The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke | Under Her Thumb | 4
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Once this process with Jodi got into play, it destroyed my whole life. I was just so messed up emotionally and mentally after Jodi Hildebrandt that I was scared of my own name. There's just kind of this like implicit trust that happens where, you know, my Mormon friend from church isn't trying to scam me. They're not trying to like harm me because Mormons would never do that.

I'm telling you, I was making millions and I left it.

because my kids were being hurt with entitlement. They were being hurt with people's advice and they didn't have a mother up the front saying, I don't care what the world's opinion is. This is the truth and this is where I stand. Jodi is always in Ruby's ear. What am I not hearing? Why am I want to fight them? That's your distortion. That's what comes up in me. Anytime I want to fight someone, I'm like, stop, Jodi, stop. Why am I getting so reactionary here? There's no threat here. There's no

There's a threat? What's going on? The threat that I say is not here? The real threat is inside me. I'm Paula Barros, and this is The Rise and Fall of Ruby Frankie, presented by Law & Crime. By 2022, the Frankie family looked a lot different from the idyllic household of eight that fans and followers were first introduced to in 2015 when Ruby Frankie set out to document their daily life.

Her children had gotten older and her house had gotten bigger. But it wasn't the natural rhythm of their lifestyle changes that were drawing attention to Eight Passengers. In fact, Eight Passengers was on a steady downward trend in both viewership and content creation. Ruby's diversion toward promoting Jodi Hildebrandt's life coaching company, Connections, quickly morphed into full-on tunnel vision.

Kevin Franke's attorney, Randy Kester, says Ruby's relationship with Jodi took her attention away from her home unit entirely. I know they did a lot of work together and would often go off together while Kevin took care of the kids. They would leave and go for days at a time. She was excluded from all that.

And then, suddenly, Kevin was cut off from the family completely. When Ruby returned from one of her trips with Jody and informed him that the two would be temporarily separating. There was no divorce filed because he was being led to believe they were working toward reconciliation. He wanted to be back with his family. He wanted to be back with his wife, but was being told by Jody and by Ruby that in order to repair all this, you need to stay away.

Ruby felt a misalignment in her marriage and cited a cryptic suggestion from Jodi that Kevin's problems were infecting their family. But from the outside looking in, there was more to her reasoning. Utah-based associate attorney Jeremy Diaz has his own ideas about what Ruby perceived as the couple's misalignment. I would imagine that part of their marital discord came from how Ruby was treating the children.

Jeremy clearly stated this as merely his opinion, but there was another aspect he observed as undeniable. It's clear that it was the counseling of Jodi. And if Jodi is in Ruby's ear, you could tell there was kind of that motivation. Jodi is always in Ruby's ear. Under the counsel of Jodi Hildebrandt, both Kevin and Ruby had been influenced. Ruby had been persuaded that her husband's attitudes were infectious, and Kevin was made to believe that was the truth.

This sort of manipulation tactic wasn't just a one-off with the Frankies. For whatever reason, I don't know why she does this. She kind of comes up with these little concoctions that she's dead set on, right? Which never really was and creates these admissions just to get punishment to stop, right? And I imagine that a lot of that was pretty similar and kind of bled into her overall counsel to couples.

Jodi's history shows Jeremy's assessment isn't inaccurate. Once this process with Jodi got into play, it destroyed my whole life. I was just so messed up emotionally and mentally after Jodi Hildebrandt that I was scared of my own name. That's Adam Steed, former marriage counseling client of Jodi Hildebrandt. His name may be familiar to you, too.

Adam's name made headlines in 2005 when he blew the whistle on sexual abuse inside Boy Scouts of America. In 1997, Adam was abused at Camp Little Lemhi in Idaho. The perpetrator, Bradley Stowell, was both a member of the Mormon church and a senior member of the local Boy Scout staff. Adam approached his camp leader in Idaho multiple times to report the abuse, but he was pressed not to tell anyone, especially his parents.

Adam wasn't alone. Bradley Stoll had abused at least 24 boys, one dating back to 1988 when Stoll was 16 years old. Back then, he confessed to his church bishop and was mandated six months of faith-based counseling. This was all before being hired by Boy Scouts of America. Adam alleges that the Mormon church covered for Bradley Stoll and so did the Boy Scouts, and he was left with enduring trauma.

