As you scroll through social media at the smiling, picture perfect images, much of what you see is only an illusion & a moment in time of a full life that’s happening outside the lens of the camera. You’re likely judging your own life in comparison to these images of what likely look like perfection; a gorgeous, tidy home, children in trendy, unblemished clothing, exotic travels to places you’ve yet to go. But these are just the carefully selected images the creator is choosing to share with the world as they present the best versions of their lives during their highest moments. People aren’t posting images of themselves laying on the couch after a rough day, the house in disarray, the fights between their children or spouses. We’re not privy to what happens after the camera is gone & in some cases, what we see is not at all reality.
Ruby Franke was well known for her popular YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, where the Utah wife & mother of six used her platform to discuss parenting & document her family life alongside her husband, Kevin. Those that followed her channel initially saw her as a charismatic social media personality, but as time went by, viewers grew concerned with her harsh forms of discipline. Despite these concerns, followers never fathomed the depths of her dark, sick & violent side. In December 2023, the 42-year-old went on to plead guilty to four felony counts of child abuse & is now serving up to fifteen years in prison.
Ruby was born in Utah in January 1982 where she grew up within the Mormon church with three sisters & one brother. Ruby met Kevin Franke when she was 18 & he was 21. Kevin went on to become a professor of engineering at Brigham Young University. Ruby always expressed that she wanted to have many children & be a stay-at-home mom & the couple were soon married & started a large family, ultimately having six children.
The children were born between March 2003 & September 2013 & in 2023 Shari was 20, Chad 18, Abby 16, Julie 14, Russell 12 & Eve 10.
The family were devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints & religion heavily influenced the family dynamic. Ruby started her YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, in January 2015 & soon she & Kevin rose to internet fame as she documented their hectic daily lives with six kids under 12-years-old. In their very first video, Ruby, who was surrounded by her children, cut into a cake that would reveal the gender of their final, sixth child. At its height, 8 Passengers had more than 2 million subscribers & gave viewers a glimpse into their world as they raised, disciplined & went on to home-school their children.
The family lived in Springville, Utah & Ruby described the purpose of her vlogging as a way to let my heart rate come down & just enjoy being with the kids as they are right now. She wanted other moms, who were in the thick of raising their babies, to see that there was a light at the end of the tunnel & all the effort was well worth it.
Ruby was a gorgeous woman with a beautiful home & children, she had a loving husband & those that watched saw a picture-perfect, classic, American life. It was clear to her viewers that she was a strong disciplinarian & as time went on & the channel’s popularity grew, so did viewer’s concerns over the couple’s harsh parenting style.
One video showed her young son looking for his misplaced socks outside. When he found them, she ordered him to drop & give me ten. In another, she scolded her very young daughter for cutting household items. As she held the child’s beloved blue stuffed animal, she warned her, If you cut one more thing in my house, I’m going to take the scissors & cut its head off.
Influencer Kendra Lee Bryan saw a mother who was exploiting her own children for her personal gain. Many of the videos showed Ruby filming private moments with her children that could be perceived as humiliating as she disciplined them, millions of viewers watching these interactions that the children were too young to consent to.
Four years into documenting their lives, Ruby had made $2 million due to the views & sponsorship on their YouTube channel.
As Ruby’s son Chad entered his teenage years, she & Kevin met a woman named Jodi Hilderbrandt, who lived in the affluent city of Ivins, Utah, 260 miles/418 kilometers south of Springville where the Franke family lived. Jodi was the founder of a program she created in 2007 called ConneXions that offered counseling to families, individuals & couples. The company was extremely successful & Jodi was estimated to be worth more than $4 million. Ruby & Kevin sought Jodi’s professional help for Chad’s behavioral issues.
After providing counseling services to Chad, Jodi moved on to provide marriage counseling for Ruby & Kevin, going as far as moving into the family home. As time passed, Jodi & Ruby spent more & more time together.
In August 2019 when Chad was 14, Kevin & Ruby sent him to the Anasazi Foundation Wilderness Therapy Program which is an “outdoor behavioral health program” for kids between 12-17 who are struggling with defiance, family conflict, mental health & lack of motivation. Ruby indicated that Chad would be spending ten weeks living in the mountains of Arizona, but never specified why they made this decision. Kevin indicated that over the years, things had just accumulated & they felt that he needed to mature.
