Ruby Franke: US parenting vlogger who forced children to live in 'concentration camp-like' conditions handed maximum sentence for child abuse

Mother-of-six Ruby Franke, from Utah, had more than two million followers on her channel, where she gave advice on strict parenting. She is now set to serve up to 30 years behind bars, having pleaded guilty to starving and abusing her children.

The judge said the children, who raised the alarm when her 12-year-old son escaped out of a window last year, were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in, and virtually all forms of entertainment. The boy was taken to hospital suffering from malnourishment and "deep lacerations from being tied up with rope", according to the arrest record.

On her YouTube channel 8 Passengers, Franke had previously documented the family’s life, showing them home-schooling, cooking and spending time together. She had suggested to her followers she followed strict parenting rules in a bid to encourage her children to be responsible.

However, one incident in 2020 sparked a petition and investigation into the family.

One of her sons said in a video his bedroom had been taken away for seven months and he was instead sleeping on a beanbag, after playing pranks on his sibling. Other clips unearthed by internet users pointed to Franke’s extreme discipline techniques such as withholding food for bad behaviour – and even cancelling Christmas.

Franke closed her YouTube channel in 2022, after splitting up with her husband. However, she then formed a business partnership with Jodi Hildebrandt, who has been given an identical sentence and whom Franke claims “influenced” her. Franke regularly appeared on Hildebrandt’s YouTube site, ConneXions Classroom.

Arrest warrants claimed Hildebrandt, a counsellor and life coach, put cayenne pepper and honey on the children’s wounds that were caused by being tied with a rope.

Utah prosecutor Eric Clarke said two of Franke's children, aged nine and 11 at the time, lived in a "concentration camp-like setting" and called her a significant threat to the community.

"The children were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in, and virtually all forms of entertainment," Mr Clarke said.

Franke said in court she had been led to believe the world was "an evil place, filled with cops who control, hospitals that injure, government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who lie and lust, husbands who refuse to protect and children who need abuse".

The court had previously heard how some of her children had been forced to work outside in blistering heat, without water or suncream.

“I’ll never stop crying for hurting your tender souls,” Franke said to her children, who were not present at the sentencing hearing in St George. “My willingness to sacrifice all for you was masterfully manipulated into something very ugly. I took from you all that was soft and safe and good.”

The judge sentenced the pair to serve four terms of one to 15 years each. However, the women will only serve up to 30 years total in prison due to a Utah state law that caps the sentence duration for consecutive penalties.