7 biggest revelations in the new Ruby Franke documentary 'Devil in the Family'.

The downfall of Ruby Franke and her co-accused Jodi Hildebrandt continues, with a new documentary uncovering even more damaging revelations.

Both women are now convicted child abusers, sentenced last year for the harrowing torture they subjected upon Franke's two youngest children.

The 12-year-old and nine-year-old were rescued from Hildebrandt's home in August 2023, emancipated, malnourished and showing signs of severe physical abuse.

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Franke, her husband Kevin and their six kids rose to prominence on YouTube, amassing 2.3 million subscribers on their channel 8 Passengers. Hildebrandt was the controversial therapist Ruby teamed up with. She helped elevate her 'strict parenting' into something more sinister.

Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke was released last week, and includes the first public interviews with Kevin Franke, and the two eldest children, Shari, 21, and Chad, 20.

Here's everything we learnt.

1. Kevin Franke really had no idea about the abuse.

In the documentary, Ruby's former husband, Kevin, finally shed light on his knowledge, (or lack thereof), of what was happening to his two youngest children for months on end in Hildebrandt's remote Utah home.

You see, Ruby had told Kevin to leave the family home because he was "infesting the family." He spent a year completely exiled from them before getting an 'out of the blue' phone call from Franke, the day his son escaped.

In Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, he said that Ruby told him, "our marriage is in serious jeopardy because of you," and requested he "leave the house immediately" and "I don't want you to have any contact with me or the children".

Ruby and Kevin Franke. Image: @mums_of_truth.

A year later, Kevin said she called him and said, "The two younger children were demonically possessed."

"I remember asking, 'How do you know?' and she said, 'Well they've confessed to it.' And one of the younger kids had gotten out and gotten to the police, and she said, 'I can only imagine the lies he's telling the police right now.'

"You need to go pick up our children from the police station. This is your chance to redeem yourself.'"

When Kevin turned up to the station to pick up his kids, he told the documentary he thought "the police were lying to me," when they explained the state of his children.

A police interview in the documentary shows Kevin's bewilderment and shock as he tries to wrap his head around it. He wasn't even aware that his children had moved out of the family home.

"I couldn't comprehend it, I couldn't understand it," he told the documentary.

Looking back, he said he feels "guilty" admitting: "I was the last line of defence for these children…and I packed my bags and walked away".

As for earlier instances of abuse, he admitted he was supportive of parenting decisions, like removing Chad's bedroom and the "privilege" to eat dinner (which became the subject of viewer complaints), but he was unaware of many other "horrors" going on "behind the scenes" during that time in terms of the way his wife was threatening, "whipping" and talking to their children.

2. Chad Franke accepted his sibling's abuse as the 'right thing to do' at first.

Chad was kicked out of the family home around the same time as his dad, after he confessed to his mum (under Hildebrandt's guidance), that he'd been watching pornography and kissing girls.

"She wiped away the tears and got back to serious and she said, 'Chad, it's time you leave the home.' I was 17 at this time. I really thought I was messing with the house and the spirit in the house," he told the documentary.

By then, he had learnt to love and trust Hildebrandt, to the point where he "really believed Jodi and my mum were God's chosen people".

Chad Franke believed Hildebrandt's teachings even after her arrest. Image: Disney.

During their time in exile, Chad and Kevin had no contact with their old lives apart from their weekly online men's group meeting with Hildebrandt online.

When news broke of his mum and Hildebrandt's arrest, Chad found out via the news and thought, "This is not real…and I really believed that".

"This is the hardest part…I accepted the abuse as something truthful. And that's really hard for me to say. My mum explained it to my dad and my dad explained it to me in a way of, 'It was the right thing to do,'" he said.

The two men eventually came to realise that the facts didn't align with what they'd been told.

"All of a sudden, two plus two equalled four and things made sense," Kevin said of the realisation he'd been brainwashed and lied too.

"He said 'Chad, we've been lied to this whole time, no child is possessed. No child has done the things your mum has said they've done'. My dad was in tears, he hugged me, he was sobbing on my shoulder," Chad remembered .

"I was battling in my head like, 'Everything you've been learning is a lie.' I remember, I closed my eyes and all the blood rushed to my head. I realised I couldn't defend her [Ruby] anymore," he added.

3. How the family really felt about filming for YouTube.

At first, Shari and Chad thought it was a bit of fun. In the documentary, Chad shared how he loved that viewers thought he was the "attractive" and "fun" one, and Shari was excited as their viewership started to grow.

"I thought I was a little bit famous, and it was a cool badge of honour to wear," she said.

But the novelty wore off very quickly as their entire schedule became about YouTube.

"Our house felt more like a set than a home," said Shari.

"It bugged the crap out of me, I hated it," Chad said. "There was a time — maybe a year or more — where I truly hated [my mum]."

Kevin also expressed his discomfort, saying: "She filmed everything….I was so uncomfortable with it. When I came in the door, wherever Ruby was, the camera was."

