Original subtitles

POLICE OPERATOR:

MAN:

VOICE BREAKS:

TO CHILD:

Ruby Franke was made in a factory to be a mommy vlogger,

and she posted these videos that were incredibly popular.

OK, you guys, it is back-to-school season.

There is this candid nature to some of her videos

that led to her having such a large following.

To have over two million subscribers on YouTube,

that's astronomical success.

Viewers began to pick up on some of Ruby's parenting techniques.

Nothing is off-limits.

OK, so we're here at Lindquist's Mortuary.

KNOCKING

Police officers! Open up!

It just became darker and darker and darker.

Many people believed that she was in a cult.

In my 26 years of law enforcement,

I haven't seen anything worse than this.

Police Department. To the left, to the left.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. FEMALE OFFICER: Police Department!

Make yourself known. MALE OFFICER: Go right.

FEMALE DETECTIVE:

This is beyond anything we thought this woman would do to her children.

NARRATOR: It's mid-morning in an affluent suburb

in southern Utah.

SHARP KNOCK AT DOOR

A wounded and malnourished boy has been rushed to hospital.

Police officers. Open up!

Law enforcement have been led to the home

of therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, where the boy's mother was staying.

On that afternoon, Sergeant McCoy received a phone call

from the Ivins Police Department

and had learned some very disturbing details about Ruby Franke...

Hey. You OK?

It's just you in here?

..that there was a child, very emaciated,

and it appeared that she'd been confined in the home.

I'm Sergeant Tobler. Are you OK?

Also, there's some type of panic room.

The children had been confined, abused, malnourished, neglected.

It caused us great concern.

There were two other siblings unaccounted for.

OFFICER: OK. Just place your hands behind your back for me.

We dedicate all of our personnel that day

to trying to locate the children.

In police work, sometimes you always hope for the best,

but expect the worst.

They could potentially have been dead.

But how did such a horrifying series of events come to pass

to a seemingly idyllic all-American family?

Springville City is an awesome city in Utah.

It is a population of about 36,000 people.

We're right at the foot of the mountains.

We have a nearby canyon, a creek running through town.

It's just a great place to live and to work and to raise a family.

It's a very close-knit community.

There's a lot of people who have been here

for many generations.

In our neighbourhoods here, most everyone is the same religion

and we all go to church together.

The predominant religion in Utah's

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,

which is known by most people as the Mormon religion.

And there are a lot of people

who use their kind of...

tie in their faith with parenting advice.

One such parent, living happily in Springville,

was 33-year-old Ruby Franke.

She came from a Mormon background.

She had three sisters and one brother.

Ruby was married to Kevin,

and the pair met back when Ruby was 18 and Kevin was 21.

Pretty quickly after the pair met, they got married.

Ruby said all she ever wanted to do was be a stay-at-home mum

and have lots of babies.

And actually, she and Kevin went on to have six children together.

CHILDREN CHEERILY: Goodbye!

With six children under the age of 12...

RUBY: I love you. ..and a strict religious background,

Ruby was a busy and hands-on mum.

RUBY: Be good. Be kind to people.

Ruby began documenting her hectic family life

and posting videos online.

KEVIN: What are we doing?

What is this? CHILD 1: It's a videotape.

CHILD 2: It's a cake, and inside is the colour of the baby.

OVERLAPPING CHATTER

The first video that they actually posted to the channel

and the way they introduce themselves

was through the gender reveal of their youngest child.

And this is such an intimate moment.

RUBY: So we're gonna find out if it's pink or if it's blue.

CHILDREN SQUEAL

But Ruby and her family decided

that this was how they were going to launch themselves

into the social media atmosphere.

Ruby was following a popular, new online trend - family vlogging.

Oh, we thought for sure it was a boy.

KEVIN: Staring at it won't make it turn blue, pal.

Family channels, you know, started to pop up around,

I would say, the mid-2010s.

There were lots of people that were coming out

sharing their family's lives day to day

with strangers on the internet

and amassing these huge gatherings of followers because of them.

OK, so the kids are on the bus, the kids are in school,

and I am ready to just... SIGHS DRAMATICALLY

..sit down... EXHALES

..take a breather.

Ruby continued posting videos of her family

across several social media platforms

under the name 8Passengers.

The image portrayed was idyllic -

a large, happy family living in Western American suburbia.

Hi, guys, I'm Kevin. I'm Ruby.

We're the drivers of the eight passengers. We're Mom and Dad.

We thought it'd be fun to just say hi and introduce our family.

And if you're not good, I will turn this car around and we will go home.

Seriously. Behave.

She was this beautiful woman.

She had a beautiful home.

