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I… I love children.
I love children. I love your children.
And I have a very sacred charge to help you protect them.
Your motive, in truth, is to guide them back to God.
Yes?
Hi.
911, the address of your emergency?
I just had a 12-year-old boy show up
here at my front door asking for help.
His ankles are taped up, and he won't tell us why.
Welcome to ConneXions.
I'm Jodi Hildebrandt. So glad you're with us.
What's going on, son? Have a seat there.
It's personal business.
Have a seat.
Nobody wants the truth. Nobody wants the truth because these kids…
It's all the devil. He uses these kids,
and he uses all of us as the adults,
the parents that don't hold the kids accountable.
So now it's abusive to make a kid sleep on the floor. It's abusive.
It's ridiculous.
You can't even raise your kids anymore.
He rang my doorbell and asked me to call the police.
Does he seem to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol?
I don't think so.
But he has duct tape around each ankle.
-Yeah, there's sores around them, I think. -He also has--
He has them around his wrists as well. This boy has been…
He needs…
This kid has obviously been…
He's been detained. He's been…
He's obviously covered in wounds.
The call comes in like,
"Boy has duct tape on ankles. Appears to be malnourished."
That's all that we see.
I was working in investigations.
I handled all sex crimes, property crimes… I was the only detective at the time.
They should be pulling up now.
Okay, the ambulance is here.
A few of us were a little skeptical on how valid this report was at first.
Santa Clara-Ivins is a very affluent area.
Large homes situated on large lots.
Are the kids playing tag and one is left with duct tape? You just don't know.
Once our initial responding officer arrived,
he immediately noticed how malnourished, emaciated, scrawny he was.
That's when he saw the extent of the injuries as well.
The boy had a paste mixture on his wounds.
He had duct tape on him.
He had Saran Wrap.
I'm gonna cry.
I know, that's why I got my shades on.
No more than three minutes later, he called me and was like,
"This is a big deal. I need you to come out for this."
Medical started cutting the stuff off him.
You can see the wounds.
You could smell it. The flesh.
The young boy stated that he had been bound with rope and handcuffs.
And he said he deserved those injuries.
You're not in trouble with me, okay?
We're just trying to figure out what's going on.
Our main focus right now is you, okay?
Who put the ropes on you?
The day that the young boy ran away, we know that it was over 100 degrees.
He left with no shoes,
and as you can tell, it's very desert-ish terrain.
He went to three homes.
And on the third home, that's when they contacted 911.
He said he just left through the porch at the neighbor's house.
Her name is Jodi Hildebrandt.
I really had limited information about Jodi.
I knew she was a therapist.
And at that point, we're all trying to understand
what therapist is living in this $5 million house, right?
The young boy had stated his mother's name was Ruby Franke.
And we learned that Ruby was a business partner of Jodi.
I was closer to the hospital.
That's where I first made contact with the young boy.
My initial thought when I saw him was,
just how could someone do that to their child?
The young boy told us he had another sister in the home.
She was younger than him.
He hadn't seen her in over a month.
We need to identify the house.
If there are kids there, we need to do a security sweep of that house.
12X-1711, can you head over here to the road?
The call comes in and says, "Hey, we have a different kind of case."
"We're gonna write some search warrants."
"What kind of warrants should we do? How should we do this?"
Law enforcement see a kid who was clearly in an unsafe situation,
and he tells them that he has a sibling in the house.
And so they're going to go in and just do a safety check of the house.
One eighty-four.
Off to the left.
Police officers! Open up!
Open the door!
Jodi?
-I need you to step out. -I have my attorney.
-Great. Step out of the house. -No, I'm not going to.
-Step out of the house. -Step out.
Whoa!
Is there anybody else home?
Wait. How do you come in my house?
Right there.
They're gonna go into my house.
-Have a seat. -You have a search warrant?
-Have a seat there. -You have a search warrant?
They're not gathering evidence.
They're just looking for potential victims of crime.
Police Department. Call out!
I just have one.
