Law&Crime Sidebar - YouTube Mom Ruby Franke’s Cousin Tells All, Says Child Abuse Case is ‘Bigger Than People Know’

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

Utah woman Ruby Franke, and her alleged accomplice Jodi Hildebrandt, were both charged with six counts of felony child abuse after the YouTube mom’s 12-year-old emaciated son escaped Hildebrandt’s home with open wounds and duct tape on his wrists on August 30. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy discusses the disturbing case with Franke’s cousin, who says the child abuse case is “bigger than people know.” Franke’s cousin, who is using the alias “Sally,” asked to remain anonymous with her face blurred and voice distorted.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. If you cut one more thing in my house, I'm going to take the scissors. Look at me. And I'm going to cut its head off. God, I will be so mad. The Utah mom, known for her YouTube channels in jail, accused of abusing her. own children. Now one of her family members is joining us and claims abuse runs through generations

of her family. Welcome to Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. I'm Ann Janette Levy. Ruby Frankie and her business partner, Jody Hildebrandt, will be in court this Friday to face charges of child abuse. Frankie, as we've been telling you, had a YouTube channel called eight passengers that featured her family and some of her parenting techniques which concerned many many people who watched and neighbors had also expressed concern for some time about the children one quoted as saying they feared the kids would come out of the home in body bags at some point after eight passengers shut down she founded connections with hildebrandt to offer counseling for parents here's a little bit of ruby frankie in one of her videos and my kids are literally

starving. I hesitate to say this because it's going to sound like I'm like a mean barbarian, but I told the kids, I said, I'm not even going to let you eat breakfast until you get your chores done. Joining me to discuss the allegations of abuse is a family member of Ruby Frankie. She would like us to refer to her as Sally. This family member of Ruby Frankies asked that we hide her face, disguise her voice, and not use her real name to protect her identity. She said speaking out about her experience makes her fear for her safety. Sally, thanks so much for joining us today. We know that this is a difficult thing to discuss, but we appreciate you making the time. It's very, very hard. Very hard. I want to start out with, first of all, your reaction, you were feeling

when you heard that Ruby Frankie had been charged with child abuse. I'm not shocked. You know, if you've been through the kind of things that I've been through, it's not a shock at all. I guess the direction in which it went was not what I expected, but from which it came was to be expected. What do you mean the direction? Could you be a little more, could you explain what you mean by that? It's hard to say anything without getting, I suppose I wasn't expecting some of the details in that story to line up with some of the details in my own family history, I guess is what I'm

trying to say, quite as well as it did. My mother handcuffed my sisters when they were young. And a lack of food wasn't uncommon, but it wasn't out of a lack necessarily of money. there were there was a time when it could have been prevented but it wasn't the lack of food I mean and the handcuffing that happened to my family too with my own mother your mother handcuffed your siblings and you luckily I was not but the other the others were there's been a recording released by police, and you can hear them talking, you can hear talk about people being duct taped, children having duct tape on them. Has that ever happened to you or your siblings? All I can say is that my mother did duct tape my siblings, but I haven't heard anything specific

being talked about before that. It was my siblings who told me that it happened. I didn't hear the 911 dispatch call. This is the first time I've ever heard of that. But I'm not shocked. When was the last time you saw Ruby? When I was very young. And, yeah, it was a long time ago. Do you have a ballpark on the number of years?

Over 15. More than 15 years ago. That's the last time you saw Ruby? Yes. I know you want to protect your identity. There is a relation here. I mean, you're related to her. Yeah.

Would you consider yourself a distant relative? No. So what is the family's reaction, your family's reaction, to Ruby being arrested and charged with child abuse? Much the same as mine. I'm trying to form the words, I guess, discussed, because this is something that is multi-generational. so my I am very privy to the way that I was treated and the way that my siblings were treated

and so to see that further on down the line is not shocking but disgusting and that would be there along the ballpark of what they feel too do you feel that Ruby and your mother learned this from their parents or where do you think they came up with this type of thing and handcuffing, the duct taping, the withholding of food where do you think they got that? Speaking the metaphor,

we'll just say that the whole tree from the bottom of the roots to the tips of the branches the whole tree is blighted. This is multi-generational. So suppose you'd have to read in between the lines with that. So from their parents, your grandparents, you believe that they learned this behavior? Yeah, I do.

