A new Netflix documentary has revealed the true extent of family counsellor Jodie Hildebrandt’s involvement in Ruby Franke’s abuse of her children, including a Satanic culture that engulfed the home
Vlogger Ruby Franke was arrested after two of her children were found in an emaciated state with wounds(Image: )
Family counsellor Jodie Hildebrandt could have been the escape vlogger Ruby Franke‘s children needed, but instead she helped their mother abuse them in harrowing ways.
When Franke met therapist Jodie Hildebrandt through their Mormon church community, their connection seemed instant and the pair quickly became close friends. Hildebrandt, 56, was the founder of a life coaching business and a powerful voice in the Mormon church. Meanwhile, Franke earned a living from posting family vlogs online featuring her six young children and then husband Kevin Franke on the YouTube channel 8 Passengers.
Franke, 43, began posting in 2015, with her friendship with Hildebrandt developing in 2019. She became a constant presence in Franke and her children’s lives, paving the way for heartbreaking levels of abuse against two of Franke’s youngest.
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Now, Hildebrandt’s true involvement in the abuse is revealed in the Netflix documentary Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story. Franke’s children were rescued after her 12-year-old son knocked on a neighbour’s door asking for food and water. He quickly noticed wounds on the boy’s wrists and ankles, along with his emaciated state, and called authorities on August 30, 2023.
Police discovered the boy’s nine-year-old sister – also in an emaciated state – inside Hildebrandt’s mansion in Utah. With Franke and Hildebrandt quickly arrested, the real horror of their crimes became clear.
Franke had rooted her family with Kevin in faith, ensuring they went to church weekly. But she began to receive negative comments on her YouTube videos for sharing punishment methods, including forcing her children to do physical exercise and line up. Child protective services were called to their home in 2020 as a result of a petition set up by viewers after it emerged her then 15-year-old son was being forced to sleep on a bean bag. His bedroom had been taken away for seven months as punishment for playing pranks on his siblings.
In one video, Franke revealed that she had told her two youngest children that Santa Claus would not be bringing them presents because they weren’t responding to punishments including being kept home from school and forced to clean the floorboards. “It’s because they’re so numb, and the more numb your child is the bigger the outcome they need to wake them up,” Franke said.
She was also seen refusing to deliver her then six-year-old daughter’s lunch box to school after she forgot it, instead telling the camera, “Hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch, because then she’s not going to learn.” While these served as warning signs, no one knew the true extent of the abuse.
In 2022, the Frankes split, their YouTube channel ended and Kevin moved out. Hildebrandt seemingly encouraged Franke to move in with her in her remote home hundreds of miles away from the family’s residence. She became a personal coach to Franke, with court documents detailing the exact horrors that unfolded inside her £4million mansion. After meeting Hildebrandt, she became fixated on the devil, demons and even labelled one of her children as “Satanic” in a diary entry. She wrote that the child d”slithers & sneaks around looking for opportunities when no one is watching.”
Between May to August 2023, Franke tortured her two youngest children, forcing one of her sons to perform physical tasks for weeks on end outside without shoes and in blazing sunshine. He suffered repeated burns “with blistered and sloughing skin.”
She also denied the boy adequate food and punished him after discovering he had consumed water without her consent. The then-12-year-old boy suffered deep injuries to his wrists and ankles, with muscle and tissue torn by the ropes and handcuffs that Hildebrandt used to bind him.
The agonising wounds were then treated with cayenne pepper and honey, the boy told police officers, and covered with duct tape. One of Franke’s daughters was similarly for to work outside in bare feet and without food and water. According to documents from the case report, she was repeatedly told she was “evil and possessed.”
The two middle children were minors at the time and were found at a family friend’s house on the day of the arrest. Neighbours had said that Franke was leaving her teenage daughters alone for weeks at a time without supervision in their Springville home while she was hundreds of miles away at Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins.
Her eldest children Shari and Chad were aged 20 and 18 at the time, and no longer lived at home. Shari had become estranged from her mother and was attending university. Chad was also living alone, and has since spoken out against his mother and advocated for child protection.
Following Franke’s arrest, all four minors were placed in the custody of the Utah Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS), and their father, Kevin Franke (who had been forced out of the family home by Ruby and Hildebrandt more than a year earlier), was eventually granted full custody after finalising his divorce.
Both Franke and Hildebrandt were sentenced to four consecutive terms of one to 15 years in February 2024, with both being placed in the same prison in separate sections.
Franke told the court: “For the past four years, I’ve chosen to follow counsel and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion. My distorted version of reality went largely unchecked as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me.” Addressing her children, she added that she, “believed dark was light and right was wrong. I would do anything in this world for you. I took from you all that was soft, and safe and good.”
Shari, now 22, published a memoir in January 2025 about her life with Ruby, called The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom. Chad, now 20, is a realtor and got married in 2025, according to his Instagram. The identities of the four children have never been reported.
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