Law&Crime Sidebar - Top 7 Most Disturbing Ruby Franke Child Abuse Case Developments

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Nearly one month since 41-year-old Ruby Franke and her business partner were charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse, new shocking developments have surfaced in the case. Franke’s 12-year-old son was allegedly held captive in Jodi Hildebrandt’s home, duct taped alongside his sister, and starved before escaping to a neighbor’s home who said he was “covered in wounds.” The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber breaks down the top seven most disturbing developments in Franke and Hildebrandt’s case since their arrest.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Murderabilia by Harold Schechter: order your copy now wherever books are sold or at bit.ly/MurderabiliaHistoryOfCrime. Hosts:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberAngenette Levy: https://twitter.com/Angenette5LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing - 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

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. I've never, never once forgotten to vlog. Like, it's like forgetting to eat. since a disgraced YouTube mom and her therapist's business partner were arrested and locked up on child abuse charges in Utah. As Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand await their bail hearings, we're taking you through some of the most shocking revelations so far in this high-profile case. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. It seems like every time we learn something new about the Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand case, each revelation.

is more shocking than the last. We've been following this story every step of the way here on sidebar. So we want to get you caught up on the top seven most shocking pieces of information from the past few weeks. And this all started on August 30th when dispatchers got a 911 phone call. That was the first revelation we want to talk about. This 911 phone call came from a neighbor of Jody Hildebrandt in Ivan's, Utah, not far from the Arizona border. You see, Jody Hildebrandt is the founder of Connections, a life coaching service. She offers multi-step programs for individuals and couples and single and group settings.

And Ruby Frankie was part of that organization serving the role as a mental fitness trainer. And in fact, the two would create videos together. Anytime you think I want, fill in the blank, I don't care what it is, that is not love. Love is a gift that you offer because you have. have generated it inside yourself and how do you generate love well the the only way to generate love is you use your agency to choose principles of truth so now we go to the arrest and what happened was a 12 year old boy had shown up at this neighbor's house asking for food and water take a listen to this 911 phone call right i'm on the address of your emergency tell me exactly what's happened

I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here at my front door asking for help. We know there's been problems at this neighbor's house. He's emaciated. He's got tape around his legs. He's hungry and he's thirsty. And he asked us to call the police. So he's very afraid. This kid has obviously been...

I think he's been detained. He's obviously covered in wounds. We need the cops as soon as possible. We now know that that boy is Ruby Frankie's son. He apparently escaped out of a window of Hildebrand's residence and went for help. When first responders come on scene, they find his 10-year-old sister inside the house as well. She was malnourished as well. And reporting seems to indicate that she was reluctant to speak with officers.

11 and 17 just 10. Varding female does have duct tape around each ankle. He's not telling the RP why. And so that there's soars around his wrist and ankles, he's becoming, or correction the RP is becoming emotional regarding the child's health. In total, four Frankie's children were taken in by the Utah Division of Child and Family Services. By the way, her two oldest children are now adults. But all six children were a constant part of content that was posted by Ruby Frankie on YouTube.

You see, Ruby and her husband, Kevin Frankie, they created a YouTube channel. back in the day called eight passengers. They started it back in 2015. The channel provided viewers a behind the scenes look at her children's lives and Ruby would give advice on things like parenting and child care. There is no such thing as a family, a home. That is free of dysfunction. Every family has some level, somewhere dysfunction.

Does it mean you have to accept it? And don't accept it if it's abusive. You know what? If it's surface level, I try to overlook. At one point, the channel had more than 2 million subscribers. In 2022, though, uploads to the channel stopped, and YouTube terminated the account earlier this year. While YouTube didn't give an exact reason for deleting the channel,

it did coincide with reports by fellow YouTubers that Frankie might be hurting her children due to some controversial posts. I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch. And it would ease her discomfort if I came to the school with lunch. But I responded and just said, Eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning. And she actually told me she did pack a lunch. So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry. By the way, she's talking about her then six-year-old daughter there.

It was her fault for not making her lunch and being hungry. But you know what? Ruby Frankie didn't back away from this criticism. She actually responded to it. Online who hate me, who would like to cancel me, who would like to see me either burn in hell, as I have told, or disappear off the face of the earth. And I'm not going anywhere. Well, I tell you what, those accusations that she would. is facing, they seem to have a lot more weight to them now that authorities have arrested

she and Jody Hildebrand, charging each of them with six counts of aggravated child abuse, abuse that could range from torture to malnourishment to causing severe emotional harm. I should tell you that each charge carries up to 15 years in prison. When you think about it, what's left behind after a crime can be a fascinating look into the mind of a killer, and that is the focus of a new book on the history. history of crime. Murderabilia. It walks you through cases using a hundred artifacts like pieces of clothing, written confessions, and even the murder weapons themselves. The author, Harold Schechter, is a true crime master. And murderabilia gives us never-beforeseen insight into some

of history's most gruesome cases. You can read it for yourself. You go to hatchetbookbook dot com and search murderabilia. That's murderabilia for your copy today. Now we want to move on to another revelation. And this is when Ruby Frankie was first arrested, because at one point, Frankie appeared virtually for a hearing about her children. And she reportedly made some shocking allegations. In the Provo, Utah juvenile custody court hearing, she claimed that one of her own children is a sexual predator. That's right. It was reported that she claimed that the child, whom she didn't name, sexually abused one of their siblings and molested other family members and children in the neighborhood for years.

