'Real-life Deliverance': Inside the 'protected' life of America's most famous inbred family in Odd
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA: The Whittakers, one of America's largest inbred families, who have been protected by gun-toting neighbors, reside in the village of Odd, in Raleigh County's mining district. Home to 779 close-knit individuals, the Odd village has a small population. They lack any elected authorities or municipal governance.
Mark Laita, the producer of 'Inbred Family- The Whittakers' brought to light the community that is living a different, bizarre life altogether. Meanwhile, the tribe and the village are still compared to the 1972 movie, 'Deliverance'. There are only two buildings in the entire area that aren't residential - a Post Office and Mt Valley Baptist Church.
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Similarities between the Odd village and the movie 'Deliverance'
The village has two homes and a small outhouse. They also have an abandoned coal mine nearby. The village also had an elementary school on Odd School Road which has since been turned into a family home. Shane and Melody, a YouTuber couple, even found a four-bedroom and four-bath mansion, worth $600,000 in the area. Meanwhile, 'Inbred Family- The Whittakers' according to Laita, reminded him of the 1972 thriller 'Deliverance'. The thriller tells the story of four city dwellers attacked by locals in rural Georgia. The locals who attacked the dwellers also had similar features to the Whittakers, as per The Sun.
John Boorman directed the movie where the four city dwellers come across locals of the place who are possibly inbred. The tourists then get attacked by inbred men, who shoot them down. The way inbreds are picturized in the movie is quite similar to the looks of Whittakers.
What is the family structure of The Whittakers?
The Whittaker family inbreeding started with twin brothers John and Henry Whittaker in 1887. John married his own first cousin, Ada Riggs. Later, Ada and John had nine children, including Gracie Irene Whittaker, who was born in 1920. Henry married another cousin, Sally Burton, who went on to have seven children, including John Emory Whittaker, born in 1913.
Meanwhile, at a later point, Gracie and John got married and were blessed with 15 children. Danny Ray Whittaker, one of their sons, and another child, Lorraine, started to have difficulties talking. It is from this generation that they started getting affected by the issue of inbreeding. The family members claim that they were unaware of the after-effects of inbreeding, as per Daily Mail. "They are kind of protected by the neighbors and the relatives don’t like these people coming to ridicule them," claimed Laita in one of the earlier episodes of 'Koncrete Klips' podcast.
Laita said, "The individuals in this video are brothers and sisters, except for Timmy who is a cousin. 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."
He further said, “I strongly discourage anyone attempting to look for the Whitakers as their armed neighbors and the Raleigh County deputies both make it clear that curious visitors are not welcome." He also recalled one of the most bizarre moments with the family. "It was out of control," he said. "There are these people walking around and their eyes are going in different directions and they are barking at us. And [this] one guy, you'd 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."
