Serialously with Annie Elise
244: Cultfluencer: The Dark Side of YouTube’s ‘Perfect’ Mom | Ruby Franke Devil in The Family
Mon, 24 Feb 2025
Exposing all the unheard details and unseen footage about Ruby Franke. Ruby was a well-known YouTube creator with millions of followers, who shared her life as a mom of six children and documented every single detail. It wasn’t long before the dark truth of what really went on in the Franke home when the camera wasn’t rolling, was exposed… Join our True Crime Club for access to BTS, Bonus Content, Our Private Group Chat, Giveaways and More! Shop Our True Crime Merch Follow the podcast on: IG, Facebook and TikTok For Business Inquiries: [email protected] About Annie Today’s Sponsors: Hero Bread: Go to https://hero.co and use code AE for 10% off your order OPositiv Health: Head to https://opositiv.com/ae for 25% off your first purchase Beam: Go to https://shopbeam.com/annieelise and use code ANNIEELISE for up to 40% off Episode Sources: ABC News People Rolling Stone Biography KUTV 2 Law and Crime CBS News
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
What Ruby has done, it just crossed a line of abusive to just psychotic.
Weird things started happening. Ruby said the children were demonically possessed.
Our entire schedule revolved around YouTube. It felt more like a set than a house.
Sit her down on the flipping couch. OK, move it. If I hear one more word, get out.
I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here at my front door. He's got duct tape around each ankle. He's obviously covered in wounds.
Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serial Asleep. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. It's me, Annie Elise, your true crime BFF, and I am here to break down another case for you. We are going into a super big deep dive today, so I just want you all to get ready.
Whatever it is you're doing, whether you have got a long commute ahead of you, you're cleaning at home, you're running errands, whatever it is, I just want to give you a little warning. You're going to be with me for a minute, all right, Bestie? We are going to be with each other for a minute because we are going to go over everything in this case. Now, I've talked about this case before.
It is the Ruby Frankie Jodi Hildebrand case. They are the two people, alleged cult leaders. Ruby was a huge, huge YouTube star. She was a family vlogger. She had millions of followers, made tons of money. They were, again, as I said, like cult leaders together, cult members, allegedly. and they were arrested and charged with horrific crimes against Ruby's children.
Now, since all of this has come out, there have been quite a few updates along the way. Ruby's children have spoken out, one child wrote a book, her husband has spoken out because the question that was on everybody's mind is like, okay, where the hell was this guy this whole time? Why did he allow this to happen? Because
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Chapter 2: Who are Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt?
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And the fact that they have everything, sliced bread, tortillas, bagels, even those dinner rolls or Hawaiian rolls, I mean, it means that I never have to give up on my favorite foods or my kids' favorite foods. So if you've been trying to eat better, but you refuse to give up the good stuff and you want stuff that tastes...
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This is Connections According to Jodi.
So let me tell you a little bit about what I've been doing. For the last 20 years, I've been trying to figure out how to help my clientele. I've been working with tens of thousands of people for 20 years, and I've been asking God about how to help heal them. from this array of mental and emotional illness, okay?
And so I have been on this journey trying to understand how to use principles that are gods in helping people heal.
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Chapter 3: What were the controversial parenting methods of Ruby Franke?
There really is no doubt in my mind, and I don't think that they would maybe have ever even been found because of the vast amount of desert out there. I don't know, but it sends a chill down my spine when I think about it. Thank God. Thank God he escaped. Now, after he escaped that one night, Ruby began tying ropes to him at night so that he couldn't leave.
Another form of punishment that they used was taking the kids to the local cemetery to pull weeds and pick up trash. Ruby wrote that they would make them go barefoot to increase the discomfort and to also decrease the chance of them running away.
She admitted that it was full of huge sagebrush, pokies, thorns, and even broken glass, and at one point, the owner of the cemetery came and told Ruby that she was trespassing and had to get off of her land. So then Ruby took the kids, and she and Jodi explained that the woman was in distortion.
Because of course, as soon as somebody's not agreeing with what you want to do, they're obviously in distortion, right? Now at one point, R was crying because his feet were so swollen from standing. Ruby told him, quote, when your soul is dying, no one cares about your feet.
A couple of days later, when R, quote, wasn't manipulating and told Ruby that he wanted to change, Ruby told him, no, that's not true. You didn't manipulate because you weren't uncomfortable. Now, reading this journal was absolutely insane because Ruby was just such a freaking hypocrite as she yelled at her kids for manipulating her, but then manipulated them.
Anything R and E did was never good enough. And Jodi and Ruby would just continue to convince the kids that they sold their souls to the devil. Ruby even wrote about putting on a pair of boots and going into the room that he was locked in at one point and kicking him, saying, You want me to help you? No. You want me to feed you? No. You want me to shower and provide for you? No.
She wrote about how he would respond to the different discipline measures of cold water, cactus poking, and whipping him with towels. And then after that, she moved to whipping E and R both with a belt. There was also another detail that Ruby talked about throughout a lot of her journal entries that literally sends chills down my spine even thinking of it.
Ruby talks about her and Jodi's plan to buy land in Arizona. In one entry she says, Jodi and Jay are going on a trip to look at property in Arizona. I have some cash in the bank, so if the property is right, we can move on financing immediately. We decided that the escalation of the kids is not manageable here and now. R is now sitting, angry and defiant. E is lying on the floor.
We will bring them in. R and I will clean up out in the desert as he has pooped himself. Then in another entry, Ruby talked about the land again and said, kids need a good kick from a horse and a cactus to run into. Can you imagine saying this about your children, about any children? It is so awful.
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