An intrepid filmmaker has told how he journeyed deep into an American backwater to meet the family billed as the country's most inbred.
Mark Laita had to be escorted by a police officer on his trip to meet the Whittakers. His initial approach ended with him being threatened by the family's protective neighbours.
The Mirror reports how Laita spoke about his experience filming the family for a new documentary which he likened to a scene from cult movie Deliverance. In the 1972 thriller, starring Burt Reynolds, four men go on a weekend canoeing trip down a river in the Georgia backcountry and face their worst nightmares.
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Living in a remote West Virginia village named Odd, the Whittakers have no education and are holed up in an isolated shack in the backcountry cut off from civilisation.
Laita's videos have been viewed by millions and he recalled his first impressions of the Whittakers on the Koncrete KLIPS podcast. The filmmaker explained: “It was like that little scene from Deliverance that everyone knows.
"We came around to this road, which turns into a country road, which turns into a dirt road, and we come to this trailer and then a little shack on the other side of the road.
"And there’s these people walking around and their eyes are going in different directions and they are barking at us.
"And then one guy, you would look at him in the eye or say anything and he would just scream and go running away, and his pants would fall around his ankles, and he would go running off and go and kick a garbage can.
"And this would happen over and over. It was out of control - the craziest thing I have ever seen."
During the meeting between the family and Laita, the filmmaker discovered three siblings and a cousin who were living together in a filthy home along with their several dogs.
Some family members were only able to speak in grunts or squeals and appeared to be suffering with physical and mental health conditions.
In his YouTube videos, Laita warns anyone intending to visit to mock or disturb the family to think again as they will be chased away.
He noted: "They are kind of protected by the neighbours and the relatives [who] don’t like these people coming to ridicule them."
After much persuasion, the family finally allowed Laita to take some photos after he offered to take a portrait for them to place in the casket of a loved one.
After his initial visit, the filmmaker kept in touch with the family and soon returned to shoot a film called Inbred family - The Whittakers in 2020.
The film was soon posted to his Youtube channel, named Soft White Underbelly, and it shows him speaking to siblings, Betty, Lorraine and Ray, and cousin, Timmy.
Another brother, Freddie, had died of a heart condition.
When asked, Betty doesn't say if her parents were related and says she didn't know why Ray, Lorraine and Timmy had disabilities.
Laita wrote: "There is no way I would be able to confirm that the Whitaker parents were related, but given that this does happen in this part of the country and the Whitakers 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.”
When Laita revisited the family and shot a follow-up video a year later, Betty confirmed their parents were double first cousins.
Another video released in 2022 features a relative called Kenneth and in the footage, Laita discusses the family's disabilities and facial abnormalities with the family member.
When asked why their eyes don't point forward, Kenneth says: "Might be coal mining."
Through his videos, Laita has helped the Whittaker family to raise money to pay repairs and improvements at their home. The fundraising is still ongoing as he is now trying to buy them a new house.
The filmmaker said much of the feedback from his work with the family had been critical, calling him "an exploitative b*****d". However, he has defended his work, saying: "I think it's good for people to know that a lot of these things exist.
"Everything can be viewed as exploitative. I'm exposing or creating awareness of what is going on in our country."
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