A white couple in West Virginia who adopted 5 Black youngsters simply so they might abuse them, neglect them, confine them to deplorable dwelling situations, and drive them into slave labor will spend a long time of their lives behind bars, if not the remainder of their lives.

Supply: Catherine McQueen / Getty

In response to the Related Press, 62-year-old Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and her husband, 63-year-old Donald Lantz, acquired sentences of as much as 215 years and as much as 160, respectively. Whitefeather might be up for parole in 40 years and Lantz in 30, that means even when they ever do get out of jail, they’ll be greater than a century previous or near it. They may every additionally should pay $280,000 in reparations — sorry — restitution to the kids they victimized for years.

The courtroom charged the couple with greater than a dozen felony offenses every, together with compelled labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking, and little one neglect. On Wednesday, the Kanawha County Circuit Courtroom choose sentenced them with out hesitation, emphasizing that they deserved to serve each single yr allowed below the regulation.

“You introduced these youngsters to West Virginia, a spot that I do know as ‘Nearly Heaven,’ and you place them in hell. This courtroom will now put you in yours,” Circuit Choose Maryclaire Akers informed the defendants per AP. “And will God have mercy in your souls. As a result of this courtroom won’t.”

Whitefeather and Lantz have been arrested in October 2023 “after a wellness verify led to the invention of two of the couple’s 5 adopted youngsters dwelling in deplorable situations locked in a shed on the Sissonville property on Cheyanne Lane,” WV Metro Information reported. The couple had adopted 5 Black youngsters — ages 6, 9, 11, 14 and 16 on the time of their foster mother and father’ arrest — whereas dwelling in Minnesota, then they moved to a farm in Washington state in 2018.

From there, the couple introduced the enslaved individuals they pretended have been their adopted youngsters to West Virginia in Might 2023. And that’s the place it was lastly found that this wasn’t a loving Caucasian couple who took in 5 Black youngsters in want of a loving house; these have been a few twenty first Century slavers who went looking for Black youngsters to neglect and torture till they have been sufficiently old to do all of the family labor in a home they have been by no means even allowed to dwell in.

From NewsOne:

Photographs of the shed the 2 oldest youngsters have been allegedly locked in, present what appears like a Nineteenth-century outhouse that hasn’t seen any maintenance since slavery was authorized. The truth is, deputies acknowledged that the shed had no operating water and solely an RV porta-potty for the kids to make use of. But, in her earlier assertion, Whitefeather lied, describing it as a “teenage clubhouse,” in response to the indictment, which additionally acknowledged that neighbors “reported that the kids have been compelled to carry out farm labor and weren’t permitted contained in the residence.”

Extra from WV Metro Information:

The 16-year-old woman informed deputies that they had been locked within the constructing for about 12 hours and have been final given meals round 6:00 a.m. that day.

The kids additionally mentioned they have been compelled to sleep on the concrete ground of the shed with none mattress or padding.

Courtroom paperwork acknowledged that the 14-year-old boy had “open sores on his naked ft,” and that the kids have been soiled and smelled of physique odor.

As well as, deputies mentioned they discovered a 9-year-old woman inside the primary house, and three hours from when regulation enforcement first arrived, Lantz got here house with an 11-year-old boy.

Whitefeather got here house about an hour after that and led deputies to a 6-year-old woman who had been with acquaintances from the couple’s church.

Throughout sentencing, letters written by 4 of the kids detailing the horrors they lived by and the lasting trauma they triggered have been learn in courtroom by the prosecutor’s workplace sufferer advocate. A few of the letters have been learn whereas the kids who wrote them stood by the speaker.

The oldest woman, now 18, was the one one to deal with the courtroom instantly.

“I’ll by no means perceive how one can sleep at evening. I would like you to know that you’re a monster,” she mentioned to Whitefeather.

Final month, the 18-year-old filed a lawsuit “alleging extreme bodily and emotional abuse and neglect that has scarred her completely,” in response to AP. Not one of the youngsters have been publicly recognized by identify.

The choose, who admonished the couple for persevering with to fail to take duty for what they’ve executed, famous that, in a presentencing report, the couple blamed their actual property agent “for not discovering a spot remoted sufficient.” (Whew — the caucasity!)

“However I suppose it’s best to have defined to your realtor that you just wanted an remoted place away from individuals in order that you could possibly proceed to abuse your youngsters,” Choose Akers mentioned.

Yeah — these two by no means have to see one other day of freedom. They’re racist little one abusers who don’t appear to care that the Emancipation Proclamation was signed 160 years in the past. Allow them to rot!