Arrested Family Vlogger Story Just Got Way Worse... 

"our kids have been displaying long patterns of selfishness" NO your kids are displaying patterns of living in survival mode because they know the person meant to keep them safe is the person that is harming them.

The worst part is that this abuse isn't over now. These children will grow up haunted by their trauma for the rest of their lives, haunted by the extensive documentation of every abuse they suffered and the THOUSANDS of people who actively cheered their mother for that shit.

As someone who survived child abuse, this is so triggering and sad for me to hear. Those poor fucking kids.

How tf do neighbors become completely aware of the situation so much so that they have contacted authorities, but a man who shares a home with the abusers has done nothing. I know he’s indoctrinated and such, but come on. Religion reasons come to a full stop when your kids are malnourished and physically harmed.

Do physical labour with no food in your system. What??? To her children. She deserves the worst.

ex-LDS here: this is unfortunately INCREDIBLY common in Utah. CPS often ignores cases like these to avoid giving the church a bad rep.

The way she calmly rationalizes her horrendous abuse is so vile. Then promoting this as a way for others to raise their children, just off the rail crazy and evil.

What Ruby failed to understand it that all of the "privileges" she takes away from her kids are actually human rights and SHE is the one who is privileged for being able to not only afford all of these things, but also to be able to get away with so many horrible behaviours for so long when everyone knew she was witholding them from her children regardless of age.

"How does a kid with negligent parents prove they have low income?" Man. Thank you for addressing that. Myself and many of my low-income peers in public school couldn't get lunches for this reason. Went without food through many school days.

It blows my mind how so many parents see their children as their property and not for what they are... people. Kids are people. You don't own them.

Expecting your children to be perfect angels when they don’t have the literal brain chemistry to make rational decisions is insane

100% she has NOOO IDEA about childhood psychological development. Kids under 5ish physically cannot conceptualize the ideas that other people think differently and don’t know what they know.

One of the saddest things on a psychological and emotional level is that the two eldest kids (the ones still in the house at the time) are on camera saying that they have no friends because of their mother. Ruby took all the kids out of school to "home school" them (which it seems she just wasn't doing at all, which might explain one of the charges being about intentionally depriving the kids of developmental needs). The youngest daughter was the one seen by neighbors knocking on doors looking for a friend to play with, she didn't understand that everyone else was in school. Bear in mind all of this was apparently happening while their dad was there. So the fact that he's now claiming to be innocent doesn't sit well with me. Nothing about him seems right. Why wasn't he fighting to see his kids? I'm wondering if he just didn't want to lose his access to that RU-vid money.

When Ethan said “you know what can cause selfishness. Being forced to hoard things because your mom is chronically taking them away.” This is so true I see it in my practice a lot

I’ve been “following” the eight passengers saga since 2017. Ruby was a terrible mother, she was authoritarian and lacked any empathy for her own children. But, when she met Jody she became a monster. Connections by definition is a cult and Jody is the leader. Ruby is her most devoted follower, I have no doubt in my mind that if Jody told her to Ruby would murder those children. The saddest part is how hard viewers tried to get police to intervene. Time and time again we were ignored no matter how many tips were called into police. All of this might have never happened had the police and child protective services listened to their neighbors, the internet, and Ruby’s own family. I fear that the police covered up for Ruby because of the LDS church need for a perfect image, had that child not escaped and made mainstream news the authorities would have continued to do nothing.

I'm sorry that kid was hungry and took the initiative to get himself a snack and attempt to clean up a small spill at 4??? That is stunning. Poor little kiddo. I hope he gets all the therapy he needs.

Ethan being a skinny legend, maintaining hairline and expanding his bloodline all at the same time

I loath this woman. You’re gonna leave a couple kids of that age alone and then punish them for doing what kids do??? Wow.

Kids aren’t nearly as stupid as these awful parents seem to assume they are. If your child is behaving in a way that you don’t like, to withhold basic care shows them that it is okay to do horrible things to the people close to you to get them to do what you want. That injustice and unfairness yields confused, angry/upset children that don’t have the tools they need to have happy, healthy relationships. I am disgusted by the “gifts of truth.” Every single “gift” is a basic expectation for how a parent should treat a child, whether they’re in trouble or not. If you don’t know the difference between parenting and abuse, you do not deserve to have children.

