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Crime Story Episode 59: Jessica Lowther

Host: Kathleen Goldhar

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Hi, Kathleen here. Just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode contains details of child abuse and that the names of the minor children have been beeped out.

SOUNDCLIP

911 DISPATCHER: 911, the address of your emergency? Okay, and the phone number you're calling from? Tell me exactly what's happened.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: On August 30th, 2023, a man in Ivins, Utah, opened his front door to find a young boy. He was emaciated, bruised and asking for help.

SOUNDCLIP

NEIGHBOUR: I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here at my front door. And he's, uh, said he had just came from a neighbour's house. And we know there's been problems at this neighbour's house. He's emaciated...

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The child's mother is Ruby Franke. She first gained fame for running a YouTube channel called 8 Passengers, where she posted hundreds of vlogs of her six children and her husband Kevin. And at its peak, over 2.5 million people followed the lives of the Franke family. But what viewers saw did not come close to what was actually happening once the camera was turned off.

SOUNDCLIP

NEIGHBOUR: I think he's been... [emotional] he's been detained. He's been... He's obviously covered in wounds.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Jessica Lowther is the executive producer of the podcast series The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke. I'm Kathleen Goldhar. This is Crime Story, and Jessica joins me now. Hi, Jessica.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Hi, Kathleen. Thank you for having me.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So the other day I was driving in the car with my daughter, who is generations younger than I am, and I told her that we were going to be having this interview, and she was very excited to hear from you. So she knew about the Franke family before I did. I knew about them after they became notorious. But we should start with who they were. So can you tell me about the Franke family, that was sort of the happy, well-loved Franke family?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. So Ruby and her husband, Kevin, they actually met when Ruby was 18 years old, and she was attending Utah State University. He was also a student there. And they were doing a meet and greet at her apartment building, and that's where she and Kevin met, and within weeks, they were engaged. And they were married in December 2000. So at the time that they began their YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, it was 2015, so they had been married for 15 years. The first video that they post to their YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, is a gender reveal for their sixth baby. And the family's all gathered around this kitchen island while they're cutting into the cake.

SOUNDCLIP

CHILD 1: If it's green, it's [indistinct].

CHILD 2: Boy, boy, boy, boy!

RUBY FRANKE: So we're going to find out if it's pink or if it's blue.

CHILD 2: Cut it!

RUBY FRANKE: Oh, I'm nervous...

CHILD 2: Go! I hope it's... Oh! It's pink! It's going to be a girl!

JESSICA LOWTHER: They live in Springville, Utah, which is a very well-to-do Mormon community. A lot of wealthy white families in the area. And, you know, a lot of people affectionately refer to these kinds of homes as McMansions. But their YouTube rise to fame was just capturing their daily lives. And I think, well, what we found through our interviews and through our research is that people really just love the kids. A lot of people use YouTube as an escape and maybe even younger audiences watch this and go, Wow, I wish my family was like this. I wish I had siblings. I wish I could have kids, you know? So they're living vicariously through these content creators. And I think that's really how the Franke family caught fire.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: We know, I mean... when YouTube and all that first started coming out, I don't think we realized how much work and how much editing and how much planning went into these things. We know that now. We know that this is a job. We know that kids get overused. How much did Ruby film? I mean, how much pressure were on these children even before she became notorious for more criminal activity?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Well, one of the quotes that has always stuck with me from one of her videos is that she says, 'Honestly, my biggest fear ever since I started vlogging, was what if I wake up and my children are just staring at the wall all day and there's nothing to film?' And so this was top of mind for her that she needed content and she needed to kind of film everything-- anything and everything, even if it was embarrassing for the kids or even if it made her look bad. And she just needed to pump out content. And so I think they had phones shoved in their face probably every moment of the day. [KATHLEEN: Yeah.] And every moment of the night.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And I mean, there was one, right, where she talks about her daughter getting her first period. And [JESSICA: Yeah.] there are things where she's telling them they can't eat because they're gaining too much weight.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. Yeah. And then there's, you know, a lot of punishment being, um, explored on the channel. And this is when people start to raise their eyebrows. They're like, you know, do I really need to know all of this information about your family? Are you taking this too far? Because I imagine once the money started rolling in, this was encouraging her and she started stepping it up a notch. It's hard to, to stop once you're going, especially when the brand deals start rolling in, the advertisers start rolling in and your subscriber numbers are growing and growing and growing. By the time it reached its peak, it had over 2.5 million subscribers, which is pretty huge for a family vlog.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: How much money do you think that translated into? I mean, I know you don't have access to their bank accounts, but what are, what do you think we're talking about here?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Millions.

