CHARLESTON, W.Va. –The jury for the Sissonville couple charged with child abuse, neglect and human trafficking will start deliberating the case Wednesday morning.
The jury heard closing arguments Tuesday afternoon before deciding to go home,
Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers presented 60 pages of instructions Tuesday morning to the 12-member panel which has been considering charges against Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz for the past 10 days.
The couple was charged after two of their five adoptive Black children were found locked in a shed in October 2023.
They face 20 criminal counts each including human trafficking, violation of civil rights, use of minor children in forced labor, gross child neglect and child abuse charges.
Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Chris Krivonyak told the jury there’s evidence of the children constantly having to do labor on the family’s farm; two of the children being locked in the Sissonville shed and forced to sleep on the floor and use the bathroom in a camping toilet, while the two younger children were forced to stand on a tarp for hours on end in an upstairs bedroom; and evidence of the couple feeding the children only peanut butter sandwiches which they sometimes deprived them of.
Krivonyak also said the evidence shows the couple calling the children offensive racial slurs and remarks, the use of bear spray by Whitefeather to spray the children, and Lantz berating, cursing at and even hitting or threatening to hit the children.
In previous testimony, Whitefeather and Lantz claimed that they treated their adoptive children this way because the oldest boy was severely mentally unstable, and they were protecting the family from him as he was a danger to them all.
Expert testimony since has argued that while the oldest boy has been diagnosed with several mental health conditions, the couple’s case was highly embellished. Krivonyak said it was just an excuse for them to be abusive and neglectful towards the children.
“It is the dehumanization of these kids so that there’s something less than human that enables one person to treat them like they did,” Krivonyak said.
Most of the evidence presented took place from when the family moved to Sissonville in mid-May of 2023 to when the couple was arrested in early October 2023, but some was taken prior to that during the family’s time living on their Washington state ranch.
One of the more telling images presented to the court Tuesday that was found by the West Virginia Fusion Center from Whitefeather’s confiscated cell phone depicts Lantz holding up a PVC pipe and aiming it at the oldest son as if about to hit him with it.
Kriovonyak also referenced some of the videos that have been presented to the court throughout the 10-day trial such as the one taken at their Washington home of Lantz yelling, cursing, berating and threating to hit the children.
In that video he has another pipe and is hitting a picnic table with it. Krivonyak said both the image of the pipe and the earlier video present very telling evidence that he did, in fact, hit his son.
“He said he didn’t hit him, but you also remember, he said he didn’t hit him with the smaller PVC pipe, remember, banging it on the table, it wasn’t a swing like this, but he was swinging that thing,” he said.
Another he referenced Tuesday was of Lantz waking up his 9-year-old daughter to get her shoes so she could use the bathroom.
“She can’t find her shoes at 4:14 in the morning to go to the bathroom right next door, he’s throwing the F curse at her for not having her shoes, at 9-years-old?”
That video was taken from the couple’s Arlo surveillance cameras they had set up in the Sissonville home and the shed to watch the children.
Whitefeather could face up to four child abuse charges for spraying the children with bear spray while Lantz faces child abuse charges for hitting the children.
In his closing, Whitefeather’s attorney, Mark Plants said there were inconsistencies with some of the evidence.
Plants said there could be difficulty proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the two children were locked in a shed because they were forced to work as the state asserts, as well as any civil rights violations against the children’s race.
“On the first twelve counts, human trafficking, forced labor, civil rights, is there a doubt in your mind that Jeanne and Don obtained or maintained labor and services from the kids by locking them in the room?” Plants asked the jury. “Or, did they mistreat them because of their race?”
Plants said that the couple’s actions had nothing to do with the children’s race, but more to do with the fact of the oldest son’s severe mental illness.
Plants said the couple was not racist, plain and simple.
“Racist people don’t adopt five African American kids, they don’t take them on vacations, and they certainly don’t take them to therapy or counseling,” Plants said.
Lantz’s attorney John Balenovich told the jury the state had no evidence to prove that Lantz was racist toward the four children.
“All three children agree that he’s not racist, it just doesn’t ring true,” Balenovich said. “Again, there’s a lot of half-truths, assumptions and horror stories.”
Balenovich said Lantz was trying his hardest to get the help for the oldest boy to deal with his mental health issues because they made attempt after attempt to get him a bed.
Lantz was the one who took him to all of his doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions.
Balenovich said that CPS dropped the ball when it came to get getting help for both Whitefeather and Lantz.
“Don has to do all of these things on his own because CPS does not help, CPS did nothing, they let them down,” he said.
He said Lantz was trying to get more support from Minnesota in order to get the boy into a bed themselves instead of having to rely on CPS’s help.
Kanawha County Assistant Prosecutor Madison Tuck said the defense had tried for the entire trial to blame the oldest boy and his mental health issues instead of talking about Whitefeather and Lantz.