Ruby Franke YouTube, former ‘8 Passengers’ sentenced up to 60 years on child abuse charges 

Ruby Franke is a music educator who runs a popular YouTube channel “8 Passengers” focused on teaching music theory and composition. 

Ruby Franke, a mother of six who gave online parenting advice via a popular YouTube channel, was sentenced to four prison terms of between one and 15 years each, on aggravated child abuse charges on Tuesday.

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Franke, 42, who had 2.3 million followers on her now-deleted 8 Passengers video channel, was arrested in the southern Utah city of Ivins last August after her malnourished 12-year-old son, with open wounds and bound with duct tape, climbed out of a window at the home of Jodi Hildebrandt, owner of a self-improvement counseling business, to ask for food and water from a neighbor.

One of Franke’s daughters was later found in a similar malnourished condition in Hildebrandt’s home. After Franke’s arrest, her eldest daughter Shari Franke, aged 20, shared a now-deleted Instagram image of police officers with the caption: “Finally.”

Franke was handed four one to 15-year sentences in prison, one for each of the four counts of child abuse to which she pleaded guilty back in December.

Her former business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, received the same sentence as Franke.

They will now serve their sentences consecutively, as determined by their plea agreements. Under Utah law, the two women face four to 60 years in prison – a decision that will be made by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole at a later date.

Ruby Franke Pleads Guilty

Before the judge handed down the sentence, Franke gave a statement to the court in which she gave a tearful apology to her children for physically and emotionally abusing them.

“I’ll never stop crying for hurting your tender souls,” Franke said to her children, who were not at the hearing. “My willingness to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.”

Franke told the judge that she would not argue for a shorter sentence before she stood to thank local police officers, doctors and social workers for being the “angels” who saved her children from her at a time when she says she was under the influence of her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt. The Utah mental health counselor, who had been hired to work with Franke’s youngest son before going into business with her, also received four consecutive prison sentences of one to 15 years.

She was arrested in August after her 12-year-old son ran away from home and asked a neighbor to call police, the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department said. He appeared malnourished, and asked for food and water, according to authorities. He also had open wounds and duct tape on his wrists and ankles.

In the plea agreement, Franke confessed to torturing her children between May and August. She detailed how she forced her children to work outdoors in the heat without enough water, denied them food and alienated them by cutting off their access to books and electronics.

Family vlogger Ruby Franke amassed millions of followers on social media while documenting her family’s life in the lakeside suburb of Springville, Utah, over the years. Her public downfall began in 2020, when skeptics of Franke and her husband Kevin Franke’s “8Passengers” page began to grow worried about the Mormon family’s strict household.

Franke initially slammed her critics, according to The Wrap, and remained steadfast about her and her husband’s stern parenting style, sharing videos explaining how she’d take away a child’s bed as punishment or withholding meals as a teaching lesson. Franke, now 42, ultimately stopped posting videos on her controversial “8Passengers” vlog, then joined the“ConneXions” parenting advice podcast with a local Mormon therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt.

Ruby’s Oldest Daughter Speaks Out: ‘Finally’

On the day of the arrests, Franke’s oldest daughter Shari expressed relief.

“Finally,” Shari, 20, wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of police outside of the family’s home.

“Today has been a big day,” Shari wrote in another post on Instagram that day. “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.”