[suspenseful music fades out]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: And then Ruby posted a video of her son, Chad. Can you talk about Chad and what he reveals to their followers about what he's experiencing at home?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. So, Chad was a teenage boy. He was 16 years old and he had a little brother and a bunch of little sisters. There's obviously always going to be some friction, especially when he's sharing his room with his little six-year-old brother. So there was some implied bullying going on. So she ends up taking the door off of Chad's bedroom, and she takes Chad's bed away. And these are things that they kind of hide from the channel at a certain point. But Chad comes out with it one day while they're filming. But you know what? She posts it. So she's not that ashamed of what she's done.

SOUNDCLIP

RUBY FRANKE: Chad showed that he was not able to manage himself sharing a bedroom. But what you guys didn't know was, heh, Chad didn't get any room. He didn't get anything. He was sleeping on the floor in the family room.

JESSICA LOWTHER: That starts this, Huh? Like, is that really the right way to parent? Now, in the grand scheme of things, obviously, compared to what we know now, this isn't really that big of a deal. But it certainly raised eyebrows among their fans. And he disappears from the channel. Everybody is literally commenting, Where's Chad? He's nowhere to be seen. He hasn't even been mentioned. So she and Kevin finally sit down in a video and explain where Chad is. And it turns out that she and Kevin have sent him away to a troubled youth camp called Anasazi.

SOUNDCLIP

RUBY FRANKE: What I lose sleep over is when kids start self-sabotaging their own efforts.

KEVIN FRANKE: Yeah. And that's the kind of behaviour that we're hoping this program can help Chad correct. And so...

RUBY FRANKE: We're not thinking that anyone's going to be like fixed or corrected, but like...

KEVIN FRANKE: Reveal it to him.

RUBY FRANKE: Re-- Yeah, that's a good way to say it.

JESSICA LOWTHER: That's what I think when people really started to turn against them. There ended up being these Change.org petitions that were released on the internet and, um, that they wanted child protective services in Utah to investigate the Frankes. Again, now, like in hindsight, this was the smart thing to do. But when the child protective services were called, they visited the home four times, we know. We don't know what happened when they visited. But clearly, they walked in, they saw there was food, there was clothing. The children were clean, they were well groomed. And nothing was done about it. And so that was that.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What are some of the examples of the harsh punishment we saw on the YouTube channel?

JESSICA LOWTHER: So one of the videos that really caught the most fire was that Ruby gets a call from [-beep-]'s school. She's six years old at this time, has forgotten her lunch. And [-beep-] [had] been packing her own lunch at the age of six. You know, this was some, some of the discipline that Ruby was teaching her children on their YouTube channel. That, you know, they're self-sufficient and that they need to prepare food for themselves. Now, [-beep-] left that lunchbox in the car on the way to school, and Ruby gets in her car, films a vlog that's basically like, I don't care if she goes hungry. I even don't want anyone to feed her. I hope no one gives her food. I hope no one gives her money because she needs to learn a lesson. This is just so amazing based on the fact that she's a stay-at-home mom. She's already in her car. She could just go bring her the lunch. But she's trying to make a point. And I really think that she just got this thrill of being controversial, because one of the points we make in the podcast is that, you know, she was impervious to people's criticisms. And it was almost like they were kind of pumping her up to like take it up a notch? [KATHLEEN Yeah.] Because she was getting such pleasure out of like pissing off her viewers because there was more engagement.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Other than that, which is a really interesting analysis of it, did she ever explain why she was that harsh? Like, she wouldn't say, I like being controversial, I like the likes, I like the comments. So did she ever sort of like talk about where this idea on her own came from?

