The real story behind Hulus Ruby Franke Docuseries

ONo day at the end of August 2023, a worryingly thin 12-year-old boy in Ivins, Utah, approached a neighbor’s front door. He rang the doorbell and waited for an answer. At first nobody seemed to answer, and the boy almost went. Then someone called him through the camera of the ring doorbell. “I just wondered if they could make two favors?” Asked the boy. “If you could bring me to the next police station?”

A woman went outside and gave the boy some water, while the man who answered the door called the police called to report a “emaciated” child with “adhesive tape for his legs”, which was “hungry and thirsty”. When the police arrived at the scene, they learned that the youngest son of the local YouTuber Ruby Franke – had climbed out of the window from the window of a nearby house of the business partner of Franke, Jodi Hildebrandt. He and his 10-year-old sister were held in the luxury villa, where they were routinely starved, isolated and physically abused. Her mother, who once managed the popular family -Vlog -Youtube -Canal “8 Passengers”, was convinced that the children were obsessed with “evil spirits”.

Shortly after the escape of her child, Franke was arrested for several charges for child abuse. Hildebrandt, the co -founder of the YouTube Channel parent and advisory service “Connexions Classroom” with Franke, was also arrested. Both are currently in successive prison sentences of 4 to 30 years after they owe guilty of child abuse.

Now a shocking new three-part Hulu documents called Teufel in the family: the case of Ruby FrankePremiere on February 27, unpacks the events that lead to arrests of both women. Directed by Olly Lambert (Ukraine: People’s strugglePresent Afterson: Everest and the earthquake in Nepal), Teufel in the family Mark the first time that Franke’s oldest children, Shari and Chad, give a detailed report on their stories in front of the camera. The three -part series also includes interviews with Ruby’s estranged husband Kevin, law enforcement officer and former neighbors of the Franke family.

This is the real story behind the case of Ruby Franke, the once successful family fleece became convicted children’s abuse.

Read more: The true story behind it An update about our family And the YouTubers who have given up an adopted child

Who is Ruby Franke?

Ruby Franke, 43, is a Mormonian mother of six six from Springville, Utah. In 2015, Franke started a family vlog on YouTube entitled “8 Passengers”, where she documented the daily life of her six children and her husband Kevin Franke. Franke’s channel was extremely popular; From June 2020, the channel had increased to around 2.5 million subscribers.

“Ruby’s only ambition was to see the perfect mother,” says Kevin Franke in the series. She would create a YouTube channel.

Before Franke’s arrest in 2023, 8 passengers were intensively examined due to Frankes parent techniques. In June 2020, Franke’s 15-year-old son Chad was shot and said that he slept on a beanbag chair in the family of the family for seven months. Other videos showed that Franke threatened to take meals away or cut off the head of a child’s teddy bear. Another showed some members of the family who opened Christmas presents, while the two youngest children had not received any gifts this year.

The documents claim that Ruby, according to her fellow human beings, is privately upset about the criticism of the audience. In public, however, she dismissed critics and informed the Wrap in 2021 that she only demonstrated what a responsible mother looks like.

Who is Jodi Hildenbrandt?

Jodi Hildebrandt is a therapist who had suspended her license in 2012 after reporting the Mormon Church leaders of the “porn addiction of a patient”. On the recommendation of a family friend who took part in Hildebrandt’s Connexions Curriculum, Frankes Hildebrandt hired to advise a cross -teen chad Franke who had played at home and at school.

The Docuseries contextualize this so -called bad behavior. When Chad got older, he remembers, began to be shot for 8 passengers, and said that he felt “controlled”. And he was not alone in these feelings. “The children complain more than anything,” Kevin tells the filmmakers and remembers how they would claim to make themselves boring and say that they didn’t want to film. Ruby was concerned that the children had “lost their light” and leaned harder in Hildebrandt’s Hardline teaching about the family discipline. (The Docuseries report that Hildebrandt was divorced and alienated by her own children.)

When the Frankes carried out weekly consulting meetings with Hildebrandt, Ruby began to train as a coach in Connexions. She and Hildebrandt also posted in an Instagram account called “Mothers of Truth”. In the meantime, Shari started researching Hildebrandt online, and found that the consultant had lost her therapy license and was the subject of numerous complaints from former patients. Ruby shrugged and believed that Hildebrandt had been sent to the family for a certain reason.