I'm a child of domestic abuse in Utah and under the LDS church as well. I'm 26 and I need so much therapy and have come to terms with the idea that I will be in therapy my whole life. I'm trying to figure out if my parents have a place in my life. My heart just breaks for these kids. All I want to do is shield them from this abused

She is… the more you listen to her the more sociopathic she sounds. She’s talking about CHILDREN! They’re barely babies

Also, remember that children developmentally go through phases where they literally can not process other people’s emotions. During that stage they can’t provide for themselves, so they are worried about only meeting their needs. They are trying to SURVIVE.

Imagine the other children she has harmed because other parents were watching her content thinking it’d okay to treat their children that way .

At my high school in Norway they would serve free oatmeal porridge in the morning saying food was important for the brain to wake up and function properly. Me being a silly teenager would sleep until 5 mins before I had to go, so I absolutely loved that they did that! I can't imagine how invaluable it is to some students to have that one meal at school.

The two youngest were the ones being tortured. Messed up to hear her say they are selfish and immoral. When a child's needs aren't met, they may appear selfish because of the resource insecurity you have created.

I have a buddy who spent a few years in prison. He said without a doubt, whether you were a murder or a drug dealer ect, they all agreed. If you hurt children, the prisoners will ensure your time in prison is very torturous. A lot of those people have families there waiting to go home to and prisoners have zero tolerance for child abuse.

What pisses me off is how she immediately goes at her kids for the pineapple thing. Her 3-yr-old kid, who already clearly knows how to try and manage her anger. I live with a roommate and three cats. If there's a mess on the floor that's bothering me (that I didn't make), I clean it up and assume the cats got sick or my roommate missed a spot. It's not hard to not give a shit. She's just a control freak that loves to lord her authority over her kids, and it's sick to watch.

I hope those poor kids don’t develop DID, BPD, or some other personality disorder because of this abuse and neglect. Their sense of attachment must be completely messed up.

Utah Child Service often turn a blind eye when the family is LDS. my time working with special needs children has shown me the non lds or lower class families get visits right away but you can record pretty extreme abuse and if the family is upper middle class and lds they often look the other way

Forget her finding out what the food is in prison. I’m excited for her to learn how child abusers are treated there 🙂

This is absolutely disgusting considering all the money she made exploiting her children on social media for years. Not like she couldn’t afford to feed them. From her own words, “she made millions”. Sadly, there are so many parents who struggle monthly to put food in their house and so many kids deal with food insecurity on a daily. Like they said, most kids only receive a meal at school. So the fact that this disgusting woman took them out of school, thus making sure they didn’t receive that one meal a day is beyond evil.

I love how she calls her young children selfish for probably being normal kids but yet she thinks her going to take a nap and leave a 3 and 4/5 year old alone and hungry expecting them to handle sitting still... And yet she can't see that was selfish of her?

The glee that she demonstrates when she's talking about punishing them is heartbreaking.

I hope some fellow inmates will get in a habit of taking her food away and deciding if and when she deserves to eat.

You can really tell when something bothers ethan when his tics get worse. God this story aggrivates me so much for how RU-vid and the authorities failed to intervene

I think the child cleaned the mess up out of fear not maturity he knew what rubys reaction was going to be… another indicator of her abuse

What is she expecting of 3-5 years old? Pretending like pineapple juice on the kitchen floor is bad??? He even went to clean it up???? Any parent would've been proud, wow.

I hope all the money she made off of abusing her children online is frozen and given to help the victims of her horrendous abuse, her children, to help them be mentally and emotionally and financially taken care of ❤🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿❤️

the way she insulted her kids and talked down on them constantly, trying to make them seem like their mistakes have malicious intent behind them is insane. i feel like if CPS waited just a little while longer this would’ve turned into a case like lori vallows.

The fact that Ruby admitted in a podcast that the vlogs were the highlights and her own mother was horrified by the raw footage and still thinks she's a good parent is insane, it's like she's incapable of self reflection.

