Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 6 Disturbing Revelations from YouTube Mom Ruby Franke’s Arrest Affidavit

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

The YouTube mom best known for her family channel “8 Passengers” was arrested after her 12-year-old son escaped her business partner’s home and begged a neighbor for food on August 30. Authorities said 41-year-old Ruby Franke allegedly tied up two of her children with duct tape and starved them inside Jodi Hildebrandt’s Utah home. Both Franke and Hildebrandt face six counts of felony child abuse. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down the top six disturbing revelations from the duo’s arrest affidavit 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. You guys help out the app. What's a mugshot? Newly released documents shed more light on the allegations of child abuse centered around YouTube mom, Ruby Frankie. Former FBI agent and attorney Bobby Chacon breaks it all down. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Let's delve back into the Ruby Frankie case out of Utah, just this absolutely disturbing story of a 41-year-old wife and mother of six who has now been charged with child abuse.

In fact, she has been officially charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse. Now, that name Ruby Frankie may sound familiar because Frankie was a popular YouTuber. Yeah, she and her husband, they launched her. this YouTube channel called Eight Passengers back in 2015. It was all about the couple and their children and their lives. Very popular. I believe it had over 2 million subscribers. It focused on parenting and homeschooling.

And it was interesting because Frankie and her husband are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And she also appeared on videos with her business partner Jody Hildembrand, who found at a life counseling organization known as Connections, previously known as Moms of Truth. Here's a snippet. Welcome back to Connections. I'm Ruby Frankie. I'm Jody Hildebrand.

And today is part three of a series that we are doing all about empowering you as parents. You are not going to get this kind of empowerment. You're not going to give this kind of permission anywhere else. And so today we are going to be talking about where we left off, which is, am I a controlling parent? Am I a hovering helicopter parent? Am I a Karen?

Those are terms that have been put out there by people who are fearful of control. If you have a perception, you know, my son comes home and says, so-and-so was bullying me, and I am a parent that I don't know about principles of truth. I may go to, well, I'm going to protect them, and I'm going to go over and where's that kid that hit you? And I'm going to go hit them. I've seen parents do that.

Or I'm going to go to the school and demand that my child is no longer in the same class, no longer in the same school with this particular person. And, you know, depending on what the kid did, that might be absolutely reasonable. And Jody Hildebrandt has also been arrested and charged with these same crimes. Well, now, newly released documents provide more context of what happened here. And I want to go through what we think are six details, six really disturbing details from these documents. So let me bring in a very special guest right now to talk a little bit more about this. I'm joined by former FBI agent and attorney, Bobby.

Chacon. Bobby, thank you so much for taking the time. And coming back here on Sidebar, we always appreciate it. Great to be here, Jesse. Thanks for having me. Thank you. All right. Let's start with number one, the affidavit of probable cause. So we're going to start with this is the first one, RF, who is this 12-year-old boy, climbed, this is what it says. He climbed out of the window of an Ivin's residence, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Ivin's residence, belonging to Jody Hildebrand and ran to a neighbor's home. R.F. knocked on the door requesting food and water. The neighbor observed duct tape on RF's ankles and wrists and contacted law enforcement. Upon arrival, law enforcement

observed the wounds and the malnourishment of RF to be severe, and he was transported to the St. George Regional Hospital. R.F. was placed on a medical hold due to his deep lacerations from being tied up with rope and from his malnourishment. Now, Bobby, we knew some of those details or had an idea of those details before this came out. This, I think, crystallized it even more. What's your take on it? Yeah, this is, it sounds like, you know, a firsthand account of the responding officers

when they got to the neighbor's house who called the police and they see this child, they start questioning the child. You know, the neighbor clearly saw the duct tape and clearly knew there was a problem. Kudos to the neighbor for calling the police. You know, sometimes neighbors can be reluctant to do that. They might try to return the child to the home. And thank goodness in this case, the neighbors saw enough of what looked like disturbing evidence on the child of abuse that they called the police.