A video posted in February 2020 depicted Ruby in her car as she told viewers that she’d received a text from her then-6-year-old daughter Eve’s kindergarten teacher, letting her know that she didn’t have her lunch. Ruby responded to the teacher that Eve was responsible for making her lunches in the morning & she would just have to go hungry. She elaborated that she hoped that none of her daughter’s classmates would share food with her since she wouldn’t learn from her mistakes, My hope is that she’ll be hungry & come home & go ‘oh man, that was really painful being hungry all day, I will make sure to always have a lunch for me.’
In another video, Ruby explained that she’d taken some of her children’s prized possessions, including her son’s homework & was planning to throw them in the garbage if they didn’t buy them back from her or earn them back by doing chores. Ruby held up a garbage can full of her kid’s belongings & explained that they needed to learn the value of their items. The camera panned to her son Chad, who was sitting at the table with a horrified look on his face. Kevin added that whatever wasn’t claimed by the end of the day would be thrown away. The video got more than 5.7 million views & many viewers were outraged & commented about their disgust with the situation. Many also voiced concerns of potential abuse happening in the household.
In another video from 2021, Ruby explained that she & Kevin decided that their two youngest children wouldn’t be getting Christmas gifts that year because of long patterns of selfishness. She elaborated, We told them that this year they aren’t going to be visited by Santa. We prepped them, we let them know that on Christmas morning, their four older siblings will be getting Christmas presents to open & that they’ll have the gift of love from their dad & I. She said that they were keeping them home from school & having them clean the house as punishment, but that didn’t work.
Ruby was still posting multiple times a week to 8 Passengers & criticism began to emerge as videos drew suspicions of abuse & exploitation from viewers. Local child protective services were reportedly called in June 2020 after a Change.org petition called on the family to be investigated. The petition referenced a now-deleted video of 15-year-old Chad sharing that he’d slept on a beanbag for seven months as part of a punishment after he played a prank on his younger brother. In the video, Ruby sat between Chad & another child as Chad explained that he hadn’t slept in his room since October. Ruby laughed as he told the story & said, I don’t think our viewers know that.
Viewers were outraged by this video & one week later, the petition was started by concerned viewers & soon, they gathered nearly 20,000 signatures.
She & Kevin defended their actions, explaining that ‘therapists & psychological professionals’ recommended that Chad & 10-year-old Russell, who had been sharing a bedroom, be separated due to a series of incidents between them. She argued that she offered Chad a pullout guest bed, an inflatable air mattress or a beanbag & he chose the beanbag. She went on to say that she & Kevin taught their children to be self-governing & they always had a choice in everything. According to Ruby, Chad could sleep in his brand new bedroom & get his bed back when he started behaving better & it had taken him seven months to make that choice.
Utah’s Division of Child & Family Services visited the Franke home but the case was closed due to unsupported claims. The Springville Police Department was aware of concerns about the children’s safety & wellbeing which they looked into. According to Lance Haight, Chief of Police for the Springville PD, there were no findings of criminal conduct at that time. Officer Haight indicated that the children’s physical needs were being met & they were not being physically abused.
In order to control the critics, Ruby & Kevin disabled the comment section from their social media channels & hired a lawyer to send cease & desist letters to vloggers making content about them. Viewership & sponsorship began to dwindle. In the end, Ruby posted over 1,200 videos before she suddenly stopped in January 2022, her last video of her youngest daughter’s baptism. Throughout her seven years as a YouTube star, there were many concerns voiced.
The channel ended in January of 2022 & Ruby separated from Kevin by summer 2022 when he was asked to leave the family home. Ruby soon began collaborating with a new business partner & life coach, her former counselor, Jodi Hildebrandt. On the ConneXions website, Ruby was listed as a “certified mental fitness trainer.”