In 2005, Adam sued the Boy Scouts Grand Teton Council, seeking thousands of dollars for legal fees and damages. And in 2007, the parties reached a settlement. A year after the settlement, in 2008, Adam and his former wife sought general marriage counseling.

We had a one-year-old baby and we had a newborn coming along and we were both in school at Brigham Young University trying to do all of our credits. And I had trauma from what happened to me in the past. And, you know, we were just trying to be normal people and live a normal life after some of the things we'd gone through. Their bishop recommended they work with Jodi Hildebrandt.

And when the two began counseling, they were put in what Jodi called phase one of her program. It wasn't very intense. It was lighthearted and fun. Think of like a PG movie or something and a lady that's just charismatic and fun and teaching these principles about delusion, denial, and all this kind of stuff. Codependency, using small examples in people's lives where they didn't realize they were in this state and the whole room laughing about it.

That was phase one, and it was couples, all happy couples, thinking there was this incredible lady. But things quickly moved away from lighthearted and fun. When she separated the couples into all women and all men groups, then after she gained everyone's trust, then really bad things began to happen.

Sound familiar? I have the emails between my ex-wife and her planning out all this stuff, talking about what the real issues in our marriage were, them evolving that into something drastically different with allegations that would totally destroy your life, and how that evolution happened from what they originally were like. Adam alleges that Jodi had alienated Adam's then-wife and planted unfounded ideas in her head. My ex-wife, acting just like Ruby,

And it got worse when Adam tried to leave the counseling group. Under Jody's guidance, they were trying to create a false allegation. And the very act of trying to create it became an allegation that was sexual child abuse. Trying to make me look like a child abuser and a sexual addict and a rapist and everything else. This sort of unethical behavior would be horrifying for anyone.

But for someone with a history like Adam's, it was especially damaging. Having been a victim that came forward to change the laws to protect children and having the insecurities that victims have, the stigma and all that stuff, and Jody working on me to try to make me look like I was a predator. And Jody was showing no signs of letting up. The more Adam resisted, the deeper he got into the nightmare Jody was manufacturing.

At this point, Adam alleges that she had his then-wife believing he was a pornography addict and a sexual predator with zero evidence to back her claims.

She didn't want me to leave her therapy group, and she had my wife send an email message to me of the terms so that the marriage wouldn't end. And they included that I had to go back to Jodi. I had to pay for-- it was thousands of dollars a month. I couldn't go to any other therapists. I was trying to go to other therapists because they were saying I was an addict in denial,

Jodi, in her group, she said that if you had to spend time not thinking about something, just the fact that you had to not think about it meant you were an addict. I mean, she brought everybody in. And now she was saying I was mentally unhealthy and I couldn't choose for myself because of how unhealthy I was. I couldn't choose to go to another therapist. This was my addiction working to not receive the confrontation that she had.

She wouldn't let me leave therapy. She contacted other therapists and told them terrible things about me so that I couldn't get help elsewhere. Remember in the last episode when we learned Jodi had lost her license to counsel for sharing client information with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Brigham Young University without her patient's permission?

Adam Steed was that client. When we subpoenaed Jodi's records, she had like half of a page of records on me and nothing like that. She just made it all up. And I hardly had any sessions with her. And I mean, she was just...

punishing me and trying to control my life. When I started to ask certain questions that she read in an email that I sent to my in-laws to ask, say their daughter's in trouble, we're in trouble, and I explained it. And they gave that to Jodi and she read it. And I think she felt literally scared of me at that point. And then she just changed everything.

In just six months under the care of Jodi Hildebrandt, Adam had yet again been impacted by trauma no person should ever have to go through. I just moved to Utah and then this, I get put with Jodi Hildebrandt. And this lady does this damage that went way beyond anything people would imagine.

I went from a pre-med, pre-law student at BYU in the honors program, married with two little beautiful babies, to being put in bars, losing, getting thrown out of Brigham Young University, being accused of the worst things imaginable. Jodi had destroyed Adam's life as he knew it, his relationships, and his faith.