She has six, you know, gorgeous children and a husband.

THEY SING: Happy birthday to you.

Ruby would have the camera rolling for every family milestone.

'They're smiling, they're happy, they're healthy, they're fit.'

The image that they put out to the world was one of almost perfection.

Oh, my word. Seriously?

TOT GIGGLES

We have hit 5,000 subscribers, and I am beyond excited.

Daddy, look! I did a ponytail by myself.

It's a real sort of, I guess, a fly-on-the-wall documentary

around what it's like within their family.

And nothing, nothing is off limits.

OK, so we're here at Lindquist Mortuary

for Kevin's grandma.

Yep.

She really opened up

and showed every aspect of their lives together.

And the kids were in almost every video.

CHILD CRYING: I want my bow... I want my bow tie.

RUBY: Go get...

I know, you want your bow tie and I can't find it anywhere.

In less than a year, Ruby had uploaded

over 120 videos of her family to the internet.

There was something very approachable about them,

something that a lot of people could relate to.

At its peak, the 8Passengers YouTube channel

had around 2.5 million subscribers,

and with that, came all the advertising and sponsorship deals,

which would then bring in income for the family.

Ruby and her family have been catapulted

into a new-found level of fame,

with her parenting style on full display.

You cannot just get into the cupboard

and take yoghurt...

and crackers. CHILD MUMBLES

You can't come in the kitchen

and take whatever you want, whenever you want.

Ruby was a real disciplinarian,

and she was not afraid to show that on her channel.

And when the camera's always rolling,

people are going to have remarks on the things that you share.

There's no sort of consideration of the children's ages,

or even any aspect about consent and gaining their permission.

It's almost as if she's cultivating

the star-of-the-show persona and everybody else,

her children and her husband included, are simply extras.

They're props.

Despite some comments online over her strict parenting,

Ruby Franke's popularity continued to skyrocket

for the next three years,

eventually accumulating over three million followers

and over a billion views.

As time went on, some of her viewers began to pick up on

some of Ruby's parenting techniques.

One of those videos in particular

revolved around one of her younger sons.

He lost one of his socks and so she made him go outside and look for it.

RUBY: Put 'em in your pocket so you can take 'em down to the hamper

and drop and give me ten.

CHILD: One... RUBY: Put your hand straight out.

They're in. They're not supposed to be out.

Shape your hands forward. There you go.

In another video, Ruby reprimanded her younger daughter

for going round and cutting up things in the house.

RUBY: If you cut... one more thing in my house...

NERVOUS LAUGHTER ..I'm going to take the scissors...

Look at me. ..and I'm gonna cut its head off.

OLDER CHILD: Grandma will be so mad.

LITTLE GIRL CRIES

So what are you gonna do?

Threatening to destroy something so sentimental to one of your children

really quite often goes against the nature of many mothers.

But there's also an element of it being disturbing in that

Ruby's decided that throughout this moment,

she sees it as an opportunity to film.

She sees it as an opportunity to make content.

Are you gonna cut anything else? TODDLER: No.

You promise?

Many of Ruby's followers were starting to grow concerned.

Her videos caught the attention of online influencer Kendra Bryan.

Ruby Franke's story really gripped me,

because I saw a woman exploiting her children for money,

and did the children benefit from any of it? No.

Not... Children didn't benefit anything from that,

and that's pretty terrifying.

I've noticed that you've been hiding from me,

and you are feeling a lot of embarrassment and shame.

You're treating them like they're a piece of property.

LITTLE BOY:

OK. So I hear you.

That sounds like a lot to be taken away.

That sounds like it's gonna be a miserable summer.

But the sinister reality was far worse than anyone imagined.

I just knew in my gut, "Oh, this is gonna be bad."

You weren't responsible.

You were lying and being manipulative with them.

And unfortunately, it was.

NARRATOR: Four years on from posting her very first video,

Ruby Franke's online stardom has made the family over $2 million,

thanks to the views and sponsorships through their YouTube channel.

So how does an admired influencer go from picture-perfect family life

to serving a possible 30-year prison sentence

for horrific child abuse?

As other YouTubers and influencers

began to take notice, and their viewers

began to pour into Ruby's channel,

that's when we started to see the relationship between Ruby

and her audience sour.

We started to see that friction between the commenters, the viewers,

and Ruby and her parenting style.

After experiencing behavioural issues with their teenage son,

Ruby and Kevin sought professional help

from local therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt.

Jodi Hildebrandt

was a licensed counsellor in the state of Utah,

and she was actually the founder of this programme called Connexions.

Welcome to Connexions.

I'm Jodi Hildebrandt. So glad you're with us.

