‘Robbed of their youth’: A neighbor spotted two teenagers confined in a West Virginia shed, exposing what five adopted children endured for years

Five adopted siblings who spent years in abusive, forced-labor conditions in a Sissonville home have won $4.4 million from West Virginia in a settlement. According to West Virginia Watch, the payout reaches the cap that the state’s limits place on each child’s award, and it is divided among the five.

Their lawsuit argued that the state’s human services agency never shielded them from their adoptive parents, Donald Lantz and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather. The deal won approval from Kanawha County Judge Maryclaire Akers on Sept. 29, during a closed hearing.

The children’s lawyer, Dante DiTrapano, said the money gives them room to reclaim part of what was taken. “It means that these kids will have an opportunity to be children,” he said, adding that they were “robbed of their innocence and robbed of their youth by the monsters that were their former parents.”

Neighbors’ suspicions led deputies to a locked shed

In October 2023, neighbors had grown worried that two of the teenagers were being kept locked in a shed, and a 911 call on Oct. 2 brought deputies to the property. They found a girl, 16, and her brother, 14. Trial testimony described the two sleeping on concrete, with a sleeping bag for her and a sheet and a scrap of cardboard for him. Two younger children, ages 9 and 11, were found on a bedroom floor in the main house.

DiTrapano says warnings had been arriving for a long time. “There were a ton of calls that came in from neighbors, and I think only one visit out there. There should have been many more,” he said. The agency reportedly had a referral on file about slave-like conditions, yet it did not supply any documentation of contact with the children.

The couple’s trial later revealed that child protective services dropped off a card at the home, and DiTrapano said a later interview with the children happened close enough for the adoptive parents to hear. A spokesperson for Gov. Patrick Morrisey said the case predates his administration and that “the employee involved was terminated by that administration.”

In January 2025, a jury found the couple guilty on 31 of the 35 counts, among them forced labor, trafficking and abuse of the children, according to court coverage of the sentencing. Whitefeather was also convicted on four civil rights counts tied to the Black children in the home. She received 215 years and Lantz received 160, totaling 375, and the judge ordered each to hand over $280,000, an amount a prosecutor said was based on the children’s potential medical bills.

Akers told them at sentencing, “You brought these children to West Virginia, a place that I know as ‘Almost Heaven,’ and you put them in hell.” More action may follow. DiTrapano’s firm intends to take legal action against Washington state’s human services agency, which cleared the family’s move east even though abuse reports already existed there.

Delegate Hollis Lewis plans to bring back the Child Captivity Prevention Act in 2027, a measure that would have families who relocate to West Virginia and plan to homeschool alert the state first. People who suspect child abuse or neglect in West Virginia can contact the state’s Centralized Intake line by phone or through its online form.