Mommy blogger Ruby Franke's husband says 'some crazy s--t' went on in abuse accomplice's $5.3M fortress
In a 2023 audio interview with Utah police conducted after Ruby Franke's arrest for child abuse, her estranged husband, Kevin Franke, detailed his wife's "bats--t crazy" relationship with her accomplice, Jodi Hildebrandt.
Ruby, a 41-year-old mother of six, and Hildebrandt, a 54-year-old mother of two, ran a joint parenting and lifestyle YouTube channel called ConneXions Classrooms. In December, both pleaded guilty to four of six counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse inflicted upon two of the Frankes' children in a St. George courtroom.
In February, Ruby and Hildebrandt were each sentenced to serve four consecutive terms between one and 15 years in prison.
The interview began with Kevin telling Santa Clara-Ivins police officers about a journal that he and his wife gifted to Hildebrandt in 2022 called "The Pen Papers," where "Ruby wrote detailed notes of everything — all interactions with Jodi… from August 2021 until I don't know when."
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"The stuff she wrote in The Pen Papers is not stuff she would write in her journals. The stuff she wrote in The Pen Papers was not intended to be read by anybody until God would decree them to be written in scripture for the whole world," Kevin told police. "It described all of the visions and trances and everything that Jodi and Ruby went into. … There were hundreds of pages of written documents that Ruby had."
"It's something Jodi would not want found, but she wouldn't want to destroy it," he added.
The interview goes on to highlight Kevin's account of his wife's bizarre relationship with Hildebrandt, a formerly licensed therapist, before and after the pair decided to start their ConneXions Classrooms vlog on YouTube and host conferences throughout the country.
In 2023, the two pals and business partners were arrested for abusing Ruby's two youngest children, a 9-year-old girl and 12-year-old boy. Some of the abuse occurred in Hildebrandt's home. The allegations against Ruby and Hildebrandt only came to light after Ruby's son fled Hildebrandt's Ivins home and ran to a neighbor, who called 911 after seeing the malnourished boy with duct tape on his wrists and ankles.
Ruby and Hildebrandt initially became close around 2019 due to their similar lifestyle and parenting views, Kevin said in the police interview. Hildebrandt also encouraged Kevin to attend her men's group in which men talked about their struggles with different addictions.
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"There were probably 10 men in there. It was on Zoom. All of them were working through various stages of sex addiction, porn addiction, drug addiction. It was like a 12-step group for general addiction recovery," he told police.
Between 2020 and about 2022, Ruby, who was already a successful blogger at the time with a YouTube channel called 8Passengers, yearned for a closer relationship with Hildebrandt, Kevin told police in the video. So when Hildebrandt apparently found herself in a cult-like situation with other women and escaped, Ruby jumped at the chance to help her, Kevin said.
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Ruby and Kevin both traveled to Hildebrandt's $5.3 million modern mountain fortress in Ivins.
"It blew my mind," Kevin told police of her home, adding that he thought, "How does a therapist live like this?"
He went on to describe strange happenings that occurred inside Hildebrandt's home while they were all there together.
"I'm a smart guy. I'm an engineer. I've designed, I've helped build some really big stuff. I'm a college professor. I can't explain some of the stuff that happened while we were there, like crashes in the basement while we were talking upstairs, and plates in the kitchen just flying off by themselves, like, full-speed smashing off the wall and falling to the floor by themselves," he told police. "I can't explain it, but I saw it with my own eyes, and I don't have any way to explain it other than there was some crazy s--t going on."
Ruby felt she could help Hildebrandt, and eventually invited the therapist to stay in her family's Springville home.
"The moment she showed up at my house, the weirdest crap started happening. Lights turning on and off, sounds of people walking in walls, like sounds of footprints going up walls and across the ceiling, and stuff floating around. It was weird, and I hated it," Kevin said. "They started sleeping in the same bed, and then she started having, like, trances and stuff… probably September, where she believed she was going to Heaven and seeing God and Jesus."
Soon after inviting Hildebrandt into their home, Kevin said, Ruby asked him for "an in-home separation," meaning Kevin could still live in the home, but they would not act as a married couple.