Connexions was a therapy organisation that Jodi had set up,

and according to her website,

she was there to offer counselling to couples, families, individuals.

If you're like me, you've had pain in your life.

It could be from a divorce, work conflicts,

relationship issues with children, grandchildren, spouse.

Connexions is the solution.

Jodi Hildebrandt's company, Connexions,

was a multifaceted life coaching business, and it was successful.

Jodi was estimated to be worth over $4 million.

She worked with hundreds of clients across Utah,

charging up to $200 an hour.

So I was introduced to Jodi Hildebrandt by a family friend.

I met with her, did some one-on-one sessions with her.

And honestly, I have to tell you, like,

I was quite impressed with what she had to say.

She kinda just learned about my background, my upbringing,

and, um, I actually enjoyed it.

Ruby's son began taking part in therapy sessions with Jodi.

I had a phone call yesterday with my therapist,

and she taught me about truth and distortion.

Mom probably talks about Jodi all the time, but...

I've mentioned Jodi a few times.

She has a podcast called Connexions - with an X.

But there was more to Jodi than met the eye.

She'd at one time had her licence suspended as a therapist

for revealing information to members of the church

without her patients' consent.

Ruby was undeterred,

and soon Jodi became Kevin and Ruby's marriage counsellor.

Then, controversially, Jodi moved into the family home.

Jodi and Ruby were growing closer and closer.

They were spending more and more time together

and their lives were becoming more intertwined.

And it was at this time that things really began to go from weird

to downright bizarre.

Once Jodi entered the picture,

things really escalated on Ruby's channel.

Still posting several videos a week,

Ruby's behaviour became even more unsettling.

She shared in a video

that she had received a call from her daughter's teacher

informing her that her six-year-old had no lunch with her that day.

I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry

and not having a lunch, and it would ease her discomfort

if I came to the school with lunch.

Um, but I responded and just said...

..was responsible for making her lunches in the morning.

So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry.

And hopefully, hopefully, nobody gives her food

and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch.

Ruby was punishing a six-year-old child

for not making their own lunch

and letting her starve in order to teach her a lesson.

Unless you find a friend

who's willing to share some of their food with you, I don't...

I don't think you're gonna be able to eat.

But if you're not responsible for your lunch and your lunch money,

that's the natural consequence.

And I'm really sorry you're learning this the hard way.

This made people's stomach turn.

In another clip posted by Ruby,

it was revealed that her teenage son had been banned from his bedroom

after playing a prank on his brother.

He was made to sleep on a beanbag.

My bedroom was taken away for seven months

and then you give it back, like, a couple of weeks ago.

I don't think our viewers know that. JODI: Sleeping on a beanbag.

I've been sleeping on a beanbag since October.

This video sparked outrage.

It just blew up online.

A week after that beanbag video went up,

a Change.org petition was started by people who had seen the video

and seen Ruby's behaviour,

that gathered almost 20,000 signatures.

A friend of Ruby and Kevin's

witnessed their behaviour first-hand.

She's appearing anonymously in order to protect her identity.

'She was a strict mother.'

She did have some ways of handling the children

that people did disagree with.

The two youngest are showing long patterns of selfishness.

They have been showing, um, through their choices,

their unwillingness to repent.

She was getting a lot of very hateful, negative comments,

and I do remember her mentioning that

sponsors were beginning to pull out,

and it did take a dark turn.

The online criticism against Ruby had escalated to the point

that it caught the attention of local police.

I am Lance Haight, the chief of police in Springville, Utah.

Concerns had been raised in social media about Ruby Franke

and her parenting style.

And we were aware of some of those concerns,

but we looked into them

and there was no evidence of criminal conduct at that time.

Ruby Franke is withholding privileges from a child,

but otherwise, all of their physical needs are being met

and they're not being physically abused,

then that would not constitute child abuse.

And so we're unable to take enforcement action.

After years of crafting the image of a perfect family,

Ruby and Kevin hit back at those openly criticising them.

The things that we show and share,

and the things that many of you are criticising and calling abusive,

are actually things that mental health professionals

have counselled us to do.

Both Ruby and Kevin really kind of take an adversarial stance

to some of the criticism that they were getting.

Clearly, they were, you know, impacted by this controversy

and the criticism,

and it starts to seep its way into their content that they're making.

In an attempt to silence the critics,

Ruby and Kevin disabled comments on their social media channels

and hired a lawyer to send cease and desist letters to vloggers

who were making content about them.

Ruby Franke appeared to be able to continue to act with impunity

on the internet, and the great irony of it all

is she was still giving parenting advice

to other parents on the internet.

Although still in the spotlight,

Ruby's star power was beginning to wane

under the weight of immense public scrutiny.

