The Story of Ruby Franke, Who Went to Prison for Abusing Her Own Children

From parenting advice to actual abuse—the tragic story of a mother-blogger with many children.

In August 2023, Utah police arrested Ruby Franke, a mother of six and well-known YouTuber who had gained fame by sharing her family life on her channel. However, behind the seemingly perfect family image, a horrifying reality unfolded—details of which later became public. Today, we’re answering the questions: who is Ruby Franke, and what she did to her family.

8 Passengers

On the screen appears a sweet-looking woman with blonde hair. Judging by the background, she is in her bedroom: a made bed, flowers, a floor lamp, and small statues on the nightstands are visible.

“So every time I plan a day off, I always ask myself, is it worth it, my plans?” she says—until a faint noise interrupts her. “Hey, I’m still recording!” the woman shouts in annoyance. “Why are you still making noise?”

The woman in the video is Ruby Franke, a Utah homemaker, mother of six children—two boys and four girls—and a popular American YouTuber. She ran the channel 8 Passengers, where she shared her family life. The channel was deleted in 2022, but clips from her vlogs can still be found online.

In February 2025, Hulu released a three-hour documentary about the Franke family, The Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, which includes archival and previously unreleased footage, as well as interviews with Ruby’s husband, Kevin Franke, and their two oldest children.

Ruby created the YouTube channel in 2015 to share everyday family life, funny moments with her children, and parenting advice. “We are here to show that happy families are real,” she stated in one archival video.

Like many Utah residents, Ruby and her family are Mormons, followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mormons identify as Christians but do not belong to any traditional branch of Christianity, maintaining their own interpretation of the Bible. Followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (as they call themselves) uphold ultra-conservative values, honor large families, and believe that a woman’s primary role is to serve her husband and family.

If Ruby Franke had appeared on social media in recent years, she would have been called a classic “tradwife” (traditional wife), like Hannah Nilman or Naru Smith (also Mormons), yet she somewhat anticipated the trend, foreshadowing the wave of this “traditional” content online.

The family’s religion played a significant role throughout this story—from beginning to end. “Our church and faith convinced us that the highest goal you can achieve in life is to become a parent,” Kevin Franke, Ruby’s husband, said. “And Ruby’s sole aim was to make everyone see her as the perfect mother.”

The concept of “perfection” and “flawlessness” is central to Mormon ideology. For Ruby, it was important not only to show the daily life of a mother of six but also to make it appear ideal and worthy of emulation. And it seemed she succeeded—from the channel’s launch in 2015, 8 Passengers steadily grew, attracting new subscribers and generating significant income for the Franke family as family vloggers.

By June 2020, the channel had reached its peak, with 2.5 million subscribers following Ruby and the other “passengers,” and it had amassed over a billion views. According to Kevin Franke, the first earnings from the channel were around $85, and at its peak, income exceeded $100,000 per month. The Mormon family vloggers were recognized in public, brands sought collaborations, and subscribers adored Ruby’s children while admiring her parenting style.

Naturally, fame and financial gain changed the Franke family. According to Kevin and their older children, Ruby never let the camera out of her hands, striving to capture every moment of their lives. She also demanded strict adherence to the scenarios she devised—children were often required to reenact spontaneous dialogues and events or display happiness and excitement even when they didn’t feel it. “All the kids were employees,” recalls the Frankes’ eldest daughter, Sherri Franke. “That’s what we were called: employees, and Ruby was the company director.”

What initially seemed exciting and unusual—virtual fan crowds, enthusiastic comments, family trips, and expensive gifts—quickly turned into routine and hard labor. The most challenging “passenger” was Ruby and Kevin’s oldest son, Chad. As an active and expressive child, Chad quickly charmed his mother’s YouTube audience. But as he grew and entered adolescence, he became increasingly reluctant to smile for the camera and started breaking the family’s rules, often resulting in severe punishments.

The Fatal Beanbag

The Franke family. Photo: Ruby Franke’s social media

Chad’s adolescent rebellion and his attempts to break free from his mother’s all-seeing eye led Ruby to completely lose control over her son—a process that, in a normal adolescent context, is completely natural, but which clearly conflicted with the image of the “perfect Franke family.” In her attempts to “help” her wayward son, Ruby turned to friends and neighbors, who recommended she consult Jodi Hildebrandt, a therapist widely known in the state.

