A white couple in West Virginia who adopted 5 Black youngsters simply so they may abuse them, neglect them, confine them to deplorable residing situations, and pressure them into slave labor will spend many years of their lives behind bars, if not the remainder of their lives.

Supply: Catherine McQueen / Getty

Based on 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 will likely be up for parole in 40 years and Lantz in 30, which 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 must pay $280,000 in reparations — sorry — restitution to the youngsters they victimized for years.

The court docket charged the couple with greater than a dozen prison offenses every, together with pressured labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking, and little one neglect. On Wednesday, the Kanawha County Circuit Courtroom decide sentenced them with out hesitation, emphasizing that they deserved to serve each single 12 months allowed underneath the legislation.

“You introduced these youngsters to West Virginia, a spot that I do know as ‘Virtually Heaven,’ and you set them in hell. This court docket will now put you in yours,” Circuit Decide Maryclaire Akers advised the defendants per AP. “And will God have mercy in your souls. As a result of this court docket 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 residing 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 residing 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 Could 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 searching 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 to be like like a Nineteenth-century outhouse that hasn’t seen any repairs since slavery was authorized. In actual fact, deputies acknowledged that the shed had no operating water and solely an RV porta-potty for the youngsters to make use of. But, in her earlier assertion, Whitefeather lied, describing it as a “teenage clubhouse,” based on the indictment, which additionally acknowledged that neighbors “reported that the youngsters have been pressured to carry out farm labor and weren’t permitted contained in the residence.”

Extra from WV Metro Information:

The 16-year-old lady advised deputies they’d 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 pressured to sleep on the concrete flooring of the shed with none mattress or padding.

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

As well as, deputies mentioned they discovered a 9-year-old lady inside the principle house, and three hours from when legislation 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 lady who had been with acquaintances from the couple’s church.

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

The oldest lady, now 18, was the one one to deal with the court docket 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,” based on AP. Not one of the youngsters have been publicly recognized by identify.

The decide, who admonished the couple for persevering with to fail to take duty for what they’ve carried out, 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 you need 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,” Decide 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!