Five Black siblings who were locked in a shed, starved, and forced into labor by their white adoptive parents will receive $4.4 million from the state of West Virginia. Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers approved the settlement on Tuesday, September 29. It resolves claims that the state Department of Human Services failed to step in despite reports that the children were being abused.
The money comes out to a little under $900,000 per child and will be held in trust for them.
“It means that these kids will have an opportunity to be children,” said attorney Dante’ diTrapano, who represents the siblings alongside the Salango Law Firm.
The settlement centers on what Child Protective Services did and did not do. According to diTrapano, CPS responded to concerns about the family by leaving a card at the door. When caseworkers finally interviewed the children, they did it within earshot of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather and Donald Lantz, the same two people the children were afraid of.
The Black siblings were adopted from a shelter for homeless and vulnerable youth while Whitefeather and Lantz lived in Minnesota. The couple moved the family to a farm in Washington state in 2018, then to Sissonville, West Virginia, in May 2023. At the time, the children ranged in age from 5 to 16. The couple homeschooled them, which kept them away from teachers and other adults who might have noticed something was wrong.
They were in West Virginia for five months before neighbors saw Lantz lock the oldest girl and her teenage brother in a shed and drive off. A sheriff’s deputy had to pry the door open with a crowbar. All five children were placed with Child Protective Services after the couple’s arrest in October 2023.
What came out at trial was devastating. The children slept on concrete floors, used a bucket as a toilet, and were given little food while security cameras watched them. They were made to do heavy farm labor and forced to stand for hours with their hands on their heads as punishment. The oldest daughter testified that the children were cursed at constantly and that Whitefeather used racist language toward them. Whitefeather refused to eat off the same dishes as the children, calling them dirty. In Washington, the kids were made to sleep in tents on a hill for the same reason.
Prosecutors argued the couple targeted the Black siblings because of their race and profited from them. A financial analyst testified that Whitefeather and Lantz collected $318,000 in adoption assistance from Minnesota alone.
It was the first time human trafficking had ever been charged at the state level in West Virginia. On January 29, 2025, a jury convicted Whitefeather on all 19 counts against her, including civil rights violations based on race. Lantz was convicted on 12 of 16 counts and acquitted of the civil rights charges. The defense had argued the couple was overwhelmed trying to get help for the children’s mental health struggles and trauma from their biological home. Lantz testified that the chores were meant to teach responsibility.
Judge Akers did not buy it. In March 2025, she handed down the maximum sentences: 215 years for Whitefeather and 160 years for Lantz, who must serve at least 30 years before he is eligible for parole. Each was also ordered to pay $280,000 in restitution.
“You brought them to West Virginia, a place I know as almost heaven, and you put them in hell,” Akers told them. “This court will now put you in yours.”
At sentencing, the oldest daughter read a letter in court addressed to the couple. “I don’t understand at all how you were able to treat any person the way you treated me and my siblings and then preach the name of God right after that,” she wrote. She said watching her siblings suffer was its own kind of torment.
The children have since been placed with new adoptive families. At Tuesday’s hearing, Akers allowed two of those parents to describe the summer the kids just had. It was a vacation, and their lawyer said it was the first time the children were allowed to simply be happy.
“As a lawyer representing these children, there is no better feeling or day in court,” diTrapano said.
The legal fight is not over. diTrapano and the Salango Law Firm have partnered with attorneys in Washington state to sue that state’s child welfare agency. Their claim is that Washington received similar abuse reports while the family lived near Tacoma, yet still approved moving the children across the country to West Virginia.