He and his wife ultimately divorced. Adam shared that since his experience with Jodi Hildebrandt, he has done a significant amount of healing to move through his own pain and continues to tirelessly advocate for others. He's now remarried and is a proud father of a new baby. But Jodi needed a new project. And Ruby Frankie's family were the perfect candidates. I told my wife I had to get out of there, but Jodi had her back.

Just like Ruby, my family's joking, they're calling her more Ruby now because she acts just like her. She acts like her in those movies. I've seen only a few of them. I have to turn them off because it reminds me of my ex-wife. And she, you know, was doing everything she could to win Jodi over and do everything that Jodi instructed her to do. Not unlike Adam's ex-wife, once Jodi entered the picture, Ruby's world saw drastic changes in just a short period of time.

And by this point in the story, you may be wondering, what exactly did Ruby get from her relationship with Jodi that was so validating? Here's Jeremy again. Jodi is just this masterful puppet master, right? And so what I ultimately think at the end of the day when it comes to Ruby, I think she had this tendency towards a more strict style of parenting, which...

And based on some of what I've seen, even though it's concerning to other people, doesn't necessarily arise to the standard that would be criminal or even put yourself on DCFS's radar. I mean, it seemed like the kids looked fine, but I think that her sending her older son

to Anasazi Ranch kind of fed into all of that. I think she heard about the kind of punishment and stuff like that, that her son went through at Anasazi Ranch, which kind of solidified her strict parenting and then gave her permission to step it up. And then Jodi enters the scene, right? And she really kind of adds fuel to the fire and

and is telling Ruby that she's not crazy and that all of these people who are telling her are going overboard, her husband, her siblings, her in-laws, I mean, kind of everybody, right? Religious leaders who are coming in and saying, hey, you're going too far here. She pushes them away. And Jodi does a great job of isolating Ruby from all of that. It wasn't just the people in Ruby's immediate circle either.

After seven years of devout vlogging on the 8 Passengers channel, Ruby cut ties with her followers too. Around the same time she and Kevin separated, and after the controversy brought about when followers learned she'd been withholding food and basic shelter from her children, she bid farewell to their 2.5 million subscribers. The 8 Passengers channel was deleted entirely.

And if you still wanted to see Ruby on the internet, you'd have to look no further than her and Jodi's joint venture, Connections YouTube channel, where she began frequently appearing alongside Jodi in videos and podcasts related to parenting and relationship advice. Then the two branched out to social media, creating both a Facebook and Instagram account under the moniker Moms of Truth.

So the invitation is, and the hope is, that all of the moms that come here learn how and practice plugging in principles of truth into these different circumstances. Four principles of truth are about learning how to be honest, learning how to be responsible. Responsible for what? Your own perceptions, your own feelings, your own actions. In their videos, they regularly appear side by side on a gray sectional couch.

Jodi sits on the right, wearing a headpiece microphone while delivering her lessons. Ruby is to the left, frequently nodding in agreement. The Moms of Truth Facebook page About section reads, Welcome to Moms of Truth. This is a support group for mothers to ask questions and receive feedback on the parenting challenges you're facing. Jodi Hildebrandt, MS, and Ruby Franke are mental fitness trainers with Connections Coaching.

They are available to give you truth-centered, principle-based training to help you create joy within your family. As we're getting comments back, people are perceiving not a truth. You're not hearing what we're saying to you. We're inviting you to be responsible for what you're perceiving. And we're asking you to be responsible for what you're feeling.

And we're asking you to be responsible for your action, which is your typing. I'm going to react to this person. Like when you're responsible for all of that, then you are living in truth. While Moms of Truth's follower count paled in comparison to Ruby's previous numbers, their videos, like 8 Passengers, still drew attention due to their more punitive parenting advice and opinions, especially Ruby's Instagram reels.

In this home, you don't get personal space because this is my space because I'm the parent. If you want your own personal space, you'll need to get your own space. This is mine. And as long as you're living in my home, it is my job to know everything about you. You don't get to sneak. You don't get to hide. You don't get to have secrets. Not in my house. Do you see how loving that is?

