Man who uncovered America's 'most inbred family' showed rare glimpse inside their home
The Whittaker clan live in a place called Odd in Virginia, with their region described as the 'poorest region of America'
An online series has looked into a family described as the 'most inbred family' in America.
The Whittaker Clan live in a small hamlet called Odd in rural Virginia in the US, and a YouTube series revealed the conditions they live in.
YouTuber and photographer, Mark Laita, started the series on the social media platform, calling it Soft White Underbelly.
Advert
The series is aimed at gaining insight into the lives of people in the US whose lives might otherwise go undocumented.
In a description of the channel on YouTube, it was described as speaking to 'people who are frequently invisible in society—the unhoused, the sex worker, the chronic drug user, the runaway, the gang member, the poor and the sick.'
Among those spoken to by Laita was the Whittaker Clan, many of whom live with genetic conditions which are connected to inbreeding.
After seeing the family on Laita's series, many people were moved to try and offer them some support.
This resulted in thousands of dollars being raised to help lift the family out of poverty.
However, a further YouTube video left some people questioning what had happened to the money which had been raised.
When YouTuber Tyler Oliveira visited the family again he found that they were still living in squalid conditions despite the money being raised to help them.
Some $100,000 was raised for the family, but images showed the house still in an awful state.
The video showed that the family did not have a shower, instead using a bath with a bucket.
There was also trash on floor and the countertops.
While there was a lot of food in the fridge and freezer, but swarms of flies came buzzing out of the appliances when they were opened.
Oliveira asked the family 'what happened to the money?'
Betty Whittaker told him: "I don't know".
However, Mark Whittaker was left furious on hearing this and said: "Come on, Betty knows exactly where the money went. Look at the Whittakers, their lives have improved greatly since I came into it and the reason for that is because I came through for them every time."
Laita since confirmed that he had stopped the GoFundMe page, writing: "I'm actually going to discontinue my GoFundMe for the Whittakers I probably won't even do videos with them anymore, it's just left such a bad taste in my mouth after all this.
"The Whittaker one has generated like $130,000 (£102,000) between the $77k and the $55k it is right now so it's roughly $130k I think. They've received according to the list that I put on screen earlier, it's $100,000 right there and then I've given them $25,000 cash when I've seen them giving them five here, five there, four there, three there."
Kit Roberts