Crime Chronicles: The 8 Passengers Story

Ruby Franke, that's a name I didn't expect to see in the Crime Chronicles series, but here we are. I've got more than a bit to say on this one so let's get into it.

Who is Ruby Franke?

Ruby Franke is - was a family vlogger on YouTube who documented her daily life with her husband and their six kids on the now deleted 8 Passengers YouTube Channel. She was quite popular for a good while and had 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube by June of 2020.

Her popularity waned in 2022 after some concern regarding the treatment of her children made the rounds and, on August 30, 2023, she was arrested with her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt for child abuse. The two were charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse.

The 8 Passengers Channel

The 8 Passengers YouTube channel first popped up in 2015 and, like I said before, it was very popular. The channel seemed to be your typical run-of-the-mill family life channel - obviously it wasn't, but that's what it looked like from the outside. They were your mom, dad, and six kids going through life and, for a while, they made it work.

In 2020, things started going pear-shaped. One of the kids said something about being banned from his bedroom and being forced to sleep on a beanbag for seven months. This raised more than a few eyebrows, and people started to become concerned about the family's disciplinary methods - I'll get to that in a second. All of this contributed to the decline in the popularity of 8 Passengers and her marriage ended in separation in 2022.

Moms of Truth w. Jodi Hildebrandt

Following her separation from her husband, Franke started working as a mental health counsellor with a company called Connexions with Jodi Nan Hildebrandt. The two women teamed up to run an Instagram channel called Moms of Truth.

The purpose of Moms of Truth was apparently to teach parents how to be parents. Considering the charges against the two, this is more than a little ironic.

Arrest on August 30, 2023

August 30th, 2023, Ruby Franke's 12-year old son showed up at a neighbor's home in very bad shape. He was emaciated, he had open wounds, duct tape around his wrists and ankles...he was a mess. The neighbor called 911 and emergency services and law enforcement were sent to the address where they found a 10-year old girl in similar condition.

Both children were seriously malnourished and had lacerations and other wounds. This led to the arrest of Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt on 6 charges of aggravated child abuse - which is a felony offense.

The children from the house and two of the other Franke children were taken into protective custody by Child Protective Services. Both women were held without bail with Hildebrandt surrendering her counselling license and Franke being banned from YouTube.

Tough Love vs. Child Abuse

From my understanding, Franke and Hildebrandt were touting themselves as 'tough love' advocates. Now, I grew up with corporal punishment (spanking) and so did all of my friends and family members BUT there's a big difference between discipline and abuse. Likewise there's a huge difference between medical expertise and outright quackery! Why do I say that?

Because these two used cayenne pepper and honey to dress his wounds. Now, honey is known to have some anti-bacterial properties and is used in all kinds of natural/homeopathic medicines. Cayenne pepper though? I don't know. I looked it up and apparently you can use it as an oral remedy for stomach problems and a few other things; near as I can tell, you DON'T PUT IT ON AN OPEN WOUND! That's not what it's for, you can apply it to the skin to apparently help with skin problems, muscle pain and arthritis but to apply it to an open wound - which is what I'm assuming they did - must've been sheer agony.

Additionally, Franke was known to have withheld food and other basic necessities as punishments as well which is more than a little twisted. Now, following her arrest, YouTube terminated her channels - yes, she had more than one - and banned her from the platform. This makes sense

The Trial and Sentencing

Now, I didn't find much on the trial itself, but here's what I did find:

Jodi Hildebrandt agreed to a plea deal and plead guilty to 4 counts of aggravated child abuse. She would serve time, and the other two counts were dropped.

Ruby Franke plead guilty to 4 counts and not guilty to 2 counts of aggravated child abuse.

On February 20, 2024, both Hildebrandt and Franke were both sentenced to four sentences of 1 and 15 years. These sentences would run consecutively for a period of 4 to 60 years in prison.

Both made statements to the effect of being sorry and that they want the kids to heal...I think you can tell from how I've been writing exactly how I feel about that.

How much Time will Actually be Spent in Prison?