JESSICA LOWTHER: I honestly think that this might have been the way she was raised. And so there's been a lot of theories floating around that maybe she, she was the Shari of her family. She was the eldest girl, and that's why maybe she was hardest on Shari in a lot of the videos. She was brought up in this kind of disciplinarian lifestyle and so she really wanted to do that for her children. Because I'm sure she thought she had a great childhood despite like maybe the pain she felt while she was in it, like these kids were feeling. She felt that that built character.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: But everything changes when Ruby and Kevin meet a woman named Jodi Hildebrandt. So...

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Tell me who she is.

JESSICA LOWTHER: So, Jodi Hildebrandt is a psychologist based out of Ivins, Utah. And she had been around for decades in the Mormon Church -- well, they call it the Church of Latter-day Saints -- where bishops in the church would recommend her to couples that were having marital strife. But it turns out that she would basically, instead of helping the marriage, she would break it up. And she would do everything in her power to separate the wife from her husband and demonize the husband. And she really had this very particular thing that she really loved to do, which was, if she found out that the man had ever, even once, looked at pornography, he was a pornography addict. Then she would convince these men, and I just still don't understand how, but she would convince these men that they were the problem and that they needed to be removed from the situation in order for their family to succeed in life.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So tell me that story of Jodi in the trajectory of the Franke family. So what did she do?

JESSICA LOWTHER: So she is hired as Chad's therapist. And she was seeing Chad over Zoom for a few years before he turned 18. But one thing that Kevin Franke says in one of his police interviews is that he always found it odd that Jodi preferred to talk to the parents and not the child that actually needed the therapy. And this is when Ruby starts to get very close with Jodi. At one point, Jodi even moves in. And Kevin's like, I don't want anything to do with this. But he, he relents because Ruby really, really wants her there. And this is all coming out of basically this, this backlash against the 8 Passengers YouTube channel. They have lost their income overnight because of these petitions, and so she needs to find something else to latch herself onto, and it's Jodi. Kevin says that this goes back to her childhood, that she always wanted to be the best friend. And so this woman, Jodi, is trying to get close to her and she's honoured. She's just like, wow, this woman, this amazing therapist who's kind of famous in our area, who's very powerful, wants to be friends with me and wants to bring me into the fold. So she buys it hook, line and sinker. And what ends up happening over the course of this time that Jodi is living in the Franke house is that Kevin's being further extricated from his own family. He's not allowed to go upstairs in his own house. Ruby moves into the bedroom with Jodi. They have a friend named Pam Bodtcher that is another member of this ConneXions therapy group that Jodi Hildebrandt runs. And the three of them are up in this bedroom in the Franke household for hours. They come out blissful after these séance-- kind of séances that they were doing. It seemed like they were trying to exorcize demons. And Kevin also claims in one of his police interviews that the strangest things were happening in his home and he really couldn't put his finger on it.

SOUNDCLIP

KEVIN FRANKE: The moment she showed up in my house, just the weirdest crap started happening. Lights turning on and off, sounds of people walking in walls and stuff floating around. And it was just, it was weird. And I became the resident exorcist.

JESSICA LOWTHER: But I believe all of them were brainwashed by this woman because they still let this go on for a period of time. Ruby, Jodi, go out of town. Ruby comes back and announces she wants a separation from Kevin and that he needs to move out of the house. So Jodi is the catalyst to the end of their marriage and to the separation. And that is, I think, Jodi's step one in order to enact this, this whole thing that ends up going down between Ruby and her kids.

