Five black children subjected to abuse by their former adoptive parents have secured a $4.4 million settlement from the state of West Virginia over the handling of repeated welfare reports by Child Protective Services.
The money will be placed in a trust and divided between the children, several of whom continue to have significant needs linked to the trauma they experienced.
The settlement was paid through West Virginia’s Board of Risk Management and represents the maximum amount available for each child under the state’s legal limits.
Dante’ diTrapano, the children’s lawyer, said the award would give them the chance to rebuild their lives. “It means that these kids will have an opportunity to be children,” he said.
“They were robbed of their innocence and robbed of their youth by the monsters that were their former parents.”
Children found locked in shed
The settlement follows the convictions and lengthy prison sentences of Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 63, and Donald Lantz, 64. Whitefeather was sentenced to 215 years in prison, with parole eligibility after at least 40 years, while Lantz received 160 years and must serve at least 30 years before he can seek parole.
They were also ordered to pay $280,000 in restitution to the five children.
Authorities found three of the children locked in a shed at the couple’s home in Sissonville in October 2023. The building had no lighting, food or running water, and a camera had been installed to record them.
Whitefeather said the children were not being held against their will and described the shed as a “teenage clubhouse”. Detectives, however, found that it had been locked from the outside.
A nine-year-old girl was later discovered locked inside the main house. The children were wearing dirty clothes, had poor body odour and sores on their feet, according to the evidence described in court.
Neighbour Joyce Bailey told the trial that she had seen Lantz make the children carry fencing, buckets of water and propane tanks around the property. She said they had been worked so hard that the oldest boy could “barely walk”.
The oldest child, now 18, also testified that she had been made to dig with her hands, fed only peanut butter sandwiches and forced to share a bucket as a toilet with her siblings.
She said her adoptive parents would not eat from the same plates as the children and called her “dirty”. Racist text messages were also presented during the trial.
Questions over child protection checks
Neighbours had reported concerns about what they saw at the property to Child Protective Services, but the reports did not lead to effective intervention, according to the case brought against the state.
DiTrapano said CPS had produced no documentation showing that its agents had made proper contact with the children. Evidence indicated that an agency worker left a card at the family’s door, while a later interview took place within earshot of Whitefeather and Lantz.
“There were a ton of calls that came in from neighbors, and I think only one visit out there,” diTrapano said. “There should have been many more.”
He said the case showed that “the whole system is broken”, calling for changes to staff training, interview procedures and the way reports are documented and assessed.
Lars Dalseide, a spokesman for West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey, said the employee who interviewed the children had been dismissed by the previous administration.
He said the current administration had introduced changes including a restructuring of leadership, clearer expectations, stronger training and use of the “SAFE Model” to assess child welfare cases more consistently.
“The safety and well-being of West Virginia’s children remain our highest priorities,” Mr Dalseide said.
The children have since been placed with new adoptive families. Their new mothers described taking them to the beach, amusement parks and museums, according to diTrapano.
The lawyer and Salango Law are also planning a separate case against Washington’s human services department. The department had approved the children’s transfer from Washington to West Virginia despite earlier reports of abuse involving the couple.
West Virginia lawmaker Del. Hollis Lewis said he would reintroduce legislation known as the Child Captivity Prevention Act, which would require families moving to the state who plan to homeschool their children to notify the Department of Human Services.
He said the proposal was intended to prevent relaxed homeschooling and school-choice rules from being exploited by abusers, while preserving parents’ ability to choose how their children are educated.
