A man who put America's "most inbred family" on the world stage has claimed that they told him a massive lie.
Journalist Mark Laita has been documenting the Whittakers' lives since 2020 on his YouTube channel, Soft White Underbelly.
The family lives in a small village called Odd, about 75 miles from Charleston. The story of their inbreeding began when identical twin brothers Henry and John's kids got married and went on to have children of their own.
Those kids eventually gave birth to the Whittaker clan, having 15 offspring in total.
Many of the children born in the union suffered from serious physical and mental problems, thought to be a result of the inbreeding.
The family went viral on social media after the YouTuber shared a video of their lifestyle in their remote settlement in 2020, earning them the media-given moniker of America's most inbred family.
Earlier this year, Laita announced that one of the family members, named Larry, died aged 67 after a suspected heart attack. But after launching a fundraiser and donating $1,000 towards his funeral, it turns out that Larry was never deceased.
The shocking discovery was made in a video titled "The Death of Larry Whittaker," in which Larry is seen sitting on the front porch of the family home discussing his own supposed passing.
When asked about it, he said: "No, I just heard of it last night on a video."
Watch the video below:Larry's daughter BJ also made an appearance in the 54-minute video and owned up to lying about her father's death.
"I’m not proud of what I've done, I’m not," she said, before adding: "I shouldn’t have done it...I'm trying to get help for my drug addiction."
The interviewer alleged that he had given BJ $1,000 towards the funeral after the family claimed they needed the money to host the event.
To add insult to injury, Laita claimed that he gave another $700 to help Larry take his daughter to North Carolina to start a new life, but has since discovered that he'd apparently kept the money and not taken her anywhere.
The journalist opened up about the betrayal to Larry's cousin, Jason Whittaker in a recent video uploaded last month titled "Spring 2024".
In the clip, Jason is seen facing the camera with a dog in his lap. He listens intently as Laita explains: “After our last video, Larry calls me up and says: 'Hey, I'm going to take BJ to North Carolina,' and he wanted $700."
“I said 'As long as you're taking your daughter to North Carolina to get her away from your family then I can continue my relationship with you guys, but I don't want to be part of you guys if everyone's lying to me,'" he continued. "And Larry goes: 'Yeah, I'm gonna take her tonight'."
The YouTuber told Jason that as the whole family was "lying" to him, he was "done with them," adding that they had been receiving money from the state before he started making viral videos about their lives.
Speaking to Jason, Laita said: “I don't know what to do with them other than just walk away." To which Jason agreed, saying: "That's the best thing to do, just wash your hands of them."
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