Kriti Mehrotra
It was back in 2020 when Utah-based family vlogger Ruby Franke began facing a lot of backlash from followers over her strict parenting style, with some even starting petitions against her. This was to such an extent that it eventually turned into severe accusations of child abuse, as explored in ID’s ‘Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence,’ only for them to turn out to be true. She, as well as her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, was treating at least two of the former’s kids with such negligence or disregard that they were actually arrested, convicted, and sentenced.
Ruby Franke Was Once a Well-Known Family Vlogger
Born on January 18, 1982, in Utah to Jennifer Griffiths and Chad Griffiths as one of their five children, Ruby Griffiths grew up surrounded by true community, modesty, as well as tradition. That’s because the family was devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so religion heavily influenced almost every aspect of their lifestyle and interpersonal dynamics. In fact, the young woman herself tied the knot with fellow believer Kevin Franke at the tender age of 18 on December 28, 2000, before settling down with him in Provo and starting a family.
Ruby and Kevin actually welcomed six adorable children into this world — Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell, and Eve — with their eldest born in 2003, whereas their youngest came in 2013. It was less than two years later that the matriarch created a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers with the sole aim of documenting her domestic life alongside her husband and their brood. She was initially very well-loved owing to her openness about their beliefs, values, as well as everyday issues, especially with such young kids and Kevin’s job at Brigham Young University.
Ruby was what many described as a “daily vlogger” since she was consistently posting five days a week at 6 am once the channel started gaining traction, ultimately gaining a fan following too. In fact, by early summer 2020, 8 Passengers had roughly 2.5 million subscribers with over 1 billion total views, resulting in them attracting a lot of global sponsorships and brand deals too. The camerawoman believed that people liked watching them because they weren’t “loud or in your face” about their family and faith; instead, they shared everything rather organically.
Ruby Franke Was Taken Into Custody After Several Accusations of Child Abuse
While Ruby was seemingly determined to raise her kids in an environment that taught kindness and gratitude, her fans became genuinely concerned over her disciplinary methods in early 2020. This was when she banned her then-15-year-old son Chad from his own and made him sleep on a bean bag every night for seven months, which she herself admitted in a now-deleted video. Then, when Eve forgot to pack her school lunch one day at the age of 6, she refused to bring it for her, asserting her youngest was already old enough to prepare and be responsible for it.
As if that’s not enough, Ruby once sent one of her children to a wilderness camp for troubled teens and threatened to cancel Christmas only for her two youngest, all in the name of punishment. Each of these incidents was documented on her now-defunct channel, along with her threats to withhold food because she believed her kids needed such extreme disciplinary actions. Ultimately, viewers launched a serious petition reporting perceived child abuse as well as neglect, giving several examples directly from her videos to back their claims, and this led to the channel’s popularity declining. The Frankes did defend themselves in a post by maintaining that Ruby’s parenting style and these events were taken out of context, but to no avail, as YouTube suspended the channel later on.
By this point in 2022, Kevin had actually moved out of the family home following his separation from Ruby, and she had begun working as a mental health coach at ConneXions with Jodi Hildebrandt. The two women subsequently even established an Instagram account called Moms of Truth to offer parenting advice, but everything changed in 2023 as most of their pages were terminated. This was because claims of abuse/neglect had continued to pour in from well-wishers, now including Jodi, since she had moved into the Franke family home and was living with the young children. The last one was on August 30, 2023, when a neighbor called 911 after 12-year-old Russell admittedly escaped from home through a window and knocked on their door to ask for food and water. He was clearly malnourished, had a few open wounds, and still had duct tape around his wrists as well as ankles, leading to Ruby and Jodi’s immediate arrest.
Ruby Franke is Currently Incarcerated in a State Prison
When officials arrived at the scene, they also found the then-10-year-old Eve to be severely malnourished and with similar physical injuries, so both kids were rushed to a nearby hospital to be treated. Therefore, two days later, on September 1, 2023, former vlogger Ruby and her business partner Jodi were formally charged with six counts each of aggravated child abuse against the two kids. It’s imperative to note that the family’s eldest child, Shari, was in college at the time, whereas 18-year-old Chad had also moved out for good, so their mother only had her four young ones in her care. These minors were all carefully examined and politely questioned by officials so they could figure out internal dynamics before being taken in by child protective services. They were later ultimately released into their father’s custody.
According to police records, Russell claimed that Ruby used cayenne pepper and honey to dress his wounds as well as home-schooled him and Eve to ensure they didn’t have contact with anyone else. Further inquiries also brought to light allegations that the mother of six often made her kids do outdoor chores without proper protection, controlled their food and water consumption at every step of the way, and resorted to physical punishments if she didn’t think they were abiding by her rules. All of this, along with her own claims of her children being possessed by the devil and then justifying the abuse based on her religious beliefs, seemingly played a role in her being held without bond.
As per court records, both Ruby and Jodi initially maintained that the abuse was a way for them to teach the children how they can repent from their sins while also removing their internal evil. In the end, while the former pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse on December 18, 2023, the latter did the same on December 27, 2023, for which they were sentenced in early 2024. It was on February 20 that Ruby was handed down four consecutive terms of 1 to 15 years in prison, which the 43-year-old is currently serving at the mixed-security Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. We should mention that since then, in early 2025, a man named Michael Tilleman filed a federal lawsuit against the two convicted women for business fraud as well as promoting a “methodology that encouraged child abuse among their clients.” Even Kevin has sued Jodi for the abuse of his children, and ensured to legally separate from Ruby – he filed for divorce in November 2023, which was finalized on March 20, 2025.
Read More: JoAnn Nathe: Where is Jodi Huisentruit’s Sister Now?