While working for Jodi’s counseling company, ConneXions Classroom, she & Jodi provided parenting seminars & launched another YouTube channel & posted content to their shared Instagram account, Moms of Truth. Here, they gave advice specifically to LDS moms who were struggling to discipline their children. Despite their collaboration, Ruby later denied being Jodi’s business partner & claimed she had never been paid by Jodi’s company.
During one ConneXions video, Ruby was asked why she ended her YouTube channel & she indicated that she wanted to ‘save her kids’ because they were ‘being hurt’ by the constant advice being given by her followers.
Jodi & Ruby spoke about how nothing within a child’s life was their own including their privacy or any of their belongings & according to Jodi, If you’ve graciously given them a room, that room’s yours, it’s not theirs. Viewers from 8 Passengers watched these videos & felt deeply concerned about the way that Ruby spoke about the evil inside children. Her parenting style & techniques seemed wildly more extreme & than they had previously been & viewers felt these changes were likely due to Jodi’s influence.
As people began to look into Jodi Hildebrandt’s past, they were deeply concerned. Former clients of Jodi’s described her program as isolating them from loved ones & destroying marriages. One client indicated that during a men’s group meeting, Jodi was completely out of line & outed his friend in front of the group despite the fact that he had yet to come out as gay which nearly destroyed him. It was at this point, the client stood up & confronted Jodi, There is something inside you that is evil.
During a video that Jodi recorded solo, she said, Men & men can marry & women & women. When that law was passed, it opened the floodgates for every other devious, vile, sexually permissive & destructive behaviors to be engaged upon.
Another time Jodi even had her professional license suspended after she discussed confidential client information to members of the church without the client’s consent.
Seven former clients who used her services between 2008-2019 indicated that Jodi encouraged them to cut off others who were not living in accordance with her teachings. One client indicated that Jodi believed that if you were following her ways, you were living in truth & she wanted her clients to only associate with people who were also living in truth. According to 29-year-old Stephanie Jones, you were not allowed to have a differing opinion from Jodi’s & she began to feel as if the teachings were cult-like.
Former clients were all active members of the church at the time they were being counseled & indicated that Jodi took an extreme approach to LDS lessons & teachings which revolved around concepts of “truth” & “deception” & how people live in “distortion” when they allowed their wants, needs & experiences to impact their commitments to the “truth.”
Despite Jodi’s extremely cult-like, concerning practices, her life coaching business remained successful which afforded her a sprawling home in Ivins that was more than 9,000 square feet.
In early 2023, Ruby took her youngest children out of school & began to homeschool them. Neighbors within Springville felt a sudden shift & no longer saw the Franke children playing within the neighborhood. They were accustomed to seeing the kids riding their scooters or walking the dog which no longer happened.
Jodi had been staying in the Franke family home, however she & Ruby transitioned to staying in Jodi’s $5 million Ivins home, over 3.5 hours south of Springville. Sometimes she left her children behind & by this time, Ruby’s 19-year-old daughter had severed ties from her parents because of her mom’s increasingly concerning behavior. In September 2022, she was so concerned for her siblings that she called 911:
My four younger siblings are living in Springville & my neighbors have been telling me that they have been left home alone for about four or five days.
Ruby’s daughter asked if a welfare check could be done; at this point in time, the youngest of the Franke children would have been about 8-years-old & the next about 12. The officer knocked on the door & saw children inside the home, but they didn’t answer the door. Over the course of a couple of weeks, officers made five attempts to revisit the home to make contact. According to the chief of police, there wasn’t enough evidence for the court to grant a search warrant.
On August 30, 2023, another 911 call came through & a man from Ivins informed officers that a 12-year-old boy had come to his front door asking for help. Ruby’s son climbed out of a window of Jodi’s home & walked to two area homes in hopes of finding help, but there was no answer at either house. As he prepared to walk away from the third house that he approached, a man opened the door & the boy asked for two favors, to be taken to the nearest police station. Before he went on to say his second favor, he indicated that that one favor was fine. The Ring doorbell footage captured the boy ringing the doorbell at 10:46 am where he wore checkered shorts & a blue button-down shirt which sat loosely on his exceptionally thin frame.
The man instructed the boy to have a seat & asked him what was going on. The young boy told him that it was personal business.
