SERIALously - 244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Exposing all the unheard details and unseen footage about Ruby Franke. Ruby was a well-known YouTube creator with millions of followers, who shared her life as a mom of six children and documented every single detail. It wasn’t long before the dark truth of what really went on in the Franke home when the camera wasn’t rolling, was exposed… Join our True Crime Club for access to BTS, Bonus Content, Our Private Group Chat, Giveaways and More! Shop Our True Crime Merch Follow the podcast on: IG, Facebook and TikTok For Business Inquiries: [e-mail] About Annie Today’s Sponsors: Hero Bread: Go to https://hero.co and use code AE for 10% off your order OPositiv Health: Head to https://opositiv.com/ae for 25% off your first purchase Beam: Go to https://shopbeam.com/annieelise and use code ANNIEELISE for up to 40% off Episode Sources: ABC News People Rolling Stone Biography KUTV 2 Law and Crime CBS News

What Ruby has done, it just crossed a line of abusive to just psychotic. Weird things started happening. Ruby said the children were demonically possessed. Our entire schedule revolved around YouTube. It felt more like a set than a house. Set her down on a flipping couch. OK, move it.

If I hear one more word, get out. I just had a 12 year old boy show up here at my front door. He's got duct tape around each ankle. He's obviously covered in wounds. Hey true crime besties, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialist Sleeve. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. It's me, Annie Elise, your true crime BFF, and I am here to break down another case for you. We are going into a super big deep dive today, so I just want you all to get ready. Whatever it is you're doing, whether you have got a long commute ahead of you, you're cleaning at home, you're running errands, whatever it is, I just want to give you a little warning. You're going to be with me for a minute, alright?

Bestie, we are going to be with each other for a minute because we're going to go over everything in this case. Now I've talked about this case before. It is the Ruby Franke Jodie Hildebrand case. They are the two people alleged cult leaders. Ruby was a huge, huge YouTube star. She was a family vlogger. She had millions of followers, made tons of money. They were again, as I said, like cult leaders together, cult members, allegedly. And they were arrested and charged with horrific crimes against Ruby's children. Now, since all of this has come out, there have been quite a few updates along the way. Ruby's children have spoken out. One child wrote a book. Her husband has spoken out because

the question that was on everybody's mind is like, okay, where the hell was this guy this whole time? Why did he allow this to happen? Because spoiler alert, he ended up moving out of the home and kind of just like, in my opinion, like wrote his kids off in a sense to where he wasn't really concerned with what was happening to them behind closed doors, but I'll get into that later. And there've been more updates because now there's allegations stemming from one of Ruby's children's recent books, not recent but only book, where she's alleging what

we have long suspected that Ruby and Jodie were in fact lovers together. And the reason that that piece of information is important in the context before I go into everything is because Jodie was somebody who was very adamant against same-sex relationships. And in one of my very early episodes about Jodie, I'm probably going to butcher this expression but what's that expression like? Doth protests too much or however it goes. I don't know how it goes. Don't come for me later. But I kind of said that in my episode. I was like, why is she so against men?

Why does she have this burning hatred towards men? Is it because she has some sort of passive aggressiveness because she is upset? Cause a lot of the times she would like tell some of the men that she was counseling underneath her, what I believe is a cult, saying how they had addictions to adult material, how they weren't good men, how the wife should leave them. She always took the wife's side, which is fine if you want to always take the woman's

side, whatever. But all of those things mixed together, I was like, something else is going on here. Why does she try to wedge her way in between all these couples and always paint the man as some deviant? Come to find out with this new kind of revelation, and it hasn't been 100% confirmed, but when I read the passages to you, it is all confirmed. There were things in the book written about how they would have all these candles in the rooms together, how Ruby would emerge from the bedroom all steamy and sweaty. and I mean reading between the lines it's what we all suspected I think for so long and I think that it has now been validated so that's just a little bit of the

backstory but the reason I say that is because there have been a lot of updates along the way even though I have talked about this case before so my most recent update episode came out probably I don don't know, maybe six or eight weeks ago. And it was just a mini bonus episode. It was right after the book was released. And I just wanted to give you guys the takeaways of what came out of that book. What were the big revelations?

What did we learn? And a lot of people responded to that episode asking for the deep dive because they either had no idea what this case was all about or they didn't know the full context of the case and how deep it really went. All the way stemming back to the YouTube days, why Ruby was kind of almost canceled by the public because of the content she was putting on YouTube, where she would share not only the most intimate details

about her life, her family's life, her children's life, but she would also share her methods of punishment, the husband's methods of punishment, how they would treat their children, not giving them food when they wanted food or forgot their food when they went to school, ripping a door off the hinges, making a child sleep on a bean bag for months at a time. I mean, the list goes on and on. So as she was like just putting all of this content out there for the world to see, which I'm going to play for you a lot of those clips, the public who was consuming this,

who was following her, which she had millions of followers, remember, was kind of like, what is happening here? And it just over time continued to escalate, get worse and worse and worse, until then they kind of just went off the radar. They stopped posting, they stopped uploading, and that's something we talk about in a lot of cases regarding children in a little bit different of a sense. We always talk about when kids are going to school, okay, when they're in elementary school

or middle school, whatever it is, and they start having a lot of absences and then a lot of unexcused absences, and there's no reason as to why they're not going to school. But then they slowly get removed from school. Then they're homeschooled. Then they stop showing up for homeschool classes or online courses. And then they're withdrawing from school. Then the neighbors don't see them. It's almost like you can see this pattern. And it's this blueprint, in my opinion, of abuse, where you slowly start pulling the children out of not even the public eye, like it was for Ruby's case, but out of anyone's line of sight because you don't wanna risk or jeopardize being found out,

being exposed, somebody seeing a bruise, somebody asking a question, somebody noticing that the child doesn't quite have the light behind their eyes anymore. So you pull them away from any opportunity where you could be exposed. And that is what happened with Ruby. They stopped posting, they shut the channel down,

even though people were already kind of canceling her in a loose way. And then it went almost dark. That's also when the husband, Kevin, moved out. That's when Jodie moved in with Ruby. They were bouncing back and forth between Ruby's house, Jodie's house. Jodie at her mega mansion had this underground

Banks type cellar vault situation where she literally held these children captive. And I say that all alleged, do your own research. When you see what I show you, you're probably going to come to the same conclusion, but I want to cover my ass here a little bit, so I'll show you and you come up to your own conclusion yourself. But anyway, sorry, this was such a long-winded intro. My whole point in saying all of that is that so many of you requested the deep dive for whatever reason or another. So today what I want to do is I want to go through the entire case. Start to finish, their rise to fame, what first happened, when people noticed things, why he moved out, the cult, the allegations, the arrests, the sentencing, the book, the lesbian allegations, all of it. Because

you know I'm a fan of having things in one solid place so you don't have to listen to 500 different episodes to piece it all together, so that's what I'm here to do. I'm here to pull it all together for you so you can be fully caught up. And another big reason why I wanted to do this episode, in addition to the request for the deep dive, is because Hulu came out with a documentary that released on February 27th, and it was about Ruby Franke, and it was called The Devil in the Family.

And I cover a lot of documentaries or docu-series or dramatizations, and one of the common things we always talk about is how so much information is left out. And I think that that's for a couple reasons. I think one, it's very difficult to fit all of that information into a one hour episode. I think two, a lot of these big networks are worried

of litigation and they can't really come on the mic as casually as I can saying allegedly this and my opinion that and tell you all of the things that they want to share with you, but can't because it's, you know they want to protect themselves from litigation in a bigger sense because they're a big network. Not saying I'm welcoming litigation, I'm not, that's why I keep saying allegedly, but you get what I'm saying? So a lot of the times when we cover cases like that, I do want to jump on here and say, here's the whole story, here's all the details. They just skimmed the surface and that's true of the Hulu documentary as well. So that's why we're here today. We also did that recently. I don't know if any of you guys have watched Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix. It's the Belle Gibson story. It's very much

Anna Delvey in the sense that there was like a ton of scamming going on, but she actually was an influencer who was scamming the wellness community. She faked terminal brain cancer. She came out with like a cookbook, a book, an app, all of these things, and she was exposed as a fraud. So my, I had never heard of her. I had seen a couple of her like off the wall, bat shit crazy 60 minutes interviews from Australia, but I had never heard of her. And so I watched apple cider vinegar and I'm like,

oh no, I need to do the deep dive. I still have so many questions. I wanna know so much more. But we're here to talk about Ruby Franke and Jodie Hildebrandt today and And everything starting back in, I believe it was 2015, starting all the way back at the beginning and where we are now. So I apologize again for the long winded intro.

Let's dive right in. A Utah mother of six who became famous on YouTube for her tough love parenting advice has now been formally charged with felony child abuse. In 2015, Ruby Franke and her husband Kevin Franke decided to start a family blog channel called 8 Passengers on YouTube. This was to showcase their life with six kids. Now, some of the children are adults now and of legal age, so I will use their names, but

I'm going to use initials through the remainder of the episode for those who are minor still so that it can protect their identities and amenity. So their six children are Sherry, Chad, A, J, R, and E. At that time, family vlogging channels were extremely popular on YouTube, and after only two years, the Frankie family channel called 8 Passengers skyrocketed to 1 million subscribers. The family's channel run primarily by Ruby focused on the everyday tasks of a stay-at-home mom like cooking meals, getting kids ready for school, going on outings, vacations, and to church. The 8 Passengers channel became one of the growing number of LDS or Mormon family vlogs,

which gave LDS stay-at-home moms a way to earn money while taking care of their children and running a household. Unlike some channels who kept their religion more private, the Frankies were always outspoken about their religious beliefs. In the early days of their channel, they attracted a loyal following of subscribers who found their content to be relatable and to be entertaining. And at their peak, they had a following of 2.5 million subscribers. Sponsors flocked to the 8 Passenger's channel as well, as you can imagine, utilizing the

demographic of moms to advertise all sorts of household products. However, after the infamous ad apocalypse on YouTube, videos featuring content for children were demonetized, and sponsors like this became crucial to the financial success of family vlog channels. Now, Ruby has said herself that sponsorships during this time earned their channel millions of dollars. After seeing the success that could

be garnered by family vlogging, all of Ruby's siblings started their own successful YouTube channels as well. Now, most YouTubers experience some level of criticism. Let's be real. I know I have. And oftentimes, viewers with genuine concerns do get labeled as haters or trolls. Now, since the beginning of the 8 Passengers channel, they have had their fair share of haters due to the type of content that Ruby and Kevin were choosing to post about their children. Ruby, who was the primary filmer and editor of the videos,

included not only the fun, happy, and memorable milestones that you would think, but she also posted embarrassing moments, punishments, medical information, and details about the children's schooling. Many people thought that the Frankies were invading their children's privacy, and commenters often voiced their concerns that their whole lives being online could eventually negatively affect their mental health. There were even times when Ruby would use her children for the sponsorship portions

of the videos, even going as far as making her children talk about using overnight diapers for wetting the bed after they were already in elementary school. Ruby and other channels have put intimate moments online for viewers as well, such as the girls' first time shaving their legs, bra shopping, viewers as well, such as the girls first time shaving their legs, bra shopping, going on dates, going to the doctor, and even being sick on the bathroom floor. However, it wasn't just the amount of content that was concerning the eight passengers' viewers. Over time, especially as some of the children were getting older, Ruby and Kevin began discussing their parenting styles and forms of punishments more and more. There are countless examples of punishments and consequences that Ruby and Kevin came

up with for the children, but some of them became more disturbing than others. For example, one of the most viral videos of eight passengers was when Ruby received a text message from her then six-year-old daughter's kindergarten teacher. The teacher told Ruby that she had forgotten her lunch and asked if she could bring her lunch to the school. And this was Ruby's response. I just got a text message from a teacher and she said that that did not pack a lunch today and can I bring a lunch over to the school.

