Ruby Franke’s Husband Kevin Reveals How She Hid Sickening Child Abuse From Him Inside Their Own Home

Convicted child abuser Ruby Franke‘s husband, Kevin, has opened up about his wife’s horrifying treatment of their six children—while revealing how she hid her behavior from him inside their own home.

Ruby, 43, rose to fame as a Mormon parenting influencer, documenting her seemingly sweet and picture-perfect life with her children and husband inside their lavish Springville, UT, property on her popular YouTube channel, “8 Passengers.”

But in August 2023, that innocent image was irrevocably shattered when the mother of six was arrested on charges of aggravated child abuse, along with her close friend and confidante, former family therapist, Jodi Hildebrandt.

Both women pleaded guilty to four counts of child abuse and each received four separate prison sentences of one to 15 years.

Now, Ruby’s husband, Kevin, and her oldest son, Chad, are candidly speaking out about Ruby’s arrest in a new People magazine interview published two days before they are due to appear in a three-part Hulu documentary about the case, entitled “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.”

At the time of her arrest, Ruby had separated from Kevin and was living with her youngest children in Hildebrandt’s $5 million luxury home, which was about a four-hour drive from her own abode.

However, Kevin has now recounted how Hildebrandt first moved into the Franke family home, describing her arrival at the property as “uncomfortably intimate.”

“The devil knocked, and we opened the door,” Kevin says in a trailer for the upcoming Hulu docuseries, before adding: “Jodi began to live at our home. It was uncomfortably intimate. Weird things started happening. Ruby said the children were demonically possessed. That was the spark that blew the powder keg.”

According to Kevin and Chad, Hildebrandt began to dictate the way the children were disciplined inside their home, explaining that the decision to make kids sleep on sleeping bags, or banning them from sports, was done at the behest of a woman they believed to be a professional family counselor.

“Those directives came from Jodi, the licensed mental health counsellor,” he told People. “I definitely voiced my opposition and concern, and it was always flipped back on to me.”

However, the father of six insisted that he “didn’t even know” any of the physical violence was happening because Ruby kept it so well hidden.

“A lot of the physical violence that was described was hidden and kept from me, I didn’t even know that those things happened,” he says. “I think Ruby was very careful to hide a lot of that from me.”

However, Kevin says that—despite what the media and public might believe—the kinds of “criminal” abuses that were brought to light in 2023 with Ruby’s arrest were not happening prior to that year, until “Jodi entered our family.”

He notes that the abuse was much easier to conceal when Ruby and Hildebrandt informed him that he needed to move out of the family home for a year in order to better aid their family’s “healing.”

Ruby, who at the height of her YouTube fame was earning up to $100,000 a month, according to her family; and Kevin had purchased their seven-bedroom Utah home in 2020, according to property records.

It was inside this home that Ruby regularly filmed content for her YouTube account, creating a picture-perfect image of family life.

However, unearthed footage that was never shared publicly now reveals the very sinister reality of what was going on behind the camera, with Hulu revealing clips of Ruby screaming at her children, physically shoving and grabbing them, and threatening them if they failed to put on a happy face for the camera.

“What Ruby has done, it just crossed a line of abusive to just … psychotic,” Ruby’s oldest daughter, Shari, says in the Hulu series.

Chad adds: “She just wanted to show the view of a Mormon happy family, but they only saw what we wanted to show them.”

By the time Ruby was arrested, she had moved out of the family home with her youngest children and into an luxurious desert mansion owned by Hildebrandt.

It was here that one of Ruby’s children was found by police in August 2023, suffering from “severe” wounds, malnutrition, and neglect after her brother, 12-year-old Russell, escaped through a window of the home and fled to a neighbor’s house to beg for food and water.

After the neighbor phoned the police, Russell was taken to the hospital, and authorities later found his younger sister, Eve, inside a closet in Hildebrandt’s home, suffering from a similar state of malnutrition and neglect, according to Fox 13.

Both Ruby and Hildebrandt were arrested at the scene and charged with aggravated child abuse.

“The neighbor observed duct tape on the boy’s ankles and wrists, severe wounds, and malnourishment. He quickly contacted law enforcement who, upon arrival, learned that potentially more children remained inside Ms. Hildebrandt’s home and in harms’ way.

“The officers responded to Ms. Hildebrandt’s home, placed her under arrest, and conducted a search of her sizable property where they found Ms. Franke’s 9-year-old daughter, petrified and hiding in a closet.”

Less than one month after she pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse, Hildebrandt placed the home on the market for $5.3 million—however it was later de-listed after a judge ruled that she had to wait until her Feb. 20, 2024 sentencing before selling it.

The home has since been relisted for the lower price of $4.99 million.