The boy was emaciated & covered in wounds, he had wounds with duct tape around his ankles & wrists so the man sat the boy on a porch chair & offered him a banana & water before he called authorities. The man unsuccessfully tried to hold back tears as he told the dispatcher that the boy was hungry & thirsty & the boy indicated that what had happened to him was his fault. He also told the neighbor that he should take him to jail because he believed he was in trouble. He said that he was being held in Jodi’s home & while on the line, the neighbor said, She’s a bad lady. We didn’t realize how bad.
The man stayed on the line until the ambulance arrived only minutes later. As he was on the phone, a woman in the video could be seen crouching down to the boy’s level to comfort & reassure him. She ran in & out of the house, giving him food.
As first responders arrived at the scene & saw the state of the boy’s wounds, they had to step away to shed tears of grief over what the boy had clearly been subjected to. He was placed into the ambulance & paramedics began to immediately treat his wounds while officers took pictures. As they questioned who did this to him, they reminded him that he wasn’t in trouble.
As soon as the duct tape & clear plastic were removed from the boy’s ankles & arms, the paramedics could see that the flesh was dark in color & wet in appearance & omitted a pungent odor. He told the officers that he’d gotten the wounds from a rope that he was tied to while he was on the ground & it was Jodi & his mom Ruby who had restrained him. There was extensive muscle & tissue damage from the ropes & handcuffs that had been used & these wounds had been improperly treated with a mixture of cayenne pepper & honey & then covered in plastic wrap & duct tape. As the paramedics tried to carefully remove the plastic wrap & tape, the boy’s skin also came off.
Investigators learned that the young boy had tried to escape from the home a month earlier in July when he was caught & his hands & feet were bound with handcuffs. This time, when he was successful in his escape, he told officers that he wanted to get help for himself & his younger sister who was 9-years-old.
Officers immediately went to Jodi’s home as the boy was being treated in the ambulance. Officers repeatedly banged on the exceptionally large & heavy front door while continuously ringing the doorbell. When Jodi finally opened the door, she was already on the line with her attorney. She boldly told officers that she would not be stepping out of her house as they began to physically remove her. A search of the property was conducted based on exigent circumstances.
They found the 9-year-old little girl sitting inside a dark bathroom closet, emaciated with her head shaved. She sat stoically & silently, initially not answering any of their questions. Kind & compassionate first responders sat with the traumatized little girl for multiple hours until she eventually felt safe enough to begin to speak. They gave her pizza & a drink as they continued to reassure her that they were there to help her, just as they were helping her brother. Finally, she felt secure enough to stand & go with the responders.
Both children were taken to the hospital where they were treated for three days & in the meantime, officers were dispatched to Ruby’s home in Springville where they had to break through the door to gain entry & found the house empty. Investigators were aware of the fact that two of Ruby’s adult children, who were 18 & 20, had already moved out, but two of her teenage daughters were unaccounted for & officers feared the possibility that they could be deceased.
Investigators who continued to search Jodi’s home became increasingly concerned as they came across what appeared to be a vaulted panic room & set off to obtain a search warrant so they could enter. In the meantime, they made their way through the compound-like home, room, by room, finding other items indicative of torture that included ropes, adult diapers, duct tape & wound dressings that were coated in cayenne pepper.
A little over two hours later, officers had the warrant to enter the vault-like room that was secured with a massive safe. Once inside they found rope, handcuffs & a Murphy bed with a toilet in the room & realized that the room served the purpose of holding the children as prisoners.
When Jodi finally did sit down & speak with authorities, she said that she was nervous. She explained that her attorney told her not to say anything & elaborated, I have nothing to hide. She told officers that if they knew all the pieces, they would have a lot of empathy.
Four hours after the raid of Jodi’s home began, Ruby finally arrived & her 16 & 14-year-old daughters were not with her. While she was detained at the house, she opted not to speak with police & would only occasionally nod yes & no to basic questions.
When she was brought into an interview room at the station, she continued to stare at officers & would only blink in response to their questions until she finally said that she would speak once she had a lawyer. Her behavior was so bizarre that an officer asked her if she needed medical attention before going to the jail & Ruby muttered no.
