Ruby Frankie mommy influencer offered parenting advice on Instagram,
former YouTuber very popular, arrested on two counts of aggravated child abuse.
Here are more details.
>> Speaker 2: Ruby Frankie got a pretty big following on the YouTube channel with
a show called Eight Passengers, over 2 million subscribers,
something like 2.3 million subscribers.
It was about she and her husband and
their tough discipline parenting isle with their six children, all living in Utah.
Now, earlier this year, the show was pulled from YouTube with no explanation,
but there were rumors and allegations of child abuse dating back to 2020.
On Wednesday, Ruby Frankie and
her business partner were arrested at the business partner's home in southern Utah.
After one of Frankie's kids crawled out of a window and
ran to a neighbor's house for help.
The child had duct tape around his ankles and wrists and was severely malnourished.
The neighbor called the police.
The child was taken to a hospital for treatment.
When police arrived at the house, they found another minor inside,
a girl who also showed signs of abuse.
>> Speaker 1: Like we said, just horrific.
The videos on the channel covered parenting homeschooling, topics by
the couple, who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
The press release had more just again, really bad stuff here came out
on Thursday, Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department
said that on August 30, 2023, 10:50, a.m.
A report came in to our dispatch center regarding the juvenile asking for help.
Calling party stated the juvenile appeared to be emaciated malnourished with
open wounds and duct tape around the extremities.
The juvenile was asking for food and water variety, with the reporting there.
After obtaining a search warrant for the home in question, four children were taken
into the care of the Department of Child and Family Services.
According to the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department release,
Ruby Frankie and her business partner,
JodI Hildebrandt were arrested in connection with the incident.
The release stated, due to the sensitive nature of the case,
no additional information will be released at this time.
Now, according to police, two of the children were in such a physical condition
of malnourishment, they needed to be taken to the hospital.
Ruby and Kevin Frankie and the Eight Passengers channel have been at the center
of controversy for a while for very strict parenting techniques.
Some include taking away the children's food as punishment.
It's pretty horrific.
We have another video for you, but let's just weigh in now.
Who are we that we just take advice from people?
That clearly not proven yet, these allegations, but clearly,
we don't know you.
You just have a show, and now we're just married to what you say and advise us.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, guys,
this story is an excellent symbol of hypocrisy.
And what Sharon's talking about here?
Be wary of people not only just giving you advice, and
even when we give you the news, even when we give you facts, we say double check.
You should double check everyone because tons of people in media are not
telling the truth at all.
Make sure you've got a couple of different sources, you're looking at everything.
But on top of that, I get a sense of judgment from these folks, and
then it turns out, look at what they're doing behind the scenes, right?
Beware of the moralizers.
So they were homeschooling the kids, the schools aren't good enough,
we're gonna home school the kids.
We're gonna give them a real education, etc.
Meanwhile, kids are covered in duct tape.
They were not just malnourished they hadn't had liquids in a long time.
Water is too much to ask for for your kids.
Meanwhile, she's on tape like, hey, she's looking great and
all that and bragging about how great a parent she is.
And not just coincidentally, she's making money off of being a great
parent when her kids are locked up and have to escape from the house.
Her 20 year old daughter said, thank God.
Basically, I'm paraphrasing here that she was caught and
that she's gonna be brought to justice.
It's just disgusting.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw the daughter's comments and
it made me wonder what else was there?
Because they had been reporting their mom for years now, and
Child Protective Services and the local police weren't doing anything.
So I looked into what this person did beyond just having a YouTube channel,
because I saw a story that said she ran a counseling enterprise.
So I looked into her Instagram, which is still up, and
the last several posts are all about the dangers of people who are liars and
manipulators and don't take mental health seriously.
You're literally torturing children and
you're lecturing other people on mental health and manipulation.
Good Lord, people just the whole mommy blogger, l capturing my kids on video and
putting it on the Internet for their entire lives.