"Basically there were all these rules now placed on me. Like, I could leave when I wanted, but I couldn't come back until Ruby gave me permission. I couldn't come into the kitchen to eat until Ruby gave me permission. And the upstairs, where Jodi roamed, was completely off-limits. I couldn't go upstairs in my own house," Kevin explained.
Ruby, Hildebrandt and their friends would gather and discuss visions they were having.
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"She was having these visions. … One of them, she was walking along the beach with Jesus, and Jesus challenged her to walk on the water, and it was a whole lesson on walking on the water," Kevin said. "There were a lot of Satanic ones where, when she would go into possession mode, she would talk in different voices. It was really creepy. But the voices would say, ‘She’s ours. We're not letting go. She is Satan's bride. She's mine. I'm going to marry her.'"
Ruby eventually told Kevin that she and Hildebrandt wanted to do "work that they felt like God had for them," he told police. Hildebrandt wanted to partner with Ruby, and Ruby was willing to give up 8Passengers to pursue a new lifestyle blog with Hildebrandt, Kevin explained.
"I thought it was crazy. I thought it was just bats--t crazy. Like, Ruby, you have a reputation. You have a multimillion-dollar business. You have a brand. And you are just giving it away," he told police. "She wanted to legally work with Jodi's attorney to basically give Jodi 8Passengers and become an employee of ConneXions."
Ruby apparently told Kevin that it was not "about money" but "about doing God's work."
In July 2022, Ruby asked Kevin to leave their home.
"I can't describe to you what torture and hell it was to live an entire… it was more than a month, really, in complete isolation, believing that I was, like, evil, and manipulative and lying and selfish and that I had abandoned my family and that I was more interested in my selfishness than my family," he said of their in-home separation before he left.
Kevin told police in another video-recorded interview that he had not seen his children in over a year by the time police arrested Ruby and Hildebrandt.
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"We've had zero communications regarding kids. I have no reason to believe or think that there was anything going on," he told police on Aug. 30, 2023 — the day they were arrested. "For all intents and purposes, I woke up this morning looking at the picture of my family and making my commitment today, as I do every day, that I'm going to live an honest, virtuous and a responsible life to them. And what you're sharing with me just feels like a sucker punch."
Journal entries released by the Washington County Attorney's Office that Ruby wrote starting in May 2023 detail the mom of six's disturbing thoughts directed at her own children.
On June 9, 2023, Ruby wrote: "[R] turns 12 tomorrow. I never envisioned him being 12 and still pooping/peeing himself. Satanic choices lead one to becoming destitute — even in the most affluential [sic] homes."
The next day, she wrote: "It's [R's] birthday and he doesn't even know what month it is. [E & R] have been in so much deviant behavior, they won't even control their bodily functions. They are both furious their selfish sinful behavior is being intervened upon. I told [R] he emulates a snake. He slithers and sneaks around looking for opportunities when no one is watching and then he scurries. If he wants to emulate the savior, he needs to be 100% obedient."
In July 2023, Ruby detailed a moment between her and her youngest son, "R," in which she "commanded" the "demon friend" inside him to "get out."
"'R' immediately smiled, cried, slumped, soften [sic]. ‘He’s gone! He left!'" the journal entry states.
In the same entry, Ruby recounted a moment with her daughter in which she told the 9-year-old girl she is "not innocent," but she could "become innocent through repentance." She repeatedly described her daughter as "manipulative."
"These selfish selfish children who desire only to take, lie & attack have zero understanding for God's love for them," Ruby wrote just a month before her arrest.
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The abuse inflicted upon Ruby's children included forcing them to do physical labor, restricting food, binding one child's hands and feet, and emotional harm. Ruby and Hildebrandt told Ruby's children that they were evil and needed to be punished.
After rescuing the Frankes' youngest children from Hildebrandt's home Aug. 30, police from Springfield and other local agencies began to search for the other four kids, who were not with Hildebrandt at the time. They made contact with the two eldest children, Chad and Shari Franke — both living away from home at the time of the incident — in an effort to find the other two juveniles.
Authorities eventually located the two children at another adult's residence in nearby American Fork.