And internet sleuths, hooked on the story,

had noticed another concerning detail.

NARRATOR: In January 2022, Ruby Franke posted an intimate video

of her youngest daughter's baptism on the 8Passengers YouTube page.

Good morning, Passengers.

How are you guys today?

Today's vlog is a big one.

ALL: # We have been taught

# And we understand That we must do as the Lord... #

Then, the channel goes silent.

After that last video was uploaded in January 2022,

things went quiet, there was nothing new.

The channel went dark, Ruby went dark.

There was no content posted of the kids online.

There is this thought that maybe

she had taken the criticism to heart...

..and had stopped posting videos.

People began to wonder if the petitions had finally worked.

They began to wonder if their complaints had gotten through

to law enforcement.

And there was the sense online, was this the end of Ruby Franke?

But four months later, Ruby was back.

And this time, on a new platform, and with a new partner.

Turns out that she had actually gone into business

with Jodi Hildebrandt in Connexions.

Hello, and welcome to Connexions.

I'm Jodi Hildebrandt. And I'm Ruby Franke.

Ruby Franke had joined Connexions Classroom,

the life coaching business of Jodi Hildebrandt.

They did YouTube videos. They had a podcast.

They would go to talks.

She was no longer the girl-next-door mummy blogger

in her sun dresses and cardigans, but she appeared more business-like.

And actually, at this point, she had rebranded herself

as a mental fitness instructor

and seemed to really be going for this whole life coach look.

This is my passion, is to invite you to stand in truth

and put your opinions to the side for a minute,

because your kids are the target of distortion.

And they were giving advice to moms, specifically Latter-day Saint moms,

who were struggling with their relationships

and struggling with how to discipline their kid

and approach their husband.

We need you. We love you.

We know what power exists inside you.

And we want you to be here.

So, please, humble yourself.

Become curious about what we're saying.

Now, not only was Jodi living with the Franke family,

but she was creating content with Ruby.

After originally being hired as a therapist for Ruby's son,

the two women were growing ever closer.

Jodi Hildebrandt, I think gave, um,

this level of legitimacy to Ruby Franke.

And she had the credentials. She had a master's degree.

Ruby was bad on her own,

but Jodi came with this toolbox of experience as a therapist.

As a therapist, but also just kind of an expert at mind games.

People who had seen her on 8Passengers

moved over to Connexions and became wildly concerned

about the sort of advice she was offering to parents.

JODI: Do children have a right to privacy? No.

Everything in their life is open to you. Everything.

Um, journals. Um, they're, you know,

if... if you've graciously given them a room, that room is yours.

It's not theirs. Your drawers.

Everything is up to investigation

whenever you wanna go and investigate.

They were deeply concerned about the way she discussed evil in children.

Ruby Franke had not just changed channels,

she had amplified and accentuated

the extremeness of her parenting techniques.

If your kid came to you on fire, would you say,

"But if I put out the fire, that's gonna really hurt

"and you're gonna end up with scabs anyway,

"so I'm just gonna love you where you are right now"?

No! You throw them on the ground and you start rolling them.

And they're gonna say, "You're hurting me.

"You're beating me, you're controlling."

It's like, "No, dear, hold still. I'm getting the fire out."

Many lay the blame for Ruby's darker attitude

squarely at the feet of Jodi.

I think Jodi, for a long period of time,

has been very clever and very crafty

and twisted things in a very dark way.

I think Ruby slowly started to subscribe to that

after exposure to Jodi.

As criticism of the Connexions platform was mounting,

more unsettling revelations about Jodi Hildebrandt came to light.

As people began to dig into Jodi Hildebrandt's past,

what they found was deeply concerning.

The more Jodi Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke

were in the public eye,

the more criticism started to kind of surface,

especially with former clients of hers.

So, I personally saw Jodi for about...

..roughly for a year, maybe a little bit more.

There was one specific group meeting

that she said something that was just absolutely out of line.

She outed a very close friend of mine

that hadn't come out as gay,

and she outed him in front of a group setting.

It just about destroyed him.

And I stood up, it was in a men's group,

and I said, "This is off.

"There is something inside of you that is evil. It's heartbreaking."

JODI: 'Men and men can marry and women and women.

'When that law was passed,'

it opened the floodgate for every other devious, vile,

um...

..sexually permissive and destructive behaviours

to be engaged upon.

TREY: And you were seeing this woman kind of becoming a cult leader,

using religious tactics and shaming tactics.

She makes you feel like you're evil

and that you really, really need a ton of help.

So glad you're with us.

There's something here for you.

Despite concerns over her beliefs and attitudes,

Jodi's life coaching business was successful and lucrative.

