SERIALously - 96: 8 Passengers | Husband Files For Divorce From “Cult” Mommy Vlogger Ruby Franke After Child Abuse Arrests

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

Did Kevin know about the abuse going on at the hands of Ruby and Jodi? Why did he listen to Jodi’s twisted advice in the first place? After all of the cruel and heinous details came out about the children, there were so many questions. Now that he has filed for divorce, the questions still remain.  Carl Crusher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbZ-cW2_5bU Audio Credits: KUTV2 NewsNation Law & Crime Carl Crusher Shop the Merch: www.shop10tolife.com   Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast     Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise     All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_    SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/    About Me: https://annieelise.com/    For Business Inquiries: [e-mail]  Previous 8 Passengers Podcast Episodes: 8 Passengers | Ruby Franke: “Cult” Mommy Vlogger Exposed Pod: https://pod.fo/e/1eccdc  YouTube: https://youtu.be/l4BKYgMmp1U?si=vuQEjsr5LMQI7_DP  8 Passengers Update: Ruby Franke's INSANE Claims in Court  Pod: https://pod.fo/e/1f03c2    YouTube: https://youtu.be/fyKPAWD7O3w?si=i6cha2NRzdTkZHoN  Exposing the Dark Past of Jodi Hildebrandt & Ruby Franke of 8 Passengers Pod: https://pod.fo/e/1f3de6   YouTube: https://youtu.be/bsnyqwHb8qU?si=YATelICgb0KP8n5O Shocking New Details & Bodycam Footage: YouTuber Ruby Franke of '8 Passengers' Pod: https://pod.fo/e/1ff0a9 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhVsIllVu4E  LDS & Cult Connections: Pod:https://pod.fo/e/1f83f1  YouTube: https://youtu.be/YK69HenVLQ8?si=9ze146G3KaOWsF2P 

Hey true crime besties, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hello, everybody. We are back today with a bonus episode of Serialistly, which honestly, I didn't really have any intention on continuing doing a lot of these bonus episodes, but I did want to keep the door open in case there was like a breaking news update or a brand new case or something like that, that I wanted to just jump on the mic and share with you and that's exactly why I'm here today in your ears with another update and with this bonus episode because Kevin Franke filed for divorce on Wednesday. Now as a recap if you have no idea who Kevin Franke is he is the husband or now estranged husband I should say of Ruby Franke the one who people relate call eight passengers. She had the channel. She has all these child abuse claims with her and her cult leader partner Jodi Hildebrandt.

It's a whole rabbit hole. I'll put the link in the show notes below to the deep dive coverage we've already done on this, but it's pretty fucking horrific to say the least. This entire case has just shocked everybody out there, whether you were a true crime follower, an eight passengers follower. It's just a really, really brutal and horrific case where her children escaped the basement. They were duct taped. They had gauze and cayenne pepper, all these disgusting things. But anyway, Kevin Franke had been estranged from his wife, Ruby, and the children for quite some time. It appears it had been at the direction of the cult leader Jody Hildebrandt's, you know, discretion. It was her choice. But a lot of people

when the arrest went down wondered how much involvement did Kevin really have? Did he know what was going on and did he turn a blind eye? Was he an innocent bystander and all of this? And truly had no idea what his wife was up to with her, you know, little culty person. So now we're finding out that he filed for divorce on Wednesday. The petition is sealed, but both sides must not harass each other, commit domestic violence against each other, or interfere with the other party's insurance during the proceedings. It also says that Kevin and Ruby are not allowed to talk negatively about each other in front of their children. So again, as a little bit of a recap, he and Ruby have been separated for almost a year and a half, and this over a quote-unquote difference in opinion about their family.

Following their separation, Ruby insisted that in order for their relationship to heal, Kevin would need to move out and would not be able to be a part of the children's lives anymore. Kevin's attorney has said that Kevin didn't want to be separated. He wanted to work through the concerns as a family. There was never any formal written decree of separate maintenance or a separation agreement, and the separation was under terms prescribed by Ruby and Jodi Hildebrandt, which, big shocker there, Ruby, the certified mental fitness trainer, and Jodi, the former licensed mental health therapist

who was recommended by the LDS church, who's really a cult leader, all the things. Anyways, when Kevin moved out, he was told that everything going on in the family home was great, that everything was better without him, etc. While they were separated, though, police performed two welfare checks on the children. However, there were CPS reports on the Frankie children well before that, when Kevin was actually still in the home. A lot of people have been speculating how much Kevin knew, if he was standing by Ruby or not, and why he would go along with not seeing his children for so long in the first place, and just listen to Jodi's twisted advice. After Ruby and Jodi were arrested, and all of the horrible and cruel details came out

