The YouTube Mom From Hell: Ruby Franke

on prime crime. I just had a 12 year old boy chill up here at my front door asking for help. We need to come soon as possible. It's the 911 call heard around the world casting the spotlight on a popular YouTuber. If you're in a position of power and you turn your power and give it over to the kids that is control and her partner in crime. Hi I'm Jordi Hildebrand. I am at the second annual women's retreat. I'm a shocked as anybody. Her and Ruby were just the two wrong things to come together. In a story that has layers. She can stay right here on the porch so you can see her. What are you afraid of sir? Upon layers. Jody is very smart in how she approaches her therapeutic modalities. It's like a frog being boiled in water. You know you start off with the cold water and slowly turn up. Temperature. Hey there everybody I'm Jesse Weber and welcome to prime crime. This is what we break down the most compelling true crime cases in America. Our next story takes us all the way out west but this is a case that had the entire nation buzzing when it broke in late summer 2023 and it all began with one chilling 911 phone call. I just had a 12-year-old boy still up here at my front door asking for help. August 30th 2023 Ivan Zuta. What you're hearing is not your typical 911 phone call but this isn't your typical case and it all begins with one woman. Worshiping your child will be placing your child's desires over responsibility. This is Ruby Frankie. I am kind of a crazy mom and I love my kids to wear red, white and blue. They have been wearing red, white and blue. Every year since they were wearing clothes. Ruby Frankie was a YouTuber and had millions of followers for her eight passengers channel. That's where Ruby's claim to fame really came from. I want the kids! I think the kids are more excited about the presence the siblings are getting. Eight passengers was started several years ago by both Ruby Frankie and her husband Kevin. You guys we are in Florida and the kids had no idea. They have six children together and it was kind of that initial mommy blog YouTube channel where Ruby would basically invite people into her life with her husband and her children. You guys are gonna watch each other I'm a dinner but you have to eat dinner. Got it? No? It's because they hate you Frankie but that's not right. I'm pretty sure. No silly business. That's better. She focused her family as the main driving source of content for her platform. What is this? It's a cake and a side is the color of the cake. So we're gonna find out if it's pink or blue. A lot of the kids you almost saw grow up in that YouTube channel. Do you want to start dating? Like I don't know if I've ever asked you that I just assumed that you didn't. I want to care if I started dating but I'm 13 and I feel like I'm too young. You know that you can always come talk to me right? I want to. Good talk. Hey passengers was the wild ride of the Frankie family with over two million subscribers over the years. Most likely by parents who were looking at this, looking at the tactics used, looking to them for advice as so many do on social media. The fact that I yell at my kids is a secret. We don't want our viewers to know. However, these videos started to take a dark turn. He did not pack a lens today and can I bring a lens over to the school? I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch. I responded and just said Eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning. So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry. People were upset about whatever was happening on this channel. Erriting tactics or how the children were being treated. You have to vote. Listen, if you do not vote for what fun you want, we will ensure you. You will have no fun at all. There were people who were concerned about the things that she was doing to punish her children. She had her son who left his socks outside, made him do push-ups. Put him in your pocket so you can take him down to the hamper and drop and give me 10. Why? Put your hands straight out. They're in. They're not supposed to be out. Shake your hands forward. There you go. There is another situation where her oldest son ended up losing his bed for several months. My bedroom was taken away for seven months and then you give it back like a couple weeks ago. I don't think her viewers know that. You're sleeping on a beanbag. I've actually been on a beanbag since I've told her. Chad came home from Anastasia and Russell's like, "I want to try junking the basketball." I mean, there's didn't even fun and he was left there for each all three minutes and he was just hanging on there. Do you think it's funny? And then I walk out. If you think it's funny, then that was seven months ago. Maybe you need longer without a bedroom. It was not funny. There were a lot of people who were really put off by that and that led to them criticizing her online. When looking at the change.org platform, there are a couple of petitions pertaining to Ruby Frankie and eight passengers. There's one from 2020 that actually says, "Get eight passengers, Ruby Frankie under investigation for child abuse." There's also another one that still has almost 18,000 signatures. There were obvious concerns. Eve, this is my tape. What are you doing? What are you doing to this poor baby? Should I tape your eyes to make you sleep? The biggest thing was seeing all the