Law&Crime Sidebar - Ruby Franke's Close Friend Tells All: 'So Selfish'

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Paige Hanna, a Utah woman mentioned during the police investigation into convicted child abusers Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt, is telling her side of the story. Hanna explains her relationship with the two women, as well as Hildebrandt’s Connexions life coaching business. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber sifts through all the new information with KUTV reporter Brian Schnee.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’ve used Incognito mode in Google’s Chrome browser, find out if you have a claim in a few clicks by visiting https://incognitoclaims.com/sidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&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.

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will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. They still get really upset because it was so selfish and angry at her for what she did. Paige Hanna is a name that's come up in the Ruby Frankie Jody Hildebrand case, and now she's speaking out. We bring on KUTV 2 News's Brian Schnee to break down her response and her connection to this pair of child abusers.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Hey, everybody, this is a Long Crime Legal Alert. Google Incognito tracked users browsing data without their knowledge. Oh, yeah. And Mass Tort Alliance, one of our legal sponsors, is helping users file for compensation due to Google misleading the privacy of their incognito browser. So if you've used Google Incognito any time since 2016, you can start your claim in less than 10 questions. Just go to incognito claims.com slash sidebar. All right. I want to talk to you about Paige Hanna right now.

Now, you might be saying, why does that name sound so familiar? I'm going to tell you why. Now, she is purportedly a former colleague of Jody Hildebrand and friend and business partner to Ruby Frankie. Ruby Frankie, of course, the once popular mommy vlogger, YouTuber, and Jody Hildebrandt, the once controversial, mental health therapists who were arrested, charged, pleaded guilty to aggravated child abuse of two of Ruby's youngest children. They are each sitting in prison right now. They were handed down indeterminate sentences that could see them behind bars anywhere between, ostensibly four to 30 years. This is all for four counts of aggravated child abuse.

Now again, why does that name Paige Hanna sounds so familiar? Well, for those who have been following this Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand case for a while, I will tell you why. It is because she and her husband, Johnny Hanna, the Hanna's, were mentioned by Kevin Frankie,

Ruby's estranged husband, in his interview with police. And this police interview, along with a lot of other material was part of a huge release of evidence in this case by Utah officials. So what did Kevin say about the Hanna's? Take a listen. It got strange around the fall of 2020. The Hannas were trying to convince and bring Ruby into this.

Thank you. into this organization called Connections, and that particularly were focused on things like lust versus love and healthy marriages, happier marriages, happier relationships. And my impression at that time was this is absolute craziness. This is a bunch of man-hating women that are just looking for, excuses to tear down their husbands. But it did, it was confusing because there were people

that I respected a lot that were up on the stage with microphones in hand, you know, giving testimonials of how great this was and how it changed their lives and their marriage and like the Hannahs were among them. Jody really opened up to the women in a private conversation that she believed she was being tormented and haunted by shadow figures every night.

I don't know exactly what happened, but the Hanna's due. All I know is at some point within a couple days of that in that month of March. The Hanna's drove down from Mapleton and picked Jody up and brought her back to their home in Mapleton,

and she lived. for six weeks in that home in Mapleton. And this is where, like, I don't know what happened, but I do know that there's two different sides of stories. They tried to introduce her to a new colt lady that the Hannahs were getting into. So they wanted to merge their colts into one, apparently. According to Jody, she was held against her will for six weeks

and was kidnapped and got out. According to the Hannah's, after six weeks of Jody stabbing herself with forks and knives cutting herself and wanted to commit suicide and trying to seduce the husband of the family, they kicked her out. I don't know what's the truth's record. Maybe a little bit of both, I don't know. But the point is, somewhere around mid-April, Jody was back in her home and Ivans and she was a hot mess. and she reached out to Ruby for help. And Ruby, Ruby was always jealous of the Hannah's that they had a better relationship with Jody than she did.

It hurt her that she felt like she was being excluded from what was going on at the Hannah's house. And then she'd say, why are so many secrets? And the Hannes would say, it's not secret, it's sacred. And when the time's right, you can know too. A little strange. A little strange, maybe a lot of strange, to say the least. But we want to talk about Paige Hannah because she just released a series of videos on YouTube.