about the children, there were so many questions, starting with did he not check in with the kids? Did he not have any contact with them at all? How could he have not known where the kids were? How often were he and Ruby communicating during their separation? Ruby's sister Bonnie has publicly stated on her YouTube channel that Kevin is the one who could have stopped this from happening, and that it was his job as a legal guardian to make sure that nothing happened to his children, which, in all honesty, it's a fair point. The one person that could have done something within his legal right was Kevin. We had zero contact with him. It was Kevin's job to check in on things and he did not. 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's side of the story. Now, I've gone through a lot of his interviews throughout the past few months to kind of piece together what Kevin's position has been and how it's all changed through time. So take a listen. 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 kids' lives 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, Jodi 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 corny advice of this therapist and was absent from the home for 12 or 13 months until all these horrific allegations came forward. What about before then, though? I mean, there are a lot of allegations. With regard to the previous allegations that were referred to DCFS. Correct. Yeah. There were some in 2020 and I think some in 2022. All of those allegations were investigated by DCFS, who we think did a good job, did what they were supposed to. And those allegations were declared to be unfound. 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. It'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. There has become a rift. These children have become brainwashed and 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. Let's talk about that for a second. First of all, before I get into Jody, do Kevin, your client, and Ruby,

have they been talking at all while she's in jail? The last conversation they had was last Friday. And that's when, during that conversation, is when he came to, kind of came to his senses about how he'd been manipulated and deceived. Are you saying he confronted her about these allegations? To some degree. I don't know the entire contents of the conversation. But in his discussion with me was that during that conversation, things were said that made him realize how he'd been deceived and misled. And as I told you earlier, he didn't even know the kids were in Ivan's. You had just said that he knew that he, excuse me, that Ruby and Jody were working together.

Correct. So how was he that shocked if he knew that they were working together and maybe she had brought the kids with him? I mean, did he not think that perhaps Ruby had taken the kids to Jody's house? Typically, she would tell him something like that, but she didn't. She didn't. She'd had the kids down there from about late May, I think maybe June, until this all came about. And she didn't tell him one thing about taking the kids to Ivan's. What does he say about Jody Hildebrandt?

That she's manipulated him in conjunction with Ruby. That she's been kind of the spearhead toward essentially destroying his life and destroying his family how did jody and ruby get connected does kevin know i don't know i don't know is this kevin i mean again is kevin believing that perhaps it was jody who was manipulating ruby in this or because it also sounds like Kevin feels he was manipulated by Ruby. Is it just all the blame on Jody? I think it was a team effort, but with Jody being the spearhead. I guess when people are looking at this,

and they know this is not an isolated incident, because you and I both know that the Frankies have been under a close eye for quite some time. There were people who suspected that the kids were being abused or were treated too harshly. So even putting aside the arrest of Ruby Frankie, your client was receiving criticism for quite some time over the parenting techniques. What is his response been to that? There hasn't ever, ever been an allegation that Kevin Franke has ever physically abused his children. And I think all these parenting complaints, those were investigated.

And I think it's a subjective thing, parenting. As everybody says, no one's ever written the perfect book on parenting. Parenting, as everybody says, no one's ever written the perfect book on parenting. Kevin Franke has never been accused of physically abusing anyone, including his children, nor have there ever been any allegations that he was doing that. He doesn't condone that kind of thing. He's a good dad. I'm sure you know that there was a hearing last week where Ruby Franke, and I believe it was over Zoom, she made quite the allegations. She said that one of her children was abusing another one of the children, was abusing cousins and neighbors. That is quite the claim. What is your client's take on that?

Well, because it occurred during juvenile court proceedings, Well, because it occurred during juvenile court proceedings, the reporter who snuck into the proceedings reported that it damaged these children and this family even more. It was despicable. Just what the court said. As we said in the beginning, we're just working toward trying to get this family healed and get these kids back where they should be. They need to be with a family member, preferably Kevin, and that's what our goal is. We're working hard, Kevin and I, to convince the state that he's an incredible father, as he was before all this happened, and they became separated.

But in the meantime, he's just working hard on getting himself back in position to be able to take these kids and raise them as a good father would. Personally, I'm glad that he filed for divorce because how could you not? Whenever we saw Kevin and their oldest daughter, Sherry, arrive to family court together, a lot of people, myself included, thought that it was really odd, especially since Sherry had removed herself from the family unit altogether, and he tried to press burglary charges against Sherry because he is just a complete and total wimp, but now it could make sense that maybe they patched things up if he discussed his plans to divorce Ruby. I don't know. I'm just speculating.

