Latest news with #DevilintheFamily:TheFallof
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Utah's new child influencer law cracks the veneer of social media fame
In a February Hulu documentary featuring Shari Franke, eldest child of the infamous mommy blogger Ruby Franke, Shari's brother Chad and her father, Kevin, viewers are privy to behind-the-scenes video from the now-defunct family vlog. In one clip, Ruby smiles while recording herself before breaking off to scream at her family off-screen. The documentary, titled 'Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke,' features several moments like this, moments that illustrate what detractors see as a wider phenomenon in which the family blogging industry is exposed for its many pitfalls and deceptions, particularly as it pertains to the protection and treatment of children. Indeed, Utah, where the Franke family resided and recorded daily family life for years, has become the fourth state to legislate protections for influencer kids with the passing of HB 322 into law in March, following high-profile activism from Franke family members, who were YouTube family vlogging royalty before matriarch Ruby was arrested on charges of child abuse. Ruby Franke and her estranged husband, Kevin Franke, were the head of the YouTube family channel '8 Passengers.' At its height, the channel commanded more than 2 million subscribers. In her content, Ruby Franke often touted strict parenting, like the time she infamously refused to bring her 6-year-old daughter lunch after the child had forgotten it or when her teenage son was made to sleep on a beanbag for months as a punishment. In 2023, Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were arrested on charges of child abuse after Franke's 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt's house. The child appeared emaciated and had wounds on his wrists and ankles. Franke's 9-year-old daughter was found in a closet of Hildebrandt's house, in a similar state. Hildebrandt and Franke each pleaded guilty to four counts of felony child abuse, for which they were sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. The fallout of Ruby Franke's arrest was intense. For detractors of family vloggers and mom influencers, Franke's arrest was proof positive that their suspicions were correct and something ominous was lurking under the perfect veneer of social media fame. Anti-vlogging advocates had the feeling that the bottom was finally falling out of a deeply rotten industry. Buffeted by the moment, Shari Franke, the eldest child of Ruby Franke, spoke in front of the Utah Legislature, saying, 'There is no ethical or moral family vlogger.' In the wake of the Franke family tragedy, calls for protections for kids of influencers have intensified. Though people often assume that child influencers are covered under legal protections for child actors, they're not. In 46 of 50 states, it's legal for parents to feature their kids in monetized or sponsored content without paying the children for their labor. It's particularly impactful for Utah, of all states, to have passed legislation for the privacy and profits of influencer kids, as experts often point to Utah as a hot spot for mom influencers, family vloggers and kid influencers. There's an entire book to be written about why Mormon people are so drawn to influencing — and why they're often so successful at it, including the fact that recordkeeping and scrapbooking are mainstay traditions of the Mormon faith, skills that lend themselves to content creation — but the bottom line is that Utah is one of the most popular states for family vloggers and mom influencers. And though people who were raised as kid influencers aren't a monolith, it's important to listen to them when they speak about their experiences, like when Shari Franke told Rolling Stone, 'Making money off your kids [with] no oversight as to how much the kids are getting paid — there's no way to do that well for me.' I'm a journalist who covers family vloggers and mom influencers, and my take on their work is far from black-and-white. I don't believe that showing your kid online is immoral in itself. We shouldn't conflate the horrors of Ruby Franke's story with the lives of every kid featured in their influencer parents' content. And not every mom influencer and family vlogger are evil — far from it. But if there's an industry that turns on the labor of kids, it makes sense to compensate them for their labor, at the very least. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Yahoo
‘I did not know my rights': Jodi Hildebrandt challenges conviction in high-profile child abuse case
ST. GEORGE, Utah (ABC4) — Jodi Hildebrandt, a therapist who worked with YouTube vlogger Ruby Franke, is challenging her conviction, saying she didn't know her rights when she pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse in late 2023. Hildebrandt and Franke were both sentenced to up to 30 years in prison on child abuse charges after accepting plea deals. At the time, Hildebrandt's lawyers said she was not the person she was being portrayed as but was accepting the consequences for her conduct. She had said one of the reasons she didn't want to go to trial was so the children didn't have 'to emotionally relive the experience.' PREVIOUSLY: Imprisoned Franke, Hildebrandt sued for alleged 'racketeering' abuse scheme Now, Hildebrandt is calling her plea agreement 'unlawful,' with documents saying it was 'unlawfully induced or not made knowingly and voluntarily with understanding of the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea.' Hildebrandt filed a petition for relief on her own behalf last Monday, March 24, writing, 'I did not know my rights and my attorney did not inform me of them.' The petition listed several other claims, including that her counsel was 'ineffective' and the prosecution failed to give adequate notice of the charges. Attorney Eric Clarke that they 'weren't expecting this from Jodi, but I can't say that we're super surprised either.' 'I'm super confident that the entry of her plea will hold up, and that she won't be able to show that she knowingly, involuntarily didn't enter it,' Clarke told ABC. 'She's mentally ill': Ruby Franke's prison phone calls reveal evolving stance on Jodi Hildebrandt Hildebrandt and Franke were prosecuted after one of YouTuber Franke's children and asked a neighbor for food and water. State prosecutors would later claim that the offenders put Franke's children in a 'concentration camp-like setting,' regularly denied them food and water, and subjected them to 'physical torture.' The case — which already had a following due to the Franke family's former YouTube Channel '' — has since garnered greater national attention with the recent release of the Hulu docuseries 'Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.' Franke and Hildebrandt will have their first parole hearing in December 2026, approximately three years after they pleaded guilty to the charges. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Convicted Child Abuser Ruby Franke's Husband Kevin Takes Ownership of $1.3 Million Utah Home as They Finalize Divorce
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. It Will Take 7 Years To Fix the Housing Shortage at Current Construction Pace, Economists Say Walmart Made One Sleepy Town the 'Austin of the Ozarks'—but the Boom Is Driving Up Home Prices Florida Home Insurers Blamed Storm Losses for Rapid Rate Hikes as Parent Companies and Affiliates Made Billions
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Yahoo
Where is Ruby Franke now?