They're listed under the YouTube channel called Under the Rug. And she released it back on April 12th. It was her response to all of this. As I said, she actually released two videos. Here's a snippet from her latest one titled The Second. And this is where she speaks out about Jody Hildebrand. And she's living as the exception to her. her teachings with this victim mindset, this everyone's out to get me and or Satan himself

is out to get me. Any teachings can be good until they're weaponized. So she claims that her relationship with Ruby and Jody ended in May of June of 2021. Let's make sense of what all this is about. For that, let me bring on fan favorite, my favorite. Right now, KUTV 2 News is Brian, anchor and reporter Brian Schnee. He's been following this case with me since the very beginning. He is rocking a very colorful parka. I think that's the way to describe it for all of our audio listeners. I encourage you to check it out on our YouTube page. It's just, just phenomenal. Just phenomenal, Brian. Good to see you. Always good to see you. We will do our very best to unpack this. There was a lot said in both videos and a lot to try and make sense of.

But I get the sense that there will be more videos at this point, Jesse. Before we even get into this, what is your understanding of who she is, what her connection is to all of this? I've heard through the grapevine that the Hannah's might be a little well-known. And my understanding is, have you had any communication with Paige Hannah? So that's a lot I threw at you. But who is Paige Hannah? Who's Johnny Hannah?

And have you spoken to either of them? Haven't spoken to Johnny, traded some messages with Page. We knew about Page from the early portions of just kind of hearing through the grapevine, a little bit more about Ruby Frankie, a little bit more about Jody Hildebrandt, but most importantly, what is Connections Classroom, right? That is how all of this really ties in to all of those names I just mentioned. The Hanna's are a large family in Utah County. They also, in terms of well-known, I mean, Johnny is a businessman, has done a lot of things

that involve startups of businesses and such. just one of those very large families in an area that is known for having large families here in parts of Utah. So Paige being discussed by Kevin Frankie, I don't think that really caught anybody who's been looking sort of inside baseball on this situation. I don't think it caught anyone by surprise, but the fact that she started putting out some videos and really diving in deep to her history with Ruby and Jody, it's really interesting stuff. And I talk about these videos in the sense that, well, I'll tell you what,

before we even talk about the videos, I played snippets of what Kevin was saying about it. I'm still confused what exactly he's alleging about the Hanna's. Did you, what's your take on what he's alleging? I don't know, because what we don't have, keep in mind, Kevin said a lot to officers and they released a lot of that stuff. What they didn't ever share with us are these pen papers, right? The pen papers that just miraculously disappeared. I don't even really understand what he's trying to convey about the Hanna's. It's a question that if I ever have the opportunity to sit down and talk to Kevin, it's definitely on my long, long list of questions for Kevin Frankie, but how do the Hanna's fit into all of this? It really started with connections

back in, I believe, 2018, right? I mean, this has been a while, at least six years. And Paige even says at some point during this, she wasn't aware of the A Passengers Channel, didn't watch any of the videos, and obviously watched something down the line to add some context to a lot of her thoughts in these videos. And that's the point.

She released these videos in response to what Kevin said about her. So what exactly was that response? When you took these two videos, what was she trying to clear the record about? I don't think she's really cleared the record on a whole lot yet. She's trying to dive deep into a historical context about how she met Jody, then met Ruby, which it was through, if we understand correct, she took a parenting class from Jody. Johnny, her husband, also took a parenting class from Jody. They never went to Jody for therapy.

She talks about this in her first video. though. It was a parenting course, if you will, six to eight weeks, once a week. She described it as two hours long. And these were some of those connections, classrooms, offerings, right? So she gets really deep into how did she first really interact with Jody and the red flags, I guess, if you will, that she didn't notice at first with Jody, but now that everything has been put together. So she says, these are now the red flags that maybe she wished she had noticed. But she doesn't talk. a whole lot about Kevin other than the fact that in one of these videos she talks about Kevin Frankie in the state of when she started working with connections and Ruby started to get involved they started almost picking it Kevin in a way because Kevin didn't believe in these things right Kevin was not a part of Connections classroom there was a moment in the second video that she said that Jody just kind of laughed at what Kevin's responses were to all of this they had some judgments They, I believe, mostly Jody at this point of what Page was talking about as to how Kevin really saw what was going on with these connections classroom teachings, if you will.

So apparently, Kevin didn't buy it from the beginning, according to Paige Hannah. Did she address the main issue about when Jody was allegedly staying with her and her husband? And there was this, again, Kevin's like, well, they had to say one thing. Jody says another thing. Did Paige Hannah respond to that? Because I might have missed it. But did she respond to when Jody was apparently staying with them? I don't think so.