Hi, I'm a police officer.
Hey, you okay?
It's just you in here?
That's when they located a small child
sitting crisscross applesauce in the closet of the upstairs bedroom.
I'm Sergeant Tobler.
What's your name?
You don't want to talk to me?
I'm not going to hurt you.
Promise.
And I get it if you're scared. I would be too.
It's okay if I sit here with you?
We don't have to say anything if you don't want to.
The child had a shaved head, very scrawny,
and appeared to be scared.
-Is there anybody else in the house? -Yes.
Kids?
There's a little girl.
-Just one? -She's right over here.
Okay. How old is she?
She'll be 10 next week.
Okay.
It was just extremely surprising and almost confusing.
Just how? How did this… How did this happen?
Are you scared?
I'm just nervous.
-What? -Just nervous.
We helped your brother.
And that's what we want to do for you.
We've got a couple of kids that look very malnourished.
It was clear that they had been severely abused for an extended period of time.
Jodi is the only adult there, and neither of the children there are hers.
The question is, where's Mom, where's Dad?
Any crime that's committed involving a child,
we contact the Department of Child and Family Services.
I got a call from DCFS, and it was like,
"Hey, Jess, just google '8 Passengers.'"
-Hi, guys, I'm Kevin. -I'm Ruby.
We're the drivers of the 8 Passengers. We're Mom and Dad.
It's pink! It's going to be a girl!
I knew it!
You want lots of presents?
-Won't you be happy with just one? -Lots!
Oh wow.
Thank you for watching.
I learned 8 Passengers was a YouTube channel
that Ruby and Kevin Franke had begun.
And it was just about their family, about their day-to-day activities.
They can have their Christmas pajamas after they clean out the van.
We have some news.
They didn't live in our area,
so none of us are familiar with Ruby Franke or the family.
And there's no evidence of Jodi in their YouTube videos
or their other social media posts.
We were scratching our head for some time
as to how Jodi fit with the family.
They called it 8 Passengers because they had six kids.
We need to locate the other kids.
We have the two younger children at Jodi's house.
The two older children, Chad and Sherry,
they're out of the house and estranged from the family.
And now everybody's in a panic trying to locate the two middle children
because they're minors too.
We had local agencies searching across the state for them.
They go up north to the Franke family home in Springville.
Here's what she drives, a van.
Police Department!
We're here to help you!
-Open the door! -Police Department!
We're just looking for a female, right?
Female and two kids. Two kids are believed to be in danger.
When law enforcement searched Ruby's house in Springville,
they found go bags for the kids that were living up there.
Like, a packed duffel with changes of clothes.
What in the heck is going on here?
Looks like they're packing.
Definitely I think Ruby and Jodi were prepared,
if they got wind that law enforcement was going to come after them
for what they were doing to those kids, to run.
This is her diary.
August 29th. Yesterday.
I have most of the kitchen done by now.
Got enough freakin' canned food here to last through the Apocalypse.
Garage is clear, 100%.
We learned that Ruby had just left St. George that morning
with one of the middle children.
When the young boy escaped that day, Jodi had contacted Ruby to come back.
She dropped the child off and then returned back to St. George.
You can sit there.
Law enforcement in Utah County
eventually finds both of the two middle children at a family friend's home,
and they were safe.
And while they were looking for the middle children,
Kevin Franke, Ruby's husband, had arrived at the police department.
How did you find out that you needed to come here?
I received a message that I needed to come pick up my kids
from the police department in Ivins.
I'll figure out who reached out to you. It makes sense that would happen.
I'm not aware of anyone who did that from our department.
Right. And I'm not comfortable saying right now who reached out to me.
It was clear that he didn't want to say anything
that would hurt either of them.
But we later learned that Jodi had contacted Ruby
to come get her kids from the department.
And then she had called Kevin.
Do you know a female named Jodi?
She is a therapist and a life coach.
Is your wife a client of hers? Is your wife a partner of hers?
I know that they've been in business for the last year filming--
Who's "they"?