In August 2021, Hildebrandt moved in with the Frankes; Ruby and Kevin were convinced that the consultant was under the influence of the demonic property. “Jodi would go into these obsessed trances,” Kevin tells the filmmakers. “She would start speaking in other voices.” Ruby was so concerned that she started sleeping in Hildebrandt’s bedroom.

One day when he was at home from college at home, Shari entered her old bedroom (at that time by Hildebrandt and Ruby) and found massage oils and candles everywhere. “It was much more than a friendship,” Kevin tells the filmmakers. “Much more than a sisterhood. It was unpleasant.” Not long afterwards, Ruby Kevin and Chad instructed to pull out of their house. Ruby also rejected Shari, who visited Brigham Young University after finding out that she had tried to contact Kevin.

Has anyone tried to intervene?

After Kevin moved, more YouTube viewers and neighbors in Springville began to comment on what could happen in Frankes at home. At that time, Ruby seemed to spend more and more time in Jodi’s house in Ivins and leave the young children – whose age was between 9 and 15 – not either. Shari, who was still in contact with the neighbors, called the police and asked for a social examination of the children. However, the police could not enter the house in Franke without an arrest warrant that a judge leaned.

The neighbors also often tried to contact Kevin, who did not react and occasionally even blocked their numbers. A change.org petition from May 2020, in which the Department of Children’s and Family Services in Utah was requested to check the well -being of the children, received more than 18,000 signatures. CPC said they could not intervene because they could not see any physical signs of abuse among the Franke children who had been instructed not to answer the door.

At that time, Kevin told the filmmakers that he was standing Hope who had Ruby pulling him back into her house, and promised to respect her non -contacts up to this point. He even continued to participate in the weekly online connexions group from Hildebrandt.

What happened after the police arrested Ruby and Jodi?

When Ruby and Jodi were arrested, Ruby Kevin called after a year in which he hadn’t spoken to him, and asked if he would pick up her two youngest children at the police station, and asked to “redeem” himself . Ruby also told Kevin that the two younger children were “demonically obsessed” and that they “could only present the lies” that their younger son told the police.

When looking for Hildebrandt’s house, the police found rope, handcuffs, medical gauze and a mixture of Cayenne pepper and honey in a safe room. They also found a handwritten journal in which Ruby had recorded the daily series of events when she tried to “exorcise” her children. The police also found that only the two youngest children had been recorded in the house. They found the two middle daughters of Frankes, Abby and Julie, later in the house of a neighbor.

In the meantime, Ruby’s escaped son told the officers that he and his sister were forced to stand in the hot sun, to have captivated the weights and jump to a trampoline all day. Sometimes they were driven into the desert and forced to run.

Both Ruby and Jodi guilty to four severe child abuse. In a public apology that was read to the court at the time of the conviction, Ruby spoke to her children, who were not present in the courtroom, and claimed to be manipulated by Hildebrandt: “I will never stop cry Has hurt souls. My willingness to sacrifice everything for you was masterfully manipulated in something very ugly. I took everything that was soft and safe and good. “Ruby has owed Hildebrandt for what had taken place and agreed to testify against the consultant as part of a plea deal.

In December 2023, Hildebrandt’s lawyer informed the court that his client would guilty, instead of facing a procedure so that the children would not have to testify. “She takes responsibility and it is her main concern that these children can heal both physically and emotionally.”

Read more: What the evidence from Ruby Frankee’s child abuse has revealed

Where is the Franke family today?

On January 7, Shari Franke released a memoir, My mother’s house: the search for a daughter for freedomWhat has become a New York Just Bestseller. She uses her platform to camp against family vling. She tells the filmmakers that she decided not to speak to her mother again.

Chad Franke is a social media influencer. In July 2024, Chad posted on Instagram that he had started to attend the real estate school.

The younger siblings of Sharia and Chad were taken into custody by the Department of Children’s and Family Services after Ruby’s arrest and reportedly “subjected medical care and dealt with psychological evaluations and continuing mental health,” said a judicial report.

Kevin Franke applied for a divorce from Ruby. In February 2025, Kevin quoted feelings of “regret” to realize his children, and asked the legislator of Utah to say goodbye to a legislative template that would protect children financially online. “I was wrong to give my family to bring my children to public social media and I regret it every day,” said Kevin.

Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt did not respond to a request for comments on new allegations in Teufel in the family.

Correction, February 25th

The original version of this story was wrongly stated when Jodi Hildebrandt moved to the Frankes house. It was August 2021, not May 2020.