New police bodycam footage shows armed police storming disgraced parenting blogger Ruby Franke’s Utah mansion to try and find her daughters after her ’emaciated’ son alerted them to their horrific neglect.
Franke ran a controversial parent counseling service, ConneXions, along with business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, 54. Both were arrested on August 30 after one of Franke’s sons was found with open wounds and duct tape on his limbs.
The new footage shows armed police storming Franke’s home in search of her children. Her son and youngest daughter were removed from the home. Officers then searched for the woman’s two middle children.
They were later found to be working at the home of Pat Bodtcher, ConneXions employee, that encounter was also captured on bodycam footage.
‘I don’t even know what this is all about,’ Bodtcher told the police as her husband asked if they had a warrant, which they confirmed. She goes on to tell the officers that Franke had asked her to pick up her daughters because of a ‘family emergency’ which Bodtcher agreed to do because she needed some help cleaning.
The officers – primed with a search warrant – barrel down the door, only to find the home empty, with the children still missing
New police bodycam footage shows armed police storming disgraced parenting blogger Ruby Franke’s (pictured left) Utah mansion to try and find two of her daughters after her ’emaciated’ son escaped
The girls were eventually found with a woman identified by police as Pam Bodtcher (pictured left), an employee of Franke and Hildebrandt’s online self-help platform ConneXions
Multiple new videos, taken from police bodycam footage, have now been released, including the storming of the Franke mansion in search of her daughters.
The officers – primed with a search warrant – barrel down the door, only to find the home empty, with the children still missing.
According to Law&Crime Network, finding the home empty sparked a three-hour search, using multiple Utah police agencies, to find the remaining underage children.
The girls were eventually found with Bodtcher at her home in nearby American Fork, one of the police units asked to cooperate with the investigation. Soon after, they found the two children cleaning her home.
The footage shows a nearly 90-minute conversation between the officers, Bodtcher and her husband, as well as the two previously missing children and a social worker.
Bodtcher was detained for about 50 minutes and put in a cop car shortly after officers arrived, which KUTV reports may have been improper.
When questioned, she said that Ruby Franke had ‘a family emergency and [Bodtcher] needed to pick up the girls.’
‘She said, ‘Do you mind watching the girls while I’m gone,’ because she was leaving,’ Bodtcher added.
Bodtcher explained the children being found cleaning by saying: ‘I said yeah, I can do that because I need some help cleaning.’
The footage shows a nearly 90-minute conversation between the officers, Bodtcher and her husbands, as well as the two previously missing children and a social worker
Bodtcher was detained for about 50 minutes and put in a cop car shortly after officers arrived
When questioned, Bodtcher said that Ruby Franke had ‘a family emergency and [Bodtcher] needed to pick up the girls’
When asked by the officer what the timeline for how long Franke wanted her employee to watch the children, Bodtcher responded: ‘She didn’t say, I was just planning on bringing them home tonight.’
‘I don’t even know what this is all about,’ Bodtcher added, saying the girls come over to her house ‘all the time.’
‘She’s a friend of ours, she comes over and helps me every once in a while with cleaning and stuff.’
Bodtcher’s husband expressed consternation and spoke with the officers, saying he was trying to protect the girls.
Police later confirmed there was never an arrest warrant for Bodtcher herself, just one to locate Franke’s remaining children.
Bodtcher believed the children were going to be taken by child services to live with their 20-year-old sister, Shari, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
However, it is now known that the four young children who were found are currently in custody of the state of Utah.
It was revealed last week that Kevin called the police on their estranged eldest daughter two days after his wife was arrested.
More bodycam footage showed officers handing over electronics, including hard-drives to Kevin after they were retrieved.
He asks one of the officers to tell him again why the issue not being treated as a robbery. The officer tells him that it’s a ‘civil issue’ and because his daughter had an interest in the items and did not take them in order to deprive him of them.