Because remember, there were a lot of CPS calls and welfare checks made even when he was still in the house. So is this just to look good on paper, look good to the public eye so that it doesn't look like you're involved? Are the children really safer with you? Truthfully, I know I said this, but I don't know. Now, there's been a lot of talk about Kevin's Rate My Professor profile, but I had never gone through it before now. And here's what I found. These are reviews from other people. So starting with number one, it says,

I truly did not have a great experience in this class. It wasn't an insanely hard class. I take schoolwork very seriously and have never had issues with a professor before now. Hard professors are one thing, but downright rude, dismissive, and arrogant is another. Save yourself the misery if you can and take something else with someone else. Number two, weird dude. That's it. Number three, he was very rude and mean. He spoke down to students in a disrespectful manner. Number four, unable to get in contact outside of class. He is very controlling and you can only have the same views that he has or you will be looked down on.

Caused me so much stress that I dropped out. Number five. Professor Frankie was rude from day one. He does not respect his students at all. He was always in a bad mood and made class miserable. He would make horrible homophobic remarks and make us students feel incompetent. His classroom felt hostile and like a prison. Hashtag I hate it here. I mean kids are wild in their reviews. Number six. Kevin is horrible. I cried every day.

He is very abusive to his students and we were left traumatized. He had a meltdown last month in front of the class and scolded everyone. I tried to contact the dean but nothing happened. He screamed and yelled at us for using TikTok and went on a rant. He threw a textbook at me, and I'm filing for battery charges. Number seven, abusive, racist, homophobic. That's all it says, those three words. Number eight, he took 10 points off my grade because he saw me doing a TikTok dance outside of class. He said I broke honor code and was promoting pornography. I was only doing the Rolex dance.

And these are all very important, and I'm going to get into why in just a second here. So lastly, number nine. Kevin believes that mental health is a personal choice, which is a very dangerous belief. He is a horrible and uncaring man who shouldn't be teaching. There were a few generically positive reviews, but hardly any compared to the amounts of negative reviews. Now, one thing I want to say is what the hell is up with these people's definition of pornography? Because both him and Ruby, a TikTok dance is not pornography. This could maybe explain why Ruby said her three-year-old became addicted to pornography. I don't know. Maybe you meant he was looking at random videos on YouTube or looking at social media and TikTok, and now you think he's a porn addict.

I have no idea. Didn't make sense before. Doesn't make sense now. But here's what's really interesting. In all of these reviews that I read, there's this undertone of homophobia, pornography addict, racist, hostile, prison, making people feel that if they don't agree with his views, they're wrong. Now, on one end of the argument, people are of course suggesting that Kevin left the house, that he was pushed out by Jodi, that he really didn't condone any of what was going on,

the thought process, the brainwashing, I guess you could call it but now seeing this all of the traits that Jodi has and all of the behaviors that she and Ruby have been described as having their belief system that seems pretty parallel to what Kevin's demeanor is and what his belief is and his interactions with his students so and I could be wrong I hope I'm wrong but it leads me to believe that he is much more like Ruby and Jodi than we thought and that he does agree with all of these things remember he was also in the house at some of these points in time so all of this leads me to believe he is very much like them that he hasn't really fully detached and maybe he's learned something since the arrest

I god I hope so but it really worries me especially if the children are going back into his custody because again reviews are never going to be the good positive side of people people typically go to a review form as an outlet to just blow off steam to say the worst of the worst however when there are so many common threads in these reviews that are interlinked to the behaviors that we also saw in Jodi and Ruby it seems way too close to just be a coincidence right it seems like he also had that belief system why else would he say some of the things he said and act this way so that is very concerning for me now I want to get into something that I haven't spoken about publicly but it is out in

the public, and I'm going to link the YouTube video that has this information and where it came from in the show notes. But it comes from a guy who is now an ex-Mormon, but for a long time he was a practicing Mormon and somewhat of a Mormon influencer. He said that the Mormon church actually has a budget for social media influencers because they want people to see the Mormon family vloggers, which are people like Ruby Frankie, be successful, almost in a way of hoping that it'll open up other people's minds about the religion in general. If they can see that they appear to be normal people, successful people, these idolistic people that people want to be and want to become, these