Jodi was very popular among the Mormon community. She spoke their language, appeared convincing and authoritative, and, in addition to personal consultations, ran her own social media channels and hosted both in-person and virtual group sessions. In her “teachings,” Jodi used her own terminology, which her followers actively adopted.

Central to Hildebrandt’s approach were the concepts of Truth and Distortion. According to Jodi, everything deemed good fell under Truth, while anything deemed bad was labeled as Distortion. She promised to help parents guide their children from the path of Distortion toward infallible Truth. “Ruby was thrilled by everything she saw and heard,” Kevin recalls.

After this, Chad’s “fate” was set—Ruby enrolled him in therapy with Jodi, with the goal of correcting his behavior.

The methods recommended by Jodi turned out to be even harsher than Ruby’s own. “To make me obey, they had to take everything away from me,” Chad recalls. “All my devices, my phone, my console, no sports, they even sent me to a boot camp for troubled teens” — a type of program usually held outdoors where teens learn survival skills, self-care, and undergo intense physical activity.

According to Chad, at one point, his mother threatened to send him to a military-style camp, which scared him so much that he stopped resisting and eventually became the obedient, polite, God-fearing child that Ruby and Jodi had been trying to mold him into. Meetings with the therapist, however, didn’t end there—they intensified, and Jodi gradually became almost a full-fledged member of the Franke household, capable of making decisions regarding the children’s lives.

In May 2020, the 8 Passengers channel posted a video in which Ruby shared her parenting methods with viewers. She described a common family punishment: taking away an item important to the child—for example, a phone—until they corrected their problematic behavior. “You took my bedroom away for seven months and only gave it back a couple of weeks ago,” Chad said, looking toward Ruby. She just laughed: “I’m not sure our viewers realize this.” Amid his mother’s laughter, Chad continued: “I slept on a beanbag since October, and only a couple of weeks ago did I return to my room.”

In the video, Ruby appeared relaxed, as if nothing had happened—just a cheerful family sharing memories with their audience. But viewers had a very different opinion.

After the story about a teenager who couldn’t sleep in his bed for over half a year, the internet erupted with criticism of the Ruby Franke family. Subscribers began to drop, once-loyal viewers called for Child Protective Services to intervene, and other content creators started posting exposés on 8 Passengers. In hindsight, red flags had appeared in Ruby’s parenting practices before, but viewers had been so enchanted by the image of a happy, large family that they overlooked them.

For example, in an early video, Ruby attempted to teach her daughter (around 4–5 years old) not to play with scissors by threatening to cut off the head of her stuffed toy.

In another clip, Kevin, the father, confiscates Chad’s phone and reads aloud the messages he received from a girl he likes, amid giggles at the dining table. “Children know that phones are always accessible to parents in our house, so we can ensure their safety,” Kevin explains with a smirk.

Kevin and Ruby Franke. Screenshot: 8 Passengers / YouTube

Another widely criticized video was filmed while Ruby was driving. She shared a story about her six-year-old daughter forgetting her school lunch (which she was supposed to pack herself each morning) and expressed hope that “no one would share food with her,” so the child could learn the natural consequences of her mistake.

In general, the practice of depriving children of essential items, such as food, rest, and comfortable sleep—as well as punishments involving physical exertion and manual labor—was widespread in the Franke household. Viewers could easily observe this on the channel, but according to Ruby’s older children, off-camera, these punishments sometimes included physical abuse, with children occasionally having to clean blood off the walls.

The backlash against Ruby following the controversial beanbag video severely affected the parenting YouTuber. She had to remove several of the most contentious videos from the channel, but no public apology or expression of remorse followed. According to Kevin, they believed that everything happening to them was a targeted attack by the “woke” culture, which sought to punish them as proponents of traditional values.

Mothers of Truth

Jodi Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke. Photo: Moms of Truth social media

During this period, Jodi Hildebrandt became increasingly integrated into the Franke family. She had a large following of people who religiously attended her Connexions therapy program, hoping to protect themselves from “Distortion” and draw closer to “Truth.” Ruby also attended these Connexions Classroom sessions, later involving Kevin, and eventually, both Ruby and Kevin became speakers in the program, publicly discussing their parenting and partnership experiences to a wide audience.