It has been just over a year since disgraced YouTuber Ruby Franke went to prison after pleading guilty to four felony counts of aggravated child abuse. The former mom influencer, 43, who ran the once-popular '8 Passengers' YouTube channel, was sentenced in February 2024 to between four and 30 years in prison after she was charged with abusing two of her six children. Franke's associate, mental health counselor Jodi Hildebrandt, 55, was also sentenced to between four and 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of child abuse. A new Hulu documentary, 'Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke,' takes a fresh look at Franke and Hildebrandt's story. The three-part docuseries includes interviews with Franke's eldest children, Shari and Chad, and her husband, Kevin, who filed for divorce in 2023. At first glance, '8 Passengers,' which launched in 2015, appeared to be a wholesome, family-focused vlog documenting the busy life of Franke, her husband Kevin, and their six kids. As the years went on, however, some followers voiced concerns about the parenting techniques on display in Franke's '8 Passengers' videos, such as when she revealed she punished her kids by withholding food, forced them to do push-ups, or made them miss school to clean the house. Hildebrandt ran a life-coaching business called ConneXions, which focused on 'empowering people by educating them with the principles of Truth' and helping them 'dispose of distortion's ugly lies,' according to the still-active ConneXions website. Hildebrandt focused on counseling Mormon couples and families, NBC News reported. In January 2012, Hildebrandt's license to practice as a counselor in Utah was placed on probation for 18 months for a series of violations. According to Utah Division of Professional Licensing documents reviewed by Jodi repeatedly disclosed 'sensitive private information' about her clients to their church clergy and other mental health therapists, without their consent. Her license was reinstated in 2013. The two women were charged with of 'causing or permitting serious physical injury to the victims in three different ways: (1) a combination of multiple physical injuries or torture, (2) starvation or malnutrition that jeopardizes life, and (3) causing severe emotional harm,' the Office of the Washington County Attorney said in a news release on Sept. 1, 2023. Both pled guilty in court. Keep reading to learn more about where Franke and Hildebrandt are now, and when the length of their prison sentences will be decided. Franke is incarcerated at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. The facility, which began operating in 2022, is spread across 200 acres and includes 3,600 beds, according to the prison's website. Franke and Hildebrandt are housed in different sections of the prison's Dell housing unit, which is the facility's only unit for women and currently houses 367 female inmates, Karen Tapahe, public information officer for the Utah Department of Corrections, told in an email. Although Franke and Hildebrandt are housed separately, 'it is possible they could see each other at various times,' such as during gym time, classes, or other types of programming, Tapahe said. On Feb. 20, 2024, Franke was sentenced to four one- to 15-year consecutive prison terms after pleading guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony. When asked how she pleaded to the fourth charge, the former 'momfluencer' appeared to grow emotional and said, 'With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children, guilty,' as seen in a video of her sentencing shared by the Associated Press. The maximum combined sentence for consecutive prison terms is 30 years in Utah, according to NBC News. This means that Franke could spend anywhere between four and 30 years in prison. The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole will determine the length of Franke's sentence in a hearing currently scheduled for sometime in December 2026. Prior to this hearing, Franke is expected to undergo a mental health review and is expected to participate in cognitive behavioral therapy, according to a July 2024 scheduling document from the board. Franke was arrested on Aug. 30, 2023, after the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department received a dispatch call regarding a 'juvenile asking for help.' The child 'appeared to be emaciated and malnourished' and had 'open wounds and duct tape around the extremities,' according to a press release from the public safety department. Officers searched a nearby home and found another child 'in a similar condition of malnourishment,' according to the release. Ultimately, four children were taken into the care of the Department of Child and Family Services, and Franke and Hildebrandt were arrested, according to the release. In both Franke and Hildebrandt's sentencing hearings, county prosecutor Eric Clarke said in his opening statements that Franke's children had endured a 'concentration-camp like setting.' 'The children were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in and virtually all forms of entertainment,' he said. He said outside the courtroom that the case involving Franke and Hildebrandt was the most extreme he had seen in his career. 'This is one of the worst child abuse cases we've ever seen,' he said. This article was originally published on
Axios
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Ruby Franke's husband and children speak out in new Hulu docuseries
There is no shortage of crime documentaries based on cases that unfolded in Utah. The latest: Hulu's new three-part docuseries " Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke" centers around the rise and fall of the popular parenting vlogger and her business partner, former therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, who were both arrested for child abuse in 2023. The show features interviews with Franke's estranged husband, who filed for divorce in 2023, and their eldest children. It "cuts through the social media reaction to explore the untold story behind the Ruby Franke case: part family tragedy, part coming-of-age narrative, part tale of our times about the perils of life lived online," according to the series' description. Catch up quick: Franke launched the popular YouTube channel "8 Passengers" in 2015, where she documented her family's life and shared parenting advice. Last year, Franke and Hildebrandt each were sentenced to four to 60 years in prison for abusing Franke's two youngest children. Between the lines: Franke's eldest daughter, Shari, who appears in the docuseries, authored a book recounting her childhood "The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom." It was released in January. Go deeper: The religious extremism of Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt Parenting influencers sentenced in Utah child abuse case