[suspenseful music fades out]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So what, what happens? Kevin leaves the house, and we know this now because [JESSICA: Yeah.] eventually the police were called and this was stopped. But this became sort of a house of horrors.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Mm-hmm. So Kevin moves out of the house in July 2022. He doesn't see his children for a year. And he doesn't even seem to talk to them on the phone, which I found very strange. So he has absolutely no idea what's been going on. Chad and Shari have grown up. They're out of the house. They're over 18. So there's only four minor children left in the Franke family. And they still have the house in Springville, but it seems like a lot of the time the kids are being left alone in that house while Ruby goes and, you know, gallivants with Jodi. And Shari Franke's even calling the police on her own mother, saying, you know, my siblings are being left at home for days on end, and they haven't eaten. And they're, they're minors. They need adult supervision. And imagine how much strength that takes to call the police on your own family.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Do the kids end up moving into Jodi's house with Ruby?

JESSICA LOWTHER: So this was something we weren't sure of until the Washington County District Attorney's office released all of the information in March of 2024. But, you know, Ruby was going back and forth between Jodi's home and the home in Springville. And Jodi lives in this, what I like to call an evil super villain compound, like built into the mountains in the desert of Utah. It, like, quite literally is like the most chilling looking home. It's not a home by any means. And she's now moved in with Jodi, and her two youngest are in the house with her at all times.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: The police finally get in, because [-beep-] escapes and finally found a person that was home. And this man was obviously a real caring human being because we hear him tear up on the phone.

SOUNDCLIP

NEIGHBOUR: He's emaciated, he's got tape around his legs, he's hungry and thirsty.

911 DISPATCHER: Okay.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Police finally get there. What do they find?

JESSICA LOWTHER: So police respond to the scene. They knock on Jodi Hildebrandt's door. Jodi answers the door with her cell phone to her face, and the first thing she says is, "I have my attorney on the line." And they were like, That's great. Let us in. [Kathleen chuckles] You know, we're here on exigent circumstances. We don't need a warrant to search your home. We've heard there are two other children in this house. Now, when the police enter, this is, like I said, a compound. There's like a secret panic room in the basement. It's completely empty and vast and there's just no decoration. There's barely furniture. And they find [-beep-] in what appears to be an empty walk-in closet, just sitting on the floor. And she's immediately appears on, on the body cam, you can see she's extremely malnourished and abused to the point where she doesn't even want to go with the EMTs that are responding because she doesn't trust anyone. She doesn't trust anyone. And you can only imagine what they had been put through at this moment. And it takes them four hours to cajole her to finally come out of that closet. And they end up giving her two full pizzas to eat there on the floor. And at first they actually thought she was a boy because her head had been shaved. And she was so malnourished that it just wasn't--

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: How old is she at this point?

JESSICA LOWTHER: She's ten.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Wow.

JESSICA LOWTHER: She was about to turn ten. And they finally get her out. [-beep-] is already in the ambulance. On the body cam, his face is blurred out, of course, but you can see these awful wounds on his ankles, his wrists. He's skin and bones. He's wearing clothes that are way too big for him. And the thing that really got me the most about this whole situation was [-beep-] was asking that man to take him to the police because he just wanted to go to jail. His mother had convinced him that he was so bad that he needed to go to jail, and he'd rather be in jail than at that house with his mother. And so what we end up finding out after they search the home is that Ruby has written everything down in a journal. Almost every conversation that they have over the three months they're there at Jodi's compound, almost every level of abuse that's enacted against these two children. Their food is withheld. They are made to walk barefoot on the hot concrete outside of the house. They're made to do physical labour in the 100+ degree heat in the Utah desert.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Why?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Why? It's a great question. And throughout all of the journal entries, you'll see that Ruby is convinced that her children are the devil and that these children have demons inside of them that are controlling them and that they need to be exercised out by literally torturing them. This goes on for three months. I think there's a point where these kids, I don't think they thought they would make it out of that home alive. And [-beep-] had tried escaping once before, but Ruby and Jodi both caught up with him. And that's also written down in the journal entries. The journal entries are honestly the worst things I've ever read in my life.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Really.

