YouTube mommy blogger Ruby Franke has been heard in recorded jailhouse phone calls placed within hours of her arrest last August, telling her husband that ‘children can be full of evil.’
The recordings were made while she was being held at Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, Utah, following her arrest.
The 42-year-old was sentenced to up to 30 years in prison in February for brutally abusing her 12-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter in a ‘concentration camp-like setting’.
Her arrest came after her son managed to escape the torture and alert a neighbor to their suffering.
In the newly released prison phone calls, rather than asking her husband for help in getting released, Ruby can be heard asking Kevin Franke if her arrest has made the headlines.
The disgraced YouTube mommy blogger, 42, was sentenced to up to 30 years in prison in February for brutally abusing two of her own children in a ‘concentration camp-like setting’
The phonecalls were made to her now ex-husband, Kevin Franke. The couple had racked up 2.5million subscribers and more than a billion views of their parenting advice
Bodycam footage shows Ruby Franke being arrested on August 30, 2023. Several of the prison phone calls were made in the days following her arrest
Body came footage sees Franke being arrested at her Utah home in August 2023
‘It sounds like that at least you’re in the news I don’t know about me,’ Kevin responds.
‘This is a witch hunt!’ Ruby replies. ‘The devil has been after me for years,’ she states before going on an unhinged rant about children being ‘evil’.
The Utah mom-of-six often displayed religious fanaticism and in diary entries released earlier this week often wrote of punishing her kids because she believed they were ‘possessed’ by the devil.
In one instance, she said her young son was gripped by ‘Satanic chaos’, and said her children were suffering from ‘deviant behavior’.
Such obsessions with the devil were also conveyed during her prison phone calls made while she was being held at Purgatory Correctional Facility, also known as the Washington County Jail.
‘Adults have a really hard time understanding that children can be full of evil and what that takes to fight it. You’ve seen what it takes to fight evil,’ Franke rambles in an August 2023 call.
‘It’s not the person you’re fighting and it can look like something it’s not and you’ve been there you know. that. I don’t know any adults who are going to see the truth so I’m calm about this and I just pray that you’ll hang in there.’
Husband, Kevin, remains silent throughout the portion of the call that has been released.
The criminal ‘Momfluencer’ became an internet sensation thanks to her YouTube channel 8 Passengers where millions of viewers watched how she and then husband, Kevin Franke, raised, and disciplined, their six children
Earlier this week, Franke, 42, a former ‘mommy’ YouTube blogger and convicted child abuser, had her sadistic diary entries revealed
In a second phone call placed two days after her arrest, Ruby says that people simply don’t understand her.
‘The most upsetting thing is that I am completely misunderstood. That is the most horrible feeling. Like my own family misunderstands me. They misinterpret me.
Kevin appears to attempt to give his wife a reality check by telling Ruby that even if she is acquitted there will likely be restricts places on the contact she can have with her children under the age of 18.
‘I figured’, Ruby replied. ‘God told me when I was driving before and said your children are going to be removed and I just I cried out loud “no I’m not done, I’m not ready – and God told me I’m done.
‘So Satan has taken everything away from me that I love and I’m a good woman I don’t do not do naughty things. I’m a really good girl,’ Ruby says.
Two months later, in October 2023, in another phone call to her husband she appears more remorseful and sounds tearful.
‘I can’t say everything that I want to say but I really did feel like being arrested was like a rescue. I just felt so many angels around and it was really kind of surreal. I’ve had many experiences here to guide my thinking’, Ruby says.
By November of last year, Ruby appears to see her arrest as divine intervention.
‘I could not come out of this without without his grace, without his mercy, without his help. This has been the strangest and the most miraculous intervention. It put everybody where they needed to be.’
YouTube ‘mommy blogger’ Ruby Franke wrote ‘I will not feed a demon’ in sadistic diaries she kept as she starved and tortured her children
On July 10, 2023, she wrote that it was her son’s birthday, but ‘he doesn’t even know what month it is.’ Her diaries were filled with religious fanaticism and beliefs that her children were ‘possessed’ by the devil
The criminal ‘Momfluencer’ became an internet sensation thanks to her YouTube channel 8 Passengers where millions of viewers watched how she and then husband, Kevin Franke, raised, and disciplined, their six children.
Franke was already a divisive figure in the parent vlogging world. The Franke parents had been criticized online for banning their oldest son from his bedroom for seven months for pranking his brother.
In other videos, Ruby Franke talked about refusing to take lunch to a kindergartener who forgot it at home.
The “8 Passengers” YouTube channel has since ended, and Kevin Franke filed for divorce shortly after his wife’s arrest.
But late last year, shocking claims emerged that Franke, a Mormon, had spent years abusing her children.
Franke was arrested alongside her business partner Hildebrandt and the pair pleaded guilty in late December.
