The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke | Enter Jodi Hildebrandt | 4
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This podcast expires themes of child abuse and trauma. Please listen with care.

She's very good at recognizing the loopholes in culture and the disempowerment in the systems that she's a part of. And SHE takes a advantage of those things fully for her power.

And I think IT was at this point where he started to received training or guidance from jury, held a grand. My first thought was, oh, this is A A. This is a step in a direction that I didn't see this family going.

And the fact that he was laughing about IT in the video and then thought I was OK to post on lying, just kind of goes to show their serious ly .

something wrong with her psychic. I are literally starving. I like a mean by barran, but I told the kids I said, i'm not let you at breakfast until you get your choice done.

There were obvious concerns, not just in the comment section, but people that had real reason to believe there was potential abuse going on.

I'm polyborus and this is the rising fall of ruby. Frankie presented a law crime.

When we left off with the Frankie chad rubbish, oldest son had recently returned from the wildering a therapy program on a sauce. The ten weeks he spent in the arizona desert Sparked controversy amongst eight passengers. Subscribers in chairs absence fans of the family vlog hashed out debate in the comments section wayed the prose and cons of extreme intervention for seemingly Normal teenager billion but followers opinions fell on deaf years rubie Frankie may have put her parenting style on the internet for the whole world to see, but not up for debate.

What did you learn? Well, I learn about the three different types of pain in, uh, we can feel pain in ways of our own choices, other people choices, and just like random events, and it's our way to choose to see things. In truth.

for chat therapy didn't begin at the end in arizona. When he returned home to utah, he resumed counselling under the care of jodie, held a brand, a fellow utah based blond hair morman bloggers who runs a live coaching company by the same name as the podcast rubi had name dropped a few times on eight passengers.

I've mentioned joy a few times. He has a podcast called connections, but then eggs.

K, U, T, V. Brian knee has researched and reported on connections and jody's business model.

Connections offered one on one coaching sessions with jody or couples classes or specific classes for women and specific classes for men as a pertained to perhaps strengthening your relationship or getting the most out of your life. A lot of this was life coaching, by definition, and not really therapy.

Before found in connections, jodie worked for five years as a councillor at circulation, a renowned luxury drug rehabilitation center in ora muta. On the connections website, jody describe yourself as a mental fitness and relationship expert on the web page to sign up for her services. SHE claims to have spent twenty five years working with people just like you to help facilitate positive and powerful change from the connections page.

Jody's reputation and approach looks impressive, sorrow and effective, but side by side with her personal website, jodie held a brand dot com. There is one glaring disparity. A hyperlink hovers above the home page that reads quote license on.

Something where we've noticed here in a trend in the state of you talk where people even are losing their licenses as a clinical mental health therapies. Sometimes they'll just turn the page and go up. I'm a life coach now because it's an unregulated in january twenty twelve.

jody's, licensed to practice, was put on probation by the utah clinical mental health councillor licensing board eighteen months after allegedly discussing a patient's mental health concerns with the church of jesus, crist of latter day scenes and briga Young university without her patients permission in an April twenty twelve article in the salt lake tribune, the same patient claimed that while receiving marriage counsellings from joy to the tune of nearly two thousand dollars a month, his life only became more complicated.

But the bad press .

and provision didn't put a damper on jody's career. It's actually what citi zed going out on our own and founding the connections classroom.

They started really taking off posting advice for parents. Uh, posting advice for couples is really where jodi's root of all of this is, is based on couple therapy and many other forms of therapy, depending on how you look at IT. They started coming together, posting videos, s working together and conferences, obviously setting up coaching and classes because IT wasn't considered therapy or say he was more of that loosely termed coaching or guidance or help even not .

long after the connections classroom launched in twenty twelve, judges offering star demand and found in audience connections promised a program that would inspire feelings of change, holiness, centered ness, empowerment ment, liberation, freedom and lead to greater inner personal connections. In nearly eight years later, ruby Frankie was looking to buy what connections were selling. After half a decades worth of consistent family blogging, rubie Frank's content on youtube takes a pivot.

