How a ‘momfluencer’ with millions of viewers cruelly abused her own children
Ruby Franke gained a huge following as a ‘momfluencer’ with one of YouTube’s biggest channels, ‘8 Passengers’, documenting the lives of her and her husband as a married couple with six children.
Behind closed doors, however, that marriage started to fall apart, and in 2021 they turned to therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, who suggested they live separately to save the relationship.
The two women later began working together offering parenting seminars, launching another YouTube channel, and publishing content on their shared Instagram page ‘Moms of Truth’.
Together, they doled out advice and promoted honest lifestyles, using their brand as parenting role models to conceal what was happening behind the scenes.
It was only when Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home in southern Utah and asked a neighbour to call 911 that the true scale of the duo’s depravity was brought to light.
The women eventually pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse for trying to convince the youngsters they were evil, possessed and needed to be punished to repent.
Prosecutor Eric Clarke would later tell a court the kids were kept in a ‘concentration camp-like setting’.
In a plea deal, Franke admitted kicking her son while wearing boots, holding his head under water and closing off his mouth and nose with her hands.
She and Hildebrandt said they also forced him into hours of backbreaking work in the scorching summer heat without much food or water, causing dehydration and blistering sunburns.
The boy was told that everything being done to him was an ‘act of love’, according to the agreements.
Before her arrest, the Franke family had faced criticism from viewers who questioned some of their parenting practices, such as locking their oldest son out of his bedroom for seven months and refusing to take lunch to a kindergartener who forgot it at home.
The ‘8 Passengers’ YouTube channel, which started in 2015, ended after seven years and Franke’s husband Kevin has since filed for divorce.
Mr Franke, who was never charged in the case, moved out and stopped communicating with his family at Hildebrandt’s suggestion.
Hildebrandt admitted to coercing Franke’s youngest daughter, who was nine at the time, to jump into a cactus multiple times and run barefoot on dirt roads until her feet blistered.
The boy and girl were taken to the hospital after the arrests and placed in state custody along with two more of their siblings.
As she was jailed – potentially for decades, Franke issued a tearful apology to her children for the physical and emotional abuse they endured.
She also claimed she had been ‘manipulated’ by her fellow YouTuber and business partner.
‘I’ll never stop crying for hurting your tender souls,’ Franke said to her children, who were not present at the sentencing hearing in St George.
‘My willingness to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.’
In a brief statement, Hildebrandt stopped short of apologizing but said she loves the children and wants them to heal.
She reminded Judge John J Walton that she accepted her plea deal instead of going to trial because she did not want the children to have to relive their trauma by testifying.
Each charge for both women carries a prison sentence of one to 15 years, which will run consecutively.
But Utah law says that the maximum aggregate sentence for consecutive terms is 30 years.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.