‘Could Barely Walk’: Neighbor Testifies White Adopted Father Stood By As Black Child with Foul Body Odor and Blisters On His Feet Struggled to Complete Manual Labor on West Virginia Property

A deputy who discovered two teens living in squalor, locked in a barn, described their conditions in heartbreaking detail this week as testimony commenced at the trial of the West Virginia couple charged with using their adopted children as slaves. “As you walked in you could smell not only body odor but an abundance of different types of smells, it’s kind of hard to explain, but they weren’t pleasant,” Kanawha County Sheriff’s Deputy Hannah Burdette testified Wednesday. “And then, like I said, it was physically hot in the room as soon as you opened the door, I was probably standing five feet back from the door and when the door opened you could physically feel the heat escaping the room outside.” Donald Lantz and Jeanne Whitefeather are accused of locking their adopted children in a barn in Sissonville, West Virginia. (Credit: West Virginia Regional Jail & Correctional Facility Authority) Inside the windowless barn, locked so tight that the deputies couldn’t gain entrance with a sledgehammer, police found an air conditioning unit that didn’t function. There were a couple of chairs, a table, a camper toilet, plastic bag with some bread in it and an empty bottle of juice. A 16-year-old...