And I've listened to about 50 minutes of the two videos. And I imagine that still comes down the line because we're still in about the 2020 time frame here in these videos. She left off in part two talking about giving Jody a lot of time. time in 2020, the same time that she gave birth to her eighth child in September of that year. It was a point where she got really emotional too. She basically said she had become more important to me. She had become more important than my family, the amount of time that she was taking. And then she started to break down. You mean with Jody? Like she was spending too much time with Jody. Yeah. Spending so much time with Jody. And she's a mother of eight children, right?

and she called it reflecting on that time frame from four years ago so selfish so i believe that is the time frame where page stops really getting into these moments so i don't think we got there yet jesse i don't think we did unless i missed it i didn't i didn't hear it and i was waiting for it i was waiting for it like this is your opportunity there's so much said in these two videos that gets really deeply rooted into the practices of connections classroom, the manipulation, the distortion, all of the words that we've heard over the last eight months describing Jody Hildebrand and Ruby Frankie and this whole thing. But we didn't really get into the nitty gritty of one staying with the other or the future reactions or interactions, I should say, with Kevin Frankie. And I think

that'll probably come in the next video or two videos, depending on how long she goes with this. I will tell you, I thought it was very interesting that some of the allegations she made against Jody are entirely consistent with what Kevin. And by the way, Jody said in her taped jailhouse phone calls, this idea of there's demonic forces and Satan is after her. I mean, Paige Hannah mentions that in the video that this is what Jody was telling her. And again, that's very consistent with what Jody had said in before. Like when she was arrested, she thought that, you know, they're out to get me. This is another example of Satan testing me. Like, I'm paraphrasing, but it was, again, trying to defend herself in the wake of allegations that she abused two children.

I thought that part was really interesting about Paige Hannah. And she talks about that in the second video. She said, Jody would confided me in having horrific nightmares. And she felt it to be pretty interesting that Jody would get more personal with Paige than other people that were involved in. connections. They grew this sort of bond, if you will, or friendship, where Jody would open up beyond what she described as giving really the 10% truth or the just a smidge to people in class to allow them to fill in the rest and basically telling yourself the story that you want to hear and looking at Jody as though as she is this higher power, right? So she said in those nightmares,

Jody would describe that Satan himself was out to get her and that it demonstrates her belief that she was called on God by God to teach these connections to the world. And she called that in that moment a red flag, but she did not recognize it. So she believes in that moment. She talks about the Satan and the nightmares and the higher power and believing Jody is more than in both videos.

And she focuses a lot on the idea of cult and said that you know the way that you can focus on a call you can see something's a cult if you have there's one person at the top who's not even following their own teachings it seemed to me almost i think more in the second video than the first it's almost as a PSA a warning to people that's one of the takeaways i got from this look at who you follow look at who you're married to she goes on after that saying basically look at who you surround yourself with and try to see through the fill in the blank because it didn't page hannah didn't see through the fill in the blank that jody was throwing at them which is why i thought it was really interesting because she even

talks about it in the first video she said it doesn't take somebody with a low IQ to be manipulated by let's just say a cult leader it just takes the desire to become a better person and someone to come and manipulate it so at this point she clearly talks about jody being at the top right or being a part of that leadership of connections classroom and how everyone was just falling in line with whatever she had to say. But she also talks about how Jody was just, you would open up to her and she would say, well, what did you do wrong? Why did you do this to yourself? No empathy, no sympathy, and really no remorse for the things that people were sharing with her, nonetheless just turning it around on the individual itself and basically prodding with a fork, well,

what happened to you? Why did you do this? That is how she did this. And she did that with, as she mentions, towards the second and tail end of the second video, she talks about those teachings and how she had already weaponized those teachings with Jesse Hildebrand. And she didn't really know that until all of the reporting came out and Jesse's story came out, who obviously spoke with you guys as well. And it's those teachings of the manipulation and the self-worthlessness that continued on and on and on, and on where everyone just seemed to fall in line with whatever Jody Hildebrand had to say in any of those classes, in any of those therapeutic sessions, if you will, under the umbrella of Connections classroom.