There's a lot of individuals

that were spending a ton of money on this woman.

Jodi Hildebrandt's house in Ivins was like around 10,000 square feet.

That's a big house. Clearly, she was successful.

Clearly, she had a following.

Clearly, they were making a lot of money.

It was very difficult to see that this woman

was living in this type of home,

knowing very well the destruction she has caused.

People began to really sort of see the cracks in Jodi's armour

and her questionable practices as a therapist.

I started to see Jodi Hildebrandt kind of like, have this, um...

a God complex.

She was like a possessed woman.

And other people began to talk online about how she had

deeply and irrevocably affected their marriages.

They talked about how she had separated men from their wives.

With Jodi having already moved into the Franke family home,

Ruby and husband Kevin separated.

Jodi moved in with Ruby and her family,

and by summer 2022, Kevin, Ruby's husband, had moved out.

Jodi's coming in, using and leveraging

all of those religious beliefs about sexual impurity

and saying, "Well, Kevin's this, Kevin's that."

And then Kevin gets kicked out of the house.

He was asked to leave, and just suddenly, he wasn't there.

Which was surprising because, prior to that,

he and Ruby seemed to get along quite nicely.

Again, it appeared that Jodi had continued her typical practice

of separating husbands and wives, and that included with Ruby Franke.

Jodi was quite the puppeteer, that's for sure.

Like, this woman is a master of manipulation.

It just seemed like Ruby's world got smaller and smaller.

As Ruby and Jodi grew closer,

others in the community kept Ruby at arm's length.

In the neighbourhood,

there were many people that pulled back from Ruby

and said they believed that she was in a cult,

and that had been expressed to me.

Some people think she's in a cult, some people think she's too extreme,

but there was definitely talk in the neighbourhood, and concern,

and splitting opinions.

Then in early 2023,

Ruby made a decision to take her youngest children out of school.

I'm excited, because I'm...

I'm home-schooling all my kids now,

and it's fun.

We're keeping it super simple.

That's when everything made a drastic change,

because we no longer saw the younger children in the neighbourhood,

and we would see them in the neighbourhood many times a week,

walking their dog, riding their scooters.

And then, suddenly, we quit seeing all of them altogether.

Although Jodi had been living in the Franke family home,

she and Ruby now spent most of their time

at Jodi's $5 million home, four hours' south in Ivins.

She spent all of her time in Ivins,

sometimes leaving her kids in Springville,

like, 250 miles away.

Ruby's 19-year-old daughter had cut ties with her parents

due to her mother's increasingly concerning behaviour.

She became so worried

that she even made a 911 call to the police.

RINGING TONE

In September of 2022,

our police department received a call

from the adult daughter of Ruby Franke.

At the time, I believe the youngest child

would've been about eight years old.

The next oldest child would've been about 12 years old,

and she was concerned about the children's welfare

and asked if an officer could go by and check the house.

He knocked on the door, could see children in the home,

but they didn't answer the door.

Our officers, over the course of just a couple of weeks,

made five attempts to go back to the home and try to make contact.

Even the allegation itself

that the children have been left home alone

is not criminal conduct,

so there wasn't enough evidence for the court

to grant that search warrant to speak to her.

A year after Ruby's daughter called the police,

another 911 call was made.

This one would set in motion a chilling chain of events.

RINGING TONE

WOMAN:

MAN:

Ruby Franke's 12-year-old son

had turned up at a house in Ivins, Utah.

As a journalist, you hear a lot of really horrific stories.

It just comes with the territory.

But this 911 call absolutely chilled me to the bone.

If a child shows up at your door, asks you to call police,

and you can't talk to the operator without crying,

I think that underscores how serious the abuse was.

OPERATOR:

NEIGHBOUR:

He's blaming himself, and then he asks the neighbour

to take him to jail, to take him to the cops.

He didn't just run away from home to get help,

he ran away from home thinking that he was going to be put in jail.

NEIGHBOUR:

OPERATOR:

NEIGHBOUR:

Within moments, the police descended on Jodi's house.

NEIGHBOUR: 'I never imagined

'anything close to that was going on.'

SIRENS

NARRATOR: On August 30, 2023,

Ruby Franke's son escaped from Jodi Hildebrandt's house.

RINGING TONE

MAN:

Within minutes, police and paramedics arrived at the house.

This is a lot.

Oh, boy. MAN: I know.

We learn just how terrible these wounds actually were.

This was deep, deep wounds,

and then they were wrapped in like a saran wrap

with cayenne pepper and honey mixture.

And then that was covered, you know, additionally, with more tape.

This was torture.