This happens quite often when you're having raising children because 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 a lunch. But I responded and just said, was 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.

And hopefully, hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch. So some people of course believed that this wasn't even a natural consequence and was just plain cruel. An adult who forgets their lunch at home would have the option of then going and buying a lunch, going home to get a lunch or asking someone to bring them a lunch if they wanted a

and who has no other opt parent or their teacher f all is what parents are f she responds. However, th instance that Ruby used f form of punishment. I'm o time and then you're goin to eat dinner viewers who consistently tuned into the eight passengers channel

Started to notice a pattern that Ruby and Kevin's oldest son Chad and the two youngest children became more or less labeled The problem children of the family they seemed to always receive the harshest punishments many of which went viral as well in received the harshest pun went viral as well. In on Ruby and Kevin sat down t viewers about a decision due to them being what th and not humble. They told

for Christmas instead of would be receiving the g love because knowing peop know if people gonna, you believing the gift of tru people these days, I don' gonna, you know how they' Um, so Kevin and I, we ha six Children, the two you long patterns of selfishn

showing um through their unwillingness to repent, their unwillingness to feel sorrow over some pretty egregious choices that they've made. So, Kevin and I have decided that we are going to give the gift of truth to them this year for Christmas. We are going to give them the gift of boundaries and we're going to give them the gift of repentance. So we sat down with them and we told these two what our expectations were again. And we let them know how deeply sorrowful we've been because of the choices that they've been making. And how it's affected their teachers at school. It's affected their peers. It's affected our home, the siblings.

And we just laid it out very clear. And we told them that this year they are not going to be visited by Santa. So they will and we prepped them, we let them know that the Christmas morning their four older siblings will be getting Christmas presents to open and that they will have the gift of love from their dad and I, because we want them to really have a visceral experience that hits them. So up until now, I was really hoping that like, keeping them home from school and wiping the floorboards would like really bring pain, like, oh my gosh, I really want to change this behavior

that I've been exhibiting. And it didn't, it didn't, like, it wasn't painful for them. They're like, oh, yeah, we get to stay home from school and clean floorboards. This is kind of fun. It's like, ah. So, you know, they've had these visceral experiences, you know, and they haven't, they haven't affected them. It's because they're so numb. And so the more numb your child is,

the greater experience, the bigger the outcome, they need to wake them up. You're not going to push a boulder with just your hands, you need some real leverage. And the biggest leverage that a little child has is probably Santa Claus. And so I expressed to them that I love your soul more than anything in this world and I literally would do anything to invite you into repentance. And I know parents say that I'll do I would do anything for my kid but really what I think most parents are saying is I would give anything pay any price monetarily. parents are actually will

in place that would bring would really bring repent our gift. At the time, bo were under 10 years old. And based on footage that Ruby posted of them, they just seemed like normal kids. There were videos like this where Ruby was seen harshly scolding R for simply leaving his socks outside and being made to do push-ups. You're going to have to go find your shorts. Oh, did you see the socks you threw at the side of the garden? And you are not going anywhere unless you pick up your junk. You've got crap strewn all around.

Now, so you see now I'm using bad language. That's how bad of a mood I'm in. You get your socks picked up, and don't you leave your stuff out anymore. Right over there. Run and go pick them up, and then give me 10 push-ups. Put them in your pocket so you can take them down to the hamper, and drop and give me 10 pushups. Put them in your pocket so you can take them down to the hamper and drop and give me 10. Put your hands straight out. They're in. They're not supposed to be up. Shape your hands forward. There you go.

One, two, down further. Bring your butt down. Even though just these few examples seem harsh enough, really the most extreme punishments were directed at Chad. In many videos, Chad's parents would embarrass him by reading his text messages out loud at the dinner table and making him discuss things that should have been kept private. However, it was during 2020 when Chad was sent away that people started becoming ever more concerned with Ruby and Kevin's parenting. During the time that he was away, Ruby never explained why Chad was gone. But it was discovered that they had sent him away to a controversial wilderness camp for

troubled teenagers. He programmed where he's going to spend the next eight to 10 weeks living in the um Anasazi mountains of Arizona. So what did you do? Okay, le going to entertain that s an accumulation of things before we ever started U before we ever got well before we ever go

These types of camps have in recent years after peo stories of mistreatment, torture. But even after c was still forced to sleep the middle of the living bed and his bedroom completely taken away for seven months. My bedroom was taken away for seven months and then you give it back like a couple weeks

ago. I don't think our viewers know that. You've been sleeping on a beanbag all day. I've been sleeping on a beanbag since October. And they gave my room back like two weeks ago. And the things that we show and share and the things that many of you are criticizing and calling are actually things

that mental health professionals have counseled us to do. We got accused of child abuse when we sent Chad to Anasazi. Guess what? The first thing that they did was take a bed away. All of these ex there to be several report to DCFS and even a petitio signatures calling for an

and Ruby for the alleged Children. However, at the were claimed to have been unfounded. It seemed like there was an even bigger spotlight on the Frankies and on their parenting, and their videos started becoming more and more sporadic. They went from posting every day to every other day, and then just stopped being on a regular schedule

altogether. After this, Ruby attempted to start a clothing company called Ruby Do, but it ended up being largely unsuccessful. By 2022, there were no new videos being posted to the 8 Passenger's channel, but Ruby wasn't gone from the internet or YouTube completely. After her unsuccessful clothing line, Ruby began attending life coach and therapy sessions with a company called Connections. And then she eventually started making appearances on the business's YouTube channel called Connections Classroom with the founder Jody Hildebrandt. Jody was briefly mentioned in the video where Chad discussed his wilderness

camp punishment and the loss of his bed privileges. And he referred it to her as his therapist. A phone call yesterday with my therapist, and she taught me about truth and distortion. Mom probably talks about Jodi all the time. I've mentioned Jodi a few times. She has a podcast called Connections with an X. So why was Ruby developing a relationship

with a woman who previously had her son as a client? Well, it turns out that Jodi wasn't only Chad's therapist at one point, but that Ruby and Kevin sought help from her as well when they were having problems in their marriage. 54-year-old Jodi Hildebrandt is a quote unquote therapist who, like the Frankie family, is from Utah and is a member of the LDS Church. She was married for a short time in the 90s and had two children before she divorced and she has been single ever since. In 2009, Jody was placed on a list of recommended therapists for people in the LDS church to seek help for various issues like marriage counseling and addiction counseling.

Specifically, the LDS church views and viewing no matter how often as an addiction that needs repentance and therapy. However, several clients who received services from Jodi claimed that she would relay their personal business discussed during therapy with church officials. One of these allegations was actually proven and her license ended up being put on probation

for 18 months. So after the eight passengers YouTube channel video started fizzling out, Ruby became a life coach and listed as a certified mental fitness trainer for Jodi's Connections company. It seemed like Ruby and Jodi were very like-minded individuals because when she began appearing in videos on the channel, a lot of the messages were very reminiscent of how she already was in the past, just much more extreme.

The website JodiHildebrandt.com thoroughly explains what connections is and what it strives to do for its clients. It says that the core teachings of connections is that for a person to achieve a true connection with another human being, they must not be in distortion. Distortion is something that Jody came up with, referring to people being addicted to something, like work, shopping, games, sleep, social media, driving, receiving compliments, exercise, eating, drugs, alcohol, sex, hobbies, or even their spouse. Really anything. and denial, knowing that you are not enough, being codependent in your relationships, living in lust, being overly sexually attracted to your spouse, and controlling and manipulating others.

Literally, you could find the definition to fit almost any single situation. Which, my guess and my suspicion is that was her goal. Because then you could tap into a client who is experiencing anything. Jodie explains that everyone is in distortion to some degree, but that she can help you to overcome distortion and live in truth. Jodie teaches that there are three core principles which must be developed in order to truly connect with anyone and to avoid distortion. She says that boundaries need to be set to distance yourself from people in distortion so you are not drawn in with them.

The three core principles of connections are impeccable honesty, rigorous personal responsibility, and humility. She encourages clients to refer family members to join the program so that they can also experience true connection. Jody teaches that the truth and the three principles are the only way to true happiness in relationships. Members of the group develop a bond by sharing vulnerable experiences with each other and validating each other's experiences. As they continue these patterns, they distance themselves from their families.

Family and friends are confused about this new term distortion and a whole slew of other new terminology taught by Jody as the only and absolute way to connect. They are then encouraged to attend classes so they too can learn how to not be in distortion. If their friends or family ask questions or raise concerns about the teachings, the student often immediately makes a phone call to their Connections support group to avoid being drawn in to that distortion themselves. If the family and friends don't learn these new skills for Connection, they will be cut off in the relationship for being in distortion. In addition to the Connections 101 classes, members attend group or weekly meetings with

Jodi and other students to discuss in a more intimate setting how they were in distortion the previous week. The revenue from these group and connections classes that Jodi has made was conservatively estimated to exceed $30,000 a month. The other concerning component is that Jodi heavily weaves in her teachings and her truths with the teachings of the LDS Church, like how Christians capitalize pronouns referring to God. In connections, truth is capitalized, as if to signify that her truth is the same

or just as important as God himself. So the connections, truths, in regards to relationship also carried over into parenthood as well. And Ruby has even blatantly stated that she loves these truths more than her own children and she doesn't love her children unconditionally, which let's just say I think most of us could already tell. I love principles more than my child. Yikes! That's a really and and that is the truth. It is the truth. It's just so disturbing to hear someone literally say those words and talk about these made-up

truths as if they are God. Ruby and Jodie would discuss all sorts of topics, but I think the ones pertaining to children and parenting disturbed people the most. If an adult wants to do culty stuff, believe whatever they want, do a bunch of nonsense, that is fine. But it's when children have ideas and toxic behavior forced on them that it becomes a bigger issue. They don't have a choice. They aren't able to just leave. Hi, we are live in Mapleton, Utah, at a home of somebody who is learning how to be a mental fitness trainer. And we have Ruby here.