influencers, that they'll want to adopt the religion. Well, we all now know how that turned out. So this guy said that a few years back, he hung out with some people that could possibly be siblings and spouses of a Mormon influencer. And he did this because he was clearly worried about getting sued. So he didn't use any names. He just kind of said loosely a Mormon influencer. But if you watch the whole thing, you can figure out pretty easily who he's talking about. So he hung out with this possible siblings and their spouses of a Mormon influencer pretty frequently, and he considered them to be good friends. He had so many pictures of them on vacations together, hanging out, old videos on his YouTube channel, that were all from that period of

time of them all hanging out. Now at the time, this guy was dating a girl who would go on a lot of the girls trips with these people. And then he said that his relationship started to get really weird when his girlfriend started expressing that she wanted to try to be with a girl, and had also asked him how he would feel in general about inviting a girl to join them during sex, have a threesome. He said at the time that this really messed with him because he was already starting to have some doubts about the Mormon church, and then this on top of that made it worse. She also said that maybe he might enjoy getting to know some of these people's husbands, getting to know them more intimately, if you get what I mean. He told his girlfriend that he would

pray about it, and then later told her, look, it's not going to happen. I'm not into it. No. However, he did say that on one occasion, there was a hot tub pool party at one of these people's homes that could possibly be a sister. And he said that all of the couples were in the hot tub. And they basically told him that after the kids go to bed, they have these hot tub parties in the backyard where they essentially swing with each other's spouses and that it's not limited to just husbands and wives. Some of the women would hook up, some of the men would hook up, and now he didn't go into detail about the exact definition of hooking up, but he definitely said making out and just kind of insinuated other things. And if that isn't enough of a bombshell, he also said that one of

these possible siblings and that the women do this a lot and had done this growing up within the family. So apparently it's normal to them. Take a listen. They've got all sorts of closeted issues like they've never, never done anything. They've only ever kissed one person. They've never drank alcohol. They've never smoked a substance or taken a substance or anything. And so suddenly when they're in an environment where those things are possible, sometimes there's a culture where the guard is dropped and people will give in and succumb to some of those things, right? And then what happens is people start to talk and they tell stories about themselves. And on one particular party, there was partaking of substances. And there was this one group, you know, that all came down

and hung out that were like a family together. They're like all sisters and brothers and brother-in-laws and sister-in-laws. And they would all kind of come together like several of them because they were all influencers. So there was like our family and then there's these other influencers and then the ones in California, right? But the ones from Utah were all related and everything. And they're all related and everything. And they're all siblings and stuff. And basically, in just joking around, it basically is admitted that in this family, this particular influencer family,

It's a common thing that when they all get in the hot tub together and have hot tub parties, they would go over to each other's houses in each other's backyards after the kids go to bed. And they would experiment where sister would kiss sister. And then they would swap to where sister-in-law would kiss brother-in-law. And like swinging, right? And so there would be swapping of relationships, but in an incest way, an incestual way, disturbing way. And this apparently was something that was talked about allegedly. talked about allegedly, all of this is allegedly, that between siblings, as sisters growing up, this was just like a normal part of the culture, that this was a common thing in the family and basically a big secret that they would hide. But now at the party and in these private conversations they're talking about having admitting to these conversations and everything and how they still to this day

would get together and do experiments where they're swapping husbands and wives and doing as sisters across from each other, with each other, right? And my, whichever ex it was at the time, for some reason may have had the same sort of closeted issues, but that was like a huge thing, like that excited her apparently and allegedly. And all of a sudden what happened was we went to this party and out in the swimming pool, we're swimming around, and one of these sisters swims over and latches on and and kisses my ex and while i'm while we're swimming and

hugging each other and it's this whole like attempt to try and involve her and what we just realized was going on among this group of people allegedly at this party or have been going on obviously or allegedly in this family all the way back as a part of the culture. Now I want to remind you that like polygamy and underage type stuff like this and problems with inter-family relationships is a huge problem with the history of the polygamy in the Mormon church. And so it resonates up through some of these families in the culture, right? So like I said at the beginning, I blame some of this on that, but there's no excuse, right, for a lot of this, for the parents and all of that and what it all unravels to. So

how this led to my ex becoming an ex, this particular one, is because when all this was going on, this was at the same time when we had just left the Mormon church and having fundamental problems with that. So all of these doors of possibility were suddenly opening, you know, like never done this before, never done that before, like what all could go on. Right. And another thing happened at that party that was absolutely shocking. I wasn't sure if I was going to tell the story, but I'm going to go ahead and tell it. So after the swimming pool incident where this one sister came up, she was obviously inebriated and drunk. She latched on to my soon to be ex and kissed her and was begging her, like, just kiss me. Please just kiss me. Come on. I want to kiss you. Right. And so I'm like, no, we peel away, go back in, go in the house. I go in the

bathroom and I change and I come back out into the living room. And that same sister is laying out on the couch completely naked. Okay, so she's laid out on the couch, no clothes on or anything. And the California couple whose house it is is standing in the kitchen and they're laughing. My ex is standing there and she's giggling, watching. My ex is standing there and she's giggling, watching. And the woman who's laying on the couch sprawled out, completely exposed and naked. Her husband is standing there with a jar of peanut butter. And she's trying.

