Ruby Franke

 

Ruby Franke (née Griffiths; born January 18, 1982) is an American former family vlogger who ran the now-defunct YouTube channel called 8 Passengers. On August 30, 2023, Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested in Washington County, Utah, and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse of two of Franke's children under Utah law, four counts to which she pled guilty. She was sentenced to serve between four and thirty years in prison on February 20, 2024.

Career

In early 2015, Franke created a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers in which she documented her family life in Utah with her husband, Kevin, and their six children. She originally posted five days a week at 6:00 a.m. As of June 2020, the channel had around 2.5 million subscribers and amassed 1 billion views.

Beginning in 2020, when one of the Franke children said that he had been banned from his bedroom and made to sleep on a bean bag for seven months, viewers became concerned about his mother's disciplinary methods, which also included withholding food, sending a child to a wilderness camp for troubled teens, threatening to behead a stuffed toy, and telling two of her children that Santa Claus would not be bringing them anything for Christmas that year because they were too "numb" to respond to other punishments. A Change.org petition was launched reporting perceived child abuse and neglect. The Franke parents posted in defense of the discipline, saying the incidents had been taken out of context. The 8 Passengers YouTube channel declined in popularity in 2021.

In 2022, the Frankes separated, and Kevin moved out of the house. Ruby deleted the YouTube channel and began working as a mental health coach at ConneXions, a company run by Jodi Hildebrandt, a counselor. They launched a new video channel together called ConneXions in 2022, and created a joint Instagram account called Moms of Truth, offering parenting classes. Neighbors and the Frankes' oldest daughter, a college student, called authorities to check on the latter's siblings after observing that their mother often left the children alone at home.

Arrest and charges

On August 30, 2023, Franke and Hildebrandt were arrested in Ivins, Utah, and two days later, both were charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse, a felony. According to a statement from the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department, the arrests were triggered after Franke's twelve-year-old son, who appeared emaciated and had "open wounds and duct tape around the extremities", had escaped through a window of Hildebrandt's house and asked at a neighboring house for food and water. Emergency services found Franke's ten-year-old daughter in the house, also malnourished; both children were taken to a hospital, where the boy was treated for severe malnourishment and "deep lacerations from being tied up with rope". A search of the house found evidence "consistent with the markings" on the twelve-year-old, and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services took the boy and girl and two more of Franke's children into care. Police later reported that according to the boy, cayenne pepper and honey had been used to dress his wounds.

Franke and Hildebrandt were held without bail. Hildebrandt surrendered her license as a counselor pending the resolution of the court case and a disciplinary investigation. After her arrest, YouTube banned Franke from the platform, also deleting two channels that were linked to her.

On December 18, 2023, Franke pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. She later pleaded not guilty to two other counts. The factual basis mentioned an incident of Franke forcing her son to work outdoors over several weeks with inadequate protection, resulting in severe sunburns, and claims that the children were possessed. Franke agreed to serve a prison sentence and to serve her respective sentences consecutively rather than concurrently. Franke was expected to testify against Hildebrandt in Hildebrandt's upcoming trial, but Hildebrandt separately pleaded guilty to four counts of felony aggravated child abuse on December 27, with two charges dropped as part of another plea deal. On February 20, 2024, Franke received four consecutive sentences of between one and fifteen years' imprisonment, meaning she must serve a minimum term of four years. Although the maximum term that could be imposed for all sentences would be 60 years, the Utah Code dictates that the time served by a defendant upon whom consecutive sentences are imposed must not exceed 30 years, except in circumstances of life imprisonment or the death penalty. The exact term she will serve is to be decided by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.

Personal life

The Frankes are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their oldest daughter has stated that she has long disapproved of her mother's parenting strategies.

Franke has three sisters who are also parenting influencers; they disassociated themselves from her actions in a joint statement and later in individual videos.

In November 2023, Franke's husband filed for divorce after the couple had been separated for more than a year.