Meanwhile, Springville officers were alerted to the fact that someone had seen Ruby’s 16-year-old daughter earlier in the day at a rec center when she was leaving with an adult woman who was not Ruby. Surveillance was pulled & officers saw the girl leaving with a woman who ended up living 20 miles north of Springville. When officers arrived at the home, they found both girls who appeared to be worried but physically unharmed. Ruby’s friend indicated that Ruby had asked them to take care of the girls for the evening because she had a family emergency. The woman said she agreed & added that she could watch them because I could use some help cleaning.
Within hours of Ruby’s 12-year-old son ringing the doorbell, both 54-year-old Jodi & 42-year-old Ruby were arrested for child abuse & Ruby’s four minor children were placed in state custody. In December, both women pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse.
As the women were taken to jail, officers continued their extensive search of both homes & found a stack of journals that belonged to Ruby that discussed the full extent of the abuse that occurred from May-August 2023. Ruby forced her youngest son & daughter to perform manual labor for hours at a time under the scorching Utah sun, laboring outside, barefoot, as their skin became more & more sunburned. Their skin blistered & sloughed off as a result of the burns & they were regularly denied adequate food & water. Many nights, they weren’t allowed to sleep in a bed, forced to sleep in a concrete bunker in Jodi’s basement. At times they were given sedatives. Sometimes they were forced to stand on the incredibly hot cement patio outside, in the summer heat for hours or even days at a time.
If Ruby learned that they’d gotten themselves something to eat or drink without her consent, they would be punished. They were forced to lift & carry boxes up & down the stairs, hold wall sits for hours. They were isolated & forbidden to interact with others while being denied all forms of entertainment. If a visitor came to Jodi’s home, the children were locked away & hidden.
The children were repeatedly told that they were evil & possessed & were made to believe that the punishments & torture they endured were necessary to repent. One entry read, If you can engage a weak minded soul in a physical activity of obedience you can begin to break the bond Satan made with the weak. In another she wrote, These selfish children who only desire to take, lie & attack have zero understanding of God’s love for them. She also wrote about how her son refused to do any more work & began screaming. As a punishment, his hair was shaved off. The next day, the entry indicated that he attempted to run away.
She wrote that she held her son’s head under running water while she covered his mouth & nose with her hands & told him that she was trying to save him from the devil. She justified not providing the children with food as she will not feed a demon.
One entry mentioned that it was her son’s 12th birthday, but he didn’t even know what month it was. She called her children compulsive liars in her entries & of her son she wrote that she never would have suspected the cold, dead heart he has.
In her journal entries, Ruby referred to her daughter as manipulative & cut off her hair so that it wouldn’t be a distraction. She also wrote that she shaved her daughter’s head for whining & specified, If she’s going to act sick, she can look sick.
Entries also indicated that the women were in search of “open land” in Arizona where these two can work. Jodi had already found a 500-acre plot of land where they planned to build a ranch. On August 27, 2023, Ruby wrote about how they were packing up to prepare for the move & only three days later, the 12-year-old managed to escape the house of horrors in search of help.
Investigators found that extreme religious beliefs motivated the women to inflict the horrendous abuse & seemed to fully believe that the abuse was necessary to teach the children how to repent for the imagined sins or cast the evil from their bodies.
Many wondered where the children’s father was throughout the horrific abuse & when investigators tracked Kevin down, he appeared to be stunned in the interrogation footage when he was informed of his children’s poor condition. He indicated that he hadn’t seen Ruby or his children since July 24, 2022, over a year prior, when she asked him to move out. He said he chose to trust his wife with the children as part of their separation & claimed he had been deceived & Jodi had destroyed his family.
Kevin elaborated that as soon as Jodi moved in with them, his relationship with his wife changed & he was forced to adhere to certain rules that included in-home separation from Ruby. He wasn’t allowed to enter the kitchen to eat until Ruby gave him permission, he wasn’t allowed upstairs in the home, he could leave on his own accord but could only return with permission from Jodi. He said that despite the fact that he did all he could to win Jodi’s approval, she continuously accused him of being manipulative. He became increasingly isolated until he began to question his sanity & he was ultimately pushed out of his own home. Kevin never faced any charges in this case.
