In the fast-paced world of social media influencers, Ruby Franke stood out as a beacon of maternal authenticity with her YouTube vlog named 8 Passengers, captivating audiences worldwide with her charming vlogs chronicling the joys and challenges of motherhood along her six children. However, behind the joyful facade lay a dark secret that would unravel her not so carefully crafted image.
As headlines broke of Ruby Franke’s shocking descent from mom vlogger sensation to a convicted criminal, the truth behind her downfall was not a shockwave through her online community, as users suspected mistreatment, aggression and even torture towards her children in most of her uploaded videos.
In her mind, she was always being an example of how parenting should look like. Instead of depicting her life as a mother, Ruby Franke recorded and vlogged every single moment of her children’s life, whether they were happy, sad or angry, whether they were at their house, in their car, at a restaurant or in a trip, always teaching “valuable” lessons along the way.
As her fan base grew, people who followed her channel started noticing strange patterns in Ruby Franke’s “lesson-teaching” to her children.
In every household there are several rules that have to be respected and followed for the family’s general well-being… or in most of them. Ruby decided that as a general rule, their children where prohibited to eat whenever they wanted to. Ruby would leave them without any food or water, as, in her words, “eating is earned”. So, for earning that food, they had to accomplish multiple house chores, school chores and favors to her mother for them to actually eat.
To her eldest son, Chad, Ruby decided to take away his whole bedroom, including his bed, leaving him sleeping on the floor for seven months as a punishment for playing a prank to his little brother.
Another general rule involved the concept of privacy. For Ruby Franke, “children do not deserve privacy”, and for that reason, she frequently told them that all the things that existed in her house were hers, including them. Therefore, she had the right to do anything she wanted with them.
She referred to her two youngest children, named Eve and Russell as selfish, and for this, she denied them presents for Christmas, while the rest of the family would open their gifts in front of them. She body-shamed Abbie, one of her middle daughters, calling her “big” and posting it for her viewers to see and comment on.
In one video, she even said she was angry because the teachers at her youngest’ preschool, Eve, had called her stating that there had been multiple times when Eve wouldn’t bring any lunch to school. To this, she said to the camera: “It is her (Eve’s) responsibility to remember packing her lunch, as it is her responsibility to wake herself up for preschool”. So if she got to school late or without any food, it would be Eve’s own fault and that alone would be her punishment.
On August 30th of last year, a 911 emergency call reached police stations, from a man claiming:
I’ve just had a twelve year old boy show up here at my front door asking for help. And he’s said he just came from a neighbor’s house, and we know there’s been problems at this neighbor’s house. He’s emaciated, he’s got tape around his legs, he’s hungry and he’s thirsty. […] They asked us to call the police, so he’s very afraid.
After further investigation, police discovered it was Russell Franke who had escaped her mother’s business partner house, Jodi Hildebrandt, to ask for help to one of their neighbors. He later explained that he climbed out the window, while having tape around his legs for preventing him and her daughter Eve from running away.
In December 2023, after several court hearings, Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were convicted to four counts of aggravated child abuse, to which they both pleaded guilty. We now know that, after almost four months of the event, both Ruby and her business partner have been sentenced from 4 to 30 prison years starting on February 20th, in which their exact prison time will be determined by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
To this case, people have complained and made public that the father of the children should be convicted as well, since he has been unpunished by the Utah State Law.
What are your thoughts?