The police saw the abuse and took action, thankfully in this case, because it could have ended up a lot worse. All right, we want to thank Morgan and Morgan, the largest injury law firm in America, for sponsoring this video. Now I know what you're thinking, right? you've been injured in a car accident, well, we're here to fight for you. That's not what they're about, okay? They have completely modernized the personal injury claim process by allowing you to submit

your claim, upload documents, and talk with your whole legal team. Yes, team all on your phone. That's it. Super easy. Oh, and you only pay them if you win. There's no upfront fee. So it's not a surprise that over 3 million people call them every year, right? If you're injured, you can check out Morgan and Morgan and submit a claim in eight clicks

or less at www.4thepeople.com slash law and crime or by dialing pound law. That's pound 529 on your phone. Now there's another victim here. Okay. EF. 10 year old girl believed to be the daughter of Ruby Frankie. She was found at Jody Hildebrand's residence after RF, her brother made contact with the police. EF was found to be malnourished, initially refused medical treatment, but after approximately four hours, EF agreed that Jody Hildebrandt was found to be in the direct care of her, and she was determined to be malnourished, she was taken to the St. George Regional Hospital. So you have another child who was kept in similar condition. What does that tell you that we have now multiple victims? Well, it's a pattern of behavior that I would anticipate

if there are more children in that household, there are more abuse. I think each child is being abused. I mean, we do sometimes see one child out of a number of children being abused specifically, But in this case, you know, much like the Turpin case that happened actually out here in California, not for a far from where I live. You have multiple children all being abused in similar fashion. And what tells me, you know, when you say that the four hours that it took the cops to convince this kid to kind of be honest and say who's taken care of you, the parents have a hold over these kids. They have that kind of, you know, influence over the kid. And he didn't want to admit it. And so that makes these cases even tougher.

thankfully for the 12-year-old you mentioned earlier the first victim that actually escaped the house and went into a neighbor's um you know so how how long has this been abuse been going on and it's a pattern of abuse if there are more children in that house i would expect to find similar abuse on those children as well it's disturbing to hear that this young boy got out snuck through the window was begging for food and water and the restraints that were used that i find concerning as well, the level of restraint. And I'm not sure what that tells us in terms of how long they might have been tied up, where they were tied up, why they were restrained. But you're kind of getting a picture that we didn't quite get before, right? Well, absolutely. And even in the two cases

you just mentioned, you have a 10-year-old who was compliant with the parents, who was not, who it took four hours for the police to convince to be honest with them. But you have the 12-year-old who actually you know, broke free from his restraints and climbed out a window. So I think that as the children get older, and we saw this in the terrific case, as the children get older, they start realizing this isn't normal and I need to get out of here and get help. But when they're younger, they don't see that because this is the only life they've known. So this is normal for them. This is not abnormal. As the children get older, that realization kind of comes more into focus, and then they take action. In this case, the 10-year-old didn't take action. The 12-year-old did. So it may

have been an aging process that said that a 12-year-old, this is not normal. I need to get out of here. And we're going to get to more points in a minute, but I just want to focus on something with this. How reliable are the children as narrators of what happened or potential witnesses in a criminal trial against their mother? Well, that's a good point. And I think there are very good specialists out there now that help prosecutors and help investigators. If I had a case like this, I would not be interviewing these children myself. I would be bringing an experts that are expert in interviewing children and getting to the truth blue children because you know I mean children are brainwashed in effect by by their

parents in a household like this and so I think that they're not they're not reliable initially and as you seal so in this case it took four hours for the police to get the child to even admit that that Jody was his caretaker so I think that you they can be reliable but it's a process it's a process that's understandable and should be turned over to experts that are interviewing in interviewing children and stuff so I think they can get there, but initially you're going to be dealing with a lot of psychological trauma on these children, and that affects their memory, it affects their recall, it affects

their initial testimony. Let's go to the third point, because in both of these examples, both of these children, both of these narratives, the officer added that Ruby Frankie was seen on a YouTube video filmed in Jody Hildebrand's downstairs, which was posted two days before this happened. And this is why investigators believe that Frankie was in the home and had knowledge of the abuse, the malnourishment, and the neglect of both children. So when we talk about what could be a potential defense for Ruby Frankie and maybe Ruby Frankie throwing the blame on Jody Hildebrand, that aspect I think is really important. Yeah, this takes it away from being like a kidnapping where Jody kidnapped these children and started abusing them into a kind of a conspiracy to. do this. I mean, these women seem to be in this together. They did have their own social