Ruby is a part of the original 10 women that are being trained to become mental fitness trainers. So Ruby, you want to tell us about what a mental fitness trainer is? Yes. So we are getting mentally fit. The same way your body would get physically fit by running and lifting weights and working with a personal trainer,

we are getting ready to be your mental fitness trainer. We're getting truth, really easy to teach. We're making it very simple, boiling it down to principles. That's how you're going to understand truth is really knowing principles, being able to put words to it and help you. And you're gonna feel so much better.

Absolutely. So I'm just gonna span over here. We've got, oh, I can't see. There we go. Tori and Shari, how are you feeling about what you're getting ready to go out and do? Teaching truth to the world. Excited.

So excited. Excited. Yeah. Coming to a town near you. And here's Kim and Jess. Hello. Becky, Liz, Michelle. And then we got, got Johnny over there.

Johnny. And Johnny. And Johnny. And me. There's Paige. Did you get Pam? Nope, Pam's over here. Johnny is our male person who comes in and does the role play for the male so we can practice. So he's quite talented to do the role plays with us. So we appreciate Johnny. Johnny's a man of truth as well. And he's also a mental fitness trainer.

So, so glad that you're with us. And any of you who are interested in becoming a mental fitness trainer, we are going to open that up to train with the people. So give us a call or email us at supportedconnectionsclassroom.com. And maybe you can come to the next retreat for the- Come work out with us.

Okay, so I think I've told you guys before that I'm trying to really make this year my healthy year. I'm trying to focus on wellness, on eating right. I've been obsessed with finding ways to eat healthier, but without feeling like I'm missing out because I'll be honest, I love carbs, I love sandwiches, I love ques eat healthier, but without feeling like I'm missing out because I'll be honest I love carbs. I love sandwiches. I love quesadillas all that good stuff But that is exactly why hero bread has been like such a game changer in the space of food for me

I've talked to you about them before too because I honestly can't get enough They've also been a life hack for me with my kids and let me just explain it because I want you to imagine for a moment Making like the perfect breakfast sandwich You know what I'm talking about? Not a McMuffin. Not a not I mean, even though those are good, but like fluffy eggs crispy bacon melty good cheese on like a soft chewy bagel But one that only has four net carbs zero grams of sugar and 19 grams of protein That is what hero bread does or a picture yourself rolling up You know taco Tuesday making the best tacos ever with tortillas

that won't completely destroy you or your goals. It is insane how good this stuff is. I think I told you too, I get their Hawaiian rolls because my daughter, Emmy, I don't know what happened, but she is just like obsessed with Hawaiian rolls. I swear she can chief an entire sleeve in like two sittings. And so when I saw that hero bread makes these, I was like, oh, 100% we're getting them because

I can't keep doing like, you know, the other ones. Like this is like actually okay for her. And I was so skeptical at first too, because let's be honest, anything that is advertised as healthy, especially when it's bread, it usually tastes like cardboard. But Hero Bread, it is soft, it is fluffy. And honestly, if you didn't tell me that it was low carb, I would never even know, and my kids don't even know, and they're the pickest eaters ever. And the fact that they have everything,

sliced bread, tortillas, bagels, even those dinner rolls or Hawaiian rolls, I mean, it means that I never have to give up on my favorite foods or my kids' favorite foods. So if you've been trying to eat better, but you refuse to give up the good stuff and you want stuff that tastes like the good stuff, you need to try Hero Bread.

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This is connections according to Jody. So let me tell you a little bit about what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I've been trying to figure out how to help my clientele. I've been working with tens of thousands of people for 20 thousands of people fo been asking God about how from this array of mental Okay? And so I have been to understand how to use gods in helping people he a clip from the eternal core conference in April of 2020. In this Jody describes how she got to this

belief system Jody grew up as the 6th of 7 children and she described her parents as emotionally shut down and that she didn't realize that as a child, but she does now saying and I quote they were emotionally completely not available for me or for any of the other children and so chaos went on in our house a lot and none of us were really allowed to a moat other than to get angry so she learned how to be really nice kind helpful gracious.

Sure enough I ended up with a needing disorder right. I started trying to control everything because I had no outlets to emote my emotions. I had nobody there to validate me and say, yeah, that makes sense that when your brother, you know, puts you into a pretzel, that that would hurt and that you would want to tell him, stop, you don't like that.

I wasn't allowed to do that. Here's the key. This is the key, responsibility. Responsibility. I am responsible for three things. I've learned this over, like I said, over the last decade plus. I am responsible for my own perception, which means my thoughts. And then when I perceive, I then feel emotions.

And when I feel emotions, it's because of my perceptions. And when I perceive and then feel emotions, then I then choose to behave. And so I'm responsible for that whole process in everything, even when I'm depressed. So when I talk to people, they'll say, Yeah, yeah, that's nice and good. But I have depression. I'm like, okay, wait, stop, you missed what I just said to you. And then they'll say to me,

are you suggesting that I'm responsible for my depression? And I'll say, yes, you are. That's one thing, if you don't know me, I'm really blunt. Really direct, some people hate that. Some people love that, it's like, tell me more. The other principles to live with include characters of truth, humbleness, honesty, responsibility, and vulnerability. Or else you are disconnected and you manifest control, aggression, and anxiety. She goes on to say that she's learned that the

only thing she can control are her thoughts, feelings, and behavioral choices, and that she cannot control anything else. And then she uses an example where she talks about a parent-child relationship. Oh, I wish I could control them. I wish I could get them to do what I want them to do and you just can't. But when you try, you then disconnect from them because you go into a controlling posture.

You go into a dynamic instead of a relationship with them. So people will say, well, if I love this person, then how do I get them to and I'm like, Can you hear how you're going down control lane, you can't get them to your job is to speak the truth to them about their responsibility, which is their responsible for their own perceptions, their own feelings, and their own behavioral choices. So no more of this. You made me do for their own perceptions, their own feelings, and their own behavioral choices. So no more of this.

You made me do this because of you I feel. If you wouldn't have done that, then I wouldn't have done this. All of that is called distortion, which means distorting the truth. So by controlling others, that is distortion, or distortion of truth. And then she says that each and every one of us is responsible for learning these principles

for ourselves. And then if you have charge over anyone else, such as children, grandchildren, clients, etc., you have a responsibility to teach them these principles too, so that they too can be released from distortion. Okay. Now this next part is actually particularly interesting because of how Jodie says that God told her about distortion.

I was teaching about shame and I went to God and I said, people can't understand the word shame. Do you have another word? Can you give me another word? And I heard one day distorting the truth. And I was like, oh, brilliant, distortion. Every single one of us goes into distortion. On August 30, 2023, a man called 911 after a little boy showed up at his doorstep hungry and thirsty. The little boy who

identified himself as R said that he came from Jodi. Anything else for this man and his wife to realize that R needed help and he needed it fast. So that's when they called 911. I just had a 12 year old boy show up here at my front door asking for help. And he said he had just came from a neighbor's house and 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. He asked us to call the police.

So he's very afraid. Okay, and are the neighbors out of their home or is there anybody looking for them that you can see? No, we are home to partner with away. I'm not sure. How did you get out of the house? He went out through the porch. He said he just left through the porch at the neighbor's house. Her name is Jody Hildebrand, and she lives two doors up the street. Out here in Triana the houses are far apart so he walked just under a block to get to our house.

He rang my doorbell and asked me to call the police. Now as the police were coming into the neighborhood, they were stopped by Jodi in her car, who said that she was out looking for a boy. So the police told her that they were out looking for a boy as well, that same boy, and Jodi was basically like, oh, okay, I'll wait at my house. Then once they got to Jodi's neighbor's house and actually laid eyes on R, it was beyond clear that he needed help and he needed it quickly. They began cutting the duct tape off of

his legs and they moved him into the ambulance. The smell of flesh was all that the officers could smell and the wounds far beyond what most had ever seen was all that they could see. When an officer asked R how he got those wounds, R told him that they were caused by ropes that Jody and his mom Ruby had put on him. He also told the officer that they would put cayenne pepper and honey on those wounds as a dressing. And guys, some of the pictures that were taken of the children's injuries when they were at the hospital are so so graphic that everybody's been blurring them out, even mainstream media, even 2020, everybody, because they are truly horrific. So I'm going to describe them, but I'm not going to show them because I don't think they need to be out there personally. You can see where the restraints were on the ankles, and you can see the skin on the

legs are completely chapped. It's raw. You can start to see muscle below it. It is like it has literally disintegrated the skin. You can see the shoulder blades sticking out of R completely as though he is so malnourished and underweight. It looks like literal wings coming out of his back. That's how much they are protruding. And then there is a wrist wound where to me it almost looks like a burn even though I know it's not maybe partially a rope burn but it's like a slit, a thick, a what not even a slit, a slit's the wrong word guys, a gash on his wrist and it's so deep that you can see muscle, you can see tissue, you can see fat, and it is like, gosh, I want to say it's like an inch wide, something like, it is so horrific when I saw it for the

first time. I'm not exaggerating guys, I did start gagging. It is so awful. And this is what this boy had all over his body when he was brave enough to run away from Jodie's house. He is honestly a freaking hero in my eyes. So as R was taken to the hospital, the focus now was shifting to finding the other two sisters, which R said were still in the house. Now, you know, I'm not really sure what Jodie thought was going to happen in this moment, but boy was she acting surprised and like nothing was going on when the police arrived. Police officers open up!

Jodie? I need you to step out the door. Jody? I need you to step out. I have my turn. That's great. Step out of the house. No, I'm not going to step out of the house. Step out of the house. Step out of the house.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this going to say? Come on, step out. Is there going to be a phone? Wait a minute. How do you come into my house? Sit right there. Look, they come into my house.