kids get hurt on the YouTube channels. When I saw sweet fingers and letting those is the things that I saw were off camera and they were all the stuff at parties. They were just patterns of behavior saying things like, "Oh, my kids won't go to bed. I just give them high on all PMs." One conversation with Ruby was over dinner and me and her argued the whole time about parenting for like a half an hour. Or me, there is red flags throughout all of that. We do know over the years there were a number of calls to Ruby's home in Springville for a variety of things. Somewhere, a welfare check is just checking on their family because the kids were left alone according to one of the narratives. My name is Sherry Frankie. My four younger siblings are living in Springville and my neighbors have been telling me that they have been left home alone for about four or five days. The CPS visits didn't amount to much. A lot of those are private records. We're not able to get those records. What we did see is Springville police assisting. There's no details of how they proceeded, but clearly they didn't proceed in a certain direction. In 2022, Ruby Frankie stops posting on the A-Passenger's channel. There's a new person in Frankie's life and they're taking up a lot of her time. Hi, I'm Jodie Hildebrand. I am at the second annual Women's Retreat in St. George, Utah. Jodie Hildebrand was a licensed clinical mental health counselor in the state of Utah. Ruby was working for Jodie at Connections. Hi, we are live in Mapleton, Utah and we have Ruby here. Ruby is a part of the original 10 women that are being trained to become mental fitness trainers. Connections is essentially a life-coaching group or offering from Jodie Hildebrand. She was the founder of Connections Classroom, but she had two other people that worked for her in Connections. One woman is named Pam Botcher, the president of the Connections Foundation, which was actually listed as a nonprofit. The other was Ruby Frankie, who was listed as a certified mental fitness trainer. A man or a woman can be being abusive and they still will have their children given to them, which is horrible. This little boy that you have depends on you, mom. And I'm hoping that you will be a Linus to protect him. Connections offered one-on-one coaching sessions with Jodie or couples classes or specific classes for women and specific classes for men as it pertained to perhaps strengthening your relationship or getting the most out of your life. There are all these different behaviors that kids and adults go into to distract themselves from the fear that they don't matter. But Jody Hildebrand isn't without her own controversies. She was actually put on probation back in January of 2012 for some of the things that she did ethically as it pertained to an individual that she was counseling. His name was Adam Steed. Adam actually saw Jody back in 2008 and it came out that Jody shared a lot of his personal, client privilege information with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also members of a local institution, Brigham Young University, where Adam was working at the time. I was just so messed up emotionally and mentally after Jody Hildebrand that I was scared of my own name. You know, in your victim of child abuse in your therapist, Jody Hildebrand tells you the PTSD and the trauma from that is just your sexual addiction and then she throws you into a class. And then the other three guys start talking about being a voyeurist with victims, being an exhibitionist with victims, being an incest person with victims was extremely uncomfortable. We have spent 24 hours between the two days talking about how to recognize distortion and move it into truth. We have cried and we have laughed and we have applauded and we have invited people into boundaries. They are very interested in coming back, bringing their spouses. She wouldn't let me leave therapy, she contacted other therapists and told them terrible things about me so that I couldn't get help elsewhere. She was just punishing me and trying to control my life when I started to ask certain questions. She just changed everything and went on a complete assassination. Connections is unique, it's an anomaly in the world. People don't understand that they can actually heal their pain. And if you have not joined the connection's family, I would encourage you strongly. She brought everybody and now she was saying I was mentally unhealthy and I couldn't choose for myself. I lost my children, a huge amount of their lives because of this. Adam Steed is not the only person who comes forward about Jody Hildebrand. She strips you by identity, she strips you of credibility, she is isolated and shows she is saying everything that you say is a lie, everything that you say is manipulation. You're lying and destroying everyone's life. So for the sake of everyone else's safety, we're duct-taping you. This is Jesse Hildebrand, Jody's niece, who alleges physical, emotional and mental abuse they suffered under the care of their aunt when they were younger. I was sleeping outside in the snow, in the middle of winter in Utah. I wasn't allowed to have a bed. She told everyone that it was like a mummy bag, you know, sub-zero type of sleeping bag. No, it was absolutely not. Her justification to the police was that she was preparing me for outdoor wilderness therapy. We talked about sexuality relationships in truth