A white West Virginia couple is being held on a combined million dollar’s bail as they wait trial on human trafficking charges for allegedly using their adopted Black children as “slave” in the words of a judge.
Donald Ray Lantz, 63, and Jeanne Kay Whitefeather, 62, had initially each posted $200,000 cash bond in February after being arrested last October. But they were thrown back behind bars last week after that was revoked and a judge raised the bond $500,000 each.
The investigation was sparked when a neighbor reported that the children were locked in a shed on the couple’s property in Sissonville, near Charleston, and forced to perform farm labor, according to WV MetroNews.
Deputies forced their way into the shed, where they found a 14-year-old boy and a 16-year –old girl in squalid conditions, with no running water or bathrooms. They also found a 9-year-old girl crying alone in left inside the main house.