That whole genre of the creator economy just really rubs me the wrong way.
And I feel very validated after reading this story.
The whole thing is very weird.
>> Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just so overt with it.
Again, you said it, the kids are turning it.
What about social services?
Okay, what about Child Services here doing apparently not enough and in plain sight.
Well, just let them tell it.
The perps here tell what they do, taking food away.
>> Speaker 5: Just got a text message from Eve's teacher, and
she said that Eve did not pack a lunch today and
can I bring a lunch over to the school?
This happens quite often when you're having raising children, because I know
that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch.
And it would ease her discomfort if I came to the school with a lunch.
But I responded and just said, Eve is responsible for
making her lunches in the morning, and she actually told me she did pack a lunch.
So the natural outcome is she's just gonna need to be hungry and
hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch.
>> Speaker 5: I'm only gonna say it one more time and
then you're gonna lose the privilege to eat dinner.
I hesitate to say this because it's gonna sound like I'm like, a mean barbarian, but
I told the kids, I said,
I'm not even gonna let you eat breakfast until you get your chores done.
>> Speaker 1: What's so funny here, Cenk?
She looks like she has a fresh blowout and she's talking about, again,
it's torture withholding food from the children as punishment.
>> Speaker 3: Look, one time you say, hey, you forgot your lunch, suck it up,
and then you give them food when they come home, but it's a lesson learned.
I can live it, I'm not gonna overly judge any parents who do parent in
the ways that they want, but this looks like it was a pattern live on air.
We could tell it was a pattern even before she got caught.
And it turns out that's how she punishes the kids.
That's what it looks like, that's the allegations.
And even making sure that they don't even have any liquids, it's just monstrous.
And she looks like she's in great shape.
She's got a nice house, she's got nice outfits, nice everything.
Meanwhile, the kids are starving and
escaping from the house to get help from neighbors.
Look, my overwhelming reaction to the story is I loathe moralizers and
judgers in your own personal life, too.
If you ever see anybody who's always like, they did that wrong and
they did that wrong, and I'm better than them and
I'm gonna judge them right nine out of ten times minimum.
They're the ones doing all that stuff that they're judging other people for.
And so she rubs me the wrong way in every imaginable way.
If these stories and allegations are true,
she should homeschool herself inside a prison cell.
>> Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more.
There's something else, though, that haunts me, and I know, again, not proven,
these allegations, but when children speak out, as her kids are doing,
I tend to perk up.
And I want to hear what they have to say because they deserve to have a voice here.
But it's just the way she laughs and turns her kids, it seems like, into this
enterprise, like she doesn't even like children, maybe even hates children.
That's just what I'm feeling, which, of course,
is not a final say when you're supposed to be a journalist.
But I'm telling you, the vibe I get from this lady
is she could care less about these human beings that she helped create.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, no, Sharon.
>> Mind boggling.
>> Speaker 3: I'm gonna jump in as a parent,
I got that same exact spidey sense.
>> Speaker 1: Yeah.
>> Speaker 3: And so, look, it's not for us to figure that out.
It's for the court system to figure out what she actually did.
We're just sharing the sense that we got from it, and she gave me huge,
these kids are annoying me, why do I have to deal with them?
Vibe then why'd you have six of them, right?
And then you want to capitalize off of them, but then treat them like dirt.
Just everything about her drives me crazy.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, I got, like, narcissistic vibes from her.
She wanted the aesthetic of a big, happy family, but
didn't want to engage with any of the substance.
And somebody who is never having kids, I can see just from other people having
them, it looks like a lot of work, and she just didn't want to engage with that.
But the fixing the hair, making sure her angles were good while talking
about about starving her children, it's just sociopathic.
I can't really process it, but overall,
it just seemed like a very narcissistic person, which made the mental health,
the manipulators, the liars, the warnings on her instagram even funnier.
Because those are all narcissistic traits.
So maybe she's speaking from experience.