Five Black children who suffered severe abuse and were treated as slaves by their white adoptive parents have secured a multimillion-dollar settlement.
The siblings, adopted by Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 63, and Donald Lantz, 64, will share $4.4 million from the state of West Virginia. The settlement stems from allegations that Child Protective Services failed to act after receiving repeated reports about the children’s safety and welfare.
The funds will be placed in a trust for the children, several of whom require extensive support as they continue to cope with the lasting effects of the abuse, West Virginia Watch reports.
“It means that these kids will have an opportunity to be children,” said attorney Dante’ diTrapano, who represented the siblings.
“They were robbed of their innocence and robbed of their youth by the monsters that were their former parents.”
The settlement represents the maximum amount each child could receive under West Virginia’s liability limits. Payment was made through the state Board of Risk Management.
The agreement was reached more than a year after Whitefeather and Lantz were sentenced to decades in prison for the abuse and mistreatment of the children.
Whitefeather is serving a 215-year sentence and must remain incarcerated for at least 40 years before becoming eligible for parole.
Lantz received a 160-year sentence and must serve at least 30 years before he can seek parole. Both were also ordered to pay $280,000 in restitution to the five children.
Five Black children adopted by Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Lantz have won a historic $4.4 million settlement from the state of West Virginia.
Authorities found the children in October 2023 inside a shed at the couple’s home in Sissonville. The structure had no lighting, food or running water, and a camera had been set up to record them.
Whitefeather insisted the children were not being held captive and described the shed as a “teenage clubhouse.” Detectives, however, determined that the door was locked from the outside.
After locating the three older children in the shed, investigators found a nine-year-old girl confined inside the main house.
The children had a strong body odor, wore dirty clothing and had sores on their feet when they were discovered.
The case later revealed that neighbors had contacted Child Protective Services about troubling conditions at the property but received no follow-up on their reports.
During the criminal trial, neighbor Joyce Bailey testified that she saw Lantz ordering the children to move heavy fencing, haul buckets of water and carry propane tanks around the yard.
Bailey said the children were pushed to the point of exhaustion. At one stage, she recalled, the oldest boy could “barely walk.”
The trial also included racist text messages. The oldest child, now 18, testified that her adoptive parents forced her to dig with her bare hands, fed her and her siblings only peanut butter sandwiches, and made them use a bucket as a toilet.
She further told the court that Whitefeather and Lantz refused to eat from the same plates as the children and called her “dirty.”
Authorities found the children in October 2023 locked inside a shed at the couple’s Sissonville home, without lights, food or running water, while a camera recorded them.
Prosecutors argued in court that the parents treated their five black children like ‘slaves’ forcing them into horrific labor and subjecting them to racist remarks
Despite these claims, Child Protective Services failed to provide any documentation showing its agents made contact with the children, diTrapano claimed in his suit against the state agency.
The agency instead simply left a card at the family’s door, according to testimony at the trial.
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Then, when Child Protective Services did conduct an interview of the children, they were within earshot of Lantz and Whitefeather.
‘There were a ton of calls that came in from neighbors, and I think only one visit out there,’ diTrapano said. ‘There should have been many more.’
The lawyer now maintains that the ‘whole system is broken.’
‘There’s all kinds of things that need to be changed,’ he said. ‘The quality of the employees that they’re having to go out here and look after the welfare of these children, some of the manner in which they do these interviews and document things, they have to take these calls seriously.’
But Lars Dalseide, a spokesman for West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey, told West Virginia Watch that the employee who conducted the interview of the children was terminated by the previous administration.
‘We cannot speak to what additional policy or operational changes the previous administration may have made specifically in response to this case,’ he noted.
‘Since taking office, however, the Morrisey administration has made substantial changes to strengthen West Virginia’s child welfare system,’ Dalseide said, citing changes like restructuring leadership with clearer expectations and stronger training.
The West Virginia couple was sentenced last year to serve decades behind bars
The Morrisey administration is now also using the ‘SAFE Model’ to assess child welfare cases with the goal of providing a more consistent approach to its decisions.
‘The safety and well-being of West Virginia’s children remain our highest priorities,’ the spokesman said. ‘DoHS will continue evaluating its policies, oversight and operations and make changes where needed to better protect children and support families.’
The children who were once adopted by Whitefeather and Lantz have since been placed with new adoptive families.
Two of the new adoptive mothers spoke in court about the children’s lives now ahead of the settlement agreement.
‘The mother described going to the beach, going to the amusement parks and going to the museum,’ diTrapano recounted to WCHS-TV.
‘It was a fantastic experience as a lawyer to see that these kids now have something to be happy about.’
The attorney, diTrapano, and Salango Law are now planning to bring another suit against the Washington Human Services Department because the agency approved Whitefeather and Lantz transferring the children from Washington to West Virginia despite prior reports of child abuse against the couple.
There is no monetary damage cap in Washington on what the children could receive in that payout if the attorneys are successful in their challenge.
Meanwhile, state lawmaker Del. Hollis Lewis said he will introduce legislation, called the Child Captivity Prevention Act, that would require families moving to West Virginia who intend to homeschool their children to notify the Department of Human Services.
‘This is an attack on abusers because we don’t want our relaxed homeschool and school choice policies to be a conduit for abusers,’ he told West Virginia Watch.
‘I do not believe they landed on West Virginia because of our beauty or our economy,’ Lewis added of Whitefeather and Lantz. ‘I believe they came specifically because they knew they could operate in a manner and have little oversight.’
‘We’re for parents having options about how they wish to educate their children, but we are also for sensible, common sense guidelines and provisions to ensure that you know those educational choices don’t lead to abuse.’
Lewis had previously introduced the measure earlier this year, but it didn’t move forward before lawmakers adjourned in March.
As Lewis now vows to continue to fight for the measure’s passage, he said Sissonville residents should be thanked for their continued calls to Child Protective Services and police in the historic child abuse case.
‘The community was the one that actually blew the whistle on this, and [if] not for the community’s effort… those kids could possibly still be enslaved now and getting abused now, or even worse,’ he suggested.