White mother accused of treating Black adopted kids as ‘slaves’ said they liked being kept in barn, trial told

A West Virginia mother who is accused, along with her husband, of treating their adopted Black children as “slaves,” told law enforcement that they liked being kept in the barn.

The trial of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, and Donald Ray Lantz, 61, continued Wednesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court.

They were arrested in October 2023 after two of their five adopted children were found locked in a shed outside their Sissonville home, near Charleston. The parents, who are white, face more than a dozen counts including forced labor, civil rights violations, human trafficking and gross child neglect. The children, all siblings ranging in age from 5 to 16, are Black.