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Ruby Franke's Son Spelled a Message in Stones. It Said Jail.
Published 2 weeks, 4 days ago
Description
In July 2023, a twelve-year-old boy sleeping on concrete outside a house in Ivins, Utah, arranged small stones beside him into a message for his mother: Jail. I will call when I get there. His mother was Ruby Franke, who had spent years showing nearly two and a half million subscribers how she raised her six children. That attempt failed, and the women made the next one harder. Weeks later he went out a window with duct tape still on his wrists and rang a neighbor's doorbell.
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Ruby Franke, the Utah mother behind the YouTube channel Eight Passengers, and Jodi Hildebrandt, a licensed therapist and her partner in the counseling program ConneXions, were arrested on 30 August 2023, after Franke's twelve-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt's home in Ivins, Utah, and asked a neighbor for help reaching a police station. He was malnourished and had open wounds around his wrists and ankles. Officers found his nine-year-old sister sitting on a closet floor; it took about four hours before she was willing to leave with medical responders. Prosecutors placed the start of the abuse in May 2023 and described the arrangement as resembling a work camp, with food and water restricted, beds withheld, and the children kept away from other people and hidden when visitors came. Franke's own handwritten journals, recovered from the property, recorded the punishments, the boy's swollen feet and his first escape. The Washington County Attorney's Office concluded that religious extremism motivated the abuse. Franke pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse on 18 December 2023; Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts on 27 December. On 20 February 2024, a judge sentenced each woman to four consecutive prison terms of one to fifteen years — a total range of four to thirty years each, with the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole deciding how long each will actually serve. The children's father, Kevin Franke, told investigators he had been asked to move out in July 2022 and had not seen his wife or children for more than a year; police examined his possible involvement, found no evidence connecting him to the abuse, and did not charge him.
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This account is drawn from the Washington County criminal case: Ruby Franke's handwritten journals recovered from the house, the officer's booking report, doorbell camera footage, statements in court by prosecutors Eric Clarke and Zachary Weiland, jail calls reported after the evidence was released, and the two guilty pleas and the February 2024 sentencing.
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The Franke children were minors, and none of them is named in this episode. The two youngest are identified only as R and E.
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Ruby Franke, the Utah mother behind the YouTube channel Eight Passengers, and Jodi Hildebrandt, a licensed therapist and her partner in the counseling program ConneXions, were arrested on 30 August 2023, after Franke's twelve-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt's home in Ivins, Utah, and asked a neighbor for help reaching a police station. He was malnourished and had open wounds around his wrists and ankles. Officers found his nine-year-old sister sitting on a closet floor; it took about four hours before she was willing to leave with medical responders. Prosecutors placed the start of the abuse in May 2023 and described the arrangement as resembling a work camp, with food and water restricted, beds withheld, and the children kept away from other people and hidden when visitors came. Franke's own handwritten journals, recovered from the property, recorded the punishments, the boy's swollen feet and his first escape. The Washington County Attorney's Office concluded that religious extremism motivated the abuse. Franke pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse on 18 December 2023; Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts on 27 December. On 20 February 2024, a judge sentenced each woman to four consecutive prison terms of one to fifteen years — a total range of four to thirty years each, with the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole deciding how long each will actually serve. The children's father, Kevin Franke, told investigators he had been asked to move out in July 2022 and had not seen his wife or children for more than a year; police examined his possible involvement, found no evidence connecting him to the abuse, and did not charge him.
---
This account is drawn from the Washington County criminal case: Ruby Franke's handwritten journals recovered from the house, the officer's booking report, doorbell camera footage, statements in court by prosecutors Eric Clarke and Zachary Weiland, jail calls reported after the evidence was released, and the two guilty pleas and the February 2024 sentencing.
---
The Franke children were minors, and none of them is named in this episode. The two youngest are identified only as R and E.