During her time behind bars, Ruby made several phone calls to Kevin & in these recorded calls, she basically blamed what was happening on the children because they were full of evil. When Kevin informed her that they would be hospitalized for three days, she responded, So weird. It’s just not necessary. They’re trying to exaggerate this.
Ruby was originally charged with six counts of child abuse but because she accepted a plea deal, two counts were dropped. Under Utah law, a second-degree aggravated child abuse charge carries a sentence of 1-15 years in prison. As part of the plea agreement, she had to testify against Jodi who she claimed had influenced her actions. Ruby Franke & Jodi Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse & on February 20, 2024, Judge John J. Walton sentenced them each to serve four to thirty years in the Utah State Prison which is the maximum sentence for this sort of offense.
After the arrest, Ruby’s oldest daughter Shari took to Instagram & made a few posts, the first depicted an image of a police cruiser & the caption read, Finally. In another, she wrote that she & her family were relieved that justice was finally being served. She elaborated that they had been trying to tell both CPS & the police about what had been going on within the home.
Ruby’s sisters also posted a statement saying that for three years they’d tried everything they could to ensure that the children were safe but kept quiet for the sake of the children. They clarified that Ruby had separated herself & the children from them despite their best efforts to stay connected to the children. They were unaware that their sister had been subjecting the younger children to the abuse.
On Friday, August 30, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Ruby & Jodi’s arrests, 19-year-old Chad Franke posted about it on Snapchat & depicted a photo of his mom with the caption, Happy Prisonversary. He also posted a video to Instagram on June 17 with the caption, GOT A TATTOO OF MY MOM FOR THE SUMMER. The video shows Chad wiping lotion from his arm to reveal nothing on his forearm.
Had it not been for Ruby’s 12-year-old son’s immense bravery, he & his younger sister likely would not have survived the abuse & torture much longer.
In November 2023, Kevin Franke filed for divorce from Ruby & has been fighting for full custody of his children.
Jodi’s Ivins, Utah home at 854 W Tawgoo Ct is currently for sale for $4,995,000.
Jodi’s niece Jessi spoke out in response to her aunt’s arrest & detailed how she had also been subjected to abuse while living at her home. She was also restrained & duct taped & forced to sleep outside.
If you suspect child abuse, please call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453 or visit www.childhelp.org. These calls are free, confidential & available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
References:
- NBC News: Ruby Franke’s business partner gave life coaching that ruined lives, some former clients say
- People: Video shows moment Ruby Franke’s son, 12, showed up ‘emaciated’ at neighbor’s house, asking for ‘2 favors’
- YouTube: Law & Crime: Ruby Franke’s son begs for help after escaping Jodi Hilderbrandt’s home
- Biography: The story of Ruby Franke’s chilling spiral from popular “momfluencer” to convicted felon
- ABC News: YouTube vlogger Ruby Franke, business partner Jodi Hildebrandt sentenced in child abuse case
- ABC News: Controversial parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke formally charged with felony child abuse
- Daily Mail: Ruby Franke is slammed for threatening to throw all of her kids’ belongings in the trash – including their homework – if they failed to buy them back from her with cash or by doing chores
- YouTube: The Salt Lake Tribune: Bodycam footage shows Ruby Franke’s children being recovered from Jodi Hildebrandt’s home
- Washington State: Utah vs Franke/Hildebrandt
- The Salt Lake Tribune: Ruby Franke case : Police records , personal journal detailing child abuse released
- AP: ‘I will not feed a demon’: YouTuber Ruby Franke’s child abuse case rooted in religious extremism
- The Weddington Witness: 8 Passengers: The Ruby Franke Story
- CBS News: New details emerge as YouTuber Ruby Franke pleads guilty to child abuse, agrees to testify against therapist Jodi Hildebrandt
- KSLTV5: Where was Kevin Franke? Evidence in ‘8 Passengers’ abuse case reveals what he told police
- Peacock: Abused By Mom – The Ruby Franke Scandal
- People: Chad Franke marks 1 year since mom Ruby Franke was arrested & later sentenced for child abuse: ‘Happy Prisonversary’
