Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 'Evil and Possessed': Ruby Franke's Shocking Child Abuse Case Dissected by Forensic Psychiatrist

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

YouTuber Ruby Franke admitted this week to physically abusing two of her children in the name of love and religion. Detailed in court documents, Franke's daughter told investigators her mother and Jodi Hildebrandt convinced her she was evil and had to repent. The Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy talks with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Bober about the extreme abuse.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Use code HOLIDAYS23 for an exclusive holiday discount for the Whiskey Raiders Bottle of the Month Club! Join here: whiskeyraiders.com/bottle-of-the-month-club/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Miss Frankie, how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse a second-degree felony? Guilty. YouTuber Ruby Frankie admits in open court to horrific abuse of two children she was supposed to love. Her son telling investigators his mother told him he was evil and possessed. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Tuesday and this is Crime Fix, law and crimes look at the biggest stories in the world of crime.

Ruby Franke appeared in a Utah courtroom on Monday and admitted she abused two of her children, a boy and a girl. And a warning, what I'm going to tell you is absolutely beyond the pale. The boy, who escaped from Jodi Hildebrandt's house in August, said the abuse started in May of this year and just escalated. It got worse throughout the summer months until he escaped the home in late August. The boy was subjected to a number of things, including deprivation of food and water and having his head held underneath water and deprived of oxygen for extended periods of time. The plea agreement says his mother kicked him with boots on and made him wear weights as he was attached to her. The boy's sister described similar abuse and being forced to

walk on dirt roads without shoes. She too was told that she was evil and possessed and actually convinced that she needed to endure all of this and go through it in order to repent. The prosecutor spoke after Frankie pleaded guilty about what comes next for her and Jody Hildebrandt, a woman who claims to be a counselor. Because the alleged facts of the ongoing case and Jody Hildebrandt, a woman who claims to be a counselor. Because the alleged facts of the ongoing case involving Jody Hildebrandt are intertwined with this case, our office will not be making additional statements to the media at this time. Give the gift of whiskey this holiday season with the Whiskey Raiders Bottle of the Month Club. Each month, the experts at Whiskey Raiders send a full-size bottle of delicious, rare whiskey to everyone in the club.

A subscription to this club is the perfect holiday gift for the whiskey lover in your life who's interested in trying new, exciting bottles and learning about what they are drinking. Sign up for the club at www.whiskeyraiders.com or by clicking the link pinned in the comments below. And this month, only you can use the promo code HOLIDAYS23 for an exclusive holiday discount on your purchase. Now, Ruby Frankie and Jodi Hildebrandt, they are Mormons, but the Mormon faith and most faiths do not teach that abuse is necessary to repent. So where do people come up with this stuff? Joining me to discuss this is somebody who knows a lot about the human mind and criminal thinking.

He is forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Bober. Dr. Bober, welcome to Crime Fix. Thanks for coming on. Great to be here. Dr. Bober, you know, this case is so disturbing. It was disturbing before we even knew about this stuff, about the claim that the children were possessed and needed to endure this abuse in order to repent. I'm trying to figure out where do people get this? Because we hear about people going to extremes because of religion. And maybe you think that your children are doing

something sinful, but having them do this awful stuff, like having them endure abuse because you think they're possessed, where are people getting this kind of thing? Well, you know, different parents have different parenting styles. For example, there's what we call authoritarian parenting, which means that you believe in strict obedience, you use force, you use coercion. You believe that breaking the will or bending the will of the child is an act of love itself. And then, of course, there's authoritative parenting, which is more focused on love and nurturing. And although you have strict rules, you validate the child's concerns. And kids that experience this type of parenting tend to grow up with greater self-control

and better self-esteem, whereas with authoritarian parenting, they tend to have lower self-esteem. So it is really a form of authoritarian parenting, which can obviously be very harmful to mental health, especially when taken to this extreme. You know, you can parent your child any way that you want, but when you start doing things that endanger their mental or physical health, you've obviously taken it to a very concerning extreme. Yeah, and I would think that there would be a line between an authoritarian type parent and somebody who is actually abusing their child. Correct. Dr. Bober, there is obviously a big disconnect here. I mean, these are people who convinced these children that they were evil and possessed and that they needed to go without food, have their