media business together. I think that Ruby Frankie reports, it's reported that she threw her husband out of the house last year. So she separated from the father of these children. And apparently it looks like may have moved in with her business partner because the children were clearly being held captive at that house, at Hildebrand's house, where who knows, Frankie was probably, possibly a resident. I am curious of what a defense could be because in these kind of cases, it's almost open and shut. You're not dealing with an adult victim who can make decisions on their own or, you know, consent

to things or walk around or text. You have a victim who is in the care and custody of adults. And when that child or children are found to be abused, how does Frankie or Hildebrandt escape liability here. I don't see it. Do you see a united front where they're both going to be defending or one is going to point the finger at the other, even though, again, based on the current facts, it's going to be very difficult to say one didn't know what the other was doing. Yeah, I would have to think that they have to point the finger at each other because the abuse is unmistakable and undeniable. And so I think that each defense is going to have to point the finger

at the other. You know, Hildebrandt's going to say, well, you know, Jody was the mother, Frankie was the mother, and so she had full control of her children, so she was really responsible for this, and I was just kind of following along, and then the mother will look at Hildebrand and say, well, she was my Spengali, I was under her spell, and I was doing what she was telling me to do, and that's how it happened. So I think you're right. I think the second option, the defense, with them pointing the finger at each other is probably the likely way to go. Let's go to the fourth detail from these newly released documents. Yankee requested a lawyer and did not speak with us, meaning did not speak with authorities

when she was ultimately apprehended. What do you think about that? I mean, that's the first huge red flag. That's usually a red flag in almost any case. But when it's your own children and the allegation is abuse, I mean, you'll, you'd want, if you're not involved in it, in criminal liability. I mean, you would want to talk to the police, get to the bottom of it, find out what happened, find out if your children are okay, find out where they are, try to see them. You know, So the fact that you lawyer up immediately, I mean, that's a huge red flag for somebody like me when you're trying to get to the bottom of it and you would think a parent would go to the ends of the earth to protect their child and to find out what happened to that child and, you know,

go and try to get to the person that did this abuse. But when they lawyer up like that, yeah, I would think that they immediately knew that they were in some kind of legal trouble. That means that we're probably not going to get an interrogation video, right? that she didn't speak with authorities. Most likely, if they have a lawyer already, if the lawyers are doing his job, I hate to say it,

but if the lawyer is doing his job, a good defense attorney, his or her job, but a good defense attorney would not submit that client to an interview or interrogation of the police at this point. So as we talk about these details that have been revealed

in these newly released documents, I want to talk about the fifth and six points. Number five is the fact that Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt, They've both been charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse. And let's talk right now about the charges with respect to RF. Okay. So again, this young boy.

Count one, aggravated child abuse, a second degree felony in that the defendant intentionally or knowingly inflicted upon a child, RF, serious physical injury or having the care or custody of such child caused or permitted another to inflict serious physical injury. upon said child and such serious physical injury includes physical torture what do you make of that charge well i mean they they're looking at probably the restraints and they i mean they could have found other things on that child's body you know i've been involved in cases where you've had burn marks on a child's body things like that patterns of of wounding and healing um and that's that's evidence of torture um not just the binding um you could have other

Other signs of torture, unfortunately, and often we see that in the emergency room will tell us you have both fresh wounds and you have healing wounds that happened previously in the same area or in the same pattern and stuff. And so I would imagine that some of the doctor's reports might indicate that there's a pattern of bruising and healing that has taken place on these child's bodies. Could it also be something that RF said happened to him? sure absolutely yeah absolutely it could be that i mean um oftentimes these children are not very talkative um although in this case they seem to have talked to the police uh you know to a good degree um but yeah it could be it could be that and it could be a combination of the two by the way the part where it's not only if you do it right but if you um you have the care of custody of the child but if you've caused or permitted another to inflict the injury,

that's how they get her, I guess, if it was Jody, Hildebrand, who was doing it, but under the direction or supervision or consent of Ruby Frankie, right? Right, right. If Jody's doing the abuse, but they are in the care and custody of their mother, Frankie, then she's actually liable under the law as well, even though she could, she may have not laid a hand on a child. She can still be charged because she allowed it to happen because those kids are in her care in custody.

