A white couple from rural West Virginia is back behind bars after a judge revoked the initial bond and raised it to $500,000 apiece — more than double the amount they faced last year when police arrested the pair on charges of locking their adopted Black children in a barn and forcing them to work as “slaves.”

Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, both of Sissonville, were ordered to reappear in Kahanwha County Court on June 11, more than eight months after each posted a $200,000 bond following their arrests in October.

At the time, police conducting a wellness check at the Cheyanne Lane home were shocked to discover two of the couple’s five adopted children living in deplorable conditions, padlocked inside a ramshackle storage shed on the back of the property, which had no working lights or running water.

  • enkers@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    77
    ·
    4 months ago

    What’s truly fucked is they got caught doing it, then got released on bail and it went on for another year before they got caught again. I hope these sick fucks go away for a long, long time.

    • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      25
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      Forever, they should go away Forever. Whether that’s death or life in prison without parole, they should never be free, ever again.

  • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    68
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    4 months ago

    Seriously, who wants to bet these people were conservative republican voters, probably trump supporters. I’d also bet they were members/followers of the christian religion.

    I dont care if I get downvoted. It’s blatantly obvious there is a strong correlation between these types of people leaning conservative and christian, and it needs to be mentioned and talked about more often.

    • VieuxQueb@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      4 months ago

      Well they did have another 6 yrs old that was visiting with another couple from their church so… I believe you got it right 👍

  • ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    51
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Normally I’d say that these people should be forced to endure the same shit they doled out. But there’s really no way to dole out childhood trauma after the fact.

    Fuck these “people”. Nobody who is ok forcing another person to live and toil in these circumstances can be considered a person in my view. They are animals, humans at best.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      4 months ago

      I’d bet good money against a bent paperclip that they had childhood trauma already. That doesn’t excuse what they’ve done, in fact that makes it worse. It’s likely the thought was “this is what happened to me to make me the person I am today” or similar.

      That being said, once you do this to a child you’re no longer a person in my eyes either. They aren’t human. They aren’t animals. They are nothing. The whole reason I’m not in charge of anything is because I think we should throw them in an oubliette and let them survive by drinking from puddles and eating rats. That’s not justice, that’s revenge. I just don’t have anything else in my heart for these people.

  • PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    45
    ·
    4 months ago

    About an hour later, Whitefeather returned home and guided deputies to another 6-year-old girl who was visiting with another couple from their church.

    Good Christian folks, I see.

    • John Richard@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      Protecting the kids for them has always been about wanting more slaves, whether in for profit prisons or minimum wage jobs, or in unpaid work programs.

  • TheAuthor_13@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    There’s a special, extra-fuckin-hot area of space in Hell for worthless pieces of shit like this. Typically, I find the death penalty to be a bit too much, but for these two chunks of fetid rat shit, I feel like I could be pretty easily convinced to support an exception here… ideally if it’s in a similar way to how they treated those poor children.

    • Glytch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 months ago

      Death penalty is too expensive. Just put them in Genpop and let everyone know what they did and then look away while Nature takes its course.

  • Asafum@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    You don’t get it guys, Racism Is Dead! Republicans have said that over and over, the supreme court even did away with voting rights act protections for the south because racism is over and no one mistreats black people anymore!

    /s :(

  • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    Anyone who abuses a child should get life in prison, no question. Also anyone who does not vaccinate their children barring medical circumstances should have them removed by CPS. Those are my ironclad opinions.

  • sunzu@kbin.run
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    4 months ago

    Boomers hate kids in general… These ones are whole other level it seems