Ruby Franke, known “YouTube mom” and vlogger, who is accused of abusing her children, was sent to prison. He faces up to 60 years in prison.
The absolute plot twist had her story Ruby Franke (Ruby Franke), mother of six from Utah, USA, well-known Momfluencer and vlogger, who is facing serious charges of felony child abuse.
Franke, 42, who had 2.3 million followers on her now-deleted online channel, was arrested in the southern Utah town of Ivins last August when her malnourished 12-year-old sonwith open wounds and duct tape, climbed out of the window of her partner, Jodi Hildebrandt’s, home. to ask a neighbor for food and water.
One of the vlogger’s daughters was later also found in a similar condition, malnourished, at Hildebrandt’s home. After Franke’s arrest, her eldest daughter Shari Franke, 20, shared a picture of police on Instagram with the caption “finally”.
Franke and Hildebrandt, who collaborated on parenting and relationship advice videos, pleaded guilty to second-degree child abuse in December and appeared in court yesterday.
In court, Utah District Attorney Eric Clark stated that two of Franke’s children, aged nine and 11 at the timethey lived in a “environment reminiscent of a concentration camp” and called her a significant threat to the community.
“The children were routinely deprived of food, water, beds to sleep in and almost all forms of entertainment,” the judge said.
At her sentencing, a tearful Ruby Franke apologized to her children, saying “I was so disoriented that I thought darkness was light and right was wrong.”
Ruby Franke
2024 Ron Chaffin/St. George News via AP, Pool, File
“I was led to believe that this world was an evil place, full of controlling police, hospitals that injure, government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who lie and lust, husbands who refuse to protect and children who need abuse” , he added.
“I would do anything in this world for you. I took from you everything that was soft, safe and good”, he concluded.
The 54-year-old Hildebrandt, for her part, stated that she wants the children to be “healed physically and emotionally” and emphasized that “one of the reasons why I did not go to trial is because I did not want the children to emotionally relive the experience that would harm them. My hope and prayer is that they heal and move forward to have beautiful lives.”
The controversial methods of the “YouTube mom”
The arrests of the two women marked the end of a long and controversial career on YouTube, with content following the everyday life of a typical suburban family as they cook, eat and chat.
But her followers began to suspect something was wrong as early as 2020, when one of her sons reported that he had been forced to sleep in a pouf for seven months.
YouTube viewers combed through her past videos and found other disturbing and controversial methods used by Ruby Franke – such as withholding food, threatening to cut off the head of a stuffed toy, and “cancelling” Christmas as punishment.
Off camera, however, Franke’s children suffered even more severe abuse.
This included, according to the BBC, tying them up, beating them, neglecting to feed them and forcing them to work outdoors in the summer without sunscreen, resulting in severe sunburns, according to police records.
In her plea agreement, Hildebrandt stated that either tortured the children or knew about the abuse and that he forced one of Franke’s daughters to “jump on a cactus many times“.