“Momfluencer” Pleads Guilty To Child Abuse As New Details Emerge Of Dreadful Treatment Of Kids
Trigger warning: this article mentions explicit details of child abuse
New horrific details have emerged from Ruby Franke’s criminal case, as it was recently revealed that she had pushed her son’s head underwater, nearly choked him, and kicked him while she was wearing boots.
On Monday (December 18), The Salt Lake Tribune reported the details after the disgraced momfluencer pleaded guilty to child abuse charges.
The 41-year-old Mormon was facing six felony counts of child abuse, but two of the charges were dropped as part of a plea deal.
In September, the county attorney in Washington County, Utah, announced the six formal charges against her: “Each defendant is accused of causing or permitting serious physical injury to the victims in three different ways: (1) a combination of multiple physical injuries or torture, (2) starvation or malnutrition that jeopardizes life, and (3) causing severe emotional harm,” as per Business Insider (BI).
New details of gruesome child abuse emerged as Ruby Franke pleaded guilty to four counts of six formal charges against her
Image credits: vidapress
Each of the six counts carried a possible prison sentence of one to fifteen years and a fine of up to $10,000.
In the present agreement, prosecutors said Ruby “forced her 10-year-old daughter to run barefoot on roads, withheld food and water, and scolded her for being “evil and possessed,” according to The Tribune.
The agreement also revealed that Ruby made her son believe he needed to repent and could avoid the punishments by being obedient. Her actions caused her son “severe emotional harm.”
“He was also told that everything that was being done to him were acts of love,” the agreement further stated.
Prosecutors said Ruby forced her 10-year-old daughter to run barefoot on roads, withheld food and water, and scolded her for being “evil and possessed”
Image credits: vidapress
On Monday, Ruby pleaded guilty to four felony counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse, BI reported. Second-degree implies that the crime is committed intentionally or knowingly.
A recently released video showed Ruby entering the courtroom, giving a quick smile to some of her family in attendance, before sitting at the front benches.
She told Judge John J. Walton she had read “every word” of the plea deal before confessing: “With my deepest regret, and sorrow for my family and my children — guilty.”
As Judge Walton accepted the plea agreement, the guilty mother will now await her sentencing, which is scheduled for February 20, 2024.
Each of the six counts carried a possible prison sentence of one to fifteen years and a fine of up to $10,000
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Ruby’s lawyer, LaMar Winward, had announced in a statement on Saturday (December 17) that his client would be pleading guilty, ABC News reported.
The Utan lawyer had described Ruby as a devoted mother and claimed Jodi Nan Hildebrandt had “manipulated” her, per ABC.
Jodi Hildebrandt, a mental health counselor and mother-of-two, made parenting videos with Ruby. She was also arrested and charged with multiple counts of child abuse.
LaMar further stated: “Initially, Ms. Franke believed that Jodi Hildebrandt had the insight to offer a path to continual improvement. Ms. Hildebrandt took advantage of this quest and twisted it into something heinous.”
In 2015, Ruby created the YouTube channel 8 Passengers in which she documented her family life with her former husband, Kevin Franke, and their six children
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According to the lawyer, Jodi “systematically isolated” Ruby “from her extended family, older children, and her husband, Kevin Franke.”
“This prolonged isolation resulted in Ms. Franke being subjected to a distorted sense of morality,” he added.
In 2015, Ruby created the YouTube channel 8 Passengers in which she documented her family life in Utah with her former husband, Kevin Franke, and their six children.
Ruby’s lawyers claim that the mother of six was “manipulated” by Jodi Hildebrandt, her business partner
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8 Passengers went on to reach almost 2.5 million subscribers and one billion views. But her popularity hit a wall when in early 2020 one of Ruby’s sons said that he had been banned from his bedroom and made to sleep on a bean bag for seven months, sparking worries amongst viewers.
The backlash grew as it was revealed that Ruby had sent one of her children to a wilderness camp for troubled teens, threatened to behead a stuffed toy, and told two children that Santa Claus would not be bringing them anything for Christmas that year because they were too “numb” to respond to other punishments.
Image credits: Global News
Subsequently, a Change.org petition was launched reporting perceived child abuse and neglect. Despite Ruby and Kevin posting videos clarifying their teaching methods, their YouTube channel rapidly declined in popularity.
In 2022, Ruby and Kevin separated, and the 8 Passengers channel was deleted from YouTube. That’s when the infamous mom started working as a mental health coach at ConneXions, Jodi’s company.
“With my deepest regret, and sorrow for my family and my children — guilty,” Ruby told the judge earlier this week
Image credits: Global News
Rumors of child abuse continued to escalate, as neighbors and Ruby’s oldest daughter, a college student, observed that her mom often left the children alone at home, prompting her to call authorities to check on them.
