CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Kanawha County jury convicted a Sissonville couple on 31 of 35 combined charges Wednesday bringing to a close an 11-day trial focused on how the husband and wife treated their adopted Black children.
Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Ray Lantz were found guilty on charges of child abuse and neglect, forced labor and human trafficking. The jury also convicted Whitefeather on 4 counts of violating civil rights. Lantz was found not guilty on those charges.
The investigation began in October 2023 when the two oldest children were found locked in a shed on the family’s property in the Sissonville area.
Whitefeather’s attorney Mark Plants said that while they didn’t like the outcome, they respect the decision the jury made.
“Of course we’re upset with their decision, we certainly respect it and I think the juror’s paid attention to the trial, it was a long trial, but they paid attention during the trial, they took their time and went through the evidence in the deliberation room and again we respect their decision,” Plants said.
Kanawha County Prosecutor Debra Rusnak says that both assistant prosecutors did what they were supposed to in order to bring back this verdict.
“It is our job to put the facts that have been developed by our investigative partners together in such a fashion that we can present them to a jury and the law together so the judge can present that to the jury, and we do that to the best of our skill and ability,” Rusnak said. “And that is what Madison Tuck and Chris Krivonyak have brilliantly done over the past two weeks.”
Before they answered questions, Tuck and Krivonyak both expressed gratitude for the support that they received from the prosecutor’s office and the sheriff’s office.
Krivonyak also said that this was the first time that human trafficking has been tried in court and the civil rights violations is hardly tried in court because they were hard to prove.
Rusnak made sure to emphasize that we shouldn’t lose sight of the four children, three of which testified early on in the trial.
“We don’t want to miss the big point here, the most important aspect of this is the children involved, and to be able to bring a just result to them is really something that’s hard to put into words, and so we’re very grateful for the outcome that we got,” she said.
She also said that she was brought to tears while the verdict was being read because these types of cases, dealing with children, mean a lot to them.
“These cases mean a lot to us, we take a lot of this personally, this is our community, and these are the children of our community, and so if we’re not going to fight for them who will,” Rusnak said.
Sentencing for both Whitefeather and Lantz is scheduled for March 19 at 10 a.m. Whitefeather faces a max of 215 years in prison and Lantz faces a max of 140 years in prison.
The verdict for Lantz:
. 4 counts of human trafficking: Guilty
. 4 counts of civil rights violations: Not Guilty
. 4 counts of use of a minor in forced labor: Guilty
. 3 counts of gross child neglect: Guilty
. 1 count of child abuse causing injury: Guilty
The verdict for Whitefeather:
. 4 counts of human trafficking: Guilty
. 4 counts of civil rights vioilations: Guilty
. 4 counts of use of a minor in forced labor: Guilty
. 3 counts of gross child neglect: Guilty
. 4 counts of child abuse causing injury: Guilty
Background of the case:
The couple was arrested from their Sissonville home on October 2, 2023 after neighbors called police under the suspicion that two of their teenage children were locked in a shed on the property and were being forced to work.
When police arrived, those suspicions were confirmed as the two oldest of the five children told Kanawha County Sheriffs they had no way of getting out of the shed, leaving officers to eventually have to conduct a forced entry in after never being able to acquire a key.
Upon making their way into the shed, the officer who testified during the 11-day trial said she was immediately hit with a barrier of heat and body odor as if they had been locked in for a while.
Investigators with the Kanawha County Sherriff’s Office also responded to the scene.
The shed in Sissonville where two teens, ages 16 and 14, were locked in by their adoptive parents. PHOTO: WVMetronews/Kat Skeldon
In their search of the shed, they found a non-working air conditioning unit, a sleeping bag, a camping toilet, and a cooler with leftover food wrappings inside. Upon a search of the home, they found a young child crying and left alone in an upstairs loft.
Lantz and Whitefeather eventually arrived to the home and upon their arrests, investigators confiscated Whitefeather’s cell phone to be used as evidence.
Investigators then sent the cell phone over to the West Virginia Fusion Center for a thorough forensic investigation.
The Fusion Center found hundreds of hours of text messages between the couple as well as various media files which served as telling evidence throughout the over two week trial.
The text messages, images, and videos between the couple revealed interactions that they had with the four victim children that reconfirmed their charges. The content found on the phone dated back from at least 2021 during the family’s time in Washington up until the couple’s arrest in Sissonville in 2023.
Other video evidence shown during the trial was taken off Arlo security cameras the couple had installed in the shed where the two children were found and an upstairs bedroom where they kept the two other children.
The couple claimed they had installed the cameras to particularly keep an eye on their oldest adoptive son who was diagnosed with multiple mental health-related conditions.
Lantz and Whitefeather testified that the boy was violent and dangerous, and they needed to protect the family from him, although state prosecutors and medical expert witnesses did not find as much evidence to back up those claims.