Law&Crime Sidebar - ‘Horrific Evidence’: YouTube Mom Ruby Franke’s Neighbors Speak Out After Child Abuse Arrest

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

A 41-year-old mom and famous YouTuber was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly tying up two of her children with duct tape and starving them. Authorities said one victim escaped and ran to a neighbor’s house looking for food. Now, Ruby Franke’s neighbors are speaking out about their history with the “8 Passengers” mom. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks it down with former FBI agent Bobby Chacon.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee 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. Eve has been amazingly well-behaved for being in town. But you yelled at me. The fact that I yell at my kids is a secret. We don't want our viewers to know. That never happens. In my house, I never yell.

A Utah YouTuber who claimed to offer help to parents in raising children defended her treatment of her own children. Now she's charged with child abuse as her oldest daughter asked the public for help in gathering evidence. And neighbors say they've been concerned for a long time. Welcome to Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Ruby Frankie and her business partner, Jody Hildebrandt, are a. in jail on six counts of child abuse. Frankie ran a YouTube channel, eight passengers, where she documented her family's life. That page shut down, and with her business partner, Jody Hildebrandt, she was running a new channel called Connections. Frankie's oldest daughter, Sherry Frankie, is in college

and estranged from her mother. She posted on Instagram about being relieved by her mom's arrest, stating finally, and asking people to help collect evidence about connections. Here's a clip of a video that Ruby Frankie posted on Facebook after she entered her daughter's school, she was pretty upset after they were having the kids do a flash mob. I am so upset. I am so angry. I could scream. And I had an appointment with principal. I said, I have a concern about the TikTok dances. And she said, She said every, she said in the fall semester and in the spring semester, we need to have a performance. A flash mob is a great way to get it in.

It's efficient. The kids love it. They have fun with it. And they are able to check off their performance for their grade. I said, my problem is the choice of songs. And she says, well, all the songs were approved by me. And she says, well, what's moral for you isn't going to be moral for other parents. You know, you're complaining about this song, but I've got 30 other parents that just think it's wonderful.

And I said, it's what's moral according to God. Joining me to discuss the allegations in this story is somebody who has investigated a lot of crimes. He's also a lawyer, retired FBI agent Bobby Chacon. Bobby, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Great to be back. Thank you. Bobby, what are your first impressions of this case?

I can't believe it. It's not totally shocking. in the stuff that we cover, but we have somebody who's Mormon, who professes to be a religious person, offering parenting advice. And now police are saying she's really a child abuser. Yeah. I mean, unfortunately, the first thing that I thought of was the case that we had in the last couple of years here in California, that not far from me, with the more than a dozen children kept in that house. You remember, they range from small children to lodge some chain to the bed, things like that. That's really what came finally. Yeah, the term.

and the long-term abuse, like the systematic, long-term abuse that these children are being basically raised under. You know, then when I saw the reporting of this case, and thank God that some of the neighbors kept at it, they apparently called the authorities a number of times. They did welfare checks. They just kind of checked the boxes, I think. They left paperwork on the door because no one answered, and then they left. But one of the neighbors I saw said, you know, we were just hoping that this didn't end and like those kids being brought out of that house and body bags, you know, which could happen. And so, you know, I lived in you. for a while. And those are very close-knit communities. I lived in Salt Lake, but the suburbs of

Salt Lake are these small little towns that all kind of are very enclavish, and everybody knows each other, looks out for each other, and really treats each other well. And I think when you have somebody here in this case was not treating their children well, it became very known to the neighbors. My first impression was, like one of those neighbors reported, I'm glad it got resolved or hopefully resolved before there was any deaths of some of those children. it seems like this has gone on for a long time it's not as if everything's hunky dory and you just one day wake up and start abusing your children no this is a systematic thing this is a this is and and the really bizarre point about this case is she apparently was part of some parenting group um that had an instagram page and was kind of active on social media and youtube and stuff and people were kind of disturbed by some of the behavior that they could actually see so she made as opposed to the case in cal California, which was very hidden. People never saw those children. Here, in this case, you know, she was actually on YouTube putting videos out where people are like, I don't think

you should withhold food from children as a reward slash punishment type of system. And apparently she was doing some of that and putting it out there as a parenting strategy on her channels and on her social media. And so people were kind of getting upset about that. Apparently last year she kicked her husband out of the house and things kind of spiraled even worse, she has this business partner in this parenting business and apparently she was spending more time with that person longer periods away from the house where at least one of the children was wandering around the neighborhood looking for playmates knocking on doors. And so all of this really kind of came to a head. You hope, the hope is that social services gets on these things quicker.

Some of the children were malnourished. It takes a while to become malnourished. And that's again what you talk about to your point. It's that this was going on for quite some time this was a systematic behavior pattern that was going on and you know could have ended much more tragically the oldest daughter of ruby frankie sherry posted on instagram over the weekend and she was asking the public to look for information evidence related to the YouTube channel the connections YouTube channel not the eight passengers one she said we're we're aware of most of that stuff but we're looking for evidence related to the connection YouTube channel specifically.

And so Sherry Frankie is in college now. She's away from home. And probably, I'm assuming, may have contacted authorities, but she was almost breathing a sigh of relief in some of these messages that she posted on her Instagram story, basically saying, finally, something is happening. She's 20 years old. Yeah, and I know people have the reaction of, you know,

well, why didn't she stop it sooner? She's an adult and she's been an adult for several years. you know, as you're getting into 16, 17, 18-year-old, you got to remember if this is a long-term systematic behavior pattern, these children have been raised, almost brainwashed, to accept this type of behavior, you know, children learn what they live, right? As an old phrase, and it's like, you know, they don't, oftentimes when people abuse children long-term like this, they don't allow the children to know what proper behavior is, what proper parenting is, and so they don't know any different. This is the way they've been raised.