rather than distortion and so these women gave some amazing points of the sacredness of sexuality and the utmost importance in order to be able to be in a centered, connected relationship. Jody kind of prescribes herself as being this person who's very much into honesty and her whole brand is kind of owning up to who you are and what you've done. She tends to be, I think, a bit more strict than what most counselors would be and really probably at the end of the day, her and Ruby were just the two wrong things to come together. When we return, Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrand are thrust into the national spotlight. Hey, so we're going to get back to the Ruby Frankie case here on Prime Crime in just a minute. Before we do, we are talking a lot of law on this episode and it got me thinking about our great partner and sponsor Morgan and Morgan. Why do I want to talk about them because the truth is not all law firms are the same. 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Yeah, you can get started with your claim just a single click on your phone and seeing if you have a case only takes a few minutes, so if you're injured, you can submit a claim at forthepeople.com/primecrime or by dialing pound law, that's pound 529 on your phone. All right, let's get back now to Ruby Frankie. As soon as sound like I'm like a mean barbarian, but I told the kids I said, I'm not even going to let you eat breakfast until you get your chores done. We're in Utah, where mom of six, Ruby Frankie, who spent years documenting the lives of her children and husband, Kevin, on the once popular YouTube channel Eight Passengers, has stopped posting videos on the page, this after receiving backlash over her disciplinary and parenting style. Fine, who hate me, who would like to cancel me, who would like to see me either burn and hell as I've told or disappear off the face of the earth, and I'm not going anywhere. Frankie partners up with Jody Hildebrand, a mental health counselor who runs a life coaching business known as Connections. So Ruby, would it tell us about what a mental fitness trainer is? Yes, so we are getting mentally fit. We are getting ready to be your mental fitness trainer. We're getting truth, really easy to teach, and help you, and you're going to feel so much better. Absolutely. But Hildebrand herself has come under fire for her alleged manipulative and physical abuse techniques. She didn't want me to leave her therapy group. I couldn't go to any other therapist. I was trying to go to other therapists because they were saying I was an addict and denial, and it was just crazy. And I tried to get away. She changed everything and went after me in the most bizarre way I've ever seen, and then wrote my whole life. Because they are so extreme, if she were just to start out with those things, everyone would recognize it and they would be shocked and be like, "Absolutely not." She's very subtle and she's very calculated. You start off with the cold water and slowly turn up the temperature. The only way you can actually have a fulfilling, and I don't mean physiologically fulfilling, I'm talking about a spiritual fulfilling sexual relationship, it starts with self, and then it moves into your partner. But this partnership between Frankie and Hildebrand has devastating consequences. I just had a 12-year-old boy silhouette here at my front door asking for help. The Santa Clara-Ivans Public Safety Area basically got a phone call. An officer's were alerted of a situation at a home in Ivans Utah, the home of Jody Hildebrand. That is where two of Ruby Frankie's younger children were at, at the time nine and twelve. One of them was able to leave and run to a neighbor's house. We know there's been problems at this neighbor's house. He's emaciated, he's got tape around his legs, he's hungry, and he's thirsty. And he asked us to call the police, so he's very afraid. By listening to that 911 call, which still haunts me to this day as a father of a two-year old myself, the neighbor, an older gentleman, extremely compassionate in this situation and can't believe what has just stumbled upon his doorstep. "This kid is all they see, I think he's been detained, he's obviously covered in wounds. We need to come so it sounds possible." The 911 call is heartbreaking. The 12-year-old son ends up getting out of a window in their basement and makes his way to the neighbor's house. He's asking for a drink and food. The neighbor, he sees ligature marks, he sees what he describes as emaciated and malnourished. Based on what was found on his wrists and his ankles, this child was tied up for quite some time. Russell was the one they found first. There was bruising and blistery because of some of the tactics that were used with the cayenne pepper and the honey to put in the wounds and then plastered back over with some of the wrap. It was less described about Eve than it was Russell. Both Russell and his sister Eve are taken to the hospital for malnourishment and injuries, but there's another pressing issue. Where are Ruby's other minor children? Officers from a number of agencies in Utah County, Springville Police, Utah County Major Crimes Task Force, went to Ruby Frankie's home in Springville because they wanted to locate the two outstanding children that were under the age of 18. So when officers get to the house, they try to obviously knock on the door, and then they kick the