On the 30th of August 2023, Ruby Franke was arrested in Ivins, Utah. Two days later, Franke and Jodi Hildebrant were charged with six counts of child abuse.
Ruby Franke, a mother of six children and wife of Kevin Franke, is the founder of the ‘8 Passengers’ YouTube channel. They had amassed over 2.5 million followers and over a billion views. Ruby gained her large following by daily vlogging her and her children’s lives. Kevin, who was frequently on business trips, would also feature in their videos which centred around a seemingly perfect, traditional lifestyle.
The family were members of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), more commonly known as Mormons. Their religion was heavily featured in their videos as well as their lives. From a viewer’s perspective, the Franke family lived a perfect traditional Mormon lifestyle in Utah. The children all received high marks in school, had lots of friends and participated in extracurricular activities, as well as being devout Christians.
The YouTube channel ran from 2015 up until Ruby announced she would no longer be recording videos in 2022. This was because she had become a part of ConneXions as a mental health coach, a company run by Jodi Hildebrant. ConneXions had their own YouTube channel which offered parenting advice and relationship counselling. Both Ruby and Kevin were featured in their videos together.
Ruby’s announcement to end her family vlogging channel came after she had started to receive hate comments about her parenting style. In her videos, Ruby shared that one of her sons Chad had been sent away to a wilderness therapy camp for receiving bad grades in school. Ruby also shared in a video how Chad had his bedroom taken away for playing a joke on his little brother. When she revealed her harsh parenting techniques, audiences on TikTok began to vocalise their worry about the children. Ruby called these people ‘‘haters’’ who had started hashtags and trends to ‘save the children’.
Ruby Franke was arrested in August of 2023 for two counts of child abuse at Hildebrant’s house where she had moved to with her youngest children. The alarm had been raised when her youngest son, aged 12, had escaped from Jodi’s house. He fled to a nearby house for help where he was described as having “open wounds and duct tape around the extremities”. The emergency services found Franke’s youngest daughter, aged 10, in Hildebrant’s home. The two children were malnourished and were treated in hospital for their injuries.
In December of 2023, Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrant pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. They were both sentenced to between a maximum of thirty years in prison. The exact term will be decided by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole; however, they must serve a minimum of four years. The trial revealed that Ruby had been keeping a journal where she detailed the abuse. She believed her children were ‘‘possessed’’ and tried to punish them for it.
On the 27th of February, the 8 Passengers documentary, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke was released. The Hulu documentary is the first time Kevin and their two eldest children Shari and Chad have spoken out together. The three-part series contains never-before-seen footage from Ruby as well as interviews with friends and neighbours of the family. The series comes after eldest daughter Shari released her memoir in January. The book is titled ‘The House Of My Mother’ where she describes her experience growing up in the public eye as a family vlogger.