Ruby is Mormon. I assume you were raised in the Mormon faith as well. Heavenly, yes. So Mormons do not condone harming children, abusing children. I don't really know of any religion that does. Do you feel that they talk about religion in a way to almost justify the abuse? Yeah. It's been a while since I've read the enzyme. It's been a while since I've read through a Book of Mormon and been to church. But I can't give any specifics, but I do feel and believe

that those sorts of things are used to justify. So tell me, if you would, you talked about your siblings being handcuffed and things of this nature, the withholding of food. Were there other things that you found similar, things that happened to your siblings, that you found similar to what was going on with Ruby's children, or at least the allegations being levied here? I can say that with my own family, I can't speak on that, but I can say with my own family, my siblings and I, we were slapped and hit and screamed at. There was a few times where I had been slapped so hard and it was with an open hand

so it's not like it's not like my mother used her nails or anything or had an object in her hand but her hand was open and she slapped me so hard that my lip started to break open and bleed and like I said I don't know anything about the allegations

and I can't speak on that out, but I can't speak on what my family has been through with physical abuse and emotional abuse. And that would be one of those things that we've been through. Were you aware of the eight passengers, YouTube? And I only ask because YouTube is everywhere. A lot of these channels really blow up and have tremendous followings. And maybe you just hear through the family grapevine, oh, you know, Ruby's. doing this channel. My family is always left out of everything, so there is no great fine.

I discover these things on my own on YouTube, just from searching. Had you ever seen her channel, though, since you're talking about, you know, since you said you are on YouTube? I'd seen it a couple times, yeah. But I couldn't bear to watch it because it reminded me of everything. What did you see on there that really bothered you? I can only speak on my own experiences. A lot of the mannerisms that I saw in my mother, I felt a lot of those.

And it stressed me out. I have intermittent, complex PTSD, along with a couple other things. And I think it was triggered. But I don't really know specifically what those triggers are. I just know that it hurt. So you haven't seen Ruby's children in 15 years, obviously, because you haven't seen her in that amount of time. So was there just a lot of separation between the two parts of the family? You're saying you were kept separate or they were kept separate.

Did they just kind of go off on their own or did you guys move away? My family has been completely ostracized by them and treated. less than dirt. The only kind of grapevine that ever did exist was when my mother was around and told us one or two things about, you know, the media online with YouTube or who was doing what. But after she, even before, we were never included and we've always been ostracized. We were the black sheep, I guess. because my mother was the black sheep. And so by proxy, so were we. So were you all in Utah for a time and then moved away? Yeah.

Okay. How long have you been gone from Utah? Over 10 years. Oh, okay. So it's been a long time. It's been a long time, yeah. Is there anything you want to add about the arrest? of Ruby and her business partner.

I mean, have you heard anything about the children, where they are, how they're doing at this point? I haven't heard anything, but I can say that on every fiber of my being, I can understand it's very difficult to talk about. And there isn't much that I can add to that particular situation, not just because I don't know as much, very much about that, but also, I just don't know very much about it. But I do understand the overarching dynamics thoroughly.

And could you explain a little more about what you mean you don't know much about it? Well, any of the allegations that have been made known, to be honest with you, I've, it's really some of them are the first time I've heard some of them I'm hearing from you that's how much I am left in the dark and my family is left in the dark about these things not that those things would want to be shouted at the rooftops per se but we're definitely never never have been in the know are you much closer I guess to your father's side of the family just to my father and what was his reaction to this like i said a lot of us discussed and yet we haven't been shocked either absolutely not shocked well is there anything else you know you would like to add

about the arrest or the allegations of child abuse that are being made. And it's just, it sounds like for a long time, people were raising concerns. The neighbors were calling the police and raising concerns. There were people trying to cancel her on social media. There was a hashtag, you know, hashtag cancel Utah vlogger, things like that. I mean, so people were concerned for a long time. that, well, I can understand that, and that makes sense to me. I just, what upsets me is that when it comes to abuse,

and for someone like me who's been through it, the thing that I would like to add is just that, why did it take so long? Why do all of these things take so long? I've never received any justice for what I've been through myself and I think I would just like to say that I hope that they're okay I understand a lot more than they do about the larger dynamic

I hope people keep that in mind it's a lot bigger everything is a lot bigger than people know and you're talking about the generational the family issues and and do you know that if this went back just many generations this treatment of family members of children it's been around since at least since my mother and she was over 40 years old which I think that it's older than her if I were to give my opinion. I can't back that up with evidence, but that is my opinion. Well, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate it. Yeah. I'm sorry if I couldn't add any extra details in.

No, that's okay. And we're sorry for what you've been through. Thank you. This relative says her younger siblings were also handcuffed using duct tape. Last week, court documents say one of Ruby Frankie's sons had duct tape wrapped around his ankle and wrists after he climbed out of a window at Jody Hildebrandt's house looking for help. The boy was malnourished and taken to the hospital. As I mentioned earlier, Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt will appear in court on Friday. They're both being held on those child abuse charges and law and crime will have that here. covering covered for you. 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 Ann Jeanette Levy, and we will see you next time. of this long crime series, ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.