Ruby Franke rose to fame as a ‘momfluencer’ with one of YouTube’s biggest channels (Picture: moms_of_truth/Instagram)
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’.
But Franke, 42, soon became a divisive figure in the vlogging world, drawing criticism for certain parenting decisions, including banning her oldest son from his bedroom for seven months and refusing to bring her six-year-old daughter lunch to teach her a lesson for forgetting it.
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.
Before Franke’s arrest last summer, neighbours had grown concerned when they noticed how she appeared to leave her teenagers at home for weeks at a time while she visited Hildebrandt, 54, in southern Utah with the two youngest children.
Police and social workers all reportedly visited the family home several times, but no formal accusations were ever levelled.
It was only when Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home and asked a neighbour to call 911 that the true scale of the duo’s depravity was brought to light.
Franke, 42, later became a divisive figure in the vlogging world, drawing criticism for certain parenting decisions (Picture: moms_of_truth/Instagram)
The Frankes racked up more than 2.2 million subscribers for documenting her and her six kid’s day-to-day endeavors and uploading them on YouTube (Picture: Instagram/abbyfranke_8passengers)
Ruby Franke, (left)who ran the now-defunct 8 Passengers channel, was arrested along with her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt (right) on August 30 (Picture: Tiktok)
Franke during a hearing in St George, Utah (Picture: AP)
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.
Jodi Hildebrandt attends a hearing (Picture: AP)
Hildebrandt also 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.
Franke claimed she had been ‘manipulated’ by her fellow YouTuber and business partner (Picture: Instagram/@moms_of_truth)
‘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.
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