JESSICA LOWTHER: And, um. Yeah. And putting this bonus episode of The Rise and Fall of Ruby Franke together was really, really tough because I read through them all and then I transcribed them all. And then you had to listen to it a bunch of times. But it really puts into full context the levels of abuse that was going on. And just also the level of brainwashing, because, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think Ruby would have gone this far if it wasn't for Jodi Hildebrandt.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: I was going to ask you that. Like what, I mean obviously Ruby was a strict mother even before. We know that. But what evidence is there that this serious, serious abuse got torqued up because of Jodi?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Well, Jodi was the person that had convinced her that her children were demonic. And that, you know... One of the big things about Jodi is that she thought that kids should come second and that the parents come first. And that was obvious in a lot of the ConneXions videos that Ruby appeared in with Jodi. The ConneXions Classroom was the YouTube page where she would basically teach lessons to successfully navigate life and relationships. And so it was almost sermons, you know, like they were basically sermons. And so there's a lot of parenting advice on here, a lot of parenting techniques. But I really honestly think that Jodi was... She thought she was possessed. She thought she was seeing shadow figures. This is just something that... she just wanted to see how far she could take it. And she convinced Ruby to abuse her own children almost to the point of death. These kids almost died.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: What do we know about Jodi? Where she came from and where this, where this started?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Well, we do know that Jodi has a history of neglecting her patients. At one point, had her license taken away from her in the state of Utah. Now, I'm not sure whether it was just suspended for a time or whether she ever got it back, but you don't actually have to disclose that information. And when she found out that there were just too many laws and too many rules to follow with having like an actual certified licence to practice therapy, she's like, you know what? I'm going to rebrand. I'm going to rebrand as a life coach because there's no regulations around that. That's how she looped Ruby into this. Something that I found interesting is that Jodi does have kids, but her own family doesn't even speak to her. [KATHLEEN: Wow.] And there's Adam Steed, who's interviewed in our podcast. He's, he's done a ton of interviews about his experience with Jodi Hildebrandt and the level of mental abuse that she enacted on him and broke up his marriage.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Oh, he was a client with his wife.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. She convinced the wife that her husband was a pedophile and that he was a pornography addict. And they even at one point had him arrested because... this is, this is so wild. But, you know, Jodi tells the wife to go into the bathroom while he's bathing their one-year-old baby, in lingerie. So she's like, go in in lingerie, even though she's been withholding sex from him -- by Jodi's direction -- for months. She goes in, and he becomes aroused. And she immediately goes, Oh my God, you're aroused and you're bathing our baby. And calls the police.

[Kathleen gasps]

JESSICA LOWTHER: You know, obviously nothing ends up coming out of this, but there's just so much about the sickness that Jodi has. She just gets this sick pleasure out of hurting people and making them believe the worst in each other. One of the things that I found most interesting about the jail phone calls that were released a month after the sentencing, is that Ruby came out of this, this spell that Jodi had over her within a month of being separated from her in the jail. And she finally came out of it fully because her lawyer was like, Ruby, Jodi's denying all of this, and you're still saying that this was all justified. She's like, wait, what do you mean? And that's when it clicks for her that this was all just a game for Jodi. But this was Ruby's real life. These were her real kids. And once she was removed from whatever hold this woman had on her, is when she's like, oh my God, what have I done?

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Was it a cult of one?