By twenty nineteen, sh'd met jodie, held a brand. Jodie was teaching her to become a life coach.

while rubin never made explicit how SHE and jodie came to be in kahuna so quickly. Eight passengers, subscriber Alice stars, remembers her videos certainly indicated that SHE was all in.

So I think it's around that twenty nine mock that we see a split in priorities from getting the views, from the popularity to, well, this is the right way to parent. I'm a mother. That's my job, first and foremost. And under the influence of joy, held the brand completely, kind of took a different track.

Ruby's videos now had a clear angle. Beyond the family diary style. Fans had grown accustomed.

too SHE prompted, to wanna be able to coach other mothers and families through the issues that might be having with their teenagers and be able to point to her own family and say, hey, look how well i've done here.

And ruby wasn't just pushing anecdotal advice. IT was clearly coming from a singular source.

connections, peace. How has twenty twenty been treating you?

Jodie hilDebrand, and connections were behind everything. And in a post from january twenty twenty, while unloading groceries, ruby urges her followers to buy. And two.

avoiding your problems and distracting are not going to help you bring that piece that you are looking. Ford, I hope you will join me on january fifteen th and sixth and send George were going to learn and principles that will help actually bring peace into our lives. Jody held a grand has help thousands of women, just like you, bring joy and peace back into their lives, back into their relationships.

Beyond the stolen advice on eight passengers behind the scenes, ruby was rising in the ranks at connections. SHE began publicly calling herself jode his business partner, and even earned herself a place on the connections website as a, quote, certified mental fitness trainer. According to their website, ruby quote provides content on connection social media platforms in podcasts that focus on empowering parents in children to live. In truth, unquote.

you may have noticed that I am not blogging as much as I used to and that is because I have been getting um more involved in the mental health community. I've been working really close with jodie over at connections classroom.

By twenty twenty one, eight passenger's youtube channel had noticeably wider gaps in content and in a lot from december, filmed in the front seat of a car, ruby address them head on.

A lot of people like, how can be enough lucking as much as I used to. This is why I am so passionate, so passionate about what i'm learning. This is that's where i've been wanting to spend my. I hope those of you who watch me know that my home motive for blogging has been to create a support system for families, for others, to be an example of what a healthy mom looks like.

Ryan knee remembers this being when ruby's change in course really solidified.

This was in twenty twenty one, and rubi Frankie really started to segway towards connections classroom. Ruby at one point mentions, I just need a shift. I'm doing this for my family in some way and then starts to throw all her energy towards. Jodie held the brand and connections classroom. I really think you ve got rope in pretty quickly.

Something certainly seemed off to viewers. Ruby may have shown sides of herself in are five years of logging. Most people would choose to hide, but SHE seldom came off as impression able.

In fact, most of the time, SHE stood out as impervious to others advice and opinions, almost as a part of our brand was being defined. But now ruby was in the palm of jody's hand, and jody's niece Jessie held a brand who uses day than prononce s, says jodie. Path to the change and empowerment connections had made. Its mission was far from paved with the good intentions.

Jodie is, in my experience, one of the most intelligent human beings I have ever come in contact with. SHE knows exactly what she's doing. I don't know if he believes in her own delusions of grander or if she's just using that as a, as a mode to control, but he knows exactly SHE is a trained serve that he knows how humans work.

And I think that this isn't both innate. I think it's nurture and nature. I think that SHE also just has a talent for IT.

But SHE is incredibly good at recognizing the row material that's out of her disposal. She's very good at recognizing the loopholes in culture and the dimon wermin the systems that she's a part of. And SHE takes advantage of those things fully for her power.

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Now in their thirties, justice was sixteen when they moved in with jody. Their experience living with jody paints a glaringly different picture of the healer ruby had been depicting in their logs.

She's one of the most convincing, powerful humans you will ever meet. And when you are in a state of vulnerability, SHE can convince you anything. I think I worked out in her garden in the middle of the summer.

