Ruby Franke, the former family vlogger who pleaded guilty to abusing two of her children, detailed in handwritten journal entries how she carried out some of the abuse.
In copies of the entries, which were released by the Washington County Attorney’s Office on Friday, the Utah mother of six described several incidents of abuse inflicted on two of her children, whose names were redacted and replaced with “R” and “E” by authorities.
In one entry from July 11, 2023, the disgraced momfluencer wrote that it was a “big day for evil.”
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Franke, who once ran the popular YouTube channel “8 Passengers,” then went on to describe an incident where she held her hands over her son’s nose and mouth while holding him underwater.
In an entry for the following day, Franke described how she cut off her daughter’s hair and “doused” her with water in the “dog wash” as punishment for wanting to break a two-day fast she had forced her to do.
“These selfish, selfish children who desire only to take, lie, and attack have zero understanding of god’s love for them,” Franke wrote the next day in her journal.
Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt — who ran the controversial parenting YouTube channel “ConneXions” together — were arrested in August 2023, and both charged with six felonies after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins, Utah and sought help from a neighbor.
The arrest followed years of controversy and allegations of child abuse surrounding Franke and her family vlogging channel, which documented her life with her now-estranged husband, Kevin Franke, and their children.
Franke and Hildebrandt were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison for their crimes.
In a case summary, the Washington County Attorney’s Office said that Franke and Hildebrandt were motivated by religious extremism.
“The women appeared to fully believe that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined ‘sins’ and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies,” it said.