door down. They basically blow right through the door and they clear the house. They realize the children are not there, and then around noon or so, we start to hear that Ruby Frankie called her friend, who is Jody's longtime friend, Pam Botcher. "There's two of their **** and other siblings that we're still looking for, considered and dangerous and each of them has had the one to take them over to custody. Pam was seen picking up **** in the Springville Ring Center. I'm wanting to be in today, and that's how we kind of figured that out how you guys about there." "I'm looking for Pam. Is Pam in tonight?" "That's my wife." "Is your wife here?" "Hi." "Hello, Pam. How are you doing?" "Yeah." Pam Botcher is the third member of Connections Classroom. The two girls were found at Pam Botcher's home. They were unharmed. "You have a warrant?" "Yeah, we do." "Will you just tell them you're alright?" "Well, you have to physically see her." "S***, I'm done with that door." What's interesting about all of this, when they reach the front door, and they ask to speak with Pam Botcher, both her and her husband are stumped, they don't understand what is going on. "We'll go ahead and get the copy of the warrant for you, okay? I have a warrant from my house." "Specifically for you." "Yeah, for you and the child." "Yeah." "Okay." "So, what is going on?" They ask Pam to come with them. They do place her into custody in a detainment form by actually putting cuffs on her and putting her in one of the patrol cars. They talk to Pam about what she knows about Ruby, what the two girls were doing there, how she had the two girls initially. "There's Ruby Frankie's daughter, she's a friend of ours. I did make her scrub the floor and they vacuumed and stuff because I have company coming tonight out of Costa Rica, but she did have her own free will." Pam says about five to 10 to 20 times in this conversation with the body camera, they were just doing some cleaning for me. We ate some ice cream. That's all it is. "So just to make sure I'm understanding how this went through, Ruby contacted you around the neighborhood." "Such a family emergency." "I need you to pick up the girls." "Yeah, so would you mind watching the girls hauling gone, because she was leaving." "Yeah, I think that's why he took off the plane." So in Pam's defense, she was extremely confused, because I don't think the officer had all the facts because they were getting this from another agency and then finally things started coming together. As we sit here and talk today, Pam has not been charged with anything, she's not involved in any of this. However, I am curious to know if they questioned her about any of the things that went on with Ruby and Jody throughout the entire court proceeding. "Is it possible I could talk to you by my car, a little out of **** so we can just talk?" "Yeah, if she can go in and lock the **** going in and lock the door, if this officer goes with you, her, sure." "No?" "No?" "When police do end up finding the children at Pam's house, it's not just a conversation that they have with Pam. They talk to Pam's husband, who is very standoffish, obstinate, in a way." "She can stay right here on the porch, so you can stay here." "Oh, absolutely." "What are you afraid of, sir?" "I don't know what's going on." "So that's where I'm going to break you on, but I want to see." "I'm answering your question." "Okay. I don't know what's going on, number two, I don't want Springville to drive up and you guys whisk her away, number three, her mom isn't here right now, and I feel like I'm kind of trying to protect her from getting into a bad situation." And it's not just Botcher's husband, who seems resistant. "Do you need medical attention now?" "Okay." "Is there a reason you're so scared right now?" "It's us, okay, my intention is not to scare you, are you okay, or is there something that I can do to make you not feel as scared right now, or would you rather not come?" The children don't really want to engage with police, they're standoffish. "The children are ultimately taken into state custody. Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt are arrested and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse each with respect to Russell and Eves injuries." "You're talking about serious bodily injury and you get to the aggravated child abuse portion of it, which is a second degree felony. That's a one to fifteen year sentence, which is what these charges ended up being. Sometimes that's related to emotional abuse. Sometimes that's related to severe malnutrition. It can be a combination of them." The arrest of Frankie and Hildebrandt sets off a firestorm. "It really gained the interest from people around the world about how this could take place and how these two lives between Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt came together and just how messy it gets. And I think the rest of the world couldn't believe it because this is something that happens in a movie, right? This is something that is the worst of the worst." Ruby Frankie's own family reacted to the arrest and on Instagram her adult daughter Sherry posted the words "Finally and today has been a big day. Her official statement reads, "Me and my family are so glad justice is being served. We've been trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this and so glad they finally decided to step up." The family dynamic is hard to