Ruby immersed herself in Jodi’s world so deeply that she renamed her YouTube channel 8 Passengers to Mothers of Truth, where she uploaded joint livestreams with Jodi. According to a former colleague of Jodi’s, she always strategically selected partners to grow her business, and Ruby’s millions of views were clearly highly valuable to her.

In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic struck the world. For the Franke family, this was more than just an emergency—they were convinced that the world was on the brink of the Apocalypse and that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was imminent. At the same time, the relationship between Ruby and Jodi grew ever closer—Ruby believed that Jodi carried divine knowledge of Truth that needed to be preserved and spread to as many people as possible.

Ruby with her children in 2020. Photo: Moms of Truth social media

In May 2021, Jodi told the Frankes that she was being hunted by demonic forces and could not resist them alone—a few weeks later, she moved into the Franke home seeking protection and support. Household dynamics noticeably worsened: Ruby punished her younger children more harshly for disobedience and defiance, grew increasingly distant from her husband, and became convinced that her family, not living according to the Truth given to her by Jodi, was obstructing her sacred mission in the world.

Around a year later, in the summer of 2022, Ruby decisively severed ties with the older half of her family: she kicked out her husband and eldest son Chad (then 17), removed her eldest daughter Shari—who had already left for college—from the family health insurance, and prohibited any contact between them and her younger children. Complete isolation was imposed, and everyone complied without protest.

Little is known about how the Frankes spent the following year: Ruby had long stopped sharing vlogs about family life, ceased all communication with her husband and older children, and remained unfriendly with neighbors. Neighbors noted that Ruby often left the house for several days, leaving the children alone behind locked doors. When they encountered the children outside, they avoided contact and appeared detached.

Ruby’s eldest daughter, Shari, and the nearest neighbors contacted police and social services to check on the children’s living conditions, but after a few unsuccessful visits, authorities essentially shrugged—there was too little evidence to prove that the children living with their mother were in need of help.

On august 30, 2023, a boy around 11–12 years old knocked on the door of a house in Ivins, Utah. The homeowner opened the door to find an emaciated, malnourished child, his body covered in bruises and wounds, with construction tape wrapped around his arms and legs. The boy asked for only one thing: to be taken to the nearest police station. The kind stranger offered him a glass of water and a banana before calling 911. When the man described the boy’s condition to the dispatcher, he began to cry.

The boy was Ruby Franke’s youngest son, Russell, who had managed to escape from Jodi Hildebrandt’s house, where he had been held for several months and regularly subjected to torture.

Police arrived with paramedics, went to Jodi’s house, and arrested both Jodi and Ruby. They also found Ruby’s youngest daughter, Eve, sitting motionless in a locked closet, her head shaved. Later, officers discovered ropes and tape used to bind the children, as well as bloodied bandages and honey mixed with cayenne pepper, which the women had reportedly used to “treat” Russell’s wounds.

Investigators also recovered Ruby’s diary, in which she meticulously described everything she did to her children: systematically depriving them of food and water, forcing them to work for hours under the scorching sun, walking barefoot in the desert, and tying them up and beating them. According to Ruby and Jodi, the children were “possessed by demons,” and all of this was necessary to exorcise them. Any reaction from the children to the extreme abuse was interpreted as evidence of possession and proof that they needed to be “saved.”

What Happened Next

Photo from the Ruby Franke trial. Source: Associated Press

after the arrest of Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt, both were charged with aggravated child abuse and fully admitted their guilt. The court decided on sentencing them to 4 to 30 years in prison, with the final length of incarceration to be determined by the Utah State Board of Pardons and Parole.

In her final statement to the court, Ruby expressed remorse and noted that her actions had been influenced by external factors (likely referring to Jodi): “I was made to believe that the world is a terrible place, full of police who want to control everything, hospitals that want to harm, government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who only lie and indulge in lust, husbands who protect no one, and children who require violence. My choice to believe this paranoia and follow it led to criminal actions, for which I now stand before you, ready to take responsibility.”

