Inbred family who communicate by barking started after two cousins had 15 children together

Daily Record

25-05-2025

The Whittaker family grunt and bark to communicate with others, but can understand what people say.
A family said to be the "most inbred in America" consists of several generations who grunt and bark to communicate, starting when the children of two identical twins married and had several kids of their own together.
The Whittaker family, from the village of Odd, West Virginia, live in a cramped mobile home 75 miles from the city of Charleston. They grabbed the headlines after featuring in filmmaker Mark Laita's 2020 documentary, which revealed their difficult background, living with complex needs.
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They had previously endured visitors making nasty comments, resulting in their protective neighbours guarding them armed with shotguns. It took Mark over 16 years to establish a relationship with them, due to their reluctance to let outsiders in or mix with new people.
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When he first met them in 2004, he was greeted with a chaotic scene of multiple members running, screaming and barking at him, which he described as the "craziest thing". It was also compared to 1972 film Deliverance, in which a group of friends are hunted and terrorised by locals in the woods, the Mirror reports.
Speaking on the Koncrete KLIPS podcast, Mark said: "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."
The inbreeding began with identical twins Henry and John Whittaker, whose children married each other and had over a dozen of their own together.
Henry and his wife Sally had seven children, including John Emory Whittaker, born in 1913. John and his wife Ada, also his first cousin, had nine kids, including Gracie Irene Whittaker in 1920.
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John and Gracie were double cousins, sharing both sets of grandparents. They married in 1935 and had 15 kids of their own.
Several of them suffered from a number of serious physical and mental illnesses, believed to be a result of their inbreeding. Their oldest child Aileen died in June 1997 following a heart attack, while son Emery passed away just a month after his birth in 1938 due to pneumonia.
Betty, born in 1952, took on the role of matriarch and promised her mum she would not get married so she could care for her 14 siblings. Ray and Lorene, who have a son called Timmy, born 1979, are both said to be unable to speak and only communicate via grunting and barking. Timmy is the only family member who has graduated from high school.
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Speaking about their communication, a relative said: "They understand what you talking about. If they don't like it, they start yelling — let you know they don't like that idea."
The family even make their own customised concrete headstones, with only mum Gracie having a professionally-made one. However, they sometimes require help from the public.
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Mark returned in 2022 for a follow-up visit after creating a GoFundMe page for them to improve their home, which waised $55,000 (£44,000).
They spent it all on a new truck, roof, updated kitchen and a coal heater. However, they are now back in a small home across the road after a fire destroyed their original one last year.
Another fundraiser was set up to cover clearing the debris and delivering, situating and furnishing a new trailer, stating that 100% of the money would directly benefit the family.
This divided social media users, with one commenting on YouTube: "All that Go Fund Me money better not even go to any family member! Give it directly to a clean up crew and you purchase a new trailer for them!!!! No money should ever be given to them again."