So, how much time with Franke and Hildebrandt actually spend in prison? That decision depends on the parole board in Utah, but the 60 years might not be the full sentence. Why? Well, from what I understand, the state of Utah has a maximum time cap. First off, what constitutes aggravated child abuse? Well, I looked it up and here's what I found.

According to section 2 of the Utah Criminal Code, title 76, chapter 5, section 109.2, aggravated child abuse occurs when someone:

1. inflicts serious injury upon a child.
2. has care or custody of a child, causes or permits another to cause/inflict a serious injury to a child.

Section 3 of that page further explains the degrees of the felony.

1. 2nd Degree Felony - if done deliberately and knowingly.
2. 3rd Degree Felony - if done recklessly.
3. A Class A misdemeanour - if done with criminal negligence.

I'll link the full legislature here if you want to check out the rest of it. A 2nd degree felony, which is what I'm assuming would be the classification in this cases, has a maximum penalty of 15 years. This means that these two crazies may only serve between 4 and 30 years in prison rather than the 60 that the judge imposed.

My hope, in regards to the sentencing, is that the parole board looks over the case file and decides that 60 years is an appropriate sentence. Now, before I move onto the next section, I need to reach out to you lovely readers. The legal system in my home country (South Africa) is obviously very different from the US, and I'm NOT a lawyer - something I've noted previously.

It's likely that there some intricacies that I've missed or misunderstood. If that's the case, I would ask that if you read this and notice anything like that, please educate me in the comments so that I can know for sure that I understand these things. Right, with that out of the way, let's move on.

What was Dad Doing?!

Now, I have a question and I'm sure you're all wondering the same thing; where was Kevin Franke? What was dad doing while his ex-wife was abusing their children? Well, that's the thing; I don't know. There isn't an answer available, at least as far as I can find.

The way I understand it, Ruby had primary custody of their four underaged children - the two older children had moved out by the time the divorce was finalized. This would mean Kevin got visitation on weekends. Now, how the blazes do you, as a parent, look at a 12-year old kid and not notice that they're dangerously underweight? How do you not see SERIOUS PHYSICAL INJURIES on your kids when they come to see you?

I understand that there may be mitigating factors that explain the whole thing, but unless and until Kevin Franke opens his mouth and starts talking, we won't get to hear about those factors. Even acknowledging that, however, you can't expect me to believe that this guy had no idea what was happening with his own children.

NOT the First Case of Vlogging-Related Abuse

The 8 Passengers story is sadly not the only case of vloggers abusing their kids. Back in 2017, a channel called DaddyOFive came under fire for content that showed Mike Martin (the guy who ran the channel) and his wife abusing their kids both physically and mentally. They promoted their content as 'prank' videos and these 'pranks' began to get more extreme as time went on.

He and his wife Heather were charged with child neglect, the two plead guilty with an Alford Plea and their channels, as far as I know, were terminated. Now an Alford plea, for those who don't know, is basically where you plead guilty without pleading guilty.

Essentially, you're maintaining your innocence, but acknowledging that there's enough evidence to lock you away. Sadly, these two didn't get any prison time; instead they were sentenced to 5 years of probation.

Those Kids are Going to Need a Lot of Help

There's a reason that there are stories about child abusers and child predators getting wrecked while incarcerated. So-called 'prison justice' is a very real possibility in this case and, while I don't necessarily agree with it, I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that these two women were being roughed up by their fellow inmates.

I feel for the kids in this situation, and I think we all do - even if you're not a parent, this is a story that's going to stick with you. The fact that their mother was abusing them (there's no other word for it) and allowing her business partner to do the same, the fact that their father seemingly did absolutely nothing to fix the situation and get those kids out of that mess...it's a disaster all the way around.

I hope they get all the love, care, and therapy that they need and that they go on to live long, healthy, happy lives. I was originally going to put this story up the same week as the sentencing, but my thoughts were more than a bit scrambled and I needed to take some time to process everything and put my thoughts in order...I'll leave it to you to decide if I've gone bonkers yet.

So, those are my thoughts on this case but now I want to hear what you guys and gals think. Let me know what you think about this whole situation in the comments.