It is now known that the four young children who were found are currently in custody of the state of Utah
Ruby’s husband Kevin called the police on September 1, claiming their eldest daughter, Shari, 20, had broken into the home and taken several items after his wife’s arrest
Shari posted about her mother’s arrest on Instagram, sharing an image of police officers outside the home captioned ‘Finally.’ She broke contact with the family in April
Shari previously posted about her mother’s arrest on Instagram, sharing an image of police officers outside the home captioned ‘Finally.’ She revealed in April that she broke contact with the family.
She added that she has been ‘trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this.’ Shari also said that she is ‘so glad they finally decided to step up’ and that her siblings are safe.
Ruby’s family previously told AlertContent.com she should be ‘put away forever’ if she’s convicted of the abuse.
Her sisters-in-law Cynthia and Jennifer Franke say they believe the abuse allegations against the mother-of-six and say they are ‘shocked’ and ‘sickened’.
Ruby previously made astonishing claims during a court hearing that one of her minor children sexually abused one of their siblings and other children.
The Mormon mom at times broke down as she made shocking claims that one of her minor children sexually abused their sibling and molested several other family members and children in the neighborhood over the years.
Seeming to pin the blame for her behavior on her children, Ruby went into horrific detail about how one of her six kids abused other children.
In one of the most shocking claims, Ruby said said that her child had been sexually abusing a younger sibling for years, adding that eventually the two of them began to abuse other children.
It was revealed last week that Kevin Franke called the police on their estranged eldest daughter two days after his wife was arrested over child abuse claims
The popular YouTuber was arrested along with her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt last month 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
Ruby’s family previously told AlertContent.com that she should be ‘put away forever’ if she’s convicted of the abuse
Kevin ‘wanted to have his daughter charged with theft for taking some hard drives out of the house’, with officers informing him that she ‘wasn’t aware’ she couldn’t have them
She also claimed her two children played a ‘patting’ game with each other, but did not go into further detail.
Ruby said that in May her child confessed to sexually abusing 20 people, including cousins and neighbors. She provided no proof of her sickening allegations.
Her strict parenting style has faced a repeated backlash since she started the channel in 2015.
Viewers called child protective services in 2020 after their son Chad, 15, claimed that he had slept on a bean bag for seven months.
She also threatened to bin her children’s items if they didn’t pay her cash for them, claiming it was a lesson in understanding the value of their things.
Both Franke and Hildebrant have been previously criticized for their teachings on parenting – collaborating on Hildebrandt’s life counseling service ConneXions.
Ruby first rose to fame for her strict parenting style which blew up on and made her ‘millions’ of dollars, she claimed.
She racked up more than 2.2million subscribers for documenting their day-to-day endeavors on social media, along with husband Kevin.
Ruby Franke, (left) who ran the now-defunct 8 Passengers channel, was arrested along with her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt (right) on August 30
Speaking exclusively to AlertContent.com, Ruby’s sisters-in-law Cynthia (left) and Jennifer Franke (right) say she’s lying and ‘saying anything to save herself’
The pair stopped uploading videos in January 2022 and the 8 Passengers page was taken down completely from the website earlier this year.
When asked why she left YouTube behind months later, she said she opted to stop uploading videos because she wanted to ‘save her kids.’
In July, she was called out online after video surfaced of her allowing her daughter to go hungry after the young girl had forgotten to make her own lunch before school.
In a video posted to in 2020, Ruby said her daughter’s teacher had texted her, telling her that the youngster didn’t have anything to eat for lunch.
She said all her kids are responsible for preparing their own lunches in the morning, so she would not be dropping off any food for her daughter to teach her a lesson.
Franke said: ‘My hope [is that] she will be hungry and come home and be like ‘that was really painful being hungry all day I’ll make sure to always have a lunch with me.”
‘The natural outcome is that she is just going to have to go hungry.’
It was this parenting style that helped the woman to gain a massive following on YouTube and shine a spotlight on herself and her family.