We didn't live in southern town. So IT was not as taught and or or as dry, but I was, I was working out in her yard all summer. SHE used, you know, with holding food, with holding water as a way of force.

What you just heard from Jessie is got watching. You may be asking, what kind of person does that to a child? Well, someone like rubie. Frankie, for one, remember the whole saga with six year old eve for getting a lunch, until ruby refused to bring her one to teach her a lesson.

I just got a text message from youth teacher, and he said that eve did not pack a lunch today. And can I bring a lunch tower to the school? This happens quite often when you're having raising children, and 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 ledge, but I I responded and just said, eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning and he actually told me he did pack a lunch. So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry and hopefully, hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody stepped in and gives her a link.

Yeah, that video. While ruby was under the guidance of the connections, curricular and peddling jody's teachings on eight passengers, SHE published multiple logs where SHE clearly stated using withholding food as punishment.

Eve, jumping, missing my bag, get robbing cake.

my, my get scraping.

scratch my head.

You show me OK guess you don't get. I mean, I say one more time and then you're going going to lose the private to eat dinner and my are literally starving. I hesitate to say this because this sound like i'm like a mean barbarian, but I told the kids, I said, i'm not going to let you break until you get your choice done.

Food wasn't the only basic necessity will be documented with holding from our children in a june twenty twenty video titled what we haven't told you, a conversation between ruby and shared revealed something that shocked .

viewers in our house. We when we take something away, it's because they have shown that they are not response enough to manage IT. And so we don't just turn on and give a bag as soon as they start acting good.

G O. IT has to be consistent over a minimum minimum of six months, and that's showing up consistent in every aspect of their life. That's a new rule. That's a new rule or just a minimal six months. Have I ever given something back last six months? Um my bedroom was second away for seven months and then you give him back like a couple weeks ago.

And they give my room back bike two weeks ago.

And that was punishment for prinking, his little brother, Russell. Alex, as Anderson recalls that this reveal really got her gears turning.

When I heard that chat had been sleeping on the being back for several months, again was one of those things where the punishment just did not alive with what he did IT to getting trouble about IT like their simple, simple played those type of jokes on each other siblings do. I woke up my life, you, on a snow day, and told him we still hate school and make him get ready, but I didn't get my beat taken away is ridiculous ous.

And the sad power about that is when they we're talking about IT on you be two channel, IT almost sounded like that was Normal. And IT made you wonder what else has gone on behind closed doors like they are talking about. I'm not sleeping in the base for months and on the b back with smiles on their faces because they have no idea that is nine, what goes on. And in the typical .

household. But Jessie mentioned, these tactics are straight from jody's playbook, and from connections perspective, they serve a purpose.

If you find identity in something and you are struggling with management of yourself, those things need to be taken away from you so they can get the root cause of what's going on. So anything that gives you a sense of self, anything that gives you a sense of identity, is taken from you. And that's like a practice that SHE preaches. Children that are unmanageable. How to be all there, anything external has to be taken away from them because they need to first start with managing themselves.

These instances of extreme punishment rattled viewers like Julia .

SHE deprived her child of that basic necessity when he had the means to get him ten beds with all the money he was breaking in from youtube. Certainly that was just completely unacceptable. And the fact that he was laughing about IT in the video and then thought I was OK to post online just kind of goes to show their seriously something wrong with her psyche there.

And Julia wasn't the only subscriber catching on. Alice noticed the correlation between ruby is increasingly behavior and are prolonged involvement with jody.

It's interesting because they had been position to themselves as authorities on parent hood. They had six children, well behaved, well presented, well spoken children. So when you see the flip side of this in their punishment methods, I don't think he had done something as serious as taking away her child's bed for seven months until this point and I think IT was at this point where he started to um receive training or guidance from jury held the brand my first thought was all this is a this is a step in a direction that I didn't see this family going.

The news of chat, losing his bedroom for over six months, traveled beyond eight passengers, random.