MAN:

The 12-year-old boy told officers that the people who tied him up

were Jodi Hildebrandt and his own mother, Ruby Franke.

And he thought that two of his sisters,

aged 9 and 14, were in danger back at the house.

The question for law enforcement then became

where are her other children,

and what condition are they in?

We need to identify that house, and if there's two other kids there,

we need to go through a security sweep of that house.

The home of Jodi Hildebrandt was quickly surrounded by police.

Front door, left. To the left.

Once the police arrived...

..all hell broke loose.

She was very combative, aggressive almost to a point,

suggesting that they had no right to be there at the home.

Officers began an urgent raid of the 10,000-square-foot property.

OFFICER:

JODI:

OFFICER:

Reality is, they don't even need a search warrant,

because the situation is so severe.

'They're concerned for immediate safety of the children right now.'

This was less of a home and more of a compound,

with rooms upon rooms upon rooms.

It spans acres,

to the point that law enforcement

had to really search throughout this home,

worrying about the condition of her other children.

Desperate attempts to find the young girls continued.

And not long after, 250 miles away, in Springville,

police stormed the home of Ruby Franke.

MALE OFFICER:

Just the verbal report that we received

from the Ivins Police Department caused great concern

for our officers and our department.

'I was home when the police came to their Springville house.'

We all sat outside and watched over a dozen police cars show up,

and we had no idea what was going on.

We were very concerned about the condition

of the children, whose whereabouts were unknown.

FEMALE OFFICER:

With the clock ticking,

officers went to desperate measures to find Ruby's other young children.

MALE OFFICER:

FEMALE OFFICER:

We certainly didn't rule out that the children

could've been being held captive...

..abused, malnourished...

..and potentially have been dead.

But the house was empty.

Police in Springville searched for answers,

but officers at Jodi's house in Ivins

had made a disturbing discovery.

Eventually, police find a girl in her... in her room in the dark,

who also appears emaciated.

There's this little girl

with a shaved head, sitting in the middle of the room.

Quiet, stoic, won't say anything,

won't look at them.

Refuses to leave for hours.

She appeared frightened,

terrified to answer police questions.

And eventually, police had to bring her food

in order to get her to trust them.

She was so scared of the police that they had to spend a long time

actually trying to coax her to come out

and convince her that they were taking her somewhere safe.

Fearing that there could be more children still in Jodi's home,

the police continued their search.

The story goes from scary to terrifying.

You see what looks like a panic room

that law enforcement is adamant they need to get into,

out of fear that a child could be in there.

In their search of other rooms in the home,

police found what looked like evidence of torture.

Rope, adult diapers, duct tape,

and wound dressings covered in cayenne pepper.

The two youngest children were taken to hospital,

and the severity of their injuries

would keep them there for three days.

When we learned the details of what had happened to those children,

I never imagined anything close to that was going on.

It was sickening,

it was shocking, it was heartbreaking.

It made me cry.

I know those children.

We loved those children, and we still do.

VOICE BREAKS: It's gonna make me cry now.

It makes me sick to my stomach.

Things were really bad, and we understood

that children were being abused, but the extent of that abuse

was something far worse than we imagined.

Police knew that Ruby's two eldest children had already moved out,

but her two middle teenage daughters were still missing.

'We were very concerned about the welfare of the children.'

We dedicate all of our personnel that day

to trying to locate the children.

After two-and-a-half hours,

police received the warrant to unlock the safe.

They discovered rope, handcuffs and a bed,

confirming suspicions that a child had been locked inside.

Finally, four hours after the raid began,

Ruby Franke turned up at Jodi's home.

FEMALE OFFICER:

But neither of her two missing daughters,

aged 14 and 16, were with her.

When Ruby arrived at the house, she appeared completely unfazed.

'The house was swarming with police, and Ruby just sat down on the couch.

'She at no point asks, "Where are my children?" '

Ruby didn't say anything to the police.

She didn't try to offer up any defence.

She didn't ask any questions.

Instead, she goes quiet,

and at this point, the cops put her into handcuffs.

Ruby Franke was now in custody, but uncooperative.

In Springville, police officers received intel from locals

that Ruby's 16-year-old daughter

was seen at a sports club earlier in the day.

So we spoke to their employees at the rec centre,

and they said that the Franke daughter

had left with an adult woman, who was not her mother,

but they didn't know who she was.

We retrieved a surveillance video from the rec centre

and could see an adult woman

taking the Franke daughter with her in a car.

We found out who the vehicle is registered to,

and it's a woman who lives 20 miles north of Springville.

So that's the next location that we went to search.

She seems almost unaware of why they may be there,

surprised that they would be there looking for Ruby Franke's children.