So have a seat right there. Do you have a search warrant? Have a seat right there. Do you have a search warrant? Have a seat right there. I'll explain everything after. Have a seat right there. Do you have a search warrant? Have a seat right there. Do you have a search warrant? Have a seat right there. I'll explain everything after. Have a seat right there. Do you have a search warrant sir? We're searching the house. I can tell you what's in the house. Okay. Just have a seat right there for me. Do you have a search warrant? We'll explain it after this. You can't just come into my house without a search warrant. We'll explain everything after this ma'am.

Okay, well that's one of the reasons why we're here. So we'll explain after everything's done, after we clear the house and make sure everything's fine and all. But why are you coming into my house without a search warrant? We'll explain it after this. But that doesn't make sense. You come into my house and do what you want and then you tell me you don't have a warrant? No, we'll explain why we did. But don and then you tel have a warrant. Explain w

you have to have a warrant we don't. We're here on e and I will explain it aft the police that Ruby was Springville, which was wh and happened to be four h that there was only one o house.

So she stood outside on the phone with her attorney while the police searched her house thoroughly. And it seemed like she was more concerned about her attorney missing his flight and also some Airbnb guests being freaked out than she was about what was actually happening. Is there anybody else in the house? Yes.

Two kids? There's a little girl. Just one? She's right over here. Okay. How old is she? She'll be 10 next week. Okay. She's on this side? I have Airbnb guests over there. Probably scared me to death. Okay Okay. Adam I know you have a flight to catch. So they're in your home because you lied to them about... Yeah I got a police officer standing right here. So I don't want you to miss your flight. So... Well I'm not going to miss my flight. I'm okay for a minute.

Okay. Have they found her yet? Yeah, yeah. I think there's somebody else in the house. There's not. And yes, you heard that right guys. Apparently there were Airbnb guests staying inside this home while all of this was going on. While R and E were being held and tortured while guests were staying in the home. I mean, it is bizarre. She also appeared to be crying during some of the search. According to R, he had two

sisters in the house, but the police were only able to find one child. She was hiding inside a closet in the bathroom. Now initially, it seemed like they thought that the child was a boy. But after talking to R while he was at the hospital, they learned that he actually had a little sister whose name was E. And her head had been shaved.

That's why there was a mistake where they thought that it was a little boy at first. And R had told the police that he hadn't seen her in over a month. Now when they approached E, E was super scared and she would not come out of this closet. While she was in the closet, different medics and officers tried their best to support her and let her know that she was safe. They were officers. They were there to help. She requested pizza, so they brought her a personal sized pizza and also a drink. She ate all of that and she was still hungry.

So then they ordered a large pizza and she went on to eat two slices of that. They continued trying to get E to come out of the closet so that she could go to the hospital to be looked at to be treated to see what was going on. You don't want to talk? Okay. That's not something I know you want to talk about. It's okay to talk to me. Are you scared? I just want to go to the hospital. What?

I just want to go to the hospital. But she told them she was worried that Jodie didn't want her to go to the hospital. And she also said that she was scared that they would give her vaccines and that quote vaccines kill you. But finally, nearly after six hours after that 911 call had been made, they were finally able to convince E to go to the hospital. During the time that they were trying to convince E to go to the hospital, Ruby had shown up at the house and they placed her in handcuffs.

Now, what's so weird about this is she didn't seem phased at all about what was happening with her children. She seemed more like she was annoyed and irritated more than anything. So eventually both Ruby and Jodi were taken into the police station for further questioning. During that, Jodi tried to manipulate the police. I'm a psychologist.

I've watched people flip things all the time. So I get it. I sit on your side. I get it. So, you guys seem nice people. Yeah. I'm not. I can't be difficult.

This is really, if you knew all the pieces, I think you'd have a lot of empathy. I'd like to just tell you, but I don't know who you are. I don't know if you're going to flip my words, but I don't know. And I'm an honest person as well, so we get along great. And he just said, do not say anything. And Ruby? Well she completely refused to speak at all. Which yes, technically it is her right. But she literally didn't even answer if she had children or not. She just went mute. Would not speak. Was this your water? I'm gonna... It's yours if you want it. We'll save that.

We also have snacks if you need anything to eat. So I know I introduced myself to you earlier, but my name is Detective Bates and this is Sergeant Toddler. We're just here to talk to you about kind of a few things involving your kids. So first, are you, do you live down here or? Or do you live up north? Do you want to talk to me about where you live or how many kids you have? So we just spoke with your husband and he said you guys have six kids. Are those all together? Are those all your kids? I can wait all day. So it's up to you if you want to talk to us about what's going on.

Would you feel more comfortable talking to one of us? Or if you feel more comfortable talking to him I can step out. I'll wait tight in the lower room. Okay. Do you want to answer that? You don't want to talk to us about anything? So yeah, this is just your chance to tell us, We're just trying to get your side of the story. So it's your chance to do that.

But it's up to you. We're just going to talk. And I mean, I'm not asking any criminal questions. If you don't want to talk to us, just let us know and we'll be done. I've already told you. You want water? OK. Easy enough, thank you. Once the news of the arrest spread, a lot of people were wondering

how exactly we got here. Lastly, how did this overly strict but seemingly somewhat normal mom, who despite her controversial parenting decisions, never really had any indicators that she would physically torture her kids? So how did she allow this to happen? And how the heck did we get here?

Also, how in the world did these women think that they could ever get away with this? Did Ruby's husband, Kevin Kevin buy into this as well? And speaking of Kevin, you might be wondering where the hell he was when all of this was happening, and also what his reaction was after Ruby and Jodie's arrest. Well, he was interviewed. Listen to this. So are they all living with you or? No, I haven't seen them for over a year. Any of them? No. None of them.

For a year? Over a year. I've been in a separation. From who? From my wife and family. What's your wife's name? Ruby. Ruby?

When was the last time you saw Ruby? The last time I saw her? The last time I saw her was the 18th of this month. We met to... she requested me to sign over vehicles or the titles to the vehicles, the vehicle that she drives, that were all in my name. When's the last time you physically saw her? The day that I moved out, July 24th of 2022. 24th of twenty-two. Forty-five twenty-fifth. When we separated, we were going on twenty-two years. Okay.

And during your marriage, how was discipline your kids? How would you discipline your kids? Um, yeah, I'm not going to answer that question. Okay, that's fine. Have you been since separated or since they left? Um, yeah, I'm not going to answer that question. Okay, that's fine. Have you been since separated or since they lived here in the city of Ivins? Have you communicated with your wife regarding like discipline with your kids or their care or their physical well-being?

No. So is she doing this on her own, just telling you how your kids are? She's not telling me anything about the kids. Who's this female Jodie that your wife looks like? Do you know a female named Jodie? She is a therapist and a life coach, I know. And she's... Do you respect her? i respect her i think she is a very

honest beautiful person okay you place value on jody i don't know what that means do you do you value what she says and how she treats your wife a client of of hers? Is your wife a partner of hers? Is your wife a roommate with her? Your kids are living in her house is what I'm trying to say. I'm not aware of that, but I know that they've been in business for the last year filming- Whose day?

Ruby and Jodie. Ruby and Jodie'soby. They film podcasts. So every week a podcast goes up and I listen to it. So I recall the exact time that sometime before 11 o'clock today we received a phone call from 911 on our dispatch that a 12 to 13 year old boy was knocking on doors in the neighborhood asking for food and water. He was severely emaciated. That he had was emaciated. Skinny strong malnutritioned not food, not enough water to sustain life. So he had duct tape on his extremities, on his hands, on his ankles, and those were covering rope burns that were used to tie him down. Take a second and think about what I just said. That's the condition of your son.

Given that information, your son was taken to the hospital. A warrant has been applied and granted by the Department of Child and Family Services to remove from your wife's care. So no one right now is going to have access to these two children based on their physical condition. Do you understand that? I understand. Do you, would you condone that behavior?

Would I condone that behavior? That's my job. My job is to find out your knowledge of the treatment of these, these precious children. No, I don't know the details or I don't understand the problem. But as you described that, that sounds... Horrible, horrible. Disgusting. No human being should be treated like that. I... yeah, okay.

That's my thoughts. But again, we might be different on that. Um... We're gonna like, stay here for a second, okay? We're going to go out and talk. I'm not saying you're, you're still not free to go. Are you under arrest? Absolutely not. We just have lots of questions. Lots. Okay? Your children are under medical care right now? And what does that mean? It means that you don't have access to them.

My understanding is that they are... What is that? They're in the custody of DCFest. And they will be for the next 72... There's a medical hold on them right now? So for at least the next 72 hours? Based on our understanding. At least the next 72 hours. During observation, they're being watched to make sure they're

leaving. DCFS is going to provide you that information and they can better answer your questions along those lines. What's going to happen to my wife? I love my wife. I don't know. I'm being honest with you. I don't know. Haven't had any of you against... I don't remember those charges against my wife. Possibly. I think given the circumstances, that's highly appropriate. But again, I don't know your wife. I was hoping to gain some insight from

you but I don't necessarily know that that's something you wanted to I trust her or you wanted to travel down this means no and all without legal representation yeah all right I get it but I love that way I trust them and so mean, this feels like getting run over by a Steve truck while you're sharing it with me today. Yeah. You guys can tell you're caught off guard. I thought I was just coming here to pick up my kids. And for what?

I don't know what or why. But. And I was finding I'm taking them back with me. Like, I want to. And I was finding I'm taking it back with me. Like I want to. You realize that I have a picture of my family on my wall. And I look at it every day. And I work.

I work every day. So I can get back to my family and save my family. Everything you're sharing to me just sounds like a made-up story. I have no idea what you're talking about. Like This just, it sounds like a horror movie. After being interviewed, Kevin was never charged, but still the question of course remained, was he going to sympathize with Ruby or was he going to stick by his children? All right, you guys are my besties, so I'm going to get a little vulnerable with you for a minute and maybe a little bit TMI, but I feel like there should be no shame in this because I want to talk about something that so many of us have to deal with, but we either

don't always realize it or we don't want to talk about it. And that's hormone imbalance. I'm talking about the things like unexplained weight fluctuations, constant stress, low energy, bloating, low libido, acne, just feeling off, not feeling like yourself. I started going through it a little under a year ago and I was trying everything. I was trying like the, what are they, the NAD injections.

