Convicted Child Abuser Ruby Franke's Husband Kevin Takes Ownership of $1.3 Million Utah Home as They Finalize Divorce

Yahoo

27-03-2025

Disgraced Mormon YouTuber Ruby Franke and her husband, Kevin, have officially divorced—just over 18 months after the mother of six was arrested at a Utah mansion and charged with aggravated child abuse.
According to local news outlet KSL, the former couple's divorce was finalized on March 20 after a judge signed a decree approving the terms agreed between Ruby and Kevin, who has been awarded full custody of their four children who are under the age of 18, as well as sole ownership of their $1.3 million Springville, UT, home.
Additionally, Kevin was awarded ownership of a 2.8-acre plot of land in Scofield, Carbon County.
Traditionally, any divorce agreement that includes a full child custody settlement would also include child support payments. However, KSL states that Kevin has agreed to 'consider any child support payments owed to him by Ruby Franke already paid.'
Ruby will therefore keep the $85,000 that she withdrew from her accounts shortly before the pair's initial estrangement in 2022. All other financial assets will be transferred into Kevin's name.
Ruby, who also stated that she plans to keep her surname, rather than revert to her maiden name, has already been ordered to have no contact with any of her six children, including her adult kids Shari, 21, and Chad, 20, who are the only two of her sons and daughters whose names have been publicly reported since her arrest.
It is currently unclear whether Kevin plans to retain the seven-bedroom, 6.5-bathroom home that he and Ruby purchased in 2020 when the family was at the height of their online fame and earning up to $100,000 a month.
At the time, Ruby had carved out a very lucrative business for herself and her family via her YouTube channel, '8 Passengers,' on which she documented her day-to-day life at home with her children and her husband.
But in August 2023, that innocent image was irrevocably shattered when the mother of six was arrested on charges of aggravated child abuse, along with her close friend and confidante, former family therapist Jodi Hildebrandt.
Both women pleaded guilty to four counts of child abuse and each received four separate prison sentences of one to 15 years.
The true horrors of the abuse suffered by Ruby and Kevin's children are still being brought to light—most recently in a three-part Hulu documentary titled 'Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.'
In the documentary and an accompanying interview with People magazine, Kevin recounted how their lives began to drastically change for the worse when Hildebrandt moved into the Franke family home, describing her arrival at the property as 'uncomfortably intimate.'
'The devil knocked, and we opened the door,' Kevin says in the Hulu docuseries.
'Jodi began to live at our home. It was uncomfortably intimate. Weird things started happening. Ruby said the children were demonically possessed. That was the spark that blew the powder keg.'
According to Kevin and his son Chad, Hildebrandt began to dictate the way the children were disciplined in the home. The decision to make the kids sleep in sleeping bags or ban them from sports was made at the behest of a woman they believed to be a professional family counselor.
'Those directives came from Jodi, the licensed mental health counsellor,' the father of six told People. 'I definitely voiced my opposition and concern, and it was always flipped back onto me.'
However, Kevin insisted that he 'didn't even know' any of the physical violence was happening because Ruby kept it so well hidden.
'A lot of the physical violence that was described was hidden and kept from me. I didn't even know that those things happened,' he said. 'I think Ruby was very careful to hide a lot of that from me.'
Kevin also insisted that—despite what the media and public might believe—the kinds of 'criminal' abuses that were brought to light in 2023 with Ruby's arrest were not happening prior to that year, until 'Jodi entered our family.'
He noted that the abuse became much easier for Ruby and Hildebrandt to conceal after they informed him that he needed to move out of the family home for a year to better aid their family's 'healing.'
It was inside that home that Ruby regularly filmed content for her YouTube account, creating a picture-perfect image of family life.
However, unearthed footage aired in the Hulu series revealed the very sinister reality of what was going on behind the camera. The series revealed clips of Ruby screaming at her children, physically shoving and grabbing them, and threatening them if they failed to put on a happy face for the camera.
'What Ruby has done, it just crossed a line of abusive to just … psychotic,' Ruby's oldest daughter, Shari, said.
'She just wanted to show the view of a Mormon happy family, but they only saw what we wanted to show them,' Chad added.
By the time Ruby was arrested, she had moved out of the family home with her youngest children and into a luxurious desert mansion owned by Hildebrandt.
It was here that one of Ruby's children was found by police in August 2023, suffering from 'severe' wounds, malnutrition, and neglect after her brother, 12-year-old Russell, escaped through a window of the home and fled to a neighbor's house to beg for food and water.
After the neighbor phoned the police, Russell was taken to the hospital, and authorities later found his younger sister, Eve, inside a closet in Hildebrandt's home, suffering from a similar state of malnutrition and neglect, according to Fox 13.
'The neighbor observed duct tape on the boy's ankles and wrists, severe wounds, and malnourishment. He quickly contacted law enforcement who, upon arrival, learned that potentially more children remained inside Ms. Hildebrandt's home and in harm's way.
'The officers responded to Ms. Hildebrandt's home, placed her under arrest, and conducted a search of her sizable property where they found Ms. Franke's 9-year-old daughter, petrified and hiding in a closet.'
Less than one month after she pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse, Hildebrandt placed the home on the market for $5.3 million. However, it was later delisted after a judge ruled that she had to wait until her Feb. 20, 2024, sentencing before selling it.
The home was later relisted for $4.99 million and is currently pending a sale.
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