And we'll talk about Paige Hanna's kind of relationship with Ruby Frankie, but just sticking with Jody for one more second, so much of Jody Hildebrandt's a mystery, at least to me, but did you, unless I misheard it, didn't she say in her video that Jody kind of opened up to her about her past and her relationships. What, what, we'll talk to us about that. She mentioned that there was a moment in time, kind of like the time where she

discussed the nightmares, that Jody found a way to confine in, in page. For some reason, Jody found a way to open up to her where she didn't do that with, with other people. And there is a lot of mystery to the real past of Jody, right? someone who's not close with her own children, someone who is divorced, right, from many, many years ago. And then has kind of taken this journey by herself. And Paige said in the early part of the first video that in the past, quote, I may have said that she became a dark, I recognize she was a dark person from the beginning and it was masked. And it was through those moments where

she starts to describe some things that Jody told her. And I don't have them exactly at the top a brain, but where, you know, the family comes into play and where those, where she gets to where Jody was with connections, but it sounds like she had been hiding for a long time. And she mentioned that as well. Very interesting that she kind of tiptoes around some of the parts of who Jody Hildebrand really is. And it shows a relatively close relationship between her and Jody Hildebrandt, which again was referenced by Kevin Frankie in his police interview, because he told.

law enforcement, that Ruby was almost jealous that Paige Hanna had this close relationship with Jody Hildebrand and Ruby Frankie always wanted, even when she was a young girl, she always wanted to be the friend. So talk to me about what you learned between the relationship of Ruby Frankie and Paige Hanna. What was their relationship like? Well, they started getting after it on a YouTube channel, right? All of this stems back to social media for all of this, right? the A Passenger's channel that blew up and then ultimately Ruby said, I want to give this to Jody.

And Kevin was like, why are you giving away our channel that's worth X amount of money to Jody? But ultimately, this under the rug channel that Paige Hanna is putting the videos out on is the name of the channel that was deleted and scrubbed that Ruby and Page started years ago. So they had a channel together where they started just talking about things that. Paige didn't really get too deep into, but she did tell a few stories about some teachings with Jody and how Ruby didn't see it as, you know, Paige was articulated in the same way that Jody would, almost in a defensive manner, defending Jody and feeling, I don't know how to describe it, like there was some animosity between the two. But they had this channel called Under the Rug, which was a channel that was essentially deleted, so I haven't seen the videos. But she talks about her time of developing this YouTube presence. with Ruby Frankie who had obviously done the YouTube thing, done it well, been very successful to the point where they were making money off this channel. So Ruby and Page decided to start this

under the rug channel, which went into some of the teachings and a little bit more about in a way, Jody Hildebrandt's power with connections. Now, I wish I could see those videos because I'd be interested to see just how deep they got to some of the conversations about Jody, about her teachings, about her background, about her history, and see that true interaction there, as Page describes

a little bit in the second video. But it's hard to put into my brain how that looked, I guess, on camera, if that makes sense. No, it does. I tell you, I would not be surprised, as you were saying, if this is not the last response. If there is more to come for Paige Hannah, more of a story to tell, I wonder if she's being, you know, reserving some of these more these details for a reason or she's waiting to figure out how to properly communicate it, but I imagine we're going to see more videos from her

and maybe more answers in this case. Brian Schnee, thank you so much for coming on. I love talking to you. I hope everybody can check you out on KUTV2 News. Also, if you can, just tell everybody where they can find you, learn more information about the work you do. Before we go, listen,

Hage and Johnny, I learned this towards the tail end of the first video. They became volunteers for the board of connections classroom so that's where both of those um parents if you will of eight kids got involved in connections and then page also talks about money and power that's what jody was after and breaking families apart jesse the same thing that we've heard about for other relationships that other people have talked about with jody hildebrand page hannah is also asserting in some of these videos and you're right doubt that this is the last video that she put it's out towards the tail end, she said there will likely be more. So I imagine in the next few weeks

we'll see more. So you can always get a lot of our local coverage here of this case over the last eight months or so on our website, KUTB.com. It's also on our YouTube channel, which is KUTB2 News in Salt Lake City. We have a lot more still coming here, especially in the next few days, working on more coverage about Ruby Frankie. We're talking about the comparison of Frankie and Lori Valo-Daybell, another case that's gotten so much traction and interest worldwide interest i know you you've talked about it as well and also what is the life like for a ruby frankie or jody hilda brand when they go into prison we'll look into that a little bit also coming up in the next couple of weeks here locally at kutv2 news and so i hope i hope

everybody checks you out bryan thank you so much for coming on always appreciate it thanks for having me all right everybody that's all we have for you here on sidebar thank you so much for joining us as always please subscribe on apple podcast spotify youtube where you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.