I actually got a pellet like put in my ass guys that had hormones to try to like get me regulated because all my levels were way out of whack. I think my testosterone level was like at a seven and it should have been way, way higher. But anyway, my point is it's not our fault. The number of hormone disruptions in our environment and our diets is just wild and 80% of women are affected by it. So I was so excited when I got the opportunity to partner with Opositive because I started using Flow Endocrine Superfood and I love

it. It's a daily superfood drink that supports your endocrine system and which is basically like your body's hormone control center that helps control hormonal imbalance, all the healthy good stuff, all those things. I mean think greens plus multivitamins plus hormone balance all in one. It also helps with cortisol levels, gut health, weight management, and even stress response. All in this like delicious strawberry lemonade drink. And honestly I felt the difference way faster than I expected and truthfully way more than any of those pellets ever did for me. I personally, my opinion, I'm not a doctor but I think it's a scam. This was like such a difference compared to that. So if you're tired of feeling

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Let's kill the stigma, guys, I go through it. If you're going through it, check out opositive.com slash AE. So we went down to Joey's house in May of 2021. That was the first time I had ever been there. And it blew my mind as you, I'm sure you have walked in there and gone, how does a therapist look like this? Like, it doesn't make sense to me. But we were there and she opened up and talked about you know her struggles and what was going on. I gotta say like I'm a smart guy. I'm an engineer. I've designed and helped build some really big stuff. I'm a college professor.

I can't explain some of the stuff that happened while we were there. Like crashes in the basement while we were talking upstairs. And plates like in the kitchen just flying off by themselves like full speed smashing on the wall and falling through the floor by themselves. I, I can't explain it, but I saw it with my own eyes and I don't have any way to

explain it other than there's some crazy shit going on. way to explain it other than there's some crazy shit going on. Ruby was convinced that we could intervene and help Jody. I didn't want anything to do with it. I tried to get the bishop involved and say, hey, go to the priesthood and the church and all that stuff. Go to your support network. Ruby continued to be like, no, we can help. She doesn't want that.

Could you imagine what happened to her reputation when this got out? Let's help her. We went down a couple more times between May and August, but it reached the point where in August her bishop at the time, a guy named, who's down there, and Kayenta named Scott Galbraith, he's not her bishop anymore, but I mean he was going over there like every night and he'd be there for like four hours And just then he'd be like, yeah, I'm fighting evil spirits. I'm casting demons out. I'm

Do crazy stuff going on And finally he got to the point where he's like I can't do this anymore Like there needs to be some sort of resolution I can't do this anymore. Like there needs to be some sort of resolution. It was at that point that they said, Why don't you take her up to your house? And I was like, Oh, hell no. I don't want this in my house.

But I was beaten over the head with it. Like, that's really insensitive. You know, she's done so much to help our family and you're being selfish and she has needs and come on, like it won't be for long. And so I relented and I was like, okay, actually, you know, this could kind of be fun. Let's just make it fun.

And we'll like, she needs a vacation. So we'll just go take drives up the canyon and stuff like that. And it turned into just like crazy house. The moment she showed up in my house, just the weirdest crap started happening. Lights turning on and off, said sounds of people walking in walls,

and like sounds like footprints going up walls and across the ceiling and stuff floating around. It was just, it was weird and I hated it. And I became the resident exorcist. That was the title I came up with myself. I thought it was kind of funny, but it was my job. Like go and give her lessons. Whenever she started, like go into a trance

and go into possession, which started to be a lot. And Ruby would go up and check on her. It started like every four hours at night, and then it moved every two hours at night, then it moved every hour at night, and then at some point Ruby said, you know what, I'm just going to start sleeping in there. And if I need you, I'll come down and get you."

That's kind of weird, but okay. And that was that. They started sleeping in the same bed. Then she started having like trances and stuff, I would say probably September, where she believed that she was going to heaven and seeing God and Jesus and talking with them. And she would get together with Pam Boettcher. Ruby, Pam, and Jodie would get together and do these interventions. That's what they called them. And so they'd just go up and lock themselves in a room

for four or five hours. And then they'd come out and they'd all just be on cloud nine. And Ruby would share with me, like she had this amazing vision. And I wrote it and recorded it all down. and we have a work to do from God and you're part of it and the bishops part of it and we're all part like that until I wanted to move on with life. And I would call it dragging my heels.

So that was around October. And Jodie flipped out because during one intervention, Chad was in the backyard with a bunch of friends and it was my job to keep all the kids contained in the basement watching movies or playing video games. I took the dog on a walk and I thought they were done but they weren't done and Chad had all his high school friends over in the backyard. Jodie flipped out. She was ready to come back to Ivan's on her own that night. And Ruby and Pam talked her into staying. But that was the first night where Ruby said,

I want a separation from you. And it was an in-home separation. And so it was, it was hard. Basically there were all these rules now placed on me. Like I could leave when I wanted, but I couldn't come back until Ruby gave me permission. I couldn't come into the kitchen to eat until Ruby gave me permission. And the upstairs or Jody roamed was completely off limits. I couldn't go upstairs anymore in my own house. And there would be, Ruby would dictate

all of the terms of how our interactions would be, when we would talk, when... And that was hard. And that was hard. And it was during that time that I really became, I would say, dependent upon Ruby. Like if she said a kind word to me, like my whole day was made, right? So that separation continued all the way up until the holidays, maybe, maybe the last week of December, first week of January. And then Ruby ended that, that separation. Jodie went home this, like the second week of January. But by that time, like Ruby, Pam and Jodie were completely determined to do this work that

they felt God had for them. And I thought it was crazy. Like I thought it was just that shit crazy. Like Ruby, you have a reputation, you have a multi-million dollar business, you have a brand, and you are just giving it away. She wanted to legally, like, work with Jodie's attorney to basically give Jodie eight passengers and become an employee of connections. So basically the contract was Ruby gives Jody everything and Ruby gets nothing in return. Our manager, um, our YouTube manager at the time was like, um, red flags, red flags.

Like, I don't know how to tell you she is scamming you. Ruby fired him. And I was like, I believe our manager, I think he's right. And Ruby started threatening me with another separation. And just like, this isn't about money, this is about doing God's work. So we continued in that dynamic for the next six or seven months until she went on a trip with Jodi and Pam down to Arizona. And I think they like, when I read her journal, she went into Mexico or something and bought

drugs or something like prescription drugs for the emergency kits. When she came back from that trip, before she even brought the bags into the house, she pulled me in and said, I want to talk with you. And that's when she asked me to leave. And that was July 20, 2022. But the few people in their lives who didn't support Ruby from the get-go were her oldest daughter Sherry and Ruby's sisters. In fact, Sherry had been trying to get her siblings taken away well before R ever escaped. And Sherry was the reason people had even started to find out that something was going down.

So she had made an Instagram story that said, quote, finally. And in that, there was a picture that showed a police officer holding a gun on the sidewalk outside of their Springville home. And then over the next couple of days, she kept posting. In the first post, she said, quote, today has been a big day. Me and my family are so glad justice is being served. We've been trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this, and

we're so glad they finally decided to step up. Now it was obvious that Kevin was not happy about Sherry speaking out and that the two of them had a very strained relationship. And two days after Ruby's arrest, Kevin was actually trying to get his own daughter Sherry arrested for burglary. Sherry had gone to their family house and she had taken his Ruby's and Chad's passports,

MacBook computers, journals, and she ended up giving everything over to the police who then gave it back to Kevin. But when he picked up the stuff from the police, he made it clear that he wanted his own daughter arrested for burglary, which just further seemed to show his support towards Ruby and not the children. She was trying to show evidence. She was trying to help her siblings. He was trying to keep it hush hush. And what I think is really interesting about this too is in one of the first conversations that Kevin and Ruby had after Ruby was arrested,

one of the things that she asks Kevin is, do you think the police are going to try to talk to Sherry? As if they knew that Sherry would blow the lid off of this whole thing. Within a few days of the arrests, there was a shelter hearing in juvenile court regarding Ruby and Kevin's four minor children. It was a hearing to determine who the children should be placed with, and according to witnesses and reporters, It was a hearing to determine who the children should be placed with. And according to witnesses and reporters, during this hearing, Ruby made some extremely, extremely disturbing allegations against her son R. Ruby accused him of inappropriately touching other children, including E, and even said that he encouraged her to touch other children as well.

She said that he disguised this behavior as a, quote, padding game, and said that he disguised this behavior as a quote padding game and said that he confessed to touching 20 different people including neighbors and various family members. She also claimed that he is addicted to and that he has been viewing it since the age of three. So when this allegation came out, of course, a lot of people started wondering, you know, if this alleged touching has been going on for years and for so long, and there are so many victims, why didn't she, as the parent, get her child help or report it, you know, instead of having her friend tie the kids up in the basement and starve them and abuse them. Also, many people have pointed out that if a child

is looking at explicit content from the age of three, then that is a parent issue, not a child issue. No three-year-old knows how to search those topics, and if they happened upon them by accident at three years old, they wouldn't even have any idea what was going on. Now, other people have wondered why a three-year-old would even be left alone with any type of device long enough to be able to intentionally view that kind of content. It doesn't make any sense, especially when you consider that Ruby pretty much stuck a camera in her children's faces from the moment they woke up to the moment they went to sleep.

So when was R supposedly able to do all of this? Others have also pointed out that Kevin and Ruby had cameras like Nest surveillance cameras all over their house for security, and to also capture candid moments to then use on their channel. So surely, if he was compulsively looking at all of this from the age of three, they would have known. Not to mention her other children have had their doors, bedrooms, beds, and entire lives taken away for much less.

Or was this yet another thing that Jody, quote, helped our realize? Then in November of 2023, Kevin filed for divorce. Initially, Kevin's attorney, Randy Kester, said that Kevin refuses to sling mud and point fingers. This after the accusations that were made that he could have saved his children. His attorney spoke out on multiple news outlets to give Kevin side of the story.

That's the first question that I asked Kevin. And I know that everyone has that question about why was he not there? Why was he not involving himself in his kid's life during that period of time? But it's become abundantly clear that both he and his entire family were being manipulated by someone who's a so-called professional in mental health and in therapy and counseling, Jody Hildebrand. They came under her penumbra. She basically took over their lives. And ironically, this is how twisted the advice was that she was giving them was that Kevin needed to be out of the home, away from his children and away from his wife, separated from them in order to save their family and save their marriage. And Kevin's a man who was desperate

to save his marriage and his family. He loved his wife, he loved his children and but took this, uh, corny advice of, uh, of this therapist and, uh, it was absent from the home for 12 or 13 months until all these horrific allegations came forward. What about, what about before then though?

I mean, there are a lot of allegations with regard to the previous allegations that were referred to DCFS. If he's done nothing wrong, why is the state still keeping control of the kids, right? I mean, if he did nothing wrong in any other case, the other parent would be able to take care of the kids. That's an absolutely fair question, but because of the absence, his absence, and because of the manipulation by Jody Hildebrandt upon these children, who she pretty much had under her exclusive control between she and Ruby, there has become a rift. These children have become brainwashed actually at this point are being held by the state in an effort to finalize and get some expert professional help to help them overcome this brainwashing that they have.

