CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Kanawha County circuit judge refused to lower bail Monday for a Sissonville woman charged with her husband in a high-profile child neglect case.
Jeanne Whitefeather, 61, and Donald Ray Lantz, 63, are being held on $200,000 bail following their Oct. 2 arrest. They allegedly had a son and daughter, both teenagers, locked in a shed on their Sissonville area property and a younger child alone in an upstairs loft in the house nearby.
Jeanne Whitefeather’s attorney Mark Plants argued Monday there’s another side to the story. He said there was actually a key inside the shed where the teenagers were.
“There was a key inside,” Plants said, calling the shed a “hang-out” for the teenage children.
Jeanne Whitefeather’s brother, Ohio resident Mark Hughes, testified he spotted the key on a rope inside the shed when he came to the property about a week after the arrests.
“That is the key exactly as we found it,” Hughes testified as a photo was shown during Monday’s hearing. “How could the police possibly have gone through this and not noticed this key three feet from the door?”
Hughes also testified the key worked both from the inside and outside.
“There was a deadbolt on the door and it was keyed from both sides and that key operated that lock,” he said.
Plants said more has been learned about the circumstances since the arrests.
“When these defendants were arrested there wasn’t a complete and adequate investigation—I’m sure there is now but there wasn’t at the time,” Plants said. “Police officers have to make a judgment call at the time and I don’t blame them for that.”
Akers rejected the request to lower bond. She said Whitefeather, who originally isn’t from West Virginia, was a flight risk. Akers said she had no way of knowing if what Hughes said about the key was true. She said a lot of time had passed.
Whitefeather and Lantz remain in the South Central Regional Jail. A grand jury will next consider their cases.
All five of their children are now in the care of Child Protective Services.