-Ruby and Jodi. They film… -Ruby and Jodi? You think they…
They film podcasts and…
What's the name of it?
ConneXions with an X.
Welcome to ConneXions. I'm Jodi Hildebrandt, and this is…
Ruby Franke.
I found ConneXions and had searched a little about that.
And I learned Jodi was the founder of ConneXions,
which was almost a religious-based therapy.
Truth is unchanging. It's eternal.
And when I tell myself the truth, then I am loving my soul.
So no one in our office had ever heard of Jodi Hildebrandt before.
But we quickly came to learn that she had a social media presence.
My name is Ethan, and my wife and I were a part of Jodi's ConneXions program.
I knew Jodi Hildebrandt's name
because in the right circles, it's a very popular name.
She'd have these group meetings where people could come
and hear others being vulnerable. That's a great thing.
It was this whole program built around life coaching, support groups,
making phone calls, making communications, and being connected.
I remember the first time I got on her website,
there were testimonials and videos
of just couples that looked happy, and they had overcome things together.
And honestly, she did a good job of marketing herself online
and creating content that looked inviting.
I've been writing some notes.
We are having a couples' workshop tomorrow.
Utah is obviously home base
for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
And a lot of individuals have very minimal exposure to anything related to therapy.
And so when Jodi comes in with these pictures and videos
and starts to teach this idea of living a life
that's honest, responsible and humble,
helping people to live in truth, to being like Christ,
it feels like it's groundbreaking.
It's almost like a secret, like a hack, a life hack.
My name is Valerie Jackson.
My husband and I had been married for three years when we started seeing Jodi.
It was helpful for me. It was probably the first time I realized,
as a woman in a pretty male-dominated church,
that I felt to some degree, like, empowered.
After watching a lot of Jodi's videos, it was like,
"I have a voice here? I can say something within this marriage?"
But you got to get centered in truth first and hold boundaries.
What can women do to actually support men?
Women can learn to love themselves.
It was a novel idea for me, and I bought totally into it
and was very excited to move forward.
People are thinking,
"This is awesome. I've never heard of this before."
And they share it with their friends, and she was really able to spread out
through areas where there are a lot of members of our faith.
Jodi was being invited to share her ideas.
She was getting a lot of eyeballs, and it was a big deal in the community.
And she was being invited to do big, influential podcasts.
We're excited today to have Jodi Hildebrandt.
She's got a massive podcast, 500,000 people.
Welcome, Jodi, thanks for joining us.
Thank you, Ken.
Once the first search is done and we found the young girl,
we immediately requested a warrant to search the residence.
Police Department.
It's not just for people. It's not just for life.
It's to collect evidence of the crime.
We just served her with a warrant, so we're at the home now.
The victims that we're talking about are nine and 11.
We knew that they were very scared
of what Jodi and Ruby would do to them
if they talked to people.
We're used to kind of the run-of-the-mill crime,
but it's awful when you have a really horrific child abuse case happen.
And that's what this one was.
We just started room by room, item by item,
documenting everything that we found.
They look for evidence of physical abuse.
Going through Jodi Hildebrandt's room,
we're looking for things that corroborate the boy's statement
and have given him these injuries.
And they find an overflowing garbage can.
Clearly they had been wrapping his injuries in this Saran Wrap.
And we later came to understand
it was a homeopathic mixture of honey and cayenne pepper remedy,
which nobody should hear that and think that's a good idea.
It was clear Jodi had been helping dress the wounds
and injuries on the young boy.
We found more of that mixture and Saran Wrap
in Ruby Franke's bathroom.
We also found rope.
There was a lot of duct tape in the closets.
This is a 10,000-plus square foot house
with a lot of cement underground basement storage space.
And in one of those rooms, there was a built-in safe.
-I have a question for you. -Yeah?
You have a room downstairs that has a safe wheel on the front?
So law enforcement went and asked Jodi, "Hey, what's the combination to the safe?"
And she responds, "I can't remember it."