In mid-December, Ruby pled guilty. As a part of her plea deal, she would be required to plead guilty to four of the six counts of child abuse. She also would be required to testify against Jodie and spend one to fifteen years in prison for each of those four counts. A little over a week after she did plead guilty, Jodie ended up taking the exact same plea deal as well. So what exactly did they plea guilty to? So according to court documents, RF was forced to do physical tasks for hours and days at a time. This included wall sits, carrying boxes full of books

up and down stairs, and working outside. Eventually, RF was forced to do outside labor without shoes and in the summer heat. He was to stand in the direct sunlight for several days. He was forced to remain outside at all hours of the day and night for extended periods of time. These actions resulted in repeated and serious sunburns with blisters and sloughing skin. RF was denied water for several of the days that he was required to remain in the summer heat too, and then he was punished when he secretly, quote, secretly consumed water. He was denied sufficient food, and when given food,

he was given very plain meals such as rice and chicken, while others in the house ate regular and more flavorful meals. He was isolated from other people and denied all forms of entertainment, including books, notebooks, and electronics. And it gets worse. After he attempted to run away the first time in July, his hands and feet were regularly bound. The bindings included being tied to his mother Ruby and also to weights. Now many times the bindings included using two sets of handcuffs, one on his wrists and one on his ankles.

At times he would be lying on his stomach and ropes were used to tie the two sets of handcuffs together, so that his arms and lower legs were lifted off the ground, which, from my understanding, it means that he was essentially hogtied with handcuffs. It is absolutely barbaric and disgusting. The bindings also caused injuries to his wrists and his ankles where the handcuffs had cut through the skin and actually damaged the muscle tissue. These injuries were treated with homeopathic remedies and then covered with duct tape. Then the bindings were placed on top of the duct tape. Specific instances of a bite that was committed by Ruby herself against her son included kicking him while she was wearing boots,

holding his head underwater, and cutting off oxygen by placing her hands over his mouth and nose. The ab- began in May and it escalated throughout the summer months. Additionally, Ruby and Jodi regularly sought to indoctrinate RF and convinced him that he was evil and possessed, and also that he needed to willingly be obedient to avoid punishments. And they tried to convince him that the punishments were necessary to repent.

He was also told that everything that was being done to him were acts of love. I mean, sick, sick, sick. Now for her younger child, who is going by the initials in this document, E.F., in addition to also being bound and tied, she was subjected to the same treatment as her brother, with the tasks, the water, being outside and not getting any food. She was also repeatedly told that she was evil and possessed, and that the punishments were necessary for her to be obedient and to repent. And these things were being done to her all in order to help her, again according to Ruby and Jodie. EF was convinced, too, that she was evil and that she needed to go through these things in order for her to repent. It's heartbreaking.

she needed to go through these things in order for her to repent. It's heartbreaking. She was forced to work outside in the heat barefoot, and she was also forced to run barefoot on dirt roads for extended periods of time. Her feet were repeatedly injured, and she was repeatedly sunburned. When examined on August 30th when the arrests first happened, these wounds were apparent by scabs, blisters, and sloughing skin. It is so cruel, so disgusting, and guilty or not whether she's accepting responsibility or not, it is inexcusable. It is absolutely barbaric. So when the police searched Jody's house, they collected a shit ton of evidence.

First off, they took photos of everything in the house. And when you see the photos of the house, it is very, very eerie. The house barely looks lived in. It's almost like 80% of the house was just completely empty. Now it is a 9,000 square foot home, so it's a lot of space to fill, but still. It also makes sense now when you think of the Airbnb guests who were staying there

at the same time that these kids were literally being held captive. It was a lot of space. They could have been on an entirely different side of the house. Now some of these photos throughout the house also showed a few different wound stations. Now what I mean by this is there were like little makeshift setups where there were these huge bowls full of cayenne pepper, honey, this like mixture that they had made, gauze, saran wrap, and band-aids. There were ropes, shackles, and duct tape all around the house which were obviously used to tie the kids up. There were also pictures of the weights that were used to tie the

kids down, and many of the ropes and shackles were found in what looks to be a panic room. It's an underground concrete garage-type basement area, and the door to gain access to it is this huge lock that almost looks like a large safe kind of, almost like a bank safe. Like it's this huge safe door that is literally the size of a normal door. It's crazy. And inside there, there was a small mattress, a toilet, a microwave, and a sink.

Then probably worst of all was the discovery of Ruby's journal entries. Now I went through the journal entries. It was over 60 pages, guys, and I'm not even sure she was being truthful in there about everything that she was accusing the kids of doing because she does accuse them of doing a lot in these entries, but she admitted to some pretty insane things throughout it. A lot of the journal was redacted for the protection of the children,

but what is available and what was distributed was enough to make anybody nauseous. And I'm going to take you through just a couple of the journal entries that stuck out to me. On July 1st, she wrote, quote, R is to stay outside, sleep outside, only come in to go to the bathroom and shower. On July 9th, the day before R's birthday, she wrote, quote, R turns 12 tomorrow. I never envisioned him being 12 and still pooping and peeing himself. Satanic choices lead one to becoming destitute, even in the most affluential homes." Which no, Ruby, usually if a child is pooping and peeing himself, it is caused by, I don't know, maybe something you're doing like starvation, like abuse, like all of these other things.

So then the next day she writes about R not knowing that it's his birthday. And then she calls him a compulsive liar, and she says, quote, I would never have expected the cold, dead heart that R has. Then she talks about how E is better behaved with Jodie, and says that she gave her a pixie haircut and adds in, quote, all her long hair is gone, no more distracting with hair. On that same day, she admits in her journal that she told R to stand in the sun with his sun hat and that he said no, so she pushed him into the sun.

When he came out of the sun, she pushed him back in with a cactus poker. She said, quote, when I poke his back to get in the sun, R doesn't even flinch. I poke him in the neck. He is in a trance and doesn't appear to feel anything. Jodie taps him on the cheeks to wake him up. She talks about how her and Jodie both pushed him into the pool and then alluded to him

having the devil inside of him and she performed some sort of weird ass ritual on him. She put her hand over his mouth and his nose and told him, quote, the devil lies and says I am hurting you, abusing you. But R, what am I really doing? R responded and said, you are putting oxygen on me to help me breathe. She mentioned multiple times how he would steal food and also water. Ruby also said that R mentioned that he wanted to go to jail and that he worshiped the devil. I thought it was interesting that she followed it up with quote, R doesn't

actually know what jail means. He has no comprehension of what throwing your life away means, quote. Which, I mean, isn't that exactly what Ruby did? It's a little ironic, right? So she would talk to R as if he had a demon inside of him saying things like, quote, give your demon friend a message for me. I will not rest. I will not stop. I will not leave. I will fight him until the day you die.

She would also tease him about how she slept in a very soft bed while he slept on the hard ground. Mother of the year, right guys? Now at one point, E thought that she was gonna get to eat, but then Ruby told her that she would not eat for a third day because she had quote, hardened her heart. Ruby wrote that E flipped out and laid on the floor all day saying things like, my mom starves me and calls it fasting and my mom won't lift two fingers and bring me food because all she does is lay on the bed and eat brownies.

And because she did that, Ruby said that she cut more hair off of E and then quote doused her in the dogwash. When E said that she wanted to run away, Jodie told her that she had no idea what was waiting for her if she did. Then she talks about how her and Jodie or G-Jo, as she calls her throughout the journal, were planning on moving to the desert where the kids could quote work. She said that before moving she would let E come and sit in the pantry and she would have R sit on the patio in the shade. Then right when they would think that they got what they wanted and they would start to relax she would write quote pop we will drop them

like hot potatoes out in the desert." She also wrote about the day that she completely shaved E's head. E had been walking up and down the stairs with boxes, and at one point she slipped. Ruby thought that she had fake slipped, so she put her in the dogwash. She shaved her head, and then she made her go back to carrying the boxes. When E complained that it was hot outside, Ruby told her that hell would be much hotter, so either get used to it or start changing. She also wrote about how one night when she experienced a quote, miracle, she wrote quote,

last night God gave me a miracle that I absolutely will never forget. I went to bed around 12 10 a.m. E on the floor next to my bed and R on the patio outside of my sliding glass window. Oh man Just writing this I am shaking if Pam hadn't volunteered to take a to American Fork for her ACT test then I would not have been here and my life Jody's and my family's would be forever different She goes on to say how she woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that R had run away. She says she woke Jodie up and they went out to go find him, jumping in their cars and quote racing the sun, racing the devil to find him. And finally, they did find him. This illustrates that he had tried to run away multiple times before finally

being successful, which I just have to say that requires an insane amount of bravery. Then in her journal she says quote, the Sun started lighting the road just an hour and a half later. The devil wants me in prison. My children dead. Now guys if this is not a dead ringer for Lori Vallow I don't know what is and truth truthfully, I've said it before, but I'm gonna say it again. It is my belief that had R not escaped, had E not been rescued,

there is no doubt in my mind that these children would not have survived. There really is no doubt in my mind, and I don't think that they would maybe have ever even been found because of the vast amount of desert out there. I don't know, but it sends a chill down my spine when I think about it. Thank God, thank God he escaped.

Now after he escaped that one night, Ruby began tying ropes to him at night so that he couldn't leave. Another form of punishment that they used was taking the kids to the local cemetery to pull weeds and pick up trash. Ruby wrote that they would make them go barefoot to increase the discomfort and to also decrease the chance of them running away. She admitted that it was full of huge sagebrush, pokies, thorns, and even broken glass, and at one point, the owner of the cemetery came and told Ruby that she was trespassing and

had to get off of her land. So then Ruby took the kids, and she and Jodie explained that the woman was in distortion. Because of course, as soon as somebody's not agreeing with what you want to do, they're obviously in distortion, right? Now at one point R was crying because his feet were so swollen from standing. Ruby told him, quote, when your soul is dying, no one cares about your feet. A couple of days later when R quote wasn't manipulating and told Ruby that he wanted to change, Ruby told him, no, that's not true.

