THE horrifying secrets of the "most famous inbred family who speak in grunts and live in squalor" in a town called Odd are being revealed.
The Whittaker family is well-known for their oddities. Now, filmmaker Mark Laita is sharing more about the inner workings of the family.
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The family resides in a town called Odd, located in rural West Virginia.
Some members of the Whittaker family have mental and physical abnormalities. A few members only communicate through grunts and cannot speak. Some did not attend school.
Laita first visited the family in 2004 for his first book, "Created Equal."
He called the visit "the craziest thing I have ever seen," on an episode of the Koncrete KLIPS podcast.
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He didn't receive a warm welcome. An angry neighbor appeared with a shotgun, threatening to use it if Laita didn't leave them alone.
Neighbors are incredibly protective of the family and will chase away anyone who shows up looking to photograph or taunt the Whittakers.
"They are kind of protected by the neighbors and the relatives don’t like these people coming to ridicule them," Laita said on an episode of the Koncrete KLIPS podcast.
He was, however, able to snap some photos of the family, offering the service so the family could place the portrait in the casket of a relative who had recently passed away. That began a relationship that would span nearly 20 years.
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Over the years, he returned to visit the Whittakers but never recorded video footage.
But then, in 2020, he was able to shoot a documentary on the family and their reality and relationships. The film has been viewed on YouTube more than 28 million times.
In the film, Laita speaks with three siblings: Betty, Lorraine, and Ray. Other family members appear as well, including a nephew named Timmy.
At first, Betty would not confirm whether or not her parents were related to one another.
"There is no way I would be able to confirm that the Whittaker parents were related, but given that this does happen in this part of the country and the Whittakers are the most extreme case I’ve seen so far, I would bet that inbreeding was at least partly responsible for the mental and physical abnormalities seen in Lorraine, Freddie, Ray, and Timmy," Laita wrote in a caption accompanying his film.
But a year later, in 2021, when Laita again followed up with the family, Betty did confirm that her parents were related - they were double first cousins.
Her father was a coal miner, she says, and her mother stayed home.
Laita conducts the interviews from the family's porch, sometimes going inside to reveal the reality of their home.
While the family's four dogs appear well taken care of, some of the Whittakers appear to have dirty, disheveled clothing and living conditions. Some family members appear on camera in stained, ill-fitting clothing.
Laita asked Betty about the intellectual and physical abnormalities her relatives have, but she claimed to not know what caused them.
In another video, a different relative, Kenneth, is asked the same question, specifically talking about the issue all of the family members have with their eyes not facing forward. He responds, "Might be coal mining."
Laita again visited the family this spring for another follow-up. The conditions inside of the home appeared to have improved.
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The filmmaker also mentioned the fact that he has given the family money, which was used to fix up the home and purchase a pickup truck.
Following that visit, Laita created a GoFundMe to help the family make necessary improvements to their home. It has raised more than $33,000.
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