Parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke arrested on suspicion of child abuse
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: TikTok/@utahvloggersyas/Instagram/@abbyfranke_8passengers
Former parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of child abuse.
Franke used to run the '8 Passengers' YouTube channel, which followed her family with her six children and was arrested on Wednesday (30 August) in Ivins, Utah after officials said they discovered a malnourished child with visible injuries.
The former YouTuber's business partner Jodi Hildebrandt was also arrested on similar charges.
According to a statement from the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department officials received a report of a child in need of assistance at around 10:50am on Wednesday.
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The statement described the child as being 'emaciated and malnourished, with open wounds and duct tape around the extremities'.
The child was taken to a local hospital, while officials found another malnourished child in a nearby home who was also taken to hospital.
Following a search of the house, four children were placed in the care of the Department of Child and Family Services.
According to an affidavit filed by an officer of the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department, Franke's 12-year-old son had climbed out of a window and run to a neighbors house to ask for food and water.
The document says the neighbor called law enforcement after seeing duct tape on the child's ankles and wrists, the other malnourished child officials took to hospital was Franke's 10-year-old daughter.
A judge denied the former YouTuber bail after a detective noted 'the severity of the injuries of her two kids located in the home'.
Franke's 8 Passengers YouTube channel began in 2015, showing Ruby's family with her husband Kevin and their six children.
Over the years the channel amassed over two million subscribers but disappeared from the site earlier this year.
The family's strict parenting advice had drawn criticism in the past and in 2020 some viewers called child protective services after their son Chad said he'd been sleeping on a beanbag for months.
Franke said that had been her son's 'choice' after he was no longer sharing a room with a younger brother because of concerns over behaviour.
Kevin Franke's attorney told Page Six his client's 'urgent focus is simply to keep his children together under his fatherly care'.
Utah's definition of aggravated child abuse, which Ruby Franke has been arrested on suspicion of, includes starvation, broken bones, head injuries and suffocation.
If found guilty of the allegations against her, she could face up to 15 years in jail.