JESSICA LOWTHER: It was a cult of one. Absolutely. I mean, you know, there's never been any charges brought against Pam Bodtcher, the third member of the ConneXions Classroom. And I don't think there will be, but... She was definitely starting a cult. But, you know, Kevin even says in one of his phone calls, you know, people who are in a cult don't say that they're in a cult. But [KATHLEEN: Of course.] this was definitely a cult leader in the making. And I think that's why the district attorney's office really, really wanted to throw the gauntlet down on Jodi and give her the maximum that they could in the state of Utah. Because in the state of Utah, you actually cannot spend more than 30 years in prison unless it's homicide. So they, they really threw the book at her.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: So let's talk about that. They are arrested, they're in prison. What happens? Like tell me about the trial, tell me about how this sort of ends in terms of the legal saga.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah. So Ruby and Jodi are arrested that day. Ruby comes back to the home and sees all the ambulances, fire trucks, police cars; sits down, basically doesn't say a word the entire day. The police bring her into an interrogation room. She just wants a lawyer, which is smart. But Jodi's in there gabbing away. She's just gabbing, gabbing, gabbing. She doesn't think she's done anything wrong. 'Why are these people at my home?' You know, no one ever asks once, are the children okay? Not once. And December, right after Christmas, Ruby pleads guilty. So there is no trial. She didn't want to put her kids through the pain of a trial. And you can say that's one of the nicest things she's ever done for them. She realizes how much evidence they have against her. I mean, Eric Clarke, the district attorney, even said himself, I've never seen someone write down so much evidence of their own crimes before. Yeah, so she pleads. A few days later, Jodi pleads guilty. And so there's no trial for her, either. And they're sentenced in February of 2024. They're both sentenced to, what was it, 6 to 20 years or something? It's very--

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Very broad.

JESSICA LOWTHER: It's a very odd sentence. [KATHLEEN: Yeah.] It's a very broad sentence. And what Eric Clarke, when we spoke to him, the district attorney of Washington County, he suspects that Jodi will serve the full term of her sentence. What he hopes is that Ruby serves until all of her children have at least reached the age of 18. And I hope that, too. We obviously don't know how the kids are doing. There hasn't been much publicly said about them, but we can assume that they are doing much better. Kevin Franke has been fighting for custody back of his children. He's also been in the news fighting for more laws to protect children, especially when it comes to the Child Protective Services Department in Utah. And so it sounds like this family is finally healing without the presence of their mother or the influence of Jodi Hildebrandt.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Kevin, though, sort of -- tell me a little bit about that. Because what I found fascinating was when Kevin does get called in to talk to the cops, he doesn't know what's happening and the cops believe him. And for a little while, he sort of stands by Ruby. But, how does that start to shift?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah, I, I also found that extremely interesting. So, the day of -- August 30th -- we now know that Ruby texted Kevin and said 'you need to come pick up the kids' and gave him an address. And this is the first time he's, you know-- He's heard from Ruby in like various ways. Like, can you sign this paperwork? Can you do this? Or like asking financial questions, things like that. But like I said before, he has not seen or talked to his kids in a year. So he jumps at the opportunity. He shows up. It is the police department in Ivins, Utah. And the cops are basically like, how did you know to come here today? And he's like, I received a call. He won't say from who. And he's already protecting his wife. He says over and over again, I love my wife. Like, what's going to happen to my wife? I don't understand. And finally, the police come out and say, Your wife has been charged with four counts of aggravated child abuse. And your son, a 12-year-old boy, was found emaciated and malnourished, begging for food from a neighbour. And he's dumbfounded. I really believe that he had no idea this was happening. Now, you can have your opinions about a father not knowing the state of his children. But I do believe that these were two very powerful women keeping him apart from a family he wanted. But, you know, he, he was up against a couple of monsters, a couple of master manipulators.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Where are the two of them today? Like, how does Kevin feel about Ruby today?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Well, it's actually interesting, because once he finds out about the aggravated child abuse and he's able to go visit his children in the hospital and see the condition that they're in, this is when he finally turns, not only on Ruby, but on Jodi. Because he's asked about Jodi in that first police interview. Like, do you know Jodi Hildebrandt? And he's like, yeah, she's a wonderful woman. He says something like that.

SOUNDCLIP

INVESTIGATOR: Do you know a female named Jodi?

KEVIN FRANKE: She is a therapist and a life coach I know. And she's...

INVESTIGATOR: Do you respect her?

KEVIN FRANKE: Do I respect her? I think she's a very honest, truthful person. Yes.

INVESTIGATOR: Okay.

