The 7 shocking revelations in child abuser Ruby Franke's personal journals.

Content warning: This story includes descriptions of child abuse that may be distressing to some readers.

In February 2024, Ruby Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, were both sentenced to 30 years in prison for child abuse. The now very public situation saw the eldest children and Franke's husband becoming estranged from the household, while the youngest children endured alarming physical and psychological abuse by Franke and Hildebrandt. 

Now, the latest evidence released in the child abuse case against Franke and Hildebrandt has exposed some horrific findings about her cruelty towards her children (her son, referred to as R, and her daughter, E, in the document), in her own words. Franke's handwritten journals, a 60-page document, clearly lay out the months of physical and emotional abuse that she subjected her two youngest children to, including starvation and humiliation tactics.

Here are the 7 most disturbing entries from Franke's personal journals.

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Franke believed her kids were possessed by the devil. 

Throughout the journal entries, Franke consistently claims to believe her children are "in and out of possession" by the devil and often refers to their behaviour towards her as "defiant" or "manipulative."

The various punishments, whether starvation or physical beatings she puts them through, all seem to be rooted in the belief that she is trying to save them from "the devil."

In one particular entry, Franke claims her children are infected with a disease. 

"There is a soul-killing infection in my child… R & E like the infection. It's so sick!" Franke wrote. 

The children were subjected to extreme physical abuse.

The journal entries document Franke's extensive physical abuse against her children, including whipping and kicking them. 

In an entry she wrote in August 2023, Franke admits to putting on boots and kicking her son after she claims he misbehaved. 

"I put on a pair of boots. I went in and kicked him again," she wrote. 

In several other entries from that same month, Franke details whipping both her children with a belt, and using a "cactus poker" to prod her son in the back and neck in order to force him to stand in the sun. 

In one particularly harrowing episode, documented in her entries from July 2023, Franke recalls holding her son's head underwater and covering his nose and mouth with her hand. 

"Then I put my hand tightly over his nose and mouth," she wrote. 

In the entry, Franke tells her son that the devil will lie, claiming she is hurting him, but that she is, in fact, trying to save him.

The children were starved.

Ruby Franke subjected her children to extreme physical abuse. Image: Instagram/moms_of_truth.

There are many references to the children's meals throughout the journal entries, some documenting what they eat, including beans and rice, while others justify Franke's decision not to feed them at times.  

"I will not feed a demon," she wrote in one entry. 

In another, she claims she will make her daughter do "one more day of fasting to invite her to humble." 

There are also entries that detail her son "stealing" water and her daughter claiming she is being starved. 

The children were made to stay outside in horrible conditions. 

There are several concerning excerpts that claim Franke forced her children to stand outside in awful conditions, whether it was hot or raining. She even admits to making her son sleep outside on one occasion, writing "R is to stay outside. Sleep outside."

Franke admits to forcing her son to stand outside in the sun against his will and calls him "defiant" when he refuses. 

"R was told to stand in the sun w/ his sun hat," Franke wrote. "He is defiant... R, or I should say his demon, stays in the shade. I push R into the sun. R comes back." 

Franke also referred to her daughter as "manipulative" and describes how she made her stand in the rain for two hours. 

The children were forced to do manual labour. 

Franke's entries also illustrate her belief that physical activity could somehow cure her children from the devil. 

"If you can engage a weak minded soul in a physical activity of obedience you can begin to break the bond Satan made with the weak," she wrote. 

"Farm work. lifting boxes. Exorting energy. Exercises. Jump rope. Milking cows. Weeding a garden. Digging trenches." 

Franke described one situation where she woke her daughter up in the middle of the night and forced her to "do 2 sets of boxes/stairs" because she "didn't listen the night before." 

Franke subjected her children to humiliation tactics. 

She used humiliation tactics on her kids. Image: Instagram/moms_of_truth.

Several entries include degrading punishments and the drastically humiliating actions Franke took in order to discipline her children, many involving her daughter's hair.

Franke recounts shaving her daughter's head multiple times as punishment for whining and writes in her journal, "If she's going to act sick, she can look sick."

She also admits to shaving her daughter's hair off after she refused to do work and, on one occasion, cutting off her hair and "dousing" her with water in the "dog wash". 

The children had tried to run away previously. 

In August 2023, Franke's son, who was emaciated with open wounds and bound with duct tape, escaped to a neighbour's house, which led to Franke and Hildebrandt's arrest. 

But that wasn't the first time either of the children had tried to escape.  

In several journal entries in 2023, Franke alludes to previous attempted escapes by the children, including one instance where she kept both the children barefoot while they were out, in order to "increase the discomfort and decrease the running away." 

One July 2023 entry also detailed her son attempting to run away in the middle of the night. 

"I couldn't see R. He was gone," Franke wrote. 

She recalled driving around with Hildebrandt until they found her son wandering the streets. 

Feature image: Image: Instagram/moms_of_truth.