heads held underwater, deprived of oxygen, doing really arduous physical activity, exercises to repent and drive out, I guess, evil spirits. So this is a disconnect between Christian teachings and, you know, this. So how does this develop in the mind of a parent and somebody who's supposed to be a counselor? Well, absolutely. I mean, this is not part of any Christian teaching. Very often parents who engage in this level and this type of abuse are themselves victims of abuse or may have their own mental illness. So this is something that's taken to an extreme. Obviously, children don't have the emotional maturity to make these types of decisions. So they count on parents who are loving,

who are nurturing, who treat them with compassion and dignity to guide them in a way that allows their mental health to blossom. But this is something that's totally been perverted into something that is clearly just blatant abuse. Do you see this often? Is this something that you see and that we don't hear about unless it gets to this level where the police get involved and the news media becomes aware? Is this something you have seen in the past? Is this common where parents think my kid is possessed? I mean, it just sounds like something out of a movie or something out of The Exorcist or something like that. I have seen it, and I'll tell you something. I've seen it more commonly during the pandemic because the school system was actually an anchor for people.

They had eyes on them by teachers, by counselors, by people who worked in the school system. And then when kids were home during the pandemic, abuse actually skyrocketed. And the reason was because they didn't have that safety net anymore. So a lot of things went on behind closed doors that people did not know about. So unfortunately, I have seen this quite often. I've been involved in cases like this where abuse has occurred, and it is something that's very concerning. And then you add the social media element to this case, and you can see how unfortunately our culture promotes this because people are exploited, whether it's for monetary gain or for fame.

The whole system really is called into question and how it operates. So you've actually seen it where people think their kids are possessed or it's just this extreme level of abuse? I've seen an extreme level of abuse. I've seen an extreme level of abuse. I haven't specifically seen a case where parents believe their children were possessed. Obviously, that says more about the parents than the children. It's obviously something wrong with the parents. I mean, it seems like a perversion of the religious teaching. And I guess I'm trying to drill down as to where that comes from. Well, maybe the parents themselves grew up in a strict religious background. And perhaps, again, because of their own mental illness, their own trauma, this was taken to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. And maybe that's what's happening here. You know, it's really hard to even imagine for me.

I mean, I'm a parent, obviously. Ever, you know, I threatened to take my kids' electronics away, you know, things of that nature. But this is just beyond the pale. I mean, these kids, thank God they escaped because they could have died. I mean, seriously, we're talking about being left out in the heat and in the sun, sunburned, I mean, deprived of water, oxygen, food. These are things that if this had gone on much longer, these kids could have endured, and they did endure some physical harm, but serious physical harm, and not to mention the mental aspect of this and the emotional aspect of

this. It's absolutely horrific, and it's criminal. And people were speaking up apparently long before these kids were taken into protective custody, but apparently no one really wanted to listen. And again, I question whether this was because of the fame aspect of the social media aspect that they were able to go on with this much longer than they should have been able to. Yeah, and that might be a part of it. We know that the YouTube channel was shut down eventually, and then something was going on. I mean, this started in May of this year, according to the plea agreement. It escalated throughout the summer months.

And I think we'll just be able to learn more about this as the months go on. You know, just one final thought, Dr. Bober, we have somebody involved in this case, Jody Hildebrandt, who was the friend of Ruby Frankie, the mother in this case, who is supposed to be a counselor. She had this connections classroom where she's saying she can teach people to get along better

with each other. I mean, it's just the whole counseling kind of thing. This is not counseling. This is abuse. So are you concerned as a mental health professional that this has gone on outside of just these two children, that this has gone on outside of just these two children, that this has gone on with other people? Yes, it very well may have been a pattern of conduct. And I'll tell you, I think if there is a lesson here, I think the lesson is, is that our society promotes children having blind obedience to authority. And so we need to take children more seriously when they speak up, when they say that something is happening. We can't just assume, oh, they're kids. They're meant to be seen and not heard. We have to actually take that seriously.

And we need to teach our kids that if they're in a situation where they feel uncomfortable and that something's wrong, that they need to speak up and we need to listen. And we can't just blindly think that because they're kids that what they have to say is not important. No doubt. People should be listening to the kids. Dr. Bober, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

My pleasure. And you can report child abuse 24 hours a day by calling 800-843-5678. That's 800-843-5678. And that's it for your Crime Fix on this Tuesday, December 19th, 2023. I'm Anjanette Levy, and we will see you next time.