Let me go more to the charges with respect to RF. Again, for me, it's notable how specific it is and how broad we talk about child abuse because another charge, it says the same exact language, but when we talk about what child abuse is, then they go, and such serious physical injury includes any conduct that results in starvation or failure to thrive or malnutrition that jeopardizes the child's life. So now she's being charged very specifically. One is torture. Now it's malnutrition. What do you make of that? Yeah. So the statute actually separates out those two physical acts, right? One is, you know, if you harm a child just by striking your child or something like that, that's a

physical abuse of a child. But also they've actually carved out a separate avenue of physical abuse called malnourishment. If you withhold food, if you were to the point where you're physically harming the child, you can actually not touch a child and physically harm them by withholding food and this is a usually carved out for children and elderly. You see it sometime in elder care law, you see it in child abuse law, because, you know, withholding food at certain key points in our lives can actually cause us great physical harm. And a child is in that category. So I think that you're looking at a piece of statute that specifically mentions this kind of abuse towards a child resulting in that physical harm failure to thrive you know your your body is growing at

certain points and if you don't get the nourishment and nutrition you need in that phase of your life you'll forever be damaged by that and so and so the law recognizes that and so they've been charged with that yeah i mean starvation is horrible for anybody but particularly a child in that developmental stage like you said it can affect the child forever and it's equally more disturbing there's another charge count three, again with respect to RF, repeats the same language, second degree felony, defend it intentionally knowingly inflicted, you know, serious physical injury on the child or caused another to do the same. But I talked about the specific language.

This charge says, and such serious physical injury includes conduct toward a child that results in severe emotional harm, severe developmental delay, or intellectual disability, or severe impairment of the child's ability to function. That's an interesting one. Yeah, again, the statute is kind of pairing all these things out, right? So it's physical abuse is striking the child. It's, it's another category of physical abuse as malnourishment and withholding food. And now there's this emotional aspect of it. You're emotionally harming this child. Again, like you said, in a developmental stage of their life, which could cause permanent damage. These children are probably going to need counseling for a long time to get them back.

back up to a mental capacity where they can thrive, where they can learn, where they can be in school and do well and succeed and stuff. And now they are compromised in those areas now. And unless they get help quick and the right kind of help, it could be a permanent disability emotionally based on this type of abuse. And again, these three charges with respect to ARF, they're quite broad, easier for prosecutors to prove that case of harm to the child. And that's what I think is so significant. But I mentioned the six points. So we have one last point that I wanted to mention with respect to these newly released documents. Talked about the charges with respect to the harm allegedly suffered by RF. Now let's talk about the charges with respect to EF. So two of the three

charges, it looks like, are duplicative of the ones regarding RF, but there is a unique one. Count six. Again, repeats same language, defendant intentionally knowingly, inflicted upon a charge. E.F. serious physical injury or caused another person to do it. Now, here's the specific language of this count. And such serious physical injury includes any combination of two or more physical injuries inflicted by the same person, either at the same time or on different occasions in violation and then it does the Utah Code. Wow, that's interesting because now you're talking about this pattern, right? And very specific about who committed this and when. Talk to me about that. Yeah, I can only imagine, because if you look at the first five,

as you said, they're a little more broad, a little more general, and they probably come mainly from the physical examination of these children and the physical observations that you have with these children. Now, this one, because of the specificity that you mentioned, it seems possibly and to me likely it came from the interview with the child because it says the same person inflicted two or more of these injuries so how do you know who inflicted the you can see the evidence of the injury an emergency room doctor can tell you that or you can actually see it yourself the responding officer but to say that the same person inflicted two or more of these things I would think has to come from the statement of the child and that's really crucial that's really I always opening in this case because now that tells us or seems to tell us that, you know, at least one of these children is cooperating and telling the police what happened, which is a huge hurdle in these cases. It's a huge hurdle to get the kids to actually testify against their parent or their guardian or their, in this case, their mother's best friend or whatever

role she plays in their lives. But that's a huge hurdle to get over and hopefully they're having child specialist interview these children and get this kind of information from them. But certainly I think at this last point is very important. It really sheds some light, I think. It's my hunch that that information came from one of those children. Well, especially actually the 10-year-old it looks like in this case. I agree with you. You know, Bobby, one of the things that I think about during this case is main issues.

