Donald Lantz (left) stands with his attorney, John Balenovich, as charges are read against him. His wife, Jeanne Whitefeather is seated at right in Kanawha County Circuit Court on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. At the end of their 12-day child abuse trial, the couple was convicted on 31 of 35 felonies against four of their adopted children.
Donald Lantz (left) stands with his attorney, John Balenovich, as charges are read against him. His wife, Jeanne Whitefeather is seated at right in Kanawha County Circuit Court on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. At the end of their 12-day child abuse trial, the couple was convicted on 31 of 35 felonies against four of their adopted children.
After nearly two weeks of brutal testimony and a conviction on 31 of 35 total counts against them, it’s clear that adoptive parents Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, and Donald Ray Lantz, 61, are monsters.
Testimony showed the couple kept two of their five adopted children in a shed outside their Sissonville home, forcing one to sleep in a sleeping bag and the other on a fitted sheet with a piece of cardboard for a pillow on the shed’s concrete floor. When the two weren’t doing forced labor, they were standing in the shed for hours at a time at their adopted parents’ instruction, so they wouldn’t fall asleep. A camping toilet served as their only bathroom. Two younger children stayed in the house but also were not provided beds, sleeping on a tarp with some blankets. The fifth, and youngest, child was not subjected to similar treatment.
The parents constantly berated the four children while withholding food and water as punishment for misbehavior. The kids also were frequently pepper-sprayed as a punishment. One child testified that Whitefeather twice fired a gun in the direction of the children, once when a child was trying to run away and another time when a different child wasn’t working fast enough. It’s a miracle none of these children died, whether it be from a stray bullet or deplorable living conditions and constant abuse.
On top of that, Whitefeather frequently used racial slurs to refer to the children, all of whom are Black. Testimony showed Lantz also occasionally did the same, although he was not convicted of civil rights violations while Whitefeather was.
Whitefeather and Lantz were convicted on multiple counts each of trafficking a minor to engage in forced labor, using a minor to engage in forced labor, gross child neglect creating a substantial risk of serious bodily injury and death, and child abuse causing bodily injury. Whitefeather faces up to 215 years in prison and a $2.4 million fine, while Lantz could be sentenced to as much as 160 years in prison and faces the same maximum fine.
Barring a successful appeal, both will spend the rest of their lives behind bars, and that’s as it should be. There is no excuse for tormenting a child physically or emotionally. Whitefeather and Lantz did both, repeatedly and to such an extreme that it is hard to even fathom how these children, one of whom already has mental health issues, will ever feel safe again.
What Whitefeather and Lantz did was worse than a crime. It was evil. They deserve to serve every year they get at sentencing, and more.