That thing has been locked for a couple of years,
and I would have to call… whatever to…
Is that a panic room or a room where--
-It's a room. -And you don't know the code?
-I haven't used it. -Okay.
Our lieutenant, he just went down and was kind of messing with the safe,
hit 1-2-3-4-5-6, and it opened right up.
They open up the safe, and it's actually a panic room.
And they think, "Oh, where the kids held here?"
They start opening drawers.
And they find handcuffs, and they find ropes.
We had evidence that the adults were aware of the injuries
and taking steps to…
I'm not gonna say "treat" because that's too nice,
but taking steps to address the injuries.
It was clear that they'd been tortured. We could see that.
We could see the injuries on them. We could see the malnourishment.
The…
Sorry, some things are hard to talk about.
As a mom, it's completely disheartening.
I've never seen abuse on this level on a case that I've worked before.
What's that?
And then all of a sudden, Ruby Franke shows up at the house.
Ma'am, this is Officer Hines. She's just gonna hang out here with you.
She was just very quiet, withdrawn, no emotion,
didn't ask about the kids,
stone-cold.
Same with Jodi.
She just sat on that couch and didn't ask any questions.
I didn't want them to have any interaction
'cause I didn't want them kind of colluding on a story.
So, hey, Ruby, at this time you're already detained.
But I'm gonna be taking you back to the police department.
Okay? So I'm going to need you to hop up.
Okay, place your hands behind your back for me.
Perfect.
Based on what we had at that point,
we placed Ruby and Jodi in handcuffs
and brought both of them back to the department for further questioning.
It's a crazy story.
An individual influencing others on how to be a good mom
is detained for being a bad mom.
But a therapist leading someone to religiously believe
that they need to torture their children?
I think that's the more terrifying story.
I probably started hearing about Jodi Hildebrandt
in the mid-20 teens.
I am a licensed marriage and family therapist,
primarily with the LDS Mormon population.
I started seeing prior clients of Jodi's.
Now, that's pretty typical in therapy,
you get people who come in who've been to a previous therapist.
But some of the things that I started hearing were so odd,
especially in the realm of sexuality.
When it comes to Jodi Hildebrandt,
my understanding is, like most of us who go into mental health,
a lot of that is dictated by our own personal wounds.
My name is Jodi Hildebrandt.
I was born in 1969 in Tucson, Arizona.
I was a member of a family of seven children.
I was raised LDS and was in what I would call a traditional LDS home.
My family life, as we grew up, it was, "You do this because you're supposed to,"
and it was mostly because of fear.
So I followed the path of the perfect child.
I served a mission in Puerto Rico,
and I loved that experience.
Back then, in the '90s, it was not common for females to serve a mission.
But Jodi had a gift of persuasion, and people wanted to do what she said.
My name is Laura Howells Leavitt,
and Jodi and I were mission companions in Puerto Rico with the LDS Church.
Our objective was to convert as many people as we possibly could.
LDS missions are really hard work.
There's a lot of rules.
We got up at six in the morning,
and we would read El Libro de Mormón, The Book of Mormon in Spanish,
and we would have companionship study.
We were always busy.
We'd either be talking to people in a parking lot,
or we would be knocking doors.
We had to talk to a certain amount of people a day.
We called it the golden question.
"Are you interested in hearing more about
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?"
I remember thinking,
"Wow, this is the hardest thing I've ever done," you know?
Being with a companion 24/7,
who you didn't choose to be with, that's not easy.
One of the guidelines as a missionary was to record and write down your journals,
and so I did every day.
We were working with this family, and they had delayed their baptismal date.
And I wrote in my journal how everything changed
when Jodi was able to sit with them.
"You should hear the way Hil talks and helps them feel the Spirit."
"She even cried. I just sat there, and I couldn't think of what to say."
"I went home feeling kind of worthless. I didn't even need to be there."
I wrote that I didn't quite feel comfortable with Jodi.
Even though there were three of us,
Jodi felt like