How did nobody know this? Or people suspected it happening. And they're saying it was a long time coming. I am curious about witnesses in a trial against these two because they can come forward. and say they observe things, but then why wasn't more done, right? You know, I do wonder about her husband, Kevin. He hasn't been criminally charged. I'm not sure what his knowledge is of all this, but is he going to testify against his

wife? If he does, if he knew about the abuse, he could be criminally liable, right? And it makes me wonder, is the prosecution going to have difficulty finding corroborating witnesses because they're going to be concerned that maybe I made a mistake, maybe I should have came forward? Or I don't know. It's still we're learning the details of it. Well, I mean, unfortunately, in these type of cases, the only real witnesses are inside that house.

They're the other children, the other victims, or the people that are actually carrying it out. And we've seen that over and over again. In this case, we have seen neighbors saying we've been calling forever. We've been calling the police. We've been calling social services. There were people far back saying, look, some of the stuff she's putting out as parenting advice on the internet, like withholding food from children as a reward system is not right. And so people have been raising the flag, but unless you witness the abuse,

you know until that 12-year-old broke free from his restraints and got out of that house and ran to a neighbor you're not gonna see it the neighbors can kind of have an idea the neighbors can think there's something weird going on in that house but the ball lies really with social services if neighbors had in fact made those calls the social services why haven't been and I understand that even the police or social services went to the house one time not no answer they just simply attached a piece of paper to the door we've got to give social services and the police some more aggressive tools in cases like this or as one of the neighbors

reportedly told the reporter said they were surprised that the kids didn't come out of that house in body bags and eventually that's what's going to happen when you have abuse like this when it goes unchecked so social services in these cases has to be more aggressive I understand they're underfunded they're undermanned and they don't have enough people to do all the cases that they have but in cases like this they have to be more aggressive or they have to be given the tools to be more aggressive Very well said. I mean, this could have ended much worse. And look, the final point I want to make about this, and I wanted your opinion on it, Ruby Frankie, Jody Hildebrand, they are innocent until proven guilty. They're going to have a trial. They're going to have a chance to defend themselves if they choose to. But each count that I mentioned, the six counts carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000. Assuming they are both found guilty. Cross the board. What would a judge? judge do in this case? Well, I mean, look, it's always my hope that the judge would sentence them on each count consecutively and not concurrently, which means they go, they go end, they end one sentence,

they stop the other, instead of letting them all run together. But all too often, we see judges, you know, when the case hasn't ended in the death of a child, be a little lenient on these people. So, you know, it's hard to say. It's going to, I think a lot of it's going to depend on their attitude and their defense. If they come out, you know, I hate to say it, but if they admit to what they done and ask for mercy or whatever or claim some kind of mental defect, you know, that's different than them getting up there and denying everything when you have the physical evidence so far. Hopefully the children will get the care they need and become good witnesses. That's the problem with these cases is your only witnesses come from inside of that house.

They usually the children, children have problems with, you know, memory recall, especially if they've had patterns of abuse that have lasted for years. They're going to need help through this process, you know, and, and you have to separate the process of getting them better and the legal process of getting these people prosecuted but you know they often run together so my hope as a judge you know i look i hope the judge throws the book of them because i think a person that can do this kind of systematic long-term abuse of a child particularly their own child is so defected in their mind that they should not be for certainly never allowed to have custody of children again um and

and probably should spend a long time incarcerated as a penalty for what they've done. Well, at the time of this recording, Frankie and Hildebrand are both behind bars. They have an upcoming hearing, and we will continue to follow it here on Sidebar. Bobby Chaconne, thank you so much. Thanks, Jesse. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.