On August 30, 2023, Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Ivins, Utah, and on September 1 both were charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse.
According to a statement from the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department, Franke’s 12-year-old son, who appeared emaciated and had “open wounds and duct tape around the extremities”, had climbed through a window of Jodi’s house and asked at a neighboring house for food and water.
Image credits: Global News
Emergency services went on to find Ruby’s 10-year-old daughter in the house in a state of malnourishment. The siblings were subsequently taken to a hospital, where the boy was treated for severe malnourishment and “deep lacerations from being tied up with rope”, the BBC reported.
According to the British broadcaster, a search of the house found evidence “consistent with the markings” on the 12-year-old, and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services took the boy and girl and two more of Ruby’s children into care.
Police later reported that according to the boy, cayenne pepper and honey had been used to dress his wounds, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
While Ruby’s three sisters, who are also parenting influencers, have since publicly disassociated themselves from her, Kevin filed for divorce last month, NBC News reported on November 30.
People reacted in absolute horror and highlighted the “facade” of social media
She must have home schooled her kids for this level of abuse to go on for so long. The up-tick in home schooling is alarming since abusers often keep children at home to hide what's going on. Now go ahead and pounce on me for this.
I honestly don't agree with the giving Kevin an apparent pass. He needs to be charged as well.
Agreed. He saw it happening and did nothing to protect them
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It's high time that content depicting the real life of children gets banned from all platforms. It's one thing to see a child actor playing a role in a movie. That's also a difficult topic but at least they're playing a role. But depicting children in their home, exposing their lifes and themselves for clicks is vile and hurtful and has to stop. It ruins their lifes more often than they benefit. It's just not okay. The cases where ot doesn't hurt them are not worth the pain and cruelty those poor kids endure when their parents sniff a chance to use them to earn money.
I think this is true. Parenting advice can still be shared without the children being shown.
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Why do people have children if they are going to abuse them? It is disgusting
As much as this lady is a waste of a human being, some blame falls with the people who (for some reason) even paid attention to her in the first place.
Not really... She's the one who chose to create the content. She's the one who chose to be abusive. She would've done it whether anyone was watching or not (and after her channel was disabled, the abuse got -worse-, not better - she wasn't doing this for attention).
Load More Replies... So where was the father of these children when all of this was happening?
Seeing as god allowed them to be abused, “blessing” them now would seem a little hypocritical.
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You can't tell people what to believe, however weird. Why do we tolerate the Catholic Church? Catholic priests have abused thousands of children all over the world and nothing has happened so far. None of those pieces of s**t was sent to jail, and in many cases their "bosses" knew but did nothing.
Load More Replies...
I hope she feels every bit of emotional and physical pain she inflicted on her innocent and defenseless children in the coming years. I hope her fellow prisoners help her achieve this.
The whole reason I almost never visit this site any more is that when I first discovered it, it was about artists and crafters and "makers" doing their creative stuff. Now bored panda is basically an AITA/Karen machine. I hate interpersonal drama/bad people garbage. That's everywhere. Just turn on the tv or watch any "reality" show. This place is almost all that and nearly nothing actually good. All it is doing is catering to the lowest common denominator of our society because I guess that's where the money is or something. Almost all garbage. I'll check in again in a year or two to see if anything has changed but every time I do it's just worse than last time.
I guess there's enough content in the internet to choose what you want to see. Even here, why do you click on a title that clearly states what the article is about? There are other articles about animals, art, photography... Go and look for something you are interested in, instead of complaining. If you don't want to visit BP, go somewhere else. Good riddance!
Load More Replies...
John Oliver covered the lack of oversight in home schooling in a recent Last Week Tonight video. Well worth watching (it's on Youtube)
These news articles need to be posted in the comments of every single, “mumfluencer”, along with the questions; do you abuse your children more, or less than Ruby Franke? Or do you just use your children for likes?”
“evil and possessed” - once again Relgious nuts proving they are not protexting kids at all.
Evil woman. Does YouTube face any consequences for platforming abusers...? If they did what would that look like - donating ad revenue.
Why is YouTube responsible for somebody else's actions? Was she reported? Was the abuse shown in the videos?
