CHARLESTON, W.Va.–In the first week of the trial for the Sissonville couple who is charged with 20 counts of child neglect, child trafficking and forced labor, saw neighbors, Kanawha County Sheriff’s and Detective’s, forensic experts and the oldest child testify.

Jeanne Whitefeather and Donald Lantz were arrested in October 2023 after police found two of their adopted children locked inside a shed on the property at 225 Cheyanne Lane. The trial began Tuesday January 14, in front of a 12-member jury and Judge Maryclaire Akers.

On Friday, the oldest child got up on the stand, where she recounted the horrible living conditions in Washington and West Virginia. Often times she, and her siblings were made to sleep in sleeping bags and or in tents on a hill near their ranch in Washington. While only using a portable toilet and having to clean themselves with disposable wipes.

She said they were often limited in the meals they had, often only eating waffles or cereal. And sometimes only receiving a snack in replacement of meals if they were working.

When they moved to West Virginia, her and her siblings lived in a van before the police were called and they were moved to a bedroom inside the house, still living in deplorable conditions.

When the oldest child, 16 at the time, and her brother, 14 at the time, were found in the shed, she said that they were living in the shed for two months before police found them, not being let out.

Before the oldest got on the stand, two forensic experts with the West Virginia Fusion Center took the stand. Jacob Hewitt revealed countless explicit text messages that were found on one of the defendants’ phones that was given to him to investigate by the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office.

In his testimony he pointed out one specific message that used the word “monkey” to refer to the children that was 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 Friday morning.

Videos were also shown that were taken from the same phone, showing Lantz yelling and cursing at the children.

Alyssa Ledbetter, another worker for the WV Fusion Center came on the stand to testify about Whitefeather and Lantz finances. She said that they received checks for each of the children by the Minnesota Department of Management and Budget for adoption assistance. Those payments started in 2018 and stopped on May 1, 2024, six months after the kids were taken away.

She said that she could not tell where the money was being spent or the reason behind the payments.

On Wednesday January 15, the second day of the trial, two Kanawha County Sheriff’s took the stand, recounting their time with the case.

Hannah Burdette said she was the first officer on the scene and found the kids in the shed.

She described what it was like when they opened the doors to the shed.

“As you walked in you could smell not only body odor but an abundance of different types of smells, it’s kind of hard to explain, but they weren’t pleasant,” Burdette said. “And then, like I said, it was physically hot in the room as soon as you opened the door, I was probably standing five feet back from the door and when the door opened you could physically feel the heat escaping the room outside.”

Another Detective, Robert Alford, was the third on the scene, and he said that they had to use multiple tools in order to get the shed unlocked.

And after Burdette and Alford testified, Detective and lead investigator, Ana Pile, took the stand Wednesday afternoon. She was tasked with getting a search warrant for the house and later on for the Arlo surveillance cameras, because three cameras were found on the property. Arlo sent over 7,000 plus videos for her to review.

The state presented six condensed down surveillance camera footage, that showed seven days leading up to October 2, 2023. The review of these videos took up Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning and some part of Thursday afternoon. In the video’s it shown the kids, two in the shed and two in an upstairs bedroom, just standing, with their hands on their heads, ordered presumably by someone who spoke through the camera. All four kids were given peanut butter sandwiches and some water. In all of the video’s she reviewed, she said she noticed that the two kids in the shed hardly left. And they all slept on the hard floor with either blankets or sheets to cover up.

On the third day, Thursday, after the last few surveillance videos were shown, another detective and Digital Forensic Examiner with the Kanawha County Sheriff’s office, Jared Payne took the stand to say that he extracted the information from one of the defendant’s phone’s that he was given, and he was then instructed to give the phone to the WV Fusion Center.

The trial began on Tuesday, when Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney Madison Tuck and Whitefeather’s attorney Michael Plants gave their opening statements in the case.

“You’re going to hear all of the evidence in this case ladies and gentlemen,” Tuck said. “I’m confident that once you hear all of this evidence, you will find defendant Whitefeather and defendant Lantz guilty.”

However, Plants painted a different picture in his opening statements.

“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.

After opening statements, the state presented four neighbors of the couple, Joyce Bailey, Stacy Miller and her husband Eric Miller, Jeremy Reed, and Candance Hilbert, who worked as a caregiver for Joyce Bailey’s son.

Bailey, who gave an emotional testimony, was the first on the stand. She said that she noticed right away that, the kids would have to carry heavy items and would just stand there.

She said that the thought of them moving away was what concerned her the most.

“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.”

Stacy and Eric Miller, Reed and Hilbert all corroborated what Bailey had seen during the time the couple were living near them.

Both Stacy and Eric, both observed the kids having to stand in a straight line, near a porta-potty. Stacy even took pictures while she was leaving her house and while she was coming back.

Eric even testified that he confronted Lantz about the kids, after he was coming home one night and saw their van leaving their driveway.

“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.

Jeremy Reed also noticed the odd behavior of the children just standing in a straight line. He even took videos from Joyce Bailey’s front porch of Lantz locking the two children inside the shed, those videos were shown in court Tuesday afternoon.

And Hilbert noticed that the kids were often seen doing physical labor, like pulling weeds and brush out of the ground with their bare hands.

All four neighbors said that they never saw Whitefeather or Lantz helping the children do any of the physical labor.

The trial is expected to pick back up Tuesday morning, with more testimony from the children.