You didn't manipulate because you weren't uncomfortable. Now reading this journal was absolutely insane because Ruby was just such a freaking hypocrite as she yelled at her kids for manipulating her, but then manipulated them. Anything R and E did was never good enough, and Jodie and Ruby would just continue to convince the kids that they sold their souls to the devil. Ruby even wrote about putting on a pair of boots and going into the room that he was locked in at one point and kicking him saying, you want me to help you? No. You want me to feed you? No. You want me to shower and provide for you? No. She wrote about how he would respond to the different discipline measures of cold water,

cactus poking, and whipping him with towels. And then after that, she moved to whipping E and R both with a belt. There was also another detail that Ruby talked about throughout a lot of her journal entries that literally sends chills down my spine even thinking of it. Ruby talks about her and Jodi's plan to buy land in Arizona. In one entry she says, Jodi and Jay are going on a trip to look at property in Arizona. I have some cash in the bank, so if the property is right, we can move on financing immediately. We decided that the escalation of the kids is not manageable here and now. R is now sitting, angry and defiant. E is lying on the floor. We will bring them in.

R and I will clean up out in the desert as he has pooped himself." Then in another entry, Ruby talked about the land again and said, kids need a good kick from a horse and a cactus to run into. Can you imagine saying this about your children, about any children? It is so awful. Now, in one of Ruby's jail calls with Kevin, she said that she had cash for the kids schooling, not so that she could go buy land in Arizona that she could use to torture the children on. Towards the end of the journal entries, right before her arrest, she mentioned that A and

Jodie were in Tucson looking at a property with 500 acres. Then she wrote that Jay, who had been staying back in their Springville home, seemingly by herself, went to go visit Jodie for a week. When Ruby took her back to Springville, she said that her, Jay, A, and Pam packed up 20 boxes from the house and put them into a storage unit, and that A then gave two weeks notice at her work. Now guys, this was just a couple days before R fled and before the arrest happened. So I couldn't help but think about how if R hadn't escaped that day, they likely would

have moved to Arizona, maybe even on 500 acres, and like I said earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that we would have had another Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell situation on our hands. The journal entries were essentially just one sick confession after another. Then I started thinking about Kevin freaking out about the journals that Sherry took, because remember he freaked out and wanted to charge her with burglary when she took all of that stuff from the house? What was in those journals? Was it more confessions? Did they show a timeline of things beginning to escalate over time? Was he worried that if the police read them then he would be implicated and be

in trouble as well? I mean and again in that moment your first instinct as a parent should be your children's well-being. So you shouldn't be trying to charge your daughter with burglary for trying to help her siblings. You should be your children's well-being. So you shouldn't be trying to charge your daughter with burglary for trying to help her siblings. You should be the one trying to help your own children, my man. Like, give me a break. Which kind of just cements my other point because in one of Kevin's very first interviews when he was first told that his kids had been rescued and that they had wounds that were aligned with Dr. Rube, before even asking how the children were, he asked about Ruby.

He was more concerned with his wife after hearing literally point blank that his one son had run away, that he was asking for help, that he was malnourished, that he was emaciated, all of these things. And his concern was Ruby, which it really makes you ask the question, how much did Kevin really know was going on? Because that definitely doesn't seem in line with the statement of a parent who is in shock and hearing those allegations for the first time. So Jodi and Ruby were sentenced to their four counts of aggravated child abuse in

February of 2024. Okay, let's talk about sleep because honestly, it is something I struggle with. I have talked to you guys about that for well over a year now. Whether it's tossing and turning, waking up in the middle of the night, not being able to fall back asleep, or just feeling completely exhausted, even after eight hours. And I know that I'm not alone in this. I am somebody where if I wake up in the middle of the night, it is game over. I'm staring at my ceiling, I'm thinking about my whole to-do list for the next day, and I'm never getting back to sleep. But that's why I am so excited to talk about Beam's Dream

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cinnamon cocoa. All totally guilt free. It is zero grams of sugar. It is 15 calories. It literally tastes like hot chocolate. I am obsessed. So if you've been looking for a way to actually enjoy winding down at night and wake up feeling good, you need to try this.

And if you wanna try Beams best selling dream powder, get up to 40% off for a limited time when you go to shopbeam.com slash Annie E Lise and use code Annie E Lise at checkout. That's shopbeam.com slash Annie E Lise and use code Annie E Lise for up to 40% off. Trust me, this is going to change your sleep game like tenfold. I would like to make a statement without any intent to change my stipulated sentence.

For the past four years, I've chosen to follow counsel and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion. My distorted version of reality went largely unchecked as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me. I was led to believe that this world is an evil place filled with cops who control hospitals that injure government government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who lie and lust, husbands who refuse to protect, and children who need. My choice to believe and behave this paranoia culminated into criminal activity for which I stand before you today ready to take accountability.

Jody Hill-DeBrandt was never my business partner nor was I ever employed by her. I have never received wages from her or connections. Jody was employed as my son's counselor in 2019 and in 2020 I paid her. It is important to me to demonstrate my remorse and regret without blame. I take full accountability for my choices and it is my preference that I serve a prison sentence. Thank you to the officers in Santa Clara and the Ivan City Police. Mike Howman, Brian Polufo, Sar Picuvet, Mike Pandurio in Tobler, John Ward, D. Lewis and Chief Flowers. You were the angels who came and saved my children.

I especially want to thank Detective J. Bate. She plucked me out of a situation I didn't know how to get out of. And the moment she had kept me was the moment I gained my freedom. You were not the controlling ones. I was. Thank you to the medical staff in the mountain hospital. Your skill, tenderness and professionalism helped to heal my children. Jodi and I inflicted the injuries, not the hospital. Thank you to DCFS, the Children's Justice Center,

George Basel, and other key adults. You've gathered my children under your wing and offered them love, compassion, encouragement. You were not the ones who were doing the brainwashing. Thank you to my Bishop Tom Hawks and my State President Jim Nelson for reminding me of the world's love for the lost. So much pain and suffering would have been avoided had I followed and heeded your counsel.

I was the one who was deceived, not you. Thank you to the Washington County Prosecutor's Office, Ryan Schaum, the legal assistance and discovery clerks. Eric Clark, you exemplify to me how justice and mercy are meant to coexist. My charges are just. They offer safety to my family, accountability to the public, and they did show mercy to me. Thank you to my attorney Lamar Winward and his staff. I would not be where I am today without them. Thank you to Randy Kester for your limitless energy in healing my family.

My dear friends, Pam and Roy, I am so sorry for letting you down. Because of your association with me, your innocence was called into question. My mother-in-law, father-in-law, Kevin's family, my cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and neighbors, you all saw the warning signs long before I did and you did what you could. You wanted to help, but I pushed you away. My mother and father, I have been utterly wretched to you. You have offered me unconditional love, and for that I have offered you unconditional contempt. My siblings and their spouses, because of my decision to roll around in a pigsty, I

have dragged your families through the mud in public. Yet when I desired to return as the prodigal sister unlike the prodigal's brother in the Bible you seemed stuck with my parents and ran out to greet me. Your capacity to love is unprecedented. Kevin, my husband of more than 23 years, you are the love of my life. I'm so sorry to leave to you to finish what we both started together. The ending of our marriage is a tragedy. The ending of our marriage is a tragedy. It had an impact on my heart. And now I'll never be able to undo. To my babies.

My six little chicks. You were a part of me. I was a child, darkness knowingly, I was so disoriented that I believed dark was light and light was wrong. I would do anything in this world for you. My will was to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft, it's safe and good. I took from you your mother. And how terrible this must have been for you. I will stop crying for hurting your tender souls.

You are so precious to me. I'm sorry. My choice to live in fear of the world has created a great vulnerability and a blind spot for me where I have broken hearts and I've caused people to suffer and I have betrayed sacred trust. Watching my community respond to my charges with justice and mercy and grace and love is all that I want to know, how wrong I've been. This world is full of really good people. And finally, I'm sorry for twisting God's word

and distorting His doctrines. I am humbled and willing to serve a prison sentence as long as it takes to continue unraveling all of this information I have believed and bought, swallowed and acted out. I'm committed to continuing my learning until all of my toxic layers are shed and I am ready to reenter as a contributing member of our beautiful society. Thank you, Judge Walton. I sincerely love these children. I desire for them to heal

physically and emotionally. One of the reasons I did not go to trial, so I did not want them to emotionally relive the experience which would have been detrimental to them. My hope and prayer is that they will to have beautiful lives. submit to what the state appropriate amount of tim restitution. Now, if you and Jody being sentenced

their names and faces out for good, you are incredi of the more positive reasons that they have still been in the media is all due to Ruby's oldest daughter Sherry and her releasing a book. And I mentioned it at the top of this episode, but this book was like a complete tell-all. And I've actually done a summary of the book itself as mentioned, which I gotta say, she seriously blew this out of the water. And if you're into reading, you should definitely check it out. Or at the very least, go check out that episode. I'll link it in the show notes.

So without completely rehashing it all, I will say that the book was filled to the brim with pretty insane details and also a behind the scenes look into what was going on in the Frankie household during that time. But one of the more significant things that Sheri alluded to was Ruby and Jodie being lovers, and like I said, I think everyone already assumed that, I mean, to be fair, but the fact that she basically confirmed it was pretty insane. Now Sherry has also been very, very busy because on top of writing her book, she has also been extremely active in political spaces, and I cannot commend her hard work enough. Last October, she even

testified in front of Utah lawmakers, arguing that there is no such thing as ethical family vlogging, and that her and her siblings' trauma and lives are a perfect example of that, a perfect illustration of that. I don't come today as the daughter of a felon nor as a victim of an abnormally abusive mother. I come today as a victim of family vlogging. My goal is not to present any idea of a solution to this problem, but to shed light on the ethical and monetary issues that come from being a child influencer.

When children become stars in their family's online content, they become child influencers. It is more than just filming your family life and putting it online. It is a full-time job with employees, business credit cards, managers, and marketing strategies. The difference between family vlogging and a normal business, however, is that all the children are employees. Children from before they are born to the day they turn 18 have become the stars of

family businesses on YouTube, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Utah is specifically a hotspot for family content due to the LDS culture around family and the goal to share the church with the world. We also have large families which makes family content more lucrative. Specifically, many parents film their regular family life as an online video blog called a vlog. But I want to be clear that there is never ever a good reason for posting your children online for money or fame. There is no such thing as a moral or ethical family

vlogger. At first, family vlogging is an alluring business that can bring high revenue. For my family, it became the primary source of income, as is often the case with most full-time family vloggers. Many child influencers are paid for their work, as I was, and this money has helped me in my adult life. However, this payment was usually a bribe.