The small child felt "entitled" to take food from the fridge...she's acting like they ordered lobster and caviar. If a kid goes to take fruit of all things they are *hungry* most parents would consider that a win...

I highly recommend the interview with Jessi Hildebrandt, the niece of Jodi Hildebrandt. She was tortured by her aunt, who was her legal guardian, and is participating in the current court case. She is an incredible survivor with a ton of information about this insane 'therapist' who lives in a $3.1M house and who bills the Mormon church for her sessions!

I hope she and her partner go to prison for a loooong time. I hope they figure out real quick what mom's in prison do to child abusers.

As a child I suffered similar abuse to these poor kids. I didn't really think about how fucked up it was, because it was happening to me - and I guess I had it ingraned that I just deserved it. But hearing about these kids going through similar things, its so clear how wrong it all was. I feel so sorry for them. I hope they don't end up with their dad, but instead go to a loving home that will treasure them and treat them properly.

the way she is laughing and smiling while telling the whole world that you starve and touture your children is so scary

Imagine being so responsible and pure that you try to feed yourself, clean up the pineapple, and then are honest to your mother about it KNOWING she will punish you… I feel so bad for these kids. He did nothing wrong and was treated horribly. If they do one small thing wrong (in her mind) then all of their good traits are over looked

Hope this woman gets thrown in a cell forever what a despicable woman

The way she says words related to food is disturbing. She gives them a strange amount of emphasis and often clips the words odd pauses. You can best hear it in how she says "lunch." It's almost like she hates talking about food in general for some reason, like it angers or disgusts her, and she speaks as if food is a gift from her to her children.

people do not realize how many super LDS families are like this in utah

A child abuse survivor here too amongst the 500+ comments of others who lived the same thing I did. Sending love to you. I know it's hard. I don't often comment on videos, but hopefully, my words reach out through the screen to you reading this. People DO love you, and you are not defined by your abuse, you are capable of surviving this current chapter of your life. 💖💖💖

Her story about the kitchen pineapple spill is so unhinged. Ti tell that story, record it, then post it. Like, how unhinged, how egocentric, and embarrassingly disconnected from reality. Disgusting

“I did what any mother would do, I licked the floor” I think I speak for every mother when I say no one would EVER do that.

From what I've heard about her, it sounds like she's just, plain and simple, a narcissist. Everything that she does, it has to be under her control, she needs to control every aspect of her children's lives and their behaviors. I hope she's fuming at the fact that all of this is coming out about her and that she cannot deflect it. Hope the kids are getting away from her for good.

The therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt, has a niece who just did an incredible 3 hour interview on Mormon Stories Podcast (which is a RU-vid channel, not just a podcast) about their abuse at the hands of their aunt. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Jodi's abusive methods.

There’s a difference between being poor and not being able to afford Christmas my parents would atleast do something for us to make us feel involved in the holidays and then just taking that away from them for “being selfish” this is sick and she needs to be in jail for the rest of her life for ruining these poor kids lives

My fondest wishes: 1) that these sick, weirdo, image-obsessed POS rot in prison for a good long while; 2) that they experience intense humiliation and shame for the rest of their lives. Amen!

she is so sick and evil. There are some mothers out there who go without just to make sure their kids eat.... she does the opposite

as a child who survived child abuse, and especially neglect when it comes to food and being withheld food… this shit makes me so incredibly sad. like i never wanted anyone to go through what i did. these children… i hope they heal and grow up in a loving environment

As a psychologist it infuriates me how the other woman that claims to be a therapist was not only silent about the abuse BUT WAS ALSO encouraging it. I hope at the very least her license is removed( if she even has one)

this also seems to me more of a case of system failure than anything (other than the obvious abuse). shari, the eldest child, has stated the entire family has contacted authorities about the situation for years, and they’ve even been visited by CPS before, but they “found nothing” of concern. and with their strong presence in the LDS community & kevin being a higher “official” of the church until recently (w him teaching at BYU), it was more than likely brushed under the rug as to not disgrace the church.. very sad that it had to come to this point of abuse for any justice to be served.. :/

This lady put her kids entire lives online to get the bag and has the audacity to call her children "selfish".

