CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A 12-member Kanawha County jury is expected to begin jury deliberations Tuesday in the trial of a Sissonville couple indicted on 20-counts of child abuse, neglect, and human trafficking-related charges.
The jury heard from the final witness Monday in the trial for Donald Ray Lantz and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather.
Clinical, Medical, and Forensic Psychologist Dr. David Clayman was deemed a qualified expert to testify as a rebuttal witness in the nearly ten-day trial for Lantz and Whitefeather. This comes after the defense rested its case.
Clayman said this was an unusual case due to its complex psychological nature.
Dr. David Clayman
He said after reviewing over 4,000 pages of information and records in the case, as well as all of the video and photo evidence the West Virginia Fusion Center found on Whitefeather’s confiscated cell phone, he said there’s no doubt the couple’s five adoptive black children were in a troubling situation.
“What I saw was a complicated series of circumstances,” Clayman said to the court Monday.
Clayman said he saw four children– excluding the youngest fifth child who was an infant at the time they were adopted– where their biological mother had significant problems and were then brought into an adoptive family where the parents, based on previously held accounts, felt forced to take the four children.
He said he began to notice at first more subtle differences and disparate treatment with the way Lantz and Whitefeather interacted with the four older children versus how they treated the youngest child dating back all the way to when they were adopted in Minnesota in 2017.
Clayman said there were instances that happened which began to bother him right away when reviewing the evidence.
“Three kids standing out in December in tee-shirts outside was in 2021, I began to see things that were not consistent with what I would consider appropriate parenting,” he said.
He said he noticed another instance in a Christmas photo where the youngest child received all kinds of toys while it appeared the other four children did not.
Clayman said the oldest of the two boys was the most complex problem in this case and soon became the overall focus.
Based on previous testimony by Lantz and Whitefeather, the oldest adoptive son suffered from extensive mental health issues that were expressed in the form of hearing voices in his head and experiencing hallucinations. They testified that they considered the boy to be a danger to the family and needed constant supervision.
Clayman said whereas the oldest boy undoubtedly suffers from various and extensive mental health issues, he does not appear to be dangerous as the couple asserts.
He said, to him, the boy’s mental health issues and episodes appeared to be embellished.
“There was a need to protect all of the kids and they had used the words that they were scared of him, they have now changed their testimony to be scared for him or worried about him,” Clayman said. “We have one aggressive act, one, that has been documented that I can find.”
On Friday, Forensic Psychologist Dr. Timothy Saar gave his testimony. He had diagnosed the oldest son with fetal alcohol syndrome, reactive detachment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and a host of other diagnoses.
The boy and his oldest sister were found locked up in a shed on the couple’s Sissonville property on October 2, 2023.
Lantz and Whitefeather claimed their adopted son to be violent and dangerous and in need of constant supervision, which most often fell on their oldest adopted daughter.
Whitefeather, in particular, said she was afraid of the boy following an altercation at their previous home in Washington state where he allegedly attempted to hit her.
In a video recorded on Whitefeather’s phone following that alleged altercation depicts a “family meeting” where Lantz is screaming, berating, and cursing at the son, and beating a stick on a picnic table. The boy in the video appeared to be afraid and was holding up his arms in a defensive stance.
Clayman said in that video alone, it’s evident that the couple dealt with their oldest sons’ deteriorating mental health in all of the wrong ways.
He said Dr. Saar had used the DSM 5 psychological reference manual to diagnose the boy, but the formations of the diagnosis in the manual are not always appropriate for the applications in a forensic case such as this one. He said Saar’s report shows overlap in the diagnosis.
Clayman said the DSM manual today is not the sole guide they use to define mental health disorders, and while the oldest boy suffers from a host of psychological issues, that shouldn’t have defined him either.
“Some of them are pretty scary, and some of them suggest psychosis, but you know what, if you read through the records, he had a lot of positive times where he was totally rational, when he was explaining the food stuff to his brother and sisters, when he asked to not fight,” he said.
He said Lantz testified that in parenting courses, they were taught to do certain things to handle their son that was not substantiated in the records. He said the things Lantz did to quote “protect” his son was just not associated with decent or proper parenting, such as isolation, humiliation, berating and screaming.
Clayman said the day in that “family meeting” where he yelled and cursed at the son, for example, was the antithesis of being a supportive, caring parent, especially with a child potentially suffering from psychosis.
“That day that he had the kids outside, and I had not read anything at this point on the case other than what I’m seeing, where he went after him with the pipe, whether he hit him or not, where he was threatening to break the children’s arms if they hurt Mrs. Whitefeather.”
He said what the boy truly needed was love, care, affection, someone to hold him and tell him it was going to be okay.
Clayman said unchecked anger on the parents’ part, loss of self-control, assertion of physical, emotional control of the victims, solitary confinement, and food deprivation all coincide with the definition of an abusive and neglectful situation.
He added that the disregard for the child’s mental/ emotional well-being and lack of intervention were other tell-tale signs.
“Now, there were some places where Mr. Lantz did go to the hospital, but we don’t have any substantial records of therapy, Zoom was mentioned, or even what happened with the wrap-around therapy, or what happened with the intense in-home treatment services,” he said. “There were things going on if they were to sustain that a bonding was being made and they really wanted this kid to get better, they would have continued to do that stuff.”
Clayman said there were ultimately more unseen factors regarding the situation than the oldest son being the sole issue.
“Why did they have to make him into the psycho, why don’t we make him into the kid that was hurt and harmed and needed the exact opposite than what he was getting, regardless of what the intent was.”
The jury is expected to hear jury instructions from Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers Tuesday morning, followed by closing arguments and jury deliberations.