She also reportedly claimed that her child watched pornography at the age of three. Frankie said that she found out about all of this in May when the child came clean to her, allegedly saying that the child had abused 20 people, and the judge ended up saying that the child would need to be placed in a home with no other children. While more revelations came from when we interviewed Randy Kester here on Sidebar, Kester is actually the attorney for Kevin Frankie, Ruby's husband, and the father of the six kids. Kevin appeared in several eight passengers videos over the years, but his lawyer says he hasn't seen his wife or the kids in more than a year.

Kester claims that Kevin moved out of the family home at the insistence of Ruby, as well as her business partner Jody Hildebrand, a purported mental health therapist, and he says that he had absolutely no idea any abuse was going on. Long-crime field crews also spoke with Kester on the ground in Utah. Well, Kevin very much loved his children and loved his wife. and had a strong bond and exceptionally strong bond with all of his kids. You've seen pictures of their family together. He was involved in all sorts of activities.

He was a great dad. But Ruby felt like there were differences in their marriage. And at one point in conjunction with Jody Hildebrand, it was sort of like we have to separate to save our marriage. You know, we'll keep working on our marriage, but for now, you know, You know, if we're going to repair our marriage and be back together as a family, you have to be away. And you have to work on yourself and don't have contact with the kids. Don't have contact with me unless I initiate it.

And I want to give you a little bit of geography for you. So the Frankie home is in Springville, Utah, that is south of Salt Lake City, just outside of Provo. And Jody Hildebrand's home is down in Ivins, which is near the borders of Nevada and Arizona. So Kester says that Kevin Frankie had no. idea that Ruby had taken their children out of Springville or that they were staying with Jody. Oh, he was just horrified by what the reports were, and he actually went there to get his kids when he found out about this. He drove all the way to southern Utah, which is 250 miles, and met with law enforcement and gave statements and made an effort to try to get his kids

out of that mess. And right now, reporting indicates that Kevin is working to regain custody of the minor-aged children. But there was another stunning revelation from our interview with Randy Kester. And I'll tell you, it actually shocked me when I heard it. And that was that according to Kester, Ruby had apparently called Kevin right before she was arrested. She had heard what was going on and knew they were coming. coming for her and called him and said, this is an emergency. Even though she hadn't reached out to him for months and months and months before that,

she reached out to him when it was an emergency knowing she could rely on him to help his kids. All he knows is he got a text from her that said, emergency, need to speak with you. He was at work and text back and said, I'm at work. what's up, and she said, I need to speak to you immediately. So it's not clear from Kester how Ruby seemingly knew that police were coming, and she apparently didn't tell Kevin that police were coming, but it was more like you need to get down here. Just a wild, wild development.

So we're going over the top seven biggest revelations about the Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand case out of Utah. Well, I should say at least so far, it seems like we're constantly learning new shocking details in this story. Both women, accused of aggravated child abuse in connection with at least two of Ruby's young children being found emaciated, open wounds, duct tape on the son's wrists and ankles. Well, Jody Hildebrand, this mental health professional running the therapy business connections, apparently partnered up with Ruby Frankie, and they put out connections content out together. In fact, she would sometimes team up with her husband, Kevin, to talk about marriage, and with Jody to talk about child care, parenting, and homeschooling.

I have been full-time. You wonder where I've been on my vlogs? You wonder why I left YouTube to save my kids. No amount of money. And I'm telling you, I was making millions. And I left it because my kids were being hurt. With entitlement, they were being hurt. With people's advice.

And they didn't have a mother up the front saying, I don't care what the world's opinion is. This is the truth and this is where I stand. Now, the women, both devout Mormons, also discussed religion in connection with problems people might be experiencing. So with all of that in mind, in a new revelation, Randy Kester, attorney for Kevin Frankie, says he believes Jody was the instigator

when it came to Kevin and Ruby splitting up and Ruby taking the children. I don't think he's, I don't think he's made that parallel. I don't think that he believes that's what led up to this. But what I can say, at least it's my observation that while the family may have had some struggles prior to Jody coming into their lives, it just kind of seems like to me, and this is my personal opinion. You know, the focus has been on Kevin, where was he?

Why was he absent? How does that all happen? So he was doing that at Ruby's direction, who I think was being directed by Jody. This is the way that you've got to repair your marriage and repair your family. So they were all sort of kind of being manipulated, and this is just my opinion, by Jody. And I think she knew what she was doing, and it was causing significant damage. And so when Kevin's critics are out there saying, you know, where was he? He was acting at the direction of what he thought was a competent mental health care provider and advisor.

