***THE FOLLOWING IS WRITTEN BY A STUDENT JOURNALIST AND IS ENTIRELY ALLEGED***
Ruby Franke, a mother from a well known YouTube family channel with over 2 million subscribers with the channel name “the 8 passengers” has been sentenced to prison for child abuse. Now, a new Hulu docuseries called “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke” is shedding light into what allegedly happened behind the scenes. The Franke Family includes Ruby Franke and her now ex-husband Kevin Franke and their 6 children. Before anything, Ruby and her business partner Jodi Hildebradt were arrested and charged with six counts of felony child abuse in 2023. They both ended up pleading guilty for 4 counts of second degree aggravated child abuse and were sentenced up to 30 consecutive years in prison.
The documentary features interviews with Kevin Franke and the two eldest children, Shari Franke, 21, and Chad Franke, 20. It also shows behind the scenes of Ruby’s filmmaking, including clips of her when she would yell at her children while she was filming herself or her family for the channel. Olly Lambert, the director of the docuseries, said that the family set strict rules around protecting the 4 youngest children by blurring out their faces and censoring out their names when they were spoken about.
During Ruby Franke’s sentencing hearing last year, there was an audio streamed on the Utah’s court’s website where allegedly she then cried and apologized to her children. “I… believed dark was light and right was wrong,” she said. “I would do anything in this world for you. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.” Her children would say they hated being on camera. The documentary drew from an archive containing more than 1,000-hour long of unseen footage provided by the family.
In the documentary, there are several clips of Ruby Franke’s persona behind the camera. “She filmed everything, and I was so uncomfortable with it,” Kevin Franke said. “When I came in the door, wherever Ruby was, the camera was. All of a sudden, it wasn’t enough to just interact with her, I had to interact with the camera.” He later noted that the kids started to show signs of discomfort around the camera as well. “I really didn’t want anything to do with YouTube. It bugged the crap out of me,” Chad Franke said in the episode. “I hated it. And there was a time, maybe even a year or more, where I truly hated her.”
Now, all we know for a fact is that Ruby Frank is incarcerated at the Utah State correctional facility in Salt Lake City, where she has been since her sentencing last year. Jodi Hildebradt is also serving time at the same facility. However, Karen Tapahe, a public information officer for the Utah Department of Corrections, told the site TODAY.com that “it is possible they could see each other at various times,” including during gym time, classes, or other types of programming.
