Shari Franke Describes Ruby Franke’s Abuse In New Memoir

The daughter of a once-popular family vlogger now in prison for child abuse is providing new insight into her mother’s extreme religious beliefs and harsh, excessive discipline — and how it continued for years even as cameras were rolling.

Shari Franke, 21, described the emotional and physical abuse she and her five younger siblings endured for years by Ruby Franke, even as the Utah family known as “8 Passengers” documented their lives to millions of YouTube followers. Her memoir, “The House of My Mother,” was released on Tuesday.

Ruby Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested in September 2023 after the Frankes’ youngest son sought help from a neighbor of Hildebrandt’s home in Ivins. The 12-year-old boy was malnourished with open wounds and duct tape on his wrists and ankles. Authorities said they found his younger sister, also suffering from malnutrition, in a closet at Hildebrandt’s home.

Ruby Franke and Hildebrandt pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse (two additional counts were dropped as part of their plea agreements) and were each sentenced in February to consecutive terms of 1 to 15 years in prison.

Ruby Franke’s views on parenting and discipline became “increasingly alarming,” Shari Franke said after her mom partnered in 2022 with Hildebrandt, 57, a counselor. The women launched their own YouTube channel, ConneXions, after “8 Passengers” was shut down due to widespread backlash against the Frankes’ authoritarian parenting style.

Their followers sounded the alarm after the Frankes’ eldest son, Chad, revealed in an “8 Passengers” video that he had been forced to sleep on a bean bag chair in the family’s basement for seven months, and Ruby said she had withheld food from her children as punishment.

Shari moved out of the house when she began attending BYU in the fall of 2021. She said she became increasingly worried about the four younger children’s welfare after her father, Kevin Franke, agreed to move out at Hildebrandt’s urging, and not communicate with his wife or children — including Shari — for a year. Her mother pulled the children out of school and refused to allow her to communicate with them, Shari said.

It was only after her mother’s arrest that Shari learned that Ruby had left her two middle daughters alone at their house in Springville when she decamped with her two youngest children to Hildebrandt’s house in Ivins, Utah, more than 250 miles away.

Although Shari, her family’s neighbors and concerned social media followers repeatedly contacted social services, she said Utah’s “free-range parenting” law made it difficult for authorities to intervene.

“Even the disturbing videos Ruby and Jodi kept posting in their ConneXions Classroom weren’t seen as cause enough to justify an intervention. They continued spouting their increasingly alarming ideas: that adults can force children to do whatever they want [and] that children have no right to privacy or autonomy,” she wrote.

One “ConneXions” video particularly alarmed YouTube followers, Shari said.

“If your child comes to you on fire, you don’t pat them on the head and say, ‘It’s OK, I’ll help you,’” Ruby said in the video. “No, you beat them, and you kick them, and you hit them with a rod. You cannot put welts on your child’s legs and then lovingly apply gauze and expect healing.”

Shari said that watching a documentary about Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, the Utah doomsday cult couple who were each convicted of killing two of her children — whom they claimed had been possessed by demons — felt “horribly familiar.”

“They were immersed in the same extreme religious beliefs and doomsday preparations as Jodi and Ruby” — who she said had traveled to Mexico to stockpile antibiotics along with food in anticipation of a prophesied religious apocalypse — “and the way this family spiraled into darkness felt horribly familiar.”

“It wasn’t until watching that documentary that my hope faded into the darkest thoughts I’d had yet — Ruby and Jodi were just as unhinged as Chad and Lori, if not worse,” Shari said.

In fact, Ruby wrote in numerous journal entries shared by prosecutors last year that her youngest son was possessed by a demon and detailed horrific instances of abuse the women inflicted on him and his sister. She described one day in July 2023 as a “big day for evil,” successfully commanding a demon to “get out” of her son after forcing him to stand outside in the hot sun.

“The devil lies and says I’m hurting you,” Ruby said she told her son after covering his nose and mouth with her hand so he couldn’t breathe.

Her mother and Hildebrandt blamed “coddled” children — including babies — for society’s ills, Shari said.

“A baby cries because it’s entitled and it knows someone will come running because it believes that the world revolves around them and their needs,” Shari said Hildebrandt told her. “Unless you train it not to be entitled, you’re just reinforcing that behavior in them. It’s our job, as women and mothers, to break that cycle of manipulation, to teach children from an early age that they need to earn their blessings.”

On the Christmas of her freshman year in college, Shari said Hildebrandt and her mother forced her two youngest siblings to sit silently in a corner while the rest of the family exchanged gifts.

“Children are not entitled to a magical childhood,” Shari said her mother told them. “You can’t just expect love and presents. Many have nothing at all.”

Kevin Franke filed for divorce in November 2023, and moved back into the family’s house, where he currently lives alone. He is hoping to regain custody of the children, KUTV reported, who are currently in the custody of child protective services. After her mother’s arrest, Shari said she reconciled with her father and older brother.

Shari Franke described herself as a victim and condemned the lucrative business of family vlogging before the Utah House of Representatives in October.

“There is no such thing as a moral or ethical family vlogger,” she told lawmakers, according to a transcript she shared on Instagram.

Shari noted that Utah is “specifically a hotspot for family content” because of Mormon culture and missionary efforts. Many women in the first wave of “mommy bloggers” were Mormon, and many popular influencers today are Mormon.

“But I want to be clear that there is NEVER, never a good reason for posting your children online for money or fame,” Shari said.

“Family vlogging ruined my innocence, long before Ruby committed a crime,” she added.

Her recent announcement of her engagement and the release of her memoir mark the end of her sharing details about her personal life publicly, Shari said.

“I’ve had my voice and agency taken for so long, and now, I’m putting my foot down,” she wrote on Instagram.

Noting that she would still be a public advocate for “kids who didn’t have a voice,” she asked her followers not to “speculate or pry” about her future husband or children.

“This is my wish, and my gift to my family,” she said.