And to me, the better question is, what kind of mental health care provider would advise a family and a husband and wife and a father and children that this can repair your family if you just stay away from each other? And I'm confident that she told that to Ruby. I'm confident that the children are being told that. told that and Kevin was certainly being told that that I know what I'm doing you need to stay away which I have to say is an interesting point because I've wondered since the start of this case whether Ruby will try to put the blame on Jody although we know that that defense can really only go so far especially when according to police Ruby Frankie was seen on a YouTube video filmed

in Jody Hildebrand's downstairs posted two days prior to her arrest so police say she had to have to acknowledge that the kids were in the house and were being abused Plus, the abuse charges for Ruby to find child abuse is not only her inflicting the abuse herself, but causing or permitting another to inflict the abuse. All right, so as we continue to get more into these revelations, let's dig a little bit deeper into Jody Hildebrand. She was first licensed as a clinical mental health counselor in Utah in 2005. She started Connections Classroom in 2012, and at the time of this taping, that website,

is still live. You can check it out. Well, several former clients and patients of Hildebrands have come out against her and the methods that she used in her therapy. In fact, we spoke with a man right here on the Sidebar podcast who helped get Hildobrand's license temporarily suspended back in 2012. This man, Adam Steed, was recently married with one child, another on the way. He was attending Brigham Young University in Provo, and he was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He says his bishop had recommended he go to marriage counseling with his wife. But Steed says that Hildebrandt discussed personal details about him without his permission

with clergy and the university, which led to several consequences like him being kicked out of BYU. Here's some of what Steve had to say on our podcast. You know, I will tell you a story that Jody Hildebrandt's more sophisticated than a normal person in a lot of ways she evolved into what she became I you know she works that she put us in a phase one there's phase two and phase three of the particular group she was in at the point and phase one she didn't it wasn't very intense it was lighthearted and fun and you know think of like a PG movie or

something and a lady that's just charismatic and fun and teaching these principles about delusion, denial, and all this kind of stuff, codependency, using small examples in people's lives where they didn't realize they were in this state and the whole room laughing about it. That was phase one, and it was, you know, couples, all happy couples thinking there was this incredible lady. You know, when she separated the couples

into all women and all men groups, then, after she gained everyone's trust and really bad things began to happen and um what's different in in my case is that when i chose to leave this like cult like group uh there uh jody tried to punish me. And she worked through YU Honor Code Office and legal measures to try to hurt me. And I have the emails between my ex-wife and her planning out all this stuff, talking about what the real issues in our marriage were, and then them evolving that into something drastically different with allegations that would totally destroy your life. And how that evolution happened from what they originally were like is just astounding.

I had to come forward because when I heard that they were doing the same thing to those little kids that they did to me to hide their crimes, it was totally predictable. And I knew my records would just completely show the world the truth of how dangerous this lady really is. and clients that are close to her that are probably not really good people in the first place, but that she enhances their abilities under her guidance to do incredibly criminal things. And because of the breach in patient confidentiality, the Division of Professional Licensing put her license on probation for 18 months, but it was eventually reinstated. But Adam Steed wasn't the only one questioning the way Jody were,

Randy Kester talked about what his client Kevin Frankie experienced in sessions. During the separation, Kevin was attending men's groups that were facilitated by Jody. And during those groups, he was being downgraded and diminished and told how bad he was and that he needed to repent. And the best way to repent was to not infect his family with his problems. and, you know, so that's why you need to stay away. He wasn't the only one in those men's groups that was undergoing exactly what he was undergoing at her suggestion and recommendation.

And we now know that Jody has voluntarily surrendered her mental health counseling license from behind bars. As I said, the more and more information about this case is uncovered, the more shocking and honestly disturbing it becomes. I say that because court documents now allege that Jody Hilder, Brandt used rope to tie up Frankie's children and poured a mixture of honey and cayenne pepper on the

wounds. According to a search warrant signed on August 30th, the day that Frankie's son escaped to find help, this victim, this 12-year-old boy, told police that Jody used rope to anchor him to the ground, and when he got wounds, open wounds from the ropes, she used cayenne pepper and honey to treat them. Officers seized several concerning items from the home. home, including tape, saran wrap, bandages, rope, and two sets of handcuffs. Officers also found the cayenne pepper and a honey paste. A second search warrant was signed to seize electronics, things like cell phones, computers, tablets, laptops, and surveillance cameras, anything that might have recorded what

was going on in and around the home. Both Jody Hildembrandt, Ruby Frankie, facing six counts of aggravated child abuse. They were expected in court in September for bail hearings, but the hearings were pushed back, at the last minute, maybe because there's so much evidence and discovery for the lawyers to look over. But for now, they're both still locked up as they await the new court date set for October. We will, of course, be following this case for you and bringing you updates as soon as they come in. And I'm sure we will have a lot more to discuss. And that's all we have for you here on Sidebar, Everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. Please subscribe on Apple Podcast,

Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. 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.