The dad isn’t innocent, at the very least he knew what she was doing but he took part when he was in the house. F that guy, he’s not a victim

My family was weird about food. At one point I was told by a doctor that I was not getting enough nutrients and I started to eat at friends homes as much as possible. My parents were both on very restricted diets and fed us (myself and my 5 siblings) the same diets which have been proven to be really unhealthy and lacking all of the nutrients for growing humans. My parents didn’t believe that sugar should be allowed, we rarely had fat, salt, dairy… which I know sounds good but i survived on nothing but tofu, rice and steamed veggies and didn’t have enough protein so I became incredibly anemic. Anyhow, I’m still weird about food and hearing this story about ruby makes me so sad but also so grateful that her children are no longer in her care and I’m glad she’s been exposed fully and that her kids are Hopefully safe now. I hope those women rot in jail

I think that the reason her 3yo cleaned up the mess wasn’t because he’s necessarily more thoughtful. I think it demonstrates how truly terrified he is of his mother. He knew how angry she’d be if she found out he ate a snack and that’s why he cleaned it up. It wasn’t so much being thoughtful so much as it was hiding the evidence.

God it makes me so angry listening to the way she treats her kids. I hope the prison guards treat her in a similar way. She’s ruined 8 young children’s lives

The sad thing about the 3 year old cleaning up after himself is that he’s likely doing it to avoid whatever backlash could be coming.

I hope they put her in solitary confinment and give her empty food trays at lunch so she can understand what she put those babies through.

a devastating case. seeing clips of russel breaks my heart. kids deserve better. such a disgraceful woman.

It takes a rare person to fill me with disgust at such a high level. I could swear she hates her own children.

WTF!!! These family blogs are getting out of hand. Not only Ruby abused her kids but she even admitted in her videos about it. My question for RU-vid, are they going to change their policies regarding children being in videos. Obviously her and her husband banked on their so called "family values" by making these f up videos.

Not only is she withholding food, she's laughing about it like it's funny. This is an evil woman, whoever follows her should also probably be looked into for their children's sake

The dad was just as active in the abuse as the mum, theres so much video evidence of it and now everyone is like "oh maybe he was a victim too"

Ruby is actually a patient of Jody’s. Jody is in control here. And Ruby isn’t her only minion/victim. She convinces parents that they need to abuse their kids to fight the “addiction in their mind”. She creates her own doctrine and that’s where the majority of Rubys actions stem from.

My mom refused me food in high school often, the only reason I got lunch because we 'made too much for free lunch' was because a friend convinced her mom she wanted the 'deluxe' lunch and spent the extra money for it to get me food instead.

I know this is a small thing, but the way she fixates on the stickiness of the pineapple at 32:30 is really revealing to me. She's reveling in the disgust and rage she felt because her children disobeyed her.

Her cousin came out to say that this abuse is generational and was learned

How the hell did she think the kids would grow up and not say anything. It's all religion, I guarantee she got away with it this long because those who were being alerted had religious ties.

Literally watching this in tears while holding my two toddlers as they have a post nap snack. I cannot imagine mistreating beings that I literally grew and felt every day. This woman is a monster.

Kevin had far more pull then the neighbors did in helping his kids but didn't. He could have gone to court to get full custody but didn't. I don't think he wanted the responsibility. Chad is 18 and an adult now. The younger 4 all needed help and parenting and he just must have not been interested. So sad for the kids that no one cared enough to save them and had to save themselves

When I was in elementary school (2001-2004) if you forgot your lunch plus had no money you would get a single peanut butter sandwich and a 1 tiny milk carton. Even as a child I thought it was whack they couldn't just give those kids a hot lunch. The lunch ladies would make a big deal about having to give a kid a peanut butter sandwich. High-school no one cared if you ate or not. I'm guessing middle school may have done a single sandwich as well.

School lunch debt and the stigma for kids who receive free and reduced lunches is real! It just makes sense to feed all our kids lunch everyday.