Both girls appeared physically unharmed,

but noticeably troubled.

Ruby's friend explained to the police

that she had been asked by Ruby to take care of the children

for the evening.

Police verified the friend's story

and eventually cleared them of any wrongdoing.

For Child Protective Services and law enforcement,

their mindset is, "Let's take the children,

"make sure they're safe, make sure they're healthy,

"and then we'll figure out the rest."

With all four minor children under child protection,

Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were taken into custody

and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse.

Three years after she was first reported to authorities,

Ruby was finally in custody.

'And I think that's when it all kind of hit us.'

Like, this is beyond anything

we thought this woman would do to her children.

If that youngest son had not run away,

100% believe that these children would not be alive right now.

But in my 26 years of law enforcement,

I can say that I haven't seen any worse circumstances

of children being mistreated,

abused, held captive, and malnourished.

I haven't seen anything worse than this.

NARRATOR: Within hours of Ruby Franke

and Jodi Hildebrandt's arrest,

police were uncovering the full extent of their abuse.

We received details from the Ivins Police Department

about how the children had been abused, malnourished

and held captive in Ivins.

And those details are absolutely just heartbreaking.

Chris, you open the door.

After Ruby and Jodi were arrested, they were taken into custody

and questioned by the Ivins Police Department.

MAN:

WOMAN:

In my experience in law enforcement, their reaction to questions

from law enforcement is strange

and bizarre that they appeared to show no emotion

and seemed to be detached from what they had done.

MAN:

WOMAN:

MAN:

WOMAN:

WOMAN:

WOMAN:

MAN:

Ruby and Jodi were both charged

with multiple counts of aggravated child abuse.

MAN:

As Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt were taken to jail,

law enforcement continued an extensive search

of both their homes.

Officers quickly discovered a crucial piece of evidence -

Ruby's personal journal,

which laid out in graphic detail the extent of the abuse.

One of the major pieces of evidence was Ruby Franke's own diary.

Weaved into this diary is this kind of undertone

of this need to reform the children, because they were innately evil.

Ruby Franke's own words from her diary entries

have been voiced here using AI technology.

'And once the lies and sin is revealed,

'the body must engage in good work,

'and the good work needs to be painful.'

KYLE DUNPHEY: We learned in her diary

about forcing her kids to work outside,

do chores without shoes on.

I mean, it gets really hot in Utah.

It's a pretty sinister picture of what was happening.

BRIAN BUCKMIRE: Some of the hard labour

that they were forced to do as ways of humbling themselves under God...

..and correcting past behaviour.

She is very descriptive in these journals

about covering the youngest son's face and nose

and holding him underwater.

'I now know the demon he harbours in his heart is so sick

'that, in order to keep my son,

'I will need to put him back under sedation,

'like stitching up a patient knowing you didn't get all the cancer out.

'And it's only a matter of time before your patient keels over.'

She's sedating her children in order to control them.

As disturbing details of the abuse

continue to be unravelled by police...

officers turned their attention

to the children's father, Kevin Franke,

who had previously separated from Ruby,

in order to establish whether he had any involvement.

Law enforcement begins questioning Kevin Franke,

asking him about the state of his children.

MAN:

WOMAN:

Many of us looked at this and thought,

"How could you not know the conditions of your children?

"Not have a phone call, a text message,

"an email, a letter, something,

"knowing how your children are doing

"under the care of your separated wife?"

MAN:

A really kind of striking part about this whole case

is that I think a lot of the abuse

and allegations of abuse went on

without Kevin Franke knowing about it.

And he was clearly really surprised to learn of some of the details.

MAN:

That's when law enforcement

perhaps stopped looking at Kevin Franke

as a potential suspect

and started looking at him as a potential victim.

Kevin later claimed he had been deceived,

and that Jodi had destroyed his family.

He cooperated with police,

and there were no charges brought against him.

Ruby Franke made several phone calls to her husband, Kevin,

where she appeared unrepentant,

painting herself as the victim.

She almost seemed to blame her children

for the situation more than herself,

and she had this mentality

that she would soon be out of jail,

that this... some grand mistake had been made.

At the end of 2023, Ruby Franke finally faced her day in court.

Ruby Franke's name was everywhere.

There was just this really palpable, uh, rage against her.

She was abusing her children. That's one of the cardinal sins.

Good morning, welcome to District Court.

We're here in the matter

of State of Utah versus Franke, case number 2-3-1-5-0-1-7-6-4.

NARRATOR: In December 2023, Ruby Franke appeared in court

facing several counts of aggravated child abuse.

Journalists flooded the courtroom in anticipation

of finally hearing what Ruby would say.

In court, television cameras

broadcast her every move to the nation.