understand. We see maybe a few social media posts from Sherry, none of the other children. So it's hard to tell the exact standing of the relationship. "They've got to be exhausted by all of this and it's got to be frightening for them." This is only part of the story. When we return, Ruby Frankie makes a decision that upends the case and secrets are revealed about what actually happened to the Frankie children. "I think I share the same reaction that a lot of people share. I'm as shocked as anybody as you read these." Stay with us. Hey, so we're going to get back to Prime Crime in just a minute, but what is the Ruby Frankie story make very clear? It's that you have to know who you're surrounding yourself with, right? Well, that is why I have to talk to you about this new sponsor of ours, ChiefFinder.com. Wait to hear about this because honestly, with the stories that we cover, I really can't think of a better service that can provide actual safety for you guys. TruthFinder is one of the largest public record search services in the entire world and their goal is to help people like you learn the facts about the people in their lives. Here's how it works. You go on their website, truthfinder.com, and you type in a name. For instance, your new neighbor, let's say your new neighbor is me, Guessy Weber, okay? So you type in my name and within minutes, you get access to all these different kinds of reports that include information like phone numbers, addresses, associates, criminal convictions. You also know what's really useful is if you type in an address, it tells you registered sex offenders that live in the area too. And that's the point, unless you use truthfinder, you may never know the facts about the people around you. That is especially true if you're in the online dating world, how scary can that be just going out with complete strangers. Now you can do some research on the person can never be too careful. It's just genuinely a good idea to run a background check on potential dates before meeting them in person. And you can do that easily on truthfinder. So with that, right now, you can get 50% off of confidential background reports at www. truthfinder.com/LCprimecrime. So you represent Ms. Frankie. I do. It will be a good video with us. Ms. Frankie, can you hear me? Yes. Have you received a copy of the information in this case? Yes. Utah, 2023, once popular mommy vlogger Ruby Frankie and her business associate, Jody Hildebrand, are arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse of two of Frankie's young children. But one lingering question remains, what about Kevin Frankie, Ruby's husband and the children's father? There's Ruby. There's our camera. Here's Kevin. Here's our other camera. This is where I pick you up and we're going on our trip. Sherry's first European vacation. He was shocked, devastated, hurt, felt deceived, didn't know any of that was going on. He hadn't seen his kids for 12 months or more and didn't know that they were even in Nivens. Kevin very much loved his children and loved his wife and had a strong bond with all of his kids. But Ruby felt like there were differences in their marriage and at one point in conjunction with Jody Hildebrand, it was sort of like we have to separate to save our marriage. You know we'll keep working on our marriage but for now you have to be away and you have to work on yourself and don't have contact with the kids. Ruby Frankie's separation from Kevin Frankie is textbook from what we've heard from other people about Jody Hildebrand. It is very similar to what other couples have gone through. There were people that came to us and say Jody ripped apart by marriage. Kevin was attending men's groups that were facilitated by Jody. He was being downgraded and diminished and told how bad he was and that he needed to repent and the best way to repent was to not infect his family with his problems and that's why you need to stay away. Despite the apparent separation, Ruby allegedly reaches out to Kevin just before she's arrested. He was working and she pretty much just said this is an emergency. I need you to come get the kids. He of course tore down there not knowing any of the details of all this that was going on till I got there. Following the arrest of Jody Hildebrand and Ruby Frankie, the case slows down. That is until December 2023 when it's suddenly back in the headlines. I got a note from Ruby's attorney about a week or so before they were going to notice of the waver hearing. That is waiving the right to a preliminary hearing. In many cases it means no trial. You can enter your plea agreement. Ruby Frankie's statement from her attorneys on that Friday before the hearing said initially Miss Frankie believed that Jody Hildebrand had the insight to offer a path to continual improvement. Miss Hildebrand took advantage of this quest and twisted it into something heinous. Miss Hildebrand systematically isolated Miss Frankie from her extended family, older children, her husband Kevin Frankie. They took the liberty to use most of that statement by pointing the finger at Jody Hildebrand. Miss Frankie how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse a second degree felony? Guilty. To count three aggravated child abuse a second degree felony. Guilty. To count five aggravated child abuse a second degree felony. Guilty. And to count six aggravated child abuse a second degree