On Friday, Franke’s horrifying diary entries were released by the Washington County Attorney along with sickening images of the injuries she inflicted on her kids.
The photos show the two emaciated victims with infected cuts on their legs, duct tape around their arms and feet and scratches and bruises on their bodies.
Franke detailed months of daily abuse that included starving her son and daughter, forcing them to work for hours in the summer heat and isolating them from the outside world.
She often made the kids sleep on hard floors and sometimes locked them in a concrete bunker in the basement.
Franke insists repeatedly in her journal that her son is possessed by the devil. In a July 2023 entry titled ‘Big day for evil,’ she describes holding the boy’s head under water and closing off his mouth and nose with her hands.
Franke tells him the devil will lie and say she is hurting him but that she is actually trying to save him.
She later justifies withholding food and water from her son, writing, ‘I will not feed a demon.’
The disgraced YouTuber also wrote how her son ‘refuses to do wall sits – he says he is done’, the day before saying he ‘is to stay outside. Sleep outside.’
Often including writings of the Devil or ‘possession,’ she added that another child, noted as ‘E’ in the heavily redacted document, ‘refuses to work. Screams. Has hair shaved off.’
Disturbing photos and videos have been released which depict the horrendous injuries of Ruby Franke’s abused children including the moment officers found the kids in a closet at her Utah home
Photos highlight the extent of the abuse by Franke including duct tape wrapped around the arms and legs of the young boy
The two victims had scratches, cuts and and bruises all over their bodies
A video taken from inside the ambulance shows the 12-year-old boy eating from a bag of nuts while being treated and a cop asks him who tied him up with rope
Footage shows the moment the 12-year-old boy manages to escape Franke’s house and goes to his neighbors house for help
In another clip, an EMT is seen attempting to engage with the victim, but she tells her she is ‘just nervous’
Police also discovered a cramped safe room in the basement of the property which was locked from the outside
The children were subject to torture including being tied up with rope, forced to wear adult diapers and locked inside a tiny safe room.
Franke’s business partner Jodi Hildebrandt was also sentenced to up to 30 years behind bars as she was arrested alongside Franke, and the diary’s references to the kids not being ‘possessed’ around her come despite Hildebrandt also taking part in the sadistic abuse.
When investigators found Franke’s house of horrors, one of her children told them that Hildebrandt had tied him up and used home remedies to treat the wounds he suffered.
In the images released in the tranche of evidence, photographs showed the children had painful infections.
It highlighted the extent of the abuse by Franke and show the two emaciated victims with infected cuts on their legs, duct tape around their arms and feet and scratches and bruises on their bodies.
Photos taken at the scene show the fragile bodies of the emaciated children who are covered with cuts, bruises and scars.
Images show the hands and feet of the young boy wrapped in duct tape as well as infected sores on his feet that are filled with blood and pus as a result of the restraints.
The nine-year-old girl was seen with scratches all over her arms and bruise marks on her ankle.
The children were subject to torture including being tied up with rope, forced to wear adult diapers and locked inside a tiny safe room.
They were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in and virtually all forms of entertainment.
Meanwhile, pictures show the kitchen and pantry was filled with food and Franke’s large office dedicated to making YouTube videos.
Police also discovered a cramped safe room in the basement of the property that was locked from the outside, rope that would be used to tie up the children and adult diapers.
Footage shows the moment the 12-year-old boy manages to escape Franke’s house and goes to his neighbors house for help.
Meanwhile pictures show the kitchen and pantry was filled with food
Franke was arrested along with her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt in August and charged with six counts of felony child abuse after one of her sons was discovered with open wounds and duct tape on their limbs
Hildebrandt was also sentenced to 30 years behind bars as she was arrested alongside Frank
He is seen ringing the door and walking away as he thinks no one is home but he is called back by the neighbor.
‘I was wondering if you could do me two favors,’ he says. ‘Well, what are they?’ the neighbor responds.
‘Taking me to the nearest police station,’ the young boy replies before he is asked to take a seat and explain what’s happened.
He is then handed some water and a banana by the neighbors as they call the police and tell them he has duct tape around his feet and has sores all over his body.
‘Oh, you are such a good kid,’ the woman is heard telling him.
Bodycam footage shows the moments police discovered the young girl crouched down in a basement on her own inside Franke’s home.
‘Hi, I’m a police officer,’ one calmly says before the other asks if she is OK. The young girl is scared and reluctant to speak but the officer reassures her that everything will be okay.
In another clip, an EMT is seen attempting to engage with the victim but she tells her she is ‘just nervous.’
A video taken from inside the ambulance shows the 12-year-old boy eating from a bag of nuts while being treated and a cop asks him who tied him up with rope.
‘You’re not in trouble with me. We’re just trying to work out what’s going on,’ the officer said. ‘Our main focus right now is you.’
EMT staff are also seen cleaning the young boy’s cuts that are severely infected.