He is trying to get the family dog. It's not their dog to do things to her with the peanut butter in front of everybody. And now I want to remind you that these pent up issues from being public figures of Mormonism, I think, kind of create this sort of environment like a pressure cooker. So take that with a grain of salt. Definitely go and check out that guy's video and come to your own conclusions. And I'll kind of just leave it at that. But what I also will say is there was this whole revolution like I think two years ago on TikTok and it was called Mormon Talk or Mormon Mom Talk. And it was a younger group of girls I don't want to say their names on here but you probably know who I'm talking about one of them has since I think had a battery charge but it was like this group of like seven Mormon girlfriends who had like

really long pretty hair would always do TikTok dances together and they would have parties like like the ones being described here where they would swing essentially and my knowledge, they never had sex with each other's partners. They would just make out. Everybody would swap. And the reason why they would do this is because they felt, since they were all Mormons, they never really got a chance to experiment. They never got a chance to have sex with multiple partners. They always waited till marriage.

So by having this tight group of friends, they could all experiment with each other, still have the ability to do that while being pure, while being Mormon, whatever the thought process is. However, one of the girls in this group ended up having sex with one of the other husbands or something, not just making out. They started apparently, I think, having an affair or something like that. And then now they're together to my understanding. I don't know the whole story. If you know what I'm talking about, you probably know way more than I do. But it apparently had gone too far and like the whole thing blew up in everybody's face

but apparently this seems to be something pretty common in the new age Mormonism if you will where they're pure they save themselves for marriage but then they don't want just one penis for the rest of their life or one vagina so they all like swap within each other in their circle they promise there won't be any feelings involved that it's just you know completely carnal and physical and whatever word you want to use to describe it but whatever believe what you want come to your own conclusions like I said so back to Kevin and Ruby since Kevin has filed for divorce it has also come to light that he's currently working on a project for the Utah legislator, and this is to get more eyes on the life coaching industry in general, and also advocating for more oversight, claiming the relationship advice Ruby got from Jodi led to the collapse of their family. Now we know that in the

past, former clients of Connections, the cult that Jodi ran, have accused Ruby, but mainly Jodi, of using shaming tactics designed to pit family members against each other, and that Jodi would convince men that their impure thoughts made them a danger to their families, and that's why they would move out and leave. One person said, and I quote, There was a man that had a successful business that believed he was a danger to his wife and his family because he did a double take, like if he saw a beautiful woman and he would pause and look again. This guy got his own apartment and separated from his family because he did a double take, like if he saw a beautiful woman and he would pause and look again. This guy got his own apartment and separated from his family because this apparently made him a quote danger. So what's the truth with all of this? Is Kevin just as bad as Ruby?

Or is Ruby obviously worse? Kevin definitely would not be awarded father of the year by any means in my book ever considering his behavior in the past before Jodi Hildebrandt ever even came into their lives and on the scene, but I'm just wondering how much of this is real, and how much of this is posturing to get custody of the children. While there aren't many details available yet, I truly hope that maybe he is really being sincere for the children's sake, but there still is that worry that he still believes his way of parenting is right, and that is a very big concern. Ruby and Jodi's court hearings and their criminal cases still have not been scheduled, but when there are more updates, I will definitely be following it and let you know. Like I said in the beginning, actually I don't even know if I said this in the beginning,

but when I do get these updates, it's way faster for me to just jump on the mic and release a bonus episode like this one. So if you're not following along on the podcast yet, I highly encourage you to take two seconds, find the follow button on your phone, wherever you're listening. That way, as this case has more updates, it'll notify you when I post a new episode on here. So thank you guys for listening to today's bonus episode. Let's see what continues to happen with this insanely crazy situation. And let me know what you think about this in the review section on Apple Podcasts, if that's where you're listening, or the Q&A section on Spotify. Do you think that Kevin is sincere? Do you think he's just as bad as Jodi and Ruby? And this is all a facade to make himself

look better. What do you really think the truth is? All right, thanks for tuning into this bonus episode, guys. I will be talking with you again very, very soon. Stay safe, hug your loved ones, and stay away from cults. All right. Bye, guys. Thank you.