A mum made famous by her parenting YouTube channel has been jailed for child abuse.
Ruby Franke, who made herself famous by boasting about her strict life and parenting decisions and the videos she posted on the social media site, has been sentenced to four years behind bars for abusing her children and bringing them up in “concentration camp” settings.
The 42-year-old American cried as she was handed the sentence in a court in Utah and apologised to her children publicly.
The court had heard how she routinely starved her children as punishment, left them to sleep on the floor and regularly abused them in the name of discipline.
She appeared along with her former business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, 54, who received an identical sentence.
The judge sentenced them both to serve four terms of one to 15 years each after hearing all the evidence.
The sentences will run consecutively and are the maximum for each count under Utah law. How much time each will ultimately serve will be determined by the state's parole board, depending on their behaviour while behind bars.
Speaking in court, she said: "I was so disoriented that I believed dark was light and right was wrong."
"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 abuse.”
The two women were arrested in August 2023 after Franke's malnourished 12-year-old son climbed out of a window at Hildebrandt's house in Ivins, Utah. Police said the child then ran to a neighbour's house and asked for food and water. He had lacerations from being tied up with rope, according to police records.
What do we know about the case?
Who is Ruby Franke?
Ruby Franke is a 42-year-old American mum who made her name online by being a vlogger.
Her family were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Although the extent of the abuse was not made clear on her now defunct YouTube channel 8 Passengers - she was very vocal about her extreme views and opinions on raising her family – which consisted of herself, her husband Kevin and their six children. As of June 2020, the channel had almost 2.5 million subscribers.
In 2021 one of the Franke children went public and said that he had been banned from his bedroom and made to sleep on a bean bag for seven months as a punishment.
It was also said that she had withheld food and mentally abused the children, making threats to behead toys. Concerned viewers launched a Change.org petition to push police to investigate concerns of child abuse and neglect. The channel began to decline in popularity.
In 2022, the Frankes separated, Kevin moved out of the house and Ruby deleted the YouTube channel. She began working as a mental health coach at ConneXions, a company run by Jodi Nan Hildebrandt, a counsellor and together they launched a video channel in 2022 called Moms of Truth, which offered parenting advice.
Ruby’s older children who had left the home by this point called police asking them to check in on their siblings.
On August 30, 2023, she was arrested in Washington County, Utah and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse under Utah law, four counts of which she pleaded guilty to.
Why has she been jailed?
The court heard about the level of abuse that had been going on behind closed doors for a lengthy period.
In court, Utah prosecutor Eric Clarke said two of Franke's children, aged nine and 11 at the time, lived in a "concentration camp-like setting", labelling her a “significant threat to the community.”
He said: "The children were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in, and virtually all forms of entertainment.”
She was first arrested in August 2023 after Franke's malnourished 12-year-old son climbed out of a window at Hildebrandt's house in Ivins, Utah. Police said the child then ran to a neighbour's house and asked for food, water and help. He had lacerations from being tied up with rope, according to police records.
Franke reportedly believed her children were “possessed”.
The court heard punishments included tying them up, beating and kicking them, neglecting to feed them and forcing them to work outdoors in the summer without sunscreen, resulting in serious sunburn.