felony. With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children guilty. I think Ruby's motivation behind pleading guilty was to not put her children through this extended process where she's fighting it and the children potentially have to get up and testify. I think she obviously very clearly wants to reconcile with her children so I think that there was a notion of her letting her children know that she was taking accountability for it, that she recognized what she did was wrong and that she's going to be better going forward. This morning Ruby Frankie pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse. She's a state agreed to dismiss the two other counts of child abuse and she agrees already this one verbatim. She agrees to testify truthfully against Jody Hildebrandt and I'm going to turn the Washington County Attorney's Office. Agree to remain neutral regarding future hearings before the Utah Board of Parties of the World. They needed Ruby to be there to say look Jody was kind of the lynch pin and all of this. She knew everything that was going on and she was advising me. This is what she told me to do when you're talking about co-defendants in cases like this. It's not uncommon for a prosecutor to try to find one to cooperate against the other. And Ruby Frankie's plea agreement is how the world finds out exactly what happened to her two youngest children Russell and Eve. Some of the things that kind of came out with the plea form that weren't in the initial booking statement. When you go through and you look at the injuries associated with Russell, Ruby had boots on and it was involved in kicking him while he was on the ground. She admits to holding his head under water. Obviously incredibly, incredibly concerning. The tying up and then the emaciation in the Mount Lershman, they talk about how the two children were forced to do physical tasks for hours, even days at a time like carrying boxes full books up and downstairs, working outside in the desert climate. They were denied water. They were doing so without shoes. Then the summer heat, they were out in the direct sunlight for several days. They were blistering, but there was also part of the abuse about the isolation from other people. They were basically shunned, therefore leading to both of them having severe emotional harm from being treated differently. Questions remain, what does this mean for Jody Hildebrand and will Ruby Frankie serve any time? Obviously all of it is indeterminate. In Utah, the judge is limited in what he can do. How do you know if you are a controlling parent? If you're in a position of power and you turn your power and give it over to the kids, that is control. Utah December 2023, once popular YouTuber Ruby Frankie has pled guilty to four counts of child abuse against two of her own children. We will be talking all about empowering your children through setting boundaries, teaching them responsibility and helping them to heal from anxiety. Hope to see you there. But with Frankie's admission of guilt and willingness to testify against her co-defendant mental health counselor Jody Hildebrand, could Hildebrand fight her child abuse charges a trial? There's a possible defense of appropriate parenting. There are different situations where maybe you're acting in a way to defend yourself or you're defending another one of your children from maybe a violent sibling. When you're talking about serious bodily injuries, it's a question of I didn't do it intentionally. It was really more recklessly. So at that point, it's more of a defense about level of punishment. But just like Ruby Frankie, Jody Hildebrand decides not to put up a fight. Ms. Hildebrand, how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse a second degree felony? That's me. And to count three aggravated child abuse a second degree felony? That's me. That's me. And to count six also aggravated child abuse a second degree felony? That's me. Once Ruby pled guilty and she knew that Ruby was going to testify against her, her case became a lot more difficult. Because again, some of the conduct that Jody is accused of and was charged with is the stuff that Ruby was doing to the kids. In her plea agreement, Jody Hildebrand admits to participating in the child abuse, but she has one more disturbing detail to add. The other concerning thing about Eve is the fact that she did have to jump into the cactus. According to the plea form, the Jody failed out. She made her jump into the cactus multiple times. On February 20th, 2024, the duo were officially sentenced. Frankie was up first. She committed horrible acts of child abuse. From May to August in 2023, Ms. Frankie and her business partner held her two children, ages nine and 11, turning 12, in a concentration camp like setting. Had the older the children not had the courage to run away and ask a neighbor to call the police, heaven only knows how much longer he could have survived in that situation. For the past four years, I've chosen to follow council and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion. My distorted version of reality would largely unchecked as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me. I was led to believe that this world was an evil place filled with cops who control hospitals that injure government agencies that burn wash husbands who refuse to protect and children who need abused. Kevin, my husband was born in 23 years. You were the