The typical formula of her videos was to share her parenting choices, then justify them with Jodi's teachings. Now, if you're in distortion, you're reeling right now. If you're in distortion, you're ready to pull your hair out right now. You're ready to scream. So think about how that feels in your system as you hear me say it. If a child is in truth, they won't have any problem with that. Okay, got it. That makes sense.

If there was any doubt before, Moms of Truth solidified that Ruby was committed to connections. Hook, line, and sinker. I love principles more than my child. Yikes! That's a really, and that is the truth.

And in one particularly emotional video, Ruby opens up about what drew her to Jodi and connections in the first place. I was a hugely disconnected, selfish, aggressive, neglectful mother. Entitled.

I wanted my kids to be happy, which AKA translated into, I want my kids to get off my back because I want to do what I want to do. I want to be able to go to target. I want to be able to shop. I want to be able to have a moment of silence where I can just think it was all about me. And I made my kids responsible for that.

Ruby is tearing up as Jodi sits next to her in a red vest, nodding affirmingly. I have been full time. You wonder where I've been on my vlogs? You wonder why I left YouTube? To save my kids. No amount of money. And I'm telling you, I was making millions. And I left it because my kids were being hurt with entitlement. They were being hurt.

with people's advice, and they didn't have a mother up the front saying, I don't care what the world's opinion is. This is the truth, and this is where I stand. And fortunately, I had a chance. I had them in my home long enough to do it, and I'm not going to lose them. They're seeing truth. They're accepting truth. They're loving truth. And so this is my passion, is to invite you to stand in truth and put your opinions to the side for a minute, because your kids are the target of distortion.

Jodi responds to Ruby's passionate plea, her hand resting on Ruby's thigh. We need you. We love you. We know what power exists inside you, and we want you to be here. So please, humble yourself. Become curious about what we're saying. If you start getting reactionary, stop yourself and say, Jennifer, stop. Rachel, stop.

What are they trying to say to me? What am I not hearing? Why am I want to fight them? That's your distortion. That's what comes up in me. Anytime I want to fight someone, I'm like, stop, Jodi, stop. Why am I getting so reactionary here? There's no threat here. There's no threat. What's going on? The threat that I say is not here. The real threat is inside me.

On November 30, 2021, Ethan Crumbly opened fire on his classmates at Oxford High School, killing four students. In an unprecedented turn of events, his parents, Jennifer and James, were charged in connection with their son's acts of violence.

It's a case that raised questions about parenting, responsibility, and what could have been done to prevent the heartbreaking outcome. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of this landmark case, taking you behind the scenes of the trials of Jennifer and James Crumbly that has everyone asking, "What would I do if I were held responsible for my child's crimes?"

You can listen to Sins of the Child exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Something about the video feels unsettling. Ruby almost comes off as a mascot for Jodi's philosophies. Jodi had created the perfect vehicle in Ruby Frankie to get her message out to the world. And there's something else that stands out. Ruby spoke of feeling victimized by the opinions and suggestions of her viewers.

But when it came to Jodi's opinions and advice, she seemed to welcome them with open arms. Ex-Mormon YouTuber Jordan Forsyth has her theories as to why Ruby may have been more susceptible to Jodi's teachings. Because, like, there's just kind of this, like, implicit trust that happens where, you know, my Mormon friend from church isn't trying to scam me. They're not trying to, like, harm me because Mormons would never do that.

It allows for more shady things to happen. And I think that's part of why Jodi and Ruby got buy-in was people like, oh, well, they're rooted in Mormonism. So like, it can't be wrong. They're trustworthy. They don't lie to other people, like things like that. And so I think there's a lot of merit to that point within the like Utah vlogger community where there's just like this understanding that like Mormons trust Mormons. Yeah.

The faith-based underpinnings of Connections content can't be overlooked. And Jodi's niece, Jessie, says leaning on Mormonism is foundational to Jodi's MO. Jodi weaponized religion against Jessie, too. She is utilizing and weaponizing faith and trust in God

to her own advantage. So she's using things like Satan is working through you literally. This is not hyperbolic. She believed truly through dreams and direct communication that Jesus is working through her. And she was working to save my soul directly.

