Six Black Siblings Vanished With Their Adoptive Parents in 1989, 11 Years Later, One Was Found Alive. L2

In 1989, a white couple, Thomas and Carol Whitlock, made headlines in Oregon when they adopted six Black brothers — ranging in age from 2 to 11 — from the state foster care system. The boys had been separated across multiple homes, and the Whitlocks promised to raise them together, off-grid, on a large rural property they had purchased outside the town of Silo Bend, near the foothills of the Cascade Mountains.

Social workers praised the adoption as a “miracle placement.” The media called it “a second chance for six lost boys.”

Then the Whitlocks disappeared.

By early 1990, the family had pulled their oldest child out of school, citing their plan to homeschool all the children. State officials visited once — were shown a clean kitchen, smiling children, and signed lesson plans.

After that? Nothing.

No further welfare checks. No contact with extended family. No birthdays, no hospital visits, no school enrollment.

For 11 years, not a single member of the Whitlock family was seen in public.

The state considered the case “closed.”
But behind the silence, something horrific was unfolding.

On a rainy night in April 2000, a barefoot teenage boy walked into a police station in Troutdale, Oregon, wearing ill-fitting clothes and shaking from cold. He wouldn’t give his name at first.

Then he handed officers a damp, folded piece of paper.

It read: “My name is Isaiah. I’m one of the six. They told us we were the last people left alive. But I know that’s not true. Please help.”

The boy, Isaiah Whitlock, was 17. He had escaped after years of meticulous planning — hiding food, memorizing the woods, waiting for a night when Thomas was too drunk to notice the latch on the door had been pried loose.

Over hours of interviews, Isaiah unraveled a story that investigators described as “beyond cult-like.” The Whitlocks believed the modern world was “poisoned by corruption and race mixing.” They taught the boys they were chosen to help rebuild a new society — one where they’d be “cleansed” of their Blackness” through obedience, discipline, and isolation. The children were given new names, forbidden to speak of their past, and told the outside world had collapsed. Education was limited to religious indoctrination, manual labor, and bizarre racial theology. Infractions were punished with starvation, physical abuse, and prolonged isolation in underground root cellars.

Worst of all: Isaiah had not seen two of his younger brothers in over four years.
He feared they were dead.

With Isaiah’s help, authorities located the compound — a 40-acre, heavily wooded property surrounded by makeshift fences, warning signs, and hidden snares.

What they found was straight out of a survivalist nightmare: A crumbling main cabin with barricaded windows and no running water. Underground bunkers, some rigged with homemade locks. Journals written by Carol Whitlock, describing “cleansing rituals,” starvation fasts, and prayers for the boys to “shed their sinful skin.” Hundreds of VHS tapes, most blank, some containing hours of footage showing forced confessions, punishments, and sermons.

Thomas and Carol were found in the woods behind the compound, both deceased — the apparent result of a murder-suicide days after Isaiah fled.

Only three of the six boys were found alive at the compound — underfed, traumatized, and barely able to communicate.