Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather are about to find out what it was like for their adopted children who lived in squalor, locked in a barn and forced to work long hours. Lantz, 65, was sentenced Wednesday to a maximum 160 years behind bars and won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 101 y ears old. The 63-year-old Whitefeather, who received a maximum 215-year term in prison, will have to live to 112 if she is to have a chance of parole. The couple will also be required to pay a restitution of $280,000 each. West Virginia couple Donald Lantz (left) and Jeanne Whitefeather (right) sentenced to 215 years. (Credit: Video Screengrab WSAZ) But at least they will have access to a working toilet, a luxury not afforded to their two oldest adopted children. And they’ll also receive blankets, which they refused to provide their oldest daughter and son forced to spend their nights inside a cold, drafty barn. “You brought these children to West Virginia, a place that I know as ‘Almost Heaven,’ and you put them in hell. This court will now put you in yours,” Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers told the defendants. “And may God have mercy on your souls. Because this court will not.” Before issuing her sentence, the judge listened to impact statements written by four of the children and read in court by the prosecutor office’s victim advocate. They told of the nightmares that terrorize them, how they have difficulty trusting anyone and question and fear affection. The oldest girl, now 18, addressed her adopted mother directly, telling Whitefeather, “I’ll never understand how you can sleep at night. I want you to know that you are a monster.” The couple were found guilty in late January of more than 31 counts of child neglect and human trafficking, among other charges, following 12 days of shocking testimony about the horrors endured by their adopted kids. Whitefeather and Lantz were arrested in October 2023 in their home near Charleston, West Virginia, after a neighbor spotted him locking the couple’s two oldest children into the barn. Deputies responding to the neighbor’s 911 call required a sledgehammer to break into the facility, where they found the 16-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy reeking of body odor with sores on their feet. They slept on a concrete floor with no bedding and shared a bucket as a toilet. Inside the main house, a 9-year-old girl was found alone crying in a loft with no guardrail, according to prosecutors. The couple adopted the victims — five Black children, all siblings — while living in Minnesota. The white couple took the kids with them to Washington state in 2018 before settling in West Virginia in May 2023, when the children ranged in age from 5 to 16. The siblings proved to be quite lucrative for Whitefeather and Lantz. A financial intelligence analyst who reviewed the couple’s bank statements testified they pocketed $318,000 in child assistance from the state of Minnesota alone. But by far the most pivotal testimony came from three of the couple’s children, who detailed the scale of squalor and abuse they endured. The eldest sibling told jurors the children were made to stand in their rooms for hours “to prevent us from falling asleep.” They also were ordered to keep their hands on their heads, and if they didn’t, Whitefeather would douse them with pepper spray, the teen testified. As prosecutors presented photos inside the home, the 18-year-old recalled an incident where Lantz hit one of her brothers on the head with a PVC pipe. She testified how the children were cursed at “all the time,” especially by Whitefeather, who often used racial taunts and was found guilty on four counts of civil rights violations. The children lived on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches, often left over from a previous meal. They were not allowed to eat except during those scheduled feedings and drank only water after their meals, the 18-year-old testified. She had only a sleeping bag on the floor in the barn in which to sleep, while her teenage brother was given just a piece of cardboard to use a pillow. The oldest child said she went about two months without showering or brushing her teeth. They spent their days carrying supplies, gardening, digging holes for trees, clearing land, gathering water from a creek and tending to animals on their farm, according to the eldest daughter. The siblings received no schooling. The daughter testified that when the family lived in Washington, the children were made to sleep in tents on a hill because Whitefeather told them, “We were dirty and that we stunk.” “I felt like I wasn’t ever going to get out of that situation,” she said After neighbors in West Virginia noticed them performing hard labor outdoors, the 18-year-old said they spent their final months with the couple locked inside. “We were always locked up,” she testified. The children are now living separately, with the oldest boy undergoing psychological counseling. Last month, one of the children filed a lawsuit against Lantz and Whitefeather alleging they “experienced shocking and severe physical and emotional abuse and neglect while under (the couple’s) care.” The treatment alleged in the suit mirrors testimony from the trial. The suit claims the child suffered “severe and permanent physical and emotional injuries and damages.” “We are going to turn over every stone in every state to make sure these innocent children have compensation for the horrific treatment visited upon them by their foster parents and the authorities in charge of their placement and care,” Dante’ diTrapano, an attorney representing the adopted child, told reporters. ‘May God Have Mercy … This Court Will Not’: West Virginia Judge Admonishes White Couple Who Kept Adopted Black Children as Slaves, Gives Them Maximum Sentence and a Tongue Lashing ...read more read less