And then she believed that every day she would go to work, she would be fighting Satan, like, on the front lines. So that is-- that is where her mind is. And she is so intelligent and she is so convincing-- that sounds crazy--

But when you're in these communities that believe in modern day revelation, that believe in patriarchal familial systems where the head of the household is receiving revelation and because she's a divorced woman, she's technically now the head of her household. So she's using these disempowered systems. And I'm not saying that anyone that uses or leans on faith or leans on these values or these moral principles that they're abusers. But the thing is that abusers

see the loopholes and they use them to their advantage. And that's what's so scary about this. That's what's so concerning is that they don't care about moral being morally correct. Most people do. Most people aren't going to, you know, take advantage of those things. But the people that will are going to. Has Ruby been brainwashed by Jodi? And if so, how far is Jodi willing to take it?

Former 8 Passengers subscriber Alice Dawes shares her theories. It's very easy to throw the term cult leader around, I think because it harbors such a unique place within collective imagination. And it's really easy to sign that kind of set of characteristics on somebody. Was she a woman who craved power and enjoyed seeing other people suffer?

I think that we certainly see parts of her personality that tend toward this kind of cult-like figure. I think in reality, Ruby was the only one who really saw or looked up to or believed in the message that she was purveying. Can you have a cult of two? That's up to your listeners to decide.

Ruby continued to get closer to Jodi and more involved with connections into 2023. She and Kevin were still separated. And unbeknownst to him, they were only growing further apart. He was following the advice of who he thought was a professional mental health expert, telling him to stay away. The only way to save his family was to stay apart from his family at that point, while he thought they were working toward reconciliation.

She was telling him that everything was blissful and everything was wonderful. That in conjunction with the fact she didn't tell him that she had taken the kids to Southern Utah to be in Jody's home. You heard that right. In the summer of 2023, Ruby and at least two of her children moved into Jody's multi-million dollar home in the Kayenta area of Ivins, Utah. And under Jody's roof, the Frankies lived by Jody's rules.

The videos posted during their time living together caught the attention of those following the Ruby and Jodi saga closely, like YouTubers Jordan and McKay. I believe once we started taking note of the operation that Jodi and Ruby were running, I feel like as soon as we kind of caught on to that, we were like, this is going to end.

And I remember specifically multiple times when we would discuss this and we would say, somebody is going to get hurt or worse. And it's just a matter of time and time.

They're so full of themselves and essentially, I mean, it's a train barreling toward a bridge that's out and there's nothing that's going to stop it until that thing happens. I think the big thing we noticed was how they talked about children, like how both Jodi and Ruby talked about children and how they talked about Ruby's children specifically.

look at a lot of the language because you know they're withholding food they're using torture like you're watching one of theirs and i can't remember which one it was but verbatim what came out of my mouth was there's no way that they are confusing these kids and it's like there needs to be eyes on this because this is frightening and something's going to happen if more people don't start paying attention and unfortunately like it's a horrible thing to be right about but that's exactly what happened

What's the name?

August 30th is when Jody Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke were taken into custody after one of Ruby's children left Jody's home in Ivins, Utah to call for help.

And from that point on, everything just spiraled into a very, very deeply rooted situation that really involves a number of court cases all in one surrounding the entire A Passenger saga.

The horrific nature of it, just like the level of the depth of the abuse and like the heartless nature of like the cruelty of it and how long it was going on was really like a surprise to me. I really felt heartbroken for the kids. The kids weren't like giving up signs, you know, if they were going to church and had bruises or injuries on their wrists from being tied up or malnourished. And so there's like levels of this that suddenly got me angry because

How long has this been going on and who are the other adults that allowed it? It's a big paradox where I was relieved and elated that she finally got caught and that it was over and that all of this was going to come out. With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children. Guilty. That's all coming up on the rise and fall of Ruby Frankie.

This has been a Law & Crime production. I'm your host, Paula Barrows. Our executive producer is Jessica Lowther. Our producer and writer is Cooper Maul. Our editor is Brad Mabee. Our bookers are Alyssa Fisher and Diane Kay. And special thanks to Sean Panzera for designing our key art.