledbetter said.
In that report, it was the payments that Whitefeather and Lantz were receiving from the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget for adoption assistance.
For each child, they started receiving payments in 2018 and they stopped receiving those payments, on May 1, 2024, six months after the kids had been take away.
Ledbetter said that she analyzed bank statements from June 2019-May 2024, but had letters from the Department letting Whitefeather and Lantz know what the payments were. She said that they varied from month to month.
In cross-examination, she was asked if the money payments were made because they children were doing chores, she said she could not tell. She was also asked if she knew where the money was being spent, she said she could only analyze what she was given and did not know where the money was being spent.
The trial is expected to pick back up Tuesday morning, where the three other siblings will take the stand to testify.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Explicit text messages off one of the defendant’s cell phones are under review during the fourth day of the Sissonville couple’s trial who are charged with 20 counts of gross child neglect, child trafficking and forced labor.
Digital Forensics Examiner with the West Virginia Fusion Center Jacob Hewitt took the stand Friday morning during the ongoing trial for Jeanne Whitefeather and Donald Lantz where he reviewed a series of text messages taken off an iPhone that was confiscated as evidence.
The phone was confiscated from Whitefeather by detectives from the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office on the day of the couples arrest on October 2, 2023.
Hewitt said on July 3, 2024 Detective Anna Pile with the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office contacted their lab requesting an analysis of the submitted evidence.
“We took the digital download into custody and stored it securely and then the scope, we were tasked with, as I mentioned earlier, was to find artifacts relating to child abuse and human trafficking,” said Hewitt.
During Friday morning’s trial Hewitt read off a portion of hundreds of messages from the user of the phone alleged to be Whitefeather’s dating back from July of 2023. The texts were presumed to be a conversation with Lantz.
The conversations within the texts appeared to primarily be in reference to their five adoptive black children, the two oldest of whom were found locked in a barn on their early October 2023 arrest.
The messages depicted potential evidence of abuse toward the children, often alluding to beating them, locking them up among other cruel punishments, as well many times the use of profanity and potential racial slurs such as referring to them as “monkeys.”
Hewitt pointed out one message in particular that used the word “monkey” to refer to the children sent on June 14, 2023.
“The device owner sends another message at about 9:22 p.m. and says, “Your two monkeys are so f****** up then follows up to that message and says “next time I will pay you to take four of them,” with a smiling laughing smiling emoji,” Hewitt said reading the message.
Hewitt said another message sent on June 26, 2023 alluded to more racist language the couple shared between one another in referring to the children.
“It’s a picture of three juveniles who are sitting and the picture is captioned, “He shows all of the signs of a useless black dude,” Hewitt read.
On July 7, 2023, Hewitt said the device owner, alleged to be Whitefeather to Lantz, also alludes to locking the children up.
He said the message stated that one of the children was laughing over quote, “pisshead,” and then followed that by saying quote, “please make sure she’s facing away, wish we had a place to put her.”
“This is in response to that message by the other person who says, “the crawlspace might be an option,” Hewitt continued to read.
In addition, multiple media files were found on the confiscated phone, as well, dating all the way back to 2021 and 2022 during the family’s time living in Washington prior to moving to West Virginia in the spring of 2023.
Some of the media taken at their Washington ranch residence were videos depicting the oldest boy having what appeared to be a mental breakdown as well as another video of Lantz sharply berating the children and threating to hurt them after the oldest boy allegedly tried to hit Whitefeather.
The video depicts Lantz yelling and cursing at the boy while he hit a table with a stick.
The following media files found on the phone appeared to be taken at their Sissonville home in West Virginia at 225 Cheyanne Lane where they were arrested. One of those media files depicts a still image of what looks to be Lantz raising up a PVC pipe toward the oldest boy as if he were about to hit him.
Hewitt said he had collected around 1.3 million pieces of data from the confiscated cell phone which would take about six months to actually go through all of it.
The trial was expected to reconvene Friday afternoon after starting Tuesday in a Kanawha County courtroom before Judge Maryclaire Akers. It’s expected to recommence next Tuesday and will take about two weeks altogether.
Earlier this week the court heard from a few different Sissonville neighbors who reported concerns of continuously seeing the children working as well as various law enforcement officers who initially responded to the scene when one of the neighbors called 911 on Oct. 2, 2023.