And so I think that people have to keep in mind that, you know, as this probably this young person probably left the world of that home and got into college and got away from that influence, you know, then it starts to become more clear how bizarre and how improper that behavior was that she was raised under. And so I think that I think we should give all of those. I mean, this person is a victim, right? This 20-year-old college student is a victim. And I think we should give them all of the leeway and all of the help that they need. to kind of recover from this. And thank God that she did that and now is helping some of the younger siblings. You said something really interesting there that, you know, people do what they learn and what they're taught. I would assume if these allegations are true that Ruby Frankie may have witnessed this behavior in her own childhood, possibly had the same treatment, even though you grow up and maybe you get out of the house and you realize, oh, this, that wasn't right. maybe she knew no other way and maybe she was duct taped to the wall and maybe she had food

withheld from her but at some point you know you're eating food and you're healthy so i mean there's a weird kind of dynamic going on there there's also a generational thing that happens too like you know um you're right the the abused often becomes an abuser you know and i don't know the statistics on that but it's not uncommon for someone that was abused to know that kind of behavior pattern and then carry it on as the abuser later in their life. But, you know, a generation ago, two generations ago, social services wasn't as active. We didn't have social media to kind of give us all the information that we now have. Hopefully there are more and better avenues for, you know, victims like this to get the help that they need. But, you know, I know one or two

generations ago, which is not that long. People tolerated this. People looked the other way. Neighbors said that's not any of our business, things like that. I mean, my grandmother was raised in a very, very abusive household and then married an abuser and was married to him for 50 years and never, you know, called the police on him and never, that's just not what you did back then, right? You handled it inside the family. And so as these generations have progressed and social services has kind of, you know, look, I know social services is overwhelmed and underfunded all the time. But there's more outreach now, I think, and neighbors, I think, the more we publicize stories like this and they see these types of things in the media, the more.

neighbors are like, I have to say something. I have to make a phone call. I have to do something to help these children because if I don't, we are going to see them carried out of that house and body bags. Definitely. If you see something that you think is not right, speak up, especially when it comes to children. Bobby, put your lawyer hat on now. Your retired FBI agent, obviously, but as an attorney, how do you defend this woman if these allegations are indeed true? I'm saying this because it sounds pretty, pretty damning that you have a child who's malnourished walking around, but she is innocent until proven guilty, along with Jody Hildebrandt, her business partner.

Well, absolutely. I mean, look, and I'm kind of torn by some of these things because I'm a big believer in parents' rights. I don't believe a lot of these other cases that have disturbed me recently are school systems and school districts and teachers doing things to children or advising children without parents consent or without parent knowledge. So I'm a big believer that parents have the paramount responsibility and rights to raise their children the way they see fit. However, obviously in cases like this, when they cross the line, when you said they duct taped and malnourished and things

like that, I mean, obviously these things cross the line. But as an attorney, you know, it's really hard to put a defense attorney cap on me because I spent so much time on the other side. But, but, you know, at some point, this is parenting, right? I have a, you know, the right to spank my child if I want. I have a right to do, you know, certain things the way I see fit. I think it's going to be, it could be a defense strategy, could be to raise that kind of thing. Now, I don't believe that should be successful in this case. I'm just saying that that could be a theory that, look, parenting should ultimately reside with the parents. And I think that I would try to to do that and downplay some of the horrific evidence in this case, like the evidence of duct tape and

like the malnourishment, which is hard to explain away and should be hard to explain away. I think will be hard to explain away in this case. But I think that one of the defense strategies will be, you know, this is parenting. And if you don't agree with it, then you raise your kids the way you want and allow other people to raise the kids the way they want. Another thing that bothers me about this case, it sounds like people on YouTube, we're seeing some things, some red flags for a really long time. And they were raising questions about this channel and about Ruby Frankie. Yeah. And even the neighbors, some of the neighbors say the same thing, that they were calling social services. They were calling the police. I think of one welfare check, they knocked on the

door, got no answer and simply left a piece of paper on the, on the door saying call us or call us when you're available. I mean, that's not the way. I think this is the problem, I think, with social services. And we've seen this in domestic violence cases. We've seen this in child abuse cases where either law enforcement or social services are just not aggressive enough. You know, we do have in this country a sacrosanct right to our own liberty and do what we want in the confines of our own home and things like that. But I think, like you said earlier, when children are involved or when adults that are, you know, mentally compromised or the elderly, I think that law enforcement social services has to be more aggressive, you know, in that

battered women. I think that there needs to be a higher. stakes. I think that it need to be more tools available about law enforcement and social services to be more aggressive in these situations and maybe, you know, break that door open and go in there and see what's going on in there and not walk away simply because the door's locked and nobody answers the bell. So I think that that's one of the things we have to, you know, continually evaluate in our society about how much privacy versus protection we want to strike, where do you strike that balance between privacy of the individual and protection of a child, elderly person or someone who's in an abuse. There has to be a way. Bobby, we will continue to follow this story,

and we appreciate your time. As always, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. That's it for this edition of Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. Remember to hit the subscribe button. I'm Anjanette Levy, and we will see you next time.