Ruby Franke (YouTube screenshot)
Former vlogging star Ruby Franke was arrested last week in Utah and charged with six counts of felony child abuse after her 12-year-old son — who was emaciated and had “open wounds” — climbed from a window and escaped from a home where he had allegedly been starved and bound with duct tape.
In the wake of the “8 Passengers” star’s arrest, Franke’s cousin spoke to Law&Crime, saying she was not surprised by the allegations, as similar methods of child abuse go back generations in her and Franke’s family.
Franke’s “8 Passengers” YouTube channel, which had more than 2 million followers at one time, featured videos of her, her husband Kevin Franke, and their six children. However, the channel was taken down earlier this year amid allegations of child abuse and other disturbing behavior.
The cousin — who used the alias “Sally” and asked to remain anonymous due to “fear for her safety” — provided the details in an interview with Law&Crime’s Angenette Levy on the network’s Sidebar podcast. Sally said she had not seen Franke in more than 15 years, when Sally was “very young,” but claims her own history and even her own mother’s history of being mistreated provides greater context for what she referred to as “multigenerational” abuse.
According to Sally, the most unexpected aspect of the child abuse allegations levied against Franke is how well the specifics align with her own experience being abused as a child.
“I suppose I wasn’t expecting some of the details in that story to line up with some of the details in my own family history, I guess is what I’m trying to say,” Sally said. “My own mother handcuffed my sisters when they were young and a lack of food was not uncommon. It wasn’t necessarily out of a lack of money — there was a time when it could have been prevented, but it wasn’t.”
Sally also said her grandmother would regularly handcuff her mother when the latter was a child.
Discussing the specific allegations against Franke, Sally said they were eerily similar to her own experiences as a victim of child abuse.
“This is something that is multigenerational. I am very privy to the way that I was treated, and the way that my siblings were treated, so to see that further down the line is not shocking but disgusting,” Sally told Levy. “The whole tree — from the bottom of the roots to the tips of the branches — the whole tree is blighted.”
Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were both arrested last week in connection with the alleged abuse. Hildebrandt is the founder of “Connexions Classroom,” a parenting workshop class aimed at creating “joy in your life and your relationships,” and was the owner of the home where the children were allegedly being abused. Connexions has been the subject of criticism for allegedly espousing extreme methods of parenting, which include rejecting young children who fail to live by their parents’ beliefs.
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According to the Santa Clara-Irvine Public Safety Department, police at about 10:50 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 30 responded to a call at a residence located in Ivins, Utah regarding a possible case of child abuse. The calling party told the dispatcher that a juvenile had shown up at their door asking for food and water. The caller said that the child “appeared to be emaciated and malnourished, with open wounds and duct tape around the extremities,” police wrote in the release.
The child who escaped from the home was identified as a 12-year-old boy with “deep lacerations” due to being tied up with rope and duct tape.
Police said the 12-year-old’s condition was “so severe” that Santa Clara-Irvine Emergency Medical Services personnel were dispatched to the scene and examined him before transporting them to St. George Regional Hospital for medical treatment.
Investigators then learned that there was a 10-year-old girl who was also believed to be “in a similar condition” still at the home from which the 12-year-old escaped.
“Officers arrived at the home and searched the residence, locating another juvenile in a similar physical condition of malnourishment,” police said. “That juvenile was also transported by EMS to the hospital for treatment.”
The other child found in the home was said to be the 12-year-old boy’s younger sister.
Investigators obtained a search warrant for the home in connection with the condition of the children. During that search, police said they recovered evidence “consistent with the markings found on the juvenile.”
The Department of Child and Family Services was contacted about the case. DCFS and the Springville Police Department launched a joint effort and the two juvenile victims as well as two other children were removed from Franke’s custody and placed in the custody of DCFS.
Franke appeared in court on Tuesday where she was formally charged with six felony counts of child abuse. She and Hildebrandt were both still in detention at the Washington County Jail as of Thursday morning.
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