There were obvious concerns, not just in the comment section, but people that had real reason to believe there was potential abuse going on within the Frankie family and within the eight passengers platform itself on youtube, on the videos, in the content.

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As we mentioned back in episode one, less than a week after ruby posted the video where chat revealed deep in sleeping on a bean bag, a changed dot org petition for the division of child and filming services in new tab to investigate the received eighteen thousand signatures. Brian says C. P, S, did pay a visit to the drinkers, but the details of their investigation are limited.

A lot of those are prior record. So I mean, that you can't get, and we never get them from C. P.

S. What we did see is spring vel police assisting, you know, a child protective services at the house. And all we see is an agency assist on the report. There's no details of what they found. There's no details of how they proceed.

But just four weeks after the controversial video was posted, ruby, an Kevin given interview to business insider in hopes of clearing the air. Kevin said the decision came amid, quote, years of physical and emotionally damaging behaviour chad was participating in with the siblings and classmates. Then the couple went on to explain that a therapist, jodie hill brand, recommended separating chat and Russell from the seeing bedroom.

Ruby told business insider, what people aren't understanding is that we give our children choice in everything, or teaching our children to be self governing. So IT was always very open with our son that he gets to choose how long he separate from his brother, dependent upon his behavior. IT just happened to take seven months for him to make that choice again. Jessie says this sort of psychology will be eluded to in the business insider interview was textbook jody.

The thing about jody, that IT makes her so dangerous and convincing, is that he uses a lot of truth. And so a lot of what she's doing, a lot of things that she's saying are methodologies like methodologies and modalities in modern psychology. There's a lot of a truth behind her session was shame.

We know that shame is a driving force or a lot of unhealthy and maladie tive behaviors. But the thing that he does is that he starts with at rox people in, and then SHE becomes the cure. So she's SHE perpetuates more shame. And then he comes the only source for the cure in a very similar way that a lot of high demand religions do. So she's using a format that kind of already built into the the culture that SHE is predominantly thing and the one that she's predominantly familiar with SHE roke you in with some pretty evidence space, psychological ideas, and then just twists and warps them so you can't tell what's true and what's not true.

There were obvious crossovers between Jesse's experiences living with jodie and the parenting methodologies ruby began practicing with her own children.

I think a lot of the alarm bell started going off about three, three and half years ago now when some of those videos started surfacing of withholding food from your children are not bringing the food to school when somebody forgets IT or forcing somebody to sleep on the ground. IT sounds like a lot of the same things. All of Jessie held a brand when they talk to me about their own circumstances of living with joe hill, the brand of being forced to live outside in the withholding. You just gotta look closely some of those episodes, and I think there are ones that people really key in on.

For those who looked close enough, the proof was in the putting.

You get the sense that there was some crossed over somewhere where ruby was learning these tactics from joe and then putting some of IT on her children for the world to sea.

But ruby's relationship with her children wasn't the only one to experience a shift. Her marriage to Kevin saw changes to utah. Attorney Randy castle says that just like the parenting Kevin ruby is, relationship was subjected to jody's influence too.

Kevin was attending men's groups that were facilitated by jody, and during those groups he was being downgraded and diminished. And a told how beddy was that he needed to repent. And the best way to repent was that not infect his family with his, with his problems. And that's why you need to stay .

away from his reporting. At K, U, T, V. On jody and connections, bryan snigged alienation was another familiar jodie tactic.

There is a process of isolation that ruby underwent, and initially I was from her extended family. That could be sisters, that could be parents, that could be cousins.

And IT went further.

Then I went from extended family to the husband inside the home separation. I would imagine that meant sleeping in different rooms, right, and really isolated yourself from the other, maybe in a way to strength in the relationship, when in reality, in this situation, IT likely ripped apart to brian.

IT was Crystal clear who was behind ruby and Kevin, drifting apart almost overnight.