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goes to show ya how life isn't what it seems. one time i saw this mother on youtube that filmed a video featuring her kid but she didn't force them to be on camera. kudos to her. also reminds me of laurenzside who, is an amazing youtuber, that respects the privacy of her 2 and a half yo daughter by barely posting her in her videos. she shared like two clips of her daughter meeting a mall santa and going to disney world and that's it. kudos to all the influencers with kids that don't make their children their entire online personality and respect their privacy and them, even if they're only like 2
I remember seeing a video on YouTube around last year talking about some of the allegations against this woman but none of the truly terrible stuff had come to light yet, and watching some 8 passenger videos and thinking something seemed off. Glad the children are free and hope she rots in prison
Please stop talking about this toxic terrible person. Let her fade into obscurity
No, keep talking about her. A lot. Far too many people obsess about “stranger danger”, and ignore the reality that the vast majority of child abusers are family members or adults closely connected to the child’s family.
Load More Replies...
She must have home schooled her kids for this level of abuse to go on for so long. The up-tick in home schooling is alarming since abusers often keep children at home to hide what's going on. Now go ahead and pounce on me for this.
I honestly don't agree with the giving Kevin an apparent pass. He needs to be charged as well.
Agreed. He saw it happening and did nothing to protect them
Load More Replies... It's high time that content depicting the real life of children gets banned from all platforms. It's one thing to see a child actor playing a role in a movie. That's also a difficult topic but at least they're playing a role. But depicting children in their home, exposing their lifes and themselves for clicks is vile and hurtful and has to stop. It ruins their lifes more often than they benefit. It's just not okay. The cases where ot doesn't hurt them are not worth the pain and cruelty those poor kids endure when their parents sniff a chance to use them to earn money.
I think this is true. Parenting advice can still be shared without the children being shown.
Load More Replies... Why do people have children if they are going to abuse them? It is disgusting
As much as this lady is a waste of a human being, some blame falls with the people who (for some reason) even paid attention to her in the first place.
Not really... She's the one who chose to create the content. She's the one who chose to be abusive. She would've done it whether anyone was watching or not (and after her channel was disabled, the abuse got -worse-, not better - she wasn't doing this for attention).
Load More Replies... So where was the father of these children when all of this was happening?
Seeing as god allowed them to be abused, “blessing” them now would seem a little hypocritical.
Load More Replies... You can't tell people what to believe, however weird. Why do we tolerate the Catholic Church? Catholic priests have abused thousands of children all over the world and nothing has happened so far. None of those pieces of s**t was sent to jail, and in many cases their "bosses" knew but did nothing.
Load More Replies... I hope she feels every bit of emotional and physical pain she inflicted on her innocent and defenseless children in the coming years. I hope her fellow prisoners help her achieve this.
The whole reason I almost never visit this site any more is that when I first discovered it, it was about artists and crafters and "makers" doing their creative stuff. Now bored panda is basically an AITA/Karen machine. I hate interpersonal drama/bad people garbage. That's everywhere. Just turn on the tv or watch any "reality" show. This place is almost all that and nearly nothing actually good. All it is doing is catering to the lowest common denominator of our society because I guess that's where the money is or something. Almost all garbage. I'll check in again in a year or two to see if anything has changed but every time I do it's just worse than last time.
I guess there's enough content in the internet to choose what you want to see. Even here, why do you click on a title that clearly states what the article is about? There are other articles about animals, art, photography... Go and look for something you are interested in, instead of complaining. If you don't want to visit BP, go somewhere else. Good riddance!
Load More Replies... John Oliver covered the lack of oversight in home schooling in a recent Last Week Tonight video. Well worth watching (it's on Youtube)
These news articles need to be posted in the comments of every single, “mumfluencer”, along with the questions; do you abuse your children more, or less than Ruby Franke? Or do you just use your children for likes?”
“evil and possessed” - once again Relgious nuts proving they are not protexting kids at all.
Evil woman. Does YouTube face any consequences for platforming abusers...? If they did what would that look like - donating ad revenue.
Why is YouTube responsible for somebody else's actions? Was she reported? Was the abuse shown in the videos?
Load More Replies... goes to show ya how life isn't what it seems. one time i saw this mother on youtube that filmed a video featuring her kid but she didn't force them to be on camera. kudos to her. also reminds me of laurenzside who, is an amazing youtuber, that respects the privacy of her 2 and a half yo daughter by barely posting her in her videos. she shared like two clips of her daughter meeting a mall santa and going to disney world and that's it. kudos to all the influencers with kids that don't make their children their entire online personality and respect their privacy and them, even if they're only like 2
I remember seeing a video on YouTube around last year talking about some of the allegations against this woman but none of the truly terrible stuff had come to light yet, and watching some 8 passenger videos and thinking something seemed off. Glad the children are free and hope she rots in prison
Please stop talking about this toxic terrible person. Let her fade into obscurity
No, keep talking about her. A lot. Far too many people obsess about “stranger danger”, and ignore the reality that the vast majority of child abusers are family members or adults closely connected to the child’s family.
Load More Replies...
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