I think it is important to put the selfishness aspect in the context of normal childhood development. It is completely normal and healthy for them to be selfish at a young age because they don't even have the ability to see the world from anyone else's perspective. As a young child it is quite literally impossible for them to not be selfish, its how they learn and survive. It is called the concrete operational stage of development and it isn't reached until 7-11. I encourage anyone who has children or is interested to look it up or even just watch a study on it on youtube that demonstrates the concept. Also, the 3 year old boy eating food, even when he was told he will get food later if he waits, reminds me of the marshmallow experiment. It is normal and healthy child development. I think the lack of child development knowledge people who are responsible for raising children have is a root problem for a lot of these abusive tactics and unrealistic expectations of children. Yes, there will always be people who don't listen or just don't care about how they are affecting their children, but I think a lot of people have been unintentionally abusing their children and causing lifelong problems and hurting their chance at success when they truly belive they are helping them.

“She’s probably five” how do you not know your own child’s age?

As someone who came from an abusive home, this breaks my heart to know these children suffered like this. Praying for their healing. Hope the parents both rot

This reminds me of the Wimbush case. Just like in the Wbush case, Ruby Franke issolated the "bad" children. She sent the two youngest to Judy's house where they were tied up and tortured. She has gone a long way to convince the children that they deserve it because they are sinful and bad. In this case she told them that even Santa knows that they are not good children. In the wimbush case, the parents got 20 years.

Ethan getting the main story right but a lot of small details wrong is so funny

Kids learn from exposure, they imitate what they see in others. No wonder she thinks her kids were selfish, when she and her husband seem to be selfishness personified. Ugh...I don't even wanna know how many other parents she inspired to similarly vicious behavior by putting all this online, acting as if it was the right thing to do. Maybe someone should check on some of her followers... :(

The school lunch memories many of us have is sad. At my middle school in the 90s if you couldn't pay because your parents were behind you couldn't have the full hot lunch. You'd get one PB&J sandwich on a different colored tray than the rest of the trays to really ostracize and make a 7 year old feel like shit. Also to make sure some kid didn't try to sneak a roll or sandwich from a different lunch lady. It was like waving an embarrassing sign. It was terrible.

As a proud owner of my 4 year old object I own. I definitely profit off of it at any opportunity available and make sternly sure to remind it of it's place in my household and demand obedience in a complicated fashion that it's little brain can't even comprehend. Praise me please, for I am THE FATHER OF ALL

Coming from a past where this happened, I can say it kind of leaves a mark. My step father would out chains and padlocks on the cupboards because me and my brother wanted too much food. Ended up getting food from my neighbors and the school

So much of what this woman did to her kids happened in my fundie home. Constantly being called selfish, Christmas presents thrown away , duct tape being taped to my mouth and tying my hands together. It’s jarring to hear someone talk online with dialogue that I heard as a child - and bitter sweet to see some justice to at this least one horrible parent

Here in Michigan both breakfast and lunch are free at public schools. In the past you had to qualify financially to get either free or reduced but thankfully now it extends to everyone which I think is amazing. Hope it becomes nationwide

Parents who just *punish, punish, punish* instead of *parenting* are the worst

The story about the pineapple makes me incredibly sad because I felt those same feelings as that kid but when I was much older. I would frantically clean the house as a teenager so when my mom came home from work there was nothing for her to yell about. I just cannot imagine how a tiny little body would interpret that stress. Thank GOD she’s already arrested.

Her understanding of how childhood development works blows my mind 💀

"Anyone over 4 should know this isn't how you clean it" She says to her 3 YEAR OLD KID.

16:17 When you talk about the humiliation of asking for help... real talk, it's a huge reason for petty crime. Doesn't explain it all obviously, but I think you have to really feel it in a moment like that to understand it's actual weight. Like, even theft creates some feeling of accomplishment after taking a risk.

You should talk to Jordan & McKay about this!! They have been covering this for a while and are super informed

These kids are ALREADY GREAT kids, Ruby was so high on control that she disciplined them as if they weren’t. Shame on CPS and law enforcement too, what a disappointment😔

27:00 Wow…I’ve never thought about that; the difference between a parent spanking you while angry vs while not. It really offers a new perspective, since many of me and my cousin’s beatings/punishments were directly tied to how we made our parents feel (with anger always being the forefront). They knew the power of fear and still advocate for it today with grandkids, conflating it with respect. Tears me up every time. How can they still lack such self critique? Be so close minded an dense?