So as far as we understand IT, the relationship that ruby an Kevin had early on was relatively Normal married couple. They were in videos together. And then as far as ruby meeting jody, that's when things separated .

in twenty twenty two, ruby returned from a trip with jody, reiterating the Kevin that his attitude was harmful to their family. And SHE has some other shocking news for him too.

really felt like there were differences in their marriage. And at one point, in conjunction with jody hilder brand that sort of like we have to separate to save our marriage.

rubie told Kevin their separation had therm conditions .

will keep working on our marriage. But for now, know if if you're going to cept, if we're going to repair our marriage and be back gather as a family, you have to be a way and you have to work on yourself and don't have contact with the kids, don't have contact with me unless .

I initiated Kevin. According to his attack, y Randy caster reluctantly agreed and continued participating in the connections classroom on zoom.

He was being laid to believe they were working toward and he wanted to be back with his family. He want to be back with his wife, but was being told by joy and by ruby, that in order to repair all this, you need to stay away. And in was being told that, hey, with your way, everything's blissful. The kids are doing well.

Everything's just great.

But brian Cheney says he found that Kevin circumstances, we're actually so unique.

Ruby, Frankie, separation from Kevin, Frankie is textbook from what referred from other people about jodie held the grand IT is very similar to what other couples have gone through as far as we understand from the teachings of jodie held the brand over the years. There were people that came out and say jodie ripped apart by marriage.

Jody's niece Jessie recalled that just like when jodie planned to the idea that Kevin was infecting his family, jodie may, Jessie believe that they posted harmful qualities and isolated them from friends and family too.

SHE strips you identity, and then SHE strips you with credibility and isolates you. So I am isolated from everyone I know. And then she's telling all of these people just he is a compulsive liar, just is a master full manipulator, that he was her avert term.

Anyone that has work with jody am certain when I say that it's like, uh, trigger ing master ful manipulator. Everything that I came out of my mouth was considered a lie. I wasn't allowed to be around people because I was so full of evil. But IT wasn't safe for me to be .

around people.

Jodi's agenda, as described by Jessie, gets progressively more calculating.

SHE recognizes the row material at hand SHE seize the areas that he can exploit. So SHE strips to identity SHE stripped credibility and SHE isolates you and shows she's saying everything that you say is a lie. Everything that you say is manipulation. You're manipulating everyone around you. You're lying and destroying everyone's life.

Under the impression the two would reconcile, Kevin moved out of their large family home in springville and into a small apartment under the direction of both joy and ruby communication between Kevin and his children was cut off completely, and his communication with a ruby was only on her terms. In just two years, the Frankie family experienced a complete upheaval, and there was one common thread tying IT all together.

While the family may have had some struggles prior to jody coming into their lives, they just kind of seems like that once he got involved in their lives, uh, I just destroyed his family. He did.

Jodie hilDebrand was just getting started with the Frankie.

There's a lot to be told. There's a lot of chapters in this book and the more I dig into a, the more I i've said this before, I don't say you again. I think that jodie is in the middle of all this and I I describe her as and the union with an octopus inside, the more layers you peel back about joyce life and connections, every time you peel back a layer and octopus tenco comes spring out.

You would say somebody is going to get hurt or worse and it's just a matter of time and they're so full of themselves and that essentially, I mean, it's a train barreling toward a bridge that's out and there's nothing that's going to stop at until that day happens.

SHE sets the scene with the psychological and spiritual abuse to then justify the as clubs.

I think that we certainly see parts of her personality that tend toward you this kind of cult like figure. I think in reality, ruby was the only one who really saw or looked up to will believed in the message that he was pavey, can you have a culture? Two.

I think that ruby and joe demonstrate and show the world a pattern of the brush cooker in the dynamic it's going to manifest in other ways.

There needs to be eyes on this because this is frightening and some things is going to have that if more people don't starting and unfortunately, like it's affordable thing to be right about. But that's exactly happened.

That's all coming up on the rise and fall of a ruby. Frankie, this has been a law and crime production. I'm your host, polyborus.

Our executive producer is jusici allow that our producer and writer is Cooper more. Our editor is brad. Maybe our bookers are elisa icier and dank and special thinks to shang panera for designing our key art.