Ruby Franke, a former Youtube family vlogger from Utah, was sentenced last month on child abuse charges. For those who read my article I posted on the Franke family about a month ago, understand the severity of how this woman treated her children. Updates were just posted this week about the in depth details of the unethical punishments Ruby gave them.
For those who are unfamiliar with this topic, Ruby Franke’s page has been alive since 2015, documenting the Franke's life in their eight person family. Ruby and Kevin Franke are the mom and dad to six children: Shari, 17, Chad, 15, Abby, 13, Julie, 11, Russell, 8, and Eve, 6. The Frankes have nearly 2.5 million subscribers on their channel, all of whom tuned in to Ruby Frankes weekly vlogs of what her family was up to for the day. Though, many subscribers began to become suspicious of her behavior and how she would treat her children. Her parenting methods were questionable and raised concerns about whether or not these children were getting abused or not. Read my past article for more detail.
March 23rd, NBC News released an article on the further details of this case. After she was sentenced last month, handwritten journal entries were found that detail months of abuse on her children, specifically the two youngest, Russell and Eve. In one of the entries on July 11th, 2023, she described it as a “big day for evil.” She was convinced her son was possessed by a demon where he was pushed into water and she held her hand over his nose and mouth. She claimed that she did this to help the boy. As if this isn’t weird enough, in another entry, Franke called her daughter manipulative and forced her to stand in the rain for TWO HOURS. Looking further into these journal entires, the attorney’s office discovered she referenced her 9 year old daughter as “E” and her 12 year old son as “R” (meaning Russell and Eve). Another entry was discovered where Franke describes a scenario where she told “R” to go stand in the sun but his “demon” goes to stand in the shade instead. Franke pushes “R” back into the sun but he comes back. She then describes she starts poking him with a cactus poker but he is in a “trance” so she pokes him until he wakes up. This journal entry is definitely one of the weirdest. The way that she describes her children as one letter and believes her son is taken over by demons is concerning.
Not only her son faced this type of abuse, but also her daughter, “E”. In a journal entry on July 12th, 2023, she wrote that she cut her daughter’s hair off and doused her with water in the dog wash. When E wanted to run away, Jodi (her business partner also sentenced with Franke), told E she had no idea what was waiting for her.
In February, Franke received four separate prison sentences of one to 15 years each. Her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, received the same sentence.
“Both women were arrested in August 2023 and pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse after police found one of Franke’s sons emaciated with open wounds and bound with duct tape.” says NBC article. In a home security video, it shows Russell approach the neighbors door asking for help. They assessed his injuries and discovered duct tape with sores all around them. He needed immediate attention. As you can see in this photo, Russell is seen to be very frail and malnourished.
So why would she do this to her own children?
Prosecutors described that Franke and Hildebrandt were motivated by “religious extremism.” They stated that the fully believed that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to repent for their sins and cast the evil spirits out of their bodies, as we learned that Franke heavily believed in from her past journal entries.
During Franke’s sentencing, her husband, Kevin Franke, filed for divorce. Ruby Franke also apologized to her children. She stated that she would “do anything in this world” for them. Ruby’s assistant stated she hoped her children would heal “physically and emotionally” and that she pray that “they will heal and move forward to have beautiful lives.”
This influx of family vlog channels exploring their children is truly horrifying. This was a great article, very thorough writing.