A wealthy white West Virginia couple forced their adopted black children to work as slaves and sleep in a barn, according to disturbing charges.
Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen new charges on Tuesday after several kids were found locked in a crumbling shed in ratty clothing, MetroNews reported.
Lantz and Whitefeather were first arrested in October after a wellness check led to the discovery of the couple’s five adopted children — aged 16, 14, 11, 9 and 6 — living in deplorable conditions on their Sissonville property.
The indictment, which Kanawha County Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers said was one of the worst she’s ever seen, alleges that the adopted children were forced to work on the couple’s farmland because of their race.
“It alleges human trafficking, human rights violations, the use of forced labor,” Akers told the court. “Human rights violations specific to the fact that these children were targeted because of their race and they were used basically as slaves from what the indictment alleges.”