Kevin Franke filed for divorce, with help from Utah family lawyer Randy Kester, from Ruby in 2023 — the process concluded in spring 2025, granting him full custody of the four minor children and ownership of the Franke family home in Springville, Utah.

Ruby’s eldest daughter, Shari, wrote and published a book titled The House of My Mother, recounting her childhood as a YouTube celebrity. She also developed and lobbied a law protecting child influencers: under the legislation, parent-bloggers must open a separate account in the child’s name if the child is involved in monetized content or advertising integrations and regularly deposit a portion of the earnings there. The law came into effect in Utah in 2024 — experts note that the state has become a real “incubator” for mom-bloggers.

Ruby Franke’s eldest daughter in 2021. Photo: Shari Franke’s social media

“My work is only just beginning,” Shari said. “I will continue fighting to put an end to family vlogging.”

The Franke children never received a dollar of the money earned while appearing on 8 Passengers.

Her eldest son, Chad Franke, continued his career as an influencer—now independently. Chad runs a TikTok account with over 700,000 followers, shares updates on other social media platforms (for example, he recently obtained a real estate license and got engaged), and posts humorous videos, some of which reflect on his childhood and his relationship with his mother.

After Ruby’s arrest, the four minor Franke children were placed in state custody, where they underwent psychological and physical rehabilitation after experiencing abuse. Although Kevin Franke gained full custody in 2025, it is not publicly known whether the children currently live together.

The story of Ruby Franke is a blend of a harrowing psychological thriller and real-life horror, involving exorcism, with no supernatural forces at play.

Although Ruby’s YouTube channel was deactivated in 2022, her Instagram account still exists under the name Moms of Truth. Scrolling through the feed, beyond the “educational” posts and videos she filmed with Jodi, one can still find the blog in its original form, as it was at the height of her career: joyful family photos, sponsored content, and short posts like “It’s nice when everyone is home!”

Ruby Franke with her children in 2018. Photo: Moms of Truth social media

There are hundreds of thousands of such blogs online, and naturally, not all hide something as disturbing as the now-defunct 8 Passengers. However, it’s important to remember that the general public almost never knows what truly lies behind the cheerful family images and seemingly casual videos.

Additionally, the Franke family’s shocking story reopened the conversation about what parenting methods are considered acceptable—and to what extent they should be publicly scrutinized. As online users noted after the beanbag incident, this was far from Ruby’s first harsh punishment of her children; however, it had previously gone largely unnoticed.

Some experts believe that Ruby’s content was popular because many modern parents are constantly searching for effective parenting methods. The strict discipline, presented against the backdrop of mainstream gentle parenting, seems both acceptable and effective to many. “Extreme disciplinary methods become appealing to parents who feel lost and desperate, especially in situations involving challenging behavior, and particularly if they see results,” explained family psychologist Maryhan Baker.

According to Shari, Ruby’s eldest daughter, her mother’s “disciplinary” methods and what they ultimately became did not appear suddenly: “I wouldn’t blame Jodi for how far Ruby went. She simply awakened in Ruby what was already in her heart.”

FAQs

Where are Ruby Franke’s 6 children now?

The two oldest Franke children, Shari and Chad, are living independently. Shari is working to pass legislation to protect the children of family vloggers, while Chad is a real estate agent and influencer. The four younger children, Abby, Julie, Russell, and Eve, were taken into state custody after Ruby’s arrest. Kevin has been fighting for custody of the children since.

Which children was Ruby Franke convicted of abusing?

Ruby Franke was convicted of abusing two out of her six children, Russell and Eve.

How did Ruby Franke’s children react to her arrest and conviction?

At first, they were in disbelief that their mother could do such horrible things to her children. Slowly, everything started to make sense, and the children remembered their own upbringing while being on camera and the abuse they had faced.

What did Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt do?

Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were both convicted of abusing two of Franke’s young children. They physically abused them while also refusing to feed them.

When was Ruby Franke arrested?

Ruby Franke was arrested on August 30, 2023, along with her accomplice, Jodi Hildebrandt.

Is Ruby Franke in jail?

Yes, Ruby Franke is in jail serving a minimum sentence of 4 years and a maximum sentence of 60 years.

Cover image: abcnews.go.com