Ruby Franke #

Introduction #

Ruby Franke (née Griffiths), born January 18, 1982, in Logan, Utah, ran the now-defunct YouTube vlog 8 Passengers. On August 30, 2023, she and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested in Washington County, Utah, and charged with six counts of felony aggravated child abuse of two of Franke’s children; she pleaded guilty to four counts and on February 20, 2024, was sentenced to between four and thirty years in prison.

Background Information #

In early 2015, Franke created the YouTube channel 8 Passengers, documenting family life in Utah with husband Kevin and their six children; by June 2020 it had around 2.5 million subscribers. The family are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Beginning in 2020, viewers raised concerns about her discipline after one of the children, then 15, said he had been banned from his bedroom and made to sleep on a bean bag for seven months; other punishments included sending her youngest daughter to school without a packed lunch she was expected to pack herself. A Change.org petition reported perceived child abuse and neglect; the Frankes said the incidents were taken out of context.

The channel declined in popularity in 2021, and in 2022 the Frankes separated; after her channel was suspended, Ruby began working as a mental health coach at ConneXions, run by counselor Jodi Hildebrandt. Hildebrandt’s Utah counselor license had been placed on probation for 18 months in 2012 for disclosing clients’ “sensitive private information” without consent; it was reinstated in 2013. A former patient called ConneXions “cult-like.”

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

The arrests followed a report from Franke’s twelve-year-old son, who appeared emaciated with “open wounds and duct tape around the extremities,” after escaping through a window of Hildebrandt’s house to ask a neighbor for food and water. Emergency services found Franke’s ten-year-old daughter in the house, also malnourished; the boy was treated for severe malnourishment and “deep lacerations from being tied up with rope,” and the children were taken into state care.

On December 18, 2023, Franke pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse and not guilty to two others. In the plea agreement she said her son was often kept bound and her nine-year-old daughter was made to do manual labor outside in the hot sun with no water or shoes; she agreed to serve her sentences consecutively and to testify against Hildebrandt, and at the time of her plea called the abuse “acts of love.”

Hildebrandt pleaded guilty days later, on December 27; her plea agreement stated she either tortured the children or was aware of the abuse, and that she “either physically forced or coerced” Franke’s daughter to “jump into a cactus multiple times.” Prosecutor Eric Clarke said the crimes were motivated by religious faith: “This is a case about religious extremism. The defendants appear to have fully believed that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined ‘sins’ and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies.”

Public Reaction and Consequences #

Franke had been criticized on YouTube for her harsh punishments even before the charges, and after the arrests her three sisters disassociated themselves from her; her parents and brother filed court statements blaming Hildebrandt’s influence: her brother said, “Ruby has clearly been brainwashed,” while her parents said, “She was delusional. She was so deeply brainwashed we could not recognize her.” Kevin Franke filed for divorce in November 2023.

On February 20, 2024, Franke received four consecutive prison terms of one to fifteen years each, and Hildebrandt received the same sentence. The terms could theoretically run 60 years, but Utah law caps time served under consecutive sentences at 30 years — the most severe penalty available, per the prosecutor — with the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole to determine the actual term.

At the hearing, Clarke compared the children’s environment to a “concentration camp-like setting,” said Franke “committed horrible acts of child abuse,” and called Hildebrandt “a significant threat” who had shown “little to no remorse.” Franke admitted she and Hildebrandt had “inflicted the injuries” on her children and told the court, “My charges are just. They offer safety to my family, accountability to the public,” adding that she had followed counsel “that have led me to a dark delusion.” Hildebrandt told the court, “I sincerely love these children. I desire for them to heal physically and emotionally.”

Current Status #

Franke remains incarcerated at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City, where Hildebrandt is also held. A Board of Pardons and Parole hearing to set her term was scheduled for December 2026, preceded by a mental health review and cognitive behavioral therapy. Kevin Franke’s divorce was finalized in March 2025, and in January 2025 the husband of a former ConneXions client sued the two women for business fraud and promoting a “methodology that encouraged child abuse among their clients.”

The case has been adapted repeatedly: eldest daughter Shari published the memoir The House of My Mother in January 2025; Hulu released the docuseries Devil in the Family in February 2025; the 2024 Lifetime movie Mormon Mom Gone Wrong aired despite Shari’s objection that releasing it would hurt the victims further; and Netflix’s Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story followed in December 2025.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The 8 Passengers channel, begun in 2015, ended after seven years, and in 2023 YouTube terminated Franke’s channels and banned her from creating new ones. The influencer who once drew 2.5 million subscribers is now a convicted child abuser serving at least four years, with the Board of Pardons and Parole to decide how much longer; Clarke called it “one of the worst child abuse cases we’ve ever seen.”

The case also redrew her family: her husband filed for divorce, four of her children were placed in state care, and her ex-husband and two eldest children participated in Shari’s memoir and the Hulu docuseries; the Lifetime movie and 2025 documentaries have kept the collapse of 8 Passengers a recurring reference point in coverage of family vlogging and influencer parenting.