For example, we'd be rewarded $100 or a shopping trip if we filmed a particularly embarrassing moment or an exciting event in our lives. Or other times, simply going on vacation was expected to be payment enough, because most kids don't get to go on regular and expensive trips, never mind the fact that the child's labor is actually what paid for the vacation or trip. There is no law in place to guarantee that child influencers get any money from their

work. If a family account does not become an LLC, parents are taxed heavily for paying their children. But parents also receive tax write-offs for the regular clothes that they wear, the money, the gas money used to drive places, and even the houses they live in. Anything that is filmed can be ran off. And even after registering their business as an LLC, there is no guarantee that children will get paid. Any payment that does happen is under the table with no paper trail. And how do we determine how much a child should make from appearing in family content?

What price is worth giving up your childhood? But despite any monetary payment children may receive, don't let this excuse the 24-7 labor that these children are subjected to. As a child, I was fully aware that I was an employee. The business was successful when I was happy or when I shared my hardships with the world. Some of our most popular videos were when my eyebrow was accidentally waxed off and the whole world saw a crying teenager when I just wanted to mourn in private. Or the time I was violently ill and got the leading role in the video that day. My friends became scarce because dates were filmed

and none of my friends wanted to be on camera. The camera never stops and there is no such thing as a break from filming. At the time I tell you I had a choice in what was filmed, but I've come to learn that every child influencer in a way suffers from Stockholm Syndrome. Most child influencers would probably tell you they have full control over what is posted, but the reality is that their parents bribe and shame them

into posting their most vulnerable moments. In fact, many child influencers may tell you that they enjoy their work because of the monetary perks they receive or the fun experiences that they can have. After all, what child would say no to a fun vacation or shopping spree if all they needed to do was film an embarrassing moment? But as children, we do not understand the consequences of filming our lives and posting it for the world to see. We cannot give consent to our parents to post our lives.

In any other context, it is understood that children cannot give consent. But for some reason, people think family vlogging is different. Now the fact that it is 2025 and there are still no regulations really with family vlogging absolutely baffles me. Because we see that there are regulations with child actors in Hollywood, right? I mean you have to put a percentage of their pay if not all of their pay away in a separate account so that you can't just access those funds as a parent and that it goes to them. Yet family vlogging is kind of

like the Wild West because there literally can be a child who still is in your stomach that you are exploiting by vlogging about it, sharing your experience, making money off of that child before they're even born and that child hasn't consented. They don't know that they're being broadcast to millions of people. They're not getting paid or compensated in any way for that. Not to mention the safety aspect of this because a lot of these family vlogging channels have children who are in elementary school, middle school, even high school, and they are such public figures that they are recognized everywhere they

go. And that of course is extremely dangerous when you take into consideration the parasocial relationships and how these people on the internet think that they know you, that they know your child, and some in some very dangerous situations, become fixated on them. The child didn't consent to that. The child, you know, had no say in that, especially when they started doing this

at such a young age and then feel almost obligated as though it's their responsibility to continue doing that so that their family can put food on the table. It's absolutely horrendous. I hope you have a lousy day at school. Don't be nice to anybody. Stay flat. Let people squish you. Bye. What are you crying at? What's your problem? And a perfect example and illustration of that is Ruby's

children. They had no say of when the cameras were on or off. They had no say of if their most intimate private details were going to be shared, their text messages shared, them starting their periods for the first time. All of these very personal, private, and pivotal moments in their lives just shared with the public, and they had no say in that. So I have to just say Sherry's work is just absolutely commendable, incredible, and so brave and so like right on the money. Like that is what needs to happen. There needs to be regulations put in place. She's really doing the work to make sure that no other kids have to suffer the way that she and her siblings did. Sherry's crying. The good news is I did it on purpose.

I obviously have no taste because this is terrible. Has your mother ever ruined your life? Whatever. Do you want me to do it round and round? Nope. She was turned on by her pet, and now she feels like she's been turned on by her own mother. And her feelings are legitimate,

and she has every right to be mad. I should have deliberated a little bit more with Sherry and told her, hey, this is what I'm thinking of doing a little differently, what do you think? Instead, I just assumed she would like it and I did it without consenting with her. So I owe her the biggest apology. Now, something else that Sherry touched on in her book

was her relationship with her dad, Kevin. And I think that a lot of people when it comes to Kevin are back and forth with him, understandably, because he was an active participant in the, not even the early days, but in the majority of while all this first started coming to a head. And then he just kind of like backpedaled out of it, right, and allowed Ruby to have free rein. And to this day, he still has not been charged with anything. And like I said, people either agree with that or they don't.

Come on. There's no present for me. There's presents for mom. It's mother's day. Well, we love mom. Now, Sherry briefly mentioned toward the end of her book that she was rebuilding her relationship with Kevin and that he was actively fighting for custody of her younger siblings who are still in the custody of the state, which I'll get into more of that shortly here. But that leads us into what exactly Kevin has been up to himself, because it's a huge question that everybody wants to know. Now even though after that initial arrest,

it seemed almost like Kevin was still kind of brainwashed and under the spell of the connections cult type way. You could argue that some people don't believe it, but even though it seemed like that to some, it seems like since then he has been able to undo a lot of that. But something I will say is when the arrest first went down, he was still all in on Ruby, all in on all of that, because I I will say is when the arrest first went down, he was still all

in on Ruby, all in on all of that because I believe it was Sherry and don't quote me on this, but I believe it was Sherry. It was Sherry. She went back to the house to get the hard drives, the passports, all of these things because she didn't want anybody covering things up. She didn't want people hiding evidence. And he got so upset about that that he tried to have her arrested and charged for, it wasn't burglary or breaking and entering, maybe it was just burglary, but something to that effect where she was only doing that

to try to save and protect her siblings. Yet he was siding with Ruby that he was actually going after his own daughter. So like I said, she has said that they are trying to rebuild their relationship. And I don't know if that's because he was still actively brainwashed at that moment. And now has slowly like began to

Unravel all of that. I have my own opinions, but it is something worth noting and Sherry has forgiven him She is actively working on rebuilding that relationship, which I cannot imagine is an easy thing to do What I lose sleep over is when kids start self sabotaging their own efforts Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that really concerns me. Just to stick it to their teachers or to stick it to their parents or family. And the only person they're really hurting is themselves. That's the kind of behavior that we're hoping

this program can help Chad correct. And so. We're not thinking that anyone's gonna be like fixed or corrected, but like. but like reveal it to him We yeah, that's a good way to say it Yeah because no one can fix anybody a person has to choose if they're going to make changes in their lives and so I think this experience will reveal Chad and everyone else who's out there to themselves and

they can learn to better themselves or just stay in the mud. Like I mentioned a bit ago, Kevin has been part of an ongoing court battle and this whole court process has been kept out of the public, which I have to say is probably a good thing. I'm just hoping that one day these poor kids can live a seemingly normal life and that Kevin has truly healed and that he's ready to, you know, be a dad and take on the trauma and the PTSD that those kids no doubt have. And speaking of the kids, we have received a small update about how they're doing and their condition. And I've got to say, I am very happy with this update because it goes to their overall health. Since they're all still minors, roughly between ages 11 and 17, I'm not going to say their names

and a lot of the information has been kept private. However, the lead prosecutor over the case updated last year that R and E are doing a lot better, stating, quote, "'I think people should know that the kids "'have put on weight. "'They're interacting, happy and healthy. "'It's not like they're great, but they

are light years better. And thank heavens for that." I don't even know how long it will take to undo all of that trauma that they have been through, but the fact that they are what he is saying, light years ahead, that is just absolutely amazing. And I don't think there's anything better that any of us could hope for. Now in late January of 2025, Jodie was back in court, this time because somebody filed a lawsuit against her. And this lawsuit comes from a former client of Jodie's named Michael Tillman. Michael is suing both Jodie and Ruby actually for racketeering and fraud because of their whole business with connections, cult connections. And the whole lawsuit is claiming that despite being behind bars, Jodie and Ruby,

connections is still thriving. Not only are they continuing to do business with existing members, but they're actually actively recruiting new members, as alarming as that is. And more than that, this lawsuit also alleges that they believe that current existing members, regardless how long they've been within connections, are physically harming children, just like Ruby and Jodie had done as well. Basically saying, the activity and the core issues here,

it's still going on. They're not stopping. Jodie still believes all of this. She's still actively recruiting people and they're continuing to push this just insane message that this is the way you should parent and that this is the way you should treat your children, punish your children. It's just, if that still is going on and if people have not seen the light yet

about connections, heaven help you. I don't know what else to tell you. So if all of that is true, this could be huge. Hello and welcome to Connections. We're so glad you're with us. When I first started getting to know you, she's like, anger is my favorite emotion. I'm like, I don't know what I'm dealing with here. Now Michael's involvement with Jodie, Ruby, and Connections all began in 2015 because he and his wife had started going to Jodie and her, you know, wacko teachings created this huge rift in his marriage, which ultimately resulted in their divorce and a very nasty custody battle of their

daughter. And that's kind of Jodie's M.O., right? I talked about it a little bit at the beginning of this episode, but she liked to fracture marriages and relationships and always paint the man as the bad guy and work her way in, like weasel her way in. And that is what Michael is alleging here. That's exactly what she did apparently. Now, what I will say is Michael's ex-wife and representatives for both Jodi and Ruby have declined to comment on this. But I for one am extremely curious

to see where this lawsuit goes and what other information we may learn from it. And I especially want to know if Connections is still active because I feel like that is such a huge concern for public safety, for children's safety. So I hope it's shut down if it's not, or I hope somebody does shut it down because clearly it has a track record

of being reckless and very dangerous. Now I know that this was a big episode, okay? And I appreciate you for sticking with me, but again, I just felt like there was so much to cover. And I'm sure we'll be back here in another six months with more updates, maybe another deep dive. I'm not sure, but I wanted to at least give you all of the information on this case, especially

if you're new to the case or maybe you just watched the documentary and you wanted to learn more. I just really wanted it to be in one spot. So I hope you found it helpful. Other than that guys, thank you so much for tuning in today. I will be back on the mic with you on Thursday with Headline Highlights where we talk everything every Thursday about what's breaking in the true crime world.

New cases, old cases, existing cases, everything true crime related every Thursday. So thank you guys so much for being here. If you want to make sure you don't miss any future episodes or bonus episodes that we drop, take a quick second, whatever podcast app you're listening on, just follow the show. It's totally free, but that way it'll be like in your podcast queue on your phone so that you don't miss these. All right.

Thank you guys again. And until the next one, please do not join any cults, do not kill people, be a good person, and stay the heck away from connections. Honestly, that's like the best advice I could give. Alright guys, thanks so much and I will talk with you soon. Bye. you