love of my life. So started to leave you to finish what we both started together. To my babies, I was so disoriented. But I broke dark with light and light was wrong. I didn't do anything in this world for you. I'm committed to continuing my learning until all my toxic layers are shed and I am ready to re-enter as a contributing member of our beautiful society. The sentence will be that Ms. Frankie served four accounts for one to fifteen years sentence is based on her convictions for four accounts of aggravated child abuse. They will serve consecutively. And then, it was Jody Hilda Brandt's turn. Hi, sincerely love these children. I desire for them to heal physically and emotionally. One of the reasons I did not go to trial, so I did not want them to emotionally relive the experience which would have been detrimental to them. My hope in prayer is that they will heal and move forward to have beautiful lives. But not everyone was buying what Jody was selling. The fact that she was being held accountable was completely. I'm still having a hard time coming to terms with that. This is something that I have been trying to talk about for almost 15 years and people that needed to hear didn't listen. Nothing was done. It's so obviously a manipulation tactic to say face. She knows exactly what she's doing. You don't get accused and convicted of child torture. And then suddenly, I just really care about these children's healing. That's not what happens. I almost like fell over in the courtroom when I heard Jody say that she loved those children. Jody doesn't love children. Jody's like Ted Bundy. After being caught, Ms. Hilda Brandt has shown little to no remorse for her actions. In telephone conversations, they will be provided in full to the Board of Partners in Pearl. And when she knew to be recorded, she's repeatedly claimed that she is the victim and the children are the perpetrators. She's gone so far as to say that if any sudden this proceeding and covered by the media today will be full of lies. Ms. Hilda Brandt, this circumstance is tragic. It's largely, of course, of your making. By any measure, your conduct in this case was disastrous for these children. Adults are supposed to protect children. Adults with specialized training in particular are supposed to protect children. You didn't do that. In this case, you terrorized children. Like Ruby Frankie, the judge sentenced Jody Hilda Brandt to four consecutive sentences. Given that these are second-degree felonies, the most they'd be looking at on the top end is 30 years. They're not going to do 30 years. There will be a matrix that's run. They don't have a criminal history, so they'll be on the bottom row. For the second-degree felony, it's 18 months. That's kind of the minimum. And then the Board of Partners in Pearl gets the opportunity to decide if they're going to get the chance of parole at that 18-month mark, or if they need more time in prison. And the board will look at several different things. Have they done any treatment? What is their overall demeanor been like? Well, they've been in custody. What do the children want to happen here? Ruby and Jody, by my math, are looking at a minimum of 39.6 months. This is one of the worst childhoods cases we've seen. I think that a four-year minimum for Ruby's actions are entirely appropriate. I hope that Jody serves more time than that. And I hope that she isn't out of prison until everybody is completely confident that she's no longer a risk. With Hildebrand and Frankie behind bars, the next chapter of this story begins. Kevin Frankie has officially filed for divorce from Ruby. And at the time of this recording, is actively fighting to regain custody of his young children. Once he found out the full truth about how these children had been treated while they were in Ruby's care and some other things that had been going on behind the scenes just thought it was the right time to do this. In terms of getting the kids back, there's a process that the court sets up and in terms of helping them become rehabilitated the trauma they've been through with Ruby and Jody. I think that's the state's objective is to work them through that as is Kevin. Unless you've had this level of narcissistic or psychopathic abuse, I can't explain it to you. And then you have the layers of your children. They don't have the biological mental facilities to understand what's going on. And this is not going away. These children are going to deal with this potentially for the rest of their lives. It doesn't stop. This nearly killed me. Trust your instincts. Build up that muscle of intuition because the things that you're feeling are true. So ask the questions. Trust yourself so people like Jody and Frankie are not held in positions of power. And they can be your neighbors. They can be your aunts. They can be your mothers. That is the saga of YouTube mom-fluencer Ruby Frankie and self-described life coach Jody Hildebrand to women who claim to be authorities on child rearing only to end up pleading guilty to child abuse. A lot of takeaways from this one. First, just the cost for the quest of fame. What's really going on behind the scenes of online influencers. But maybe the most important one of all be careful when you get advice from them. That's all we have for you here on Prime Prime. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jesse Weber. Until next time, stay safe. [MUSIC PLAYING]