JESSICA LOWTHER: And the next time they bring him in, and you hear a lot of this audio in our bonus episode, he's just telling it all.

SOUNDCLIP

KEVIN FRANKE: When she would go into possession mode, she would talk in, like, different voices. It was really creepy. But the voices would say, she's ours. We're not letting go. She is Satan's bride.

JESSICA LOWTHER: So he turns on them pretty quickly. And on the prison phone calls between Ruby and Kevin, he's cordial with her, but he's clearly very frustrated by the situation. He's just trying to make sense of it all. I mean, this is [a] pretty crazy thing to happen, seemingly out of nowhere to him. So they've just been picking up the pieces, Chad, Shari and Kevin, trying to rebuild their family. I hope the children, the two especially that were subjected to the most abuse, I hope they find healing. And, um, when stories like this come out, it's important to just reflect on them, and like, what can we do to protect our children? Especially even if it just goes back to that YouTube channel. Is it right to be putting your minor children, their faces, their names and everything about them on the internet for profit? I don't know. I don't think it is, personally.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Has this case made an impact on others, like, to that point? Has it made any impact? Has it changed anything in that very powerful and influential world?

JESSICA LOWTHER: Yeah, I would say that, you know, these kids are growing up now. A lot of these kids who have been on YouTube since, you know, its inception in the early 2000s, they're old enough to now go, Why? Why was this allowed? Why were my parents allowed to profit? I received nothing. I was basically a child actor my whole life. Everyone knows me and I don't know them. And there is this familiarity that strangers have with-- you know, these parasocial relationships that they have with these content creators and their families. Um. And they have no privacy. Your childhood gets to live up here in your mind, but these kids' childhoods were blasted out to the entire world. And how, how can they make that right? How can the world, how can YouTube, how can the internet right this wrong? We're starting to see a lot of legislation in the United States, in certain states. You know, of course... that's the thing. It would have to be done on a federal level to really make a big impact, but I do know there's a bill in Utah to protect children online. There are some bills in some other states that have been put forward. Nothing really that dramatic as of right now, but as... I'm afraid to say it, but, I'm sure there are more stories like this that are going to be coming out in the years to come. And there just needs to be a bigger collective action to protect children because they are the most important things in this world.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Yeah. On that note, positive, optimistic or scary, I will end it there. Thank you so much. I mean, this story really is riveting. I'm sure it's gripped you. I can't imagine you don't think about it all the time. And yeah, really great work on the podcast, too.

JESSICA LOWTHER: Thank you, Kathleen. I do think about it all the time.

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Since this conversation, there have been a number of updates in this story, including that Ruby Franke's eldest daughter Shari announced that she's publishing a memoir. She also spoke to the Utah House of Representatives about the dangers of family vlogging. Here's part of what she said:.

SOUNDCLIP

SHARI FRANKE: As a child, I was fully aware that I was an employee. At the time, I'd tell you I had a choice in what was filmed, but I've come to learn that every child influencer, in a way, suffers from Stockholm syndrome. I don't want people to look at me and blame my unique circumstances, with a mother in prison, to the Franke criminal case. Family vlogging ruined my innocence long before Ruby committed a crime.

[Music: Series closing theme]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. We release a new episode every Monday, so please remember to follow the show in your podcast app. You can get our next episode a week early on CBC Podcasts' YouTube channel, or by subscribing to CBC Podcasts' True Crime channel on Apple Podcasts. In addition to early access, subscribers to our True Crime channel also listen ad-free. Crime Story is hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Nikky Manfredi and Mitchell Stuart. Sound design by Julian Uzielli and Mitchell Stuart. Media sourced from Fox 13 News Utah, KUTV 2 News Salt Lake City, Law & Crime, and Wondery. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner. Our video producer is Evan Aagaard, and our YouTube producer is Jon Lee. Executive Producers are Cesil Fernandes and Chris Oke. Tanya Springer is the Senior Manager of CBC Podcasts and Arif Noorani is the Director of CBC Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 59

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