"All of a sudden, it wasn't enough to just interact with her. I had to interact with the camera," he added.

But he also said the first pay cheque that came in "flipped me 180 degrees, and I wanted more."

He admitted to exploiting his children to make money online, something he didn't "see" at the time.

4. Damning unseen footage from Franke's filming.

We've all seen the footage that Ruby was happy for us to see — making Chad sleep on a beanbag for seven months, and punishing her youngest daughter for forgetting her lunchbox by allowing her to go hungry at school. But the Franke family provided the documentary makers with "boxes" of archival footage from the filming of 8 Passengers, showing the parts she cut out.

Some clips show her yelling at her kids for making noise in the background while she is filming, or threatening to "punish them" for not cooperating on camera.

In one piece of footage, she told Chad to "fake being happy," while forcing him to take part in an advertisement.

Shari shared one shocking incident where; "[Chad] got beat really bad one time, and I helped him clean blood off the walls.

"Looking back on it, I don't think [Ruby] was a good person. I think she was already an abusive mother before, and obviously it escalated dramatically in the last couple of years."

5. The true extent of Hildebrandt's influence.

Hildebrandt was originally invited into the Franke family to help deal with Chad, who was getting suspended from school and rebelling against his mum's strict YouTube way of life.

Pretty quickly, Hildebrandt was also providing therapy to Kevin and Ruby. She moved into the family home and had Ruby join her business, ConneXions.

But the documentary goes into more detail about why that happened, and how Hildebrandt came to have so much influence over the family.

Hildebrandt and Franke become business partners. Image: ConneXions. 

At the start, Kevin thought Hildebrandt's teachings were a "cult" and felt like group sessions were man-hating, but "we were pretty lost [in our relationship]" and Ruby "believed this was the roadmap back".

He started to lean into the teachings when he noticed his wife started looking at him lovingly again.

"There was so much less conflict, and we both felt like there was purpose again," Kevin said.

"We really were a happy family again," said Kevin of that time.

But the family's happiness was short-lived. Kevin explained that the COVID-19 panic had them thinking the world was ending, and that Hildebrandt had been "called by God". It was during this time that her influence became more spiritual, supernatural and other-worldly.

In 2021, Hildebrandt told them she'd been hearing and seeing strange things and was being "haunted" by Satan. The Frankes would support her through 'possessed trances', and Ruby eventually suggested she move in with them so she could heal.

"After Jodi moved in, weird things started happening in our house," said Kevin. "I would place my hands on her head and demand the demons depart."

The possessions were the "worst" at night, and so Ruby started to sleep in a bed with Hildebrandt to help her. Slowly but surely, Kevin was pushed out, and she started to demonise him in ConneXions meetings.

"I don't know the extent to where their connection went, but it was much more than friendship….it was uncomfortably intimate," Kevin said of his wife's relationship with Hildebrandt.

"She started putting her fingers into every aspect of our lives, and I think she wanted Ruby to herself…but in order to do that, she needed me out of the picture."

By the time he and Chad were kicked out, they "believed" Hildebrandt wholly and were willing to do whatever she asked.

6. How those around the family tried to get help.

The neighbours were suspicious of Ruby from the start, describing her in the documentary as "unfriendly" and disliking the constant obsession with filming — particularly with their homes in the background.

Once Kevin had been kicked out, they noticed that the younger kids were being left home alone for days and several alerted the Department of Children and Family Services.

Lisa McLean noticed the four remaining children becoming more and more withdrawn, with them expressing "no joy" when out and about in public.

Shari was suspicious of Hildebrandt's influence and teachings from the start. She didn't understand why her father left, and was worried about her siblings as soon as he did. She was cut out of the family during this time for questioning things.

As well as alerting CPS, Shari called the police, but because there was no "physical evidence" of abuse, the case was closed.

One neighbour tearily told the documentary, "I wish I had lied" about seeing signs of physical abuse.

Some even tried to contact Kevin during his time in exile, telling them about their concerns for the children, but he never replied to their texts.

7. How the family feels about Ruby Franke now.

At the end of the documentary, Kevin admitted that "I do still love her [Ruby]."

"I've always loved her," he said. "The actions that she did are atrocious, but I still feel a longing. I miss her. I cannot turn off all of those other memories."

"But that doesn't mean that I'm not as angry as can be at her. I don't want to be hurt and abused by her anymore," he added.

Shari told the documentary she will, "Never talk to her again," and that she "personally [has] seen too many crocodile tears from her, so I can't say whether or not she is sorry".

Shari Franke will never speak to her mother again. Image: Disney.

Chad admitted that he missed having a "mother figure".

"I miss how she was when I was very young. But I think what she's going through is deserved. I don't think she should get out, at least, until the kids all turn 18 years old. But that doesn't mean I don't have love for her," he said.

Feature image: Kai Pfaffenbach/Disney.