This post contains descriptions of child abuse.
Earlier this week, mom-of-six and former YouTuber Ruby Franke was sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for felony child abuse.
Ruby, 42, was arrested and charged with six counts of felony child abuse last August after her youngest son was found “emaciated and malnourished” with “open wounds” when he escaped her business partner Jodi Hildebrant’s home. Another one of Ruby’s kids was found malnourished at Jodi’s house too after the little boy approached a neighbor for help, resulting in both Ruby and Jodi being arrested and charged.
Ruby is mom to Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell, and Eve, all of whom she shares with her now-estranged husband, Kevin. Their family life was previously documented on a YouTube channel named “8 Passengers.”
Over the years that the channel was active, Ruby’s videos sparked controversy multiple times, with arguably the most memorable moment involving her eldest son, Chad.
Back in 2020, then-15-year-old Chad claimed that his parents had made him sleep on a beanbag for seven months as punishment for pranking his younger brother, Russell.
Ruby and Kevin later alleged that they’d offered Chad a pullout guest bed or an inflatable mattress to sleep on as well as the beanbag. However, viewers were still left so concerned that they launched a petition to send Child Protective Services to her house in Utah.
The case was ultimately closed due to “insufficient evidence,” and Ruby later called the people who’d signed the petition “malicious.”
“It was just so malicious. They knew what they were doing was out of context. They were purely seeking to throw hate. That was their only objective,” she told Insider. “A reasonable person would not have seen that video and thought, ‘She is a child abuser.’”
Fast forward a few years, and Ruby and Jodi have been sentenced to prison for child abuse after pleading guilty to four counts back in December.
Several more horrific details about the abuse were made public in Ruby’s plea agreement, with the mom admitting to punishing her youngest son for drinking water at times, kicking him while wearing boots, “cutting off” his oxygen, and more.
Ruby and Jodi appeared in court earlier this week, where they were each given four consecutive 1–15-year sentences — although they will purportedly only serve a maximum of 30 years each because of a Utah law that caps imprisonment time on consecutive sentences.
In the courtroom, Ruby tearfully addressed her kids as she recalled her “distorted version of reality.”
“For the past four years, I’ve chosen to follow counsel and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion,” she said. “My distorted version of reality went largely unchecked as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me.”
“To my babies, you are a part of me. I 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,” she added.
Shortly afterwards, once the hearing had ended, Chad was photographed smiling as he left the courtroom.
And it turns out that the 19-year-old joked about his mom’s imprisonment in a since-deleted TikTok video just days before she was sentenced.
In the clip, which fans have since reposted, Chad can be seen smiling and dancing as the caption reads: “My mom’s in prison.”