The Ruby who arrived in court is a very different Ruby

than the one that we got to know

through 8Passengers and Connexions.

There's none of the confidence, that's all lost.

We've gone from this bubbly, confident blonde

to this meek, almost subservient,

almost silent, um, individual

that almost looks like

if she could make herself any smaller, she would be doing that.

There was an absolute frenzy around her case.

When she first went to court,

this case was like the crime of the century,

and everyone wanted to be witness to it.

News cameras captured the astonishing moment

that Ruby Franke stood up and finally addressed the court.

Ms Franke, how do you plead to count one,

aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony?

Guilty.

To count three, aggravated child abuse,

a second-degree felony?

Guilty.

To count five, aggravated child abuse,

a second-degree felony?

Guilty.

And to count six, aggravated child abuse,

a second-degree felony?

With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children,

guilty.

There are a lot of people that felt vindicated.

Finally, there's some sort of justice for this woman.

Ruby Franke took a plea deal first.

Days later, Jodi Hildebrandt also took a plea deal.

I'm relieved to see that Ruby Franke

and Jodi Hildebrandt pled guilty,

rather than having to put the children, or the family

or anyone else through a trial.

So in that regard, it feels as though now justice has been served.

Two months later, in February 2024,

Ruby and Jodi were back in court

for sentencing hearings.

Again, cameras captured their staggering statements to the court,

and prosecutors laid out the extent of their crimes.

We're here for sentencing

in the matter of State of Utah versus Ruby Franke.

She committed horrible acts of child abuse.

From May to August in 2023,

Miss Franke and her business partner held her two children,

ages 9 and 11, turning 12,

in a concentration-camp-like setting.

In her address to the court, Ruby said that she had been led

to a dark delusion that she was living in a distorted reality,

and she blamed Jodi for isolating her from her friends and family.

For the past four years,

I've chosen to follow counsel and guidance

that has led me into a dark delusion.

Ruby talked about being duped and almost hoodwinked,

and kind of pulled apart from her family, isolated,

and made to feel that this was the only way

to protect her children.

I was led to believe that this world was an evil place,

filled with cops who control,

hospitals that injure,

government agencies that brainwash,

church leaders who lie and lust,

husbands who refuse to protect,

and children who need...

..abused.

There's no direct or definitive ownership

of the choices that she made, of the behaviour.

It comes from her being naive enough to be deceived

into this notion that the world is full of evil people,

and that she was brainwashed rather than acting from her own agency.

I still question whether or not she's taken full accountability

and responsibility for her actions.

This is torture of another human being,

but not just any human being.

This is torturing a child that you have birthed,

that you have carried,

that you have fed, that you have loved.

Court is back in session...

Cameras also captured

Jodi Hildebrandt's statement to the court

as she finally addressed what she had done.

I sincerely love these children.

I desire for them to heal physically and emotionally.

One of the reasons I did not go to trial,

so I did not want them to emotionally relive the experience,

which would have been detrimental to them.

Jodi said, like, she loves the kids

and she wants them to have, like, a great life or something.

I was like...

the audacity,

the absolute audacity of this woman.

You love these children. What do you think love is?

Is love duct tape and handcuffs in the basement?

I could never classify that as love.

News outlets broadcast the judge's sentencing

and damning assessment of the case.

Your conduct in this case was disastrous for these children.

Adults are supposed to protect children.

Adults with specialised training, in particular,

are supposed to protect children.

You didn't do that in this case.

In this... In this case, you terrorised children

and the results have been tragic.

Ruby and Jodi received sentences

of between 4 and 30 years for their crimes.

The Utah Parole Board will review their behaviour in prison

to determine when they are fit for release.

After the arrests,

the four youngest Franke children were placed into state care.

Kevin Franke filed for divorce from Ruby in November 2023.

He has continued to fight for full custody

of his children in the courts.

These are not just...

These weren't strangers.

These were children that we know,

and these were...

..happy, talkative, engaging, silly children.

There is a compassion and a love for those children.

As a community, I think the focus needs to be

on what do we do to build them up

and make them feel that the world is not a horrible place.

Ruby Franke's fall from grace was catastrophic.

She was a former YouTube star.

She had everything that seemed like the new American Dream.

To become a convicted child abuser,

the world could not look away.

Throughout my time as a journalist,

I've covered some pretty dark, bleak and grim cases.

But there's something about this one that stands out.

And to me, that's the fact that it becomes this cautionary tale.

It was horrific abuse...

all being done by somebody

who had marketed themselves as this ideal family,

and it really does shed a light on what can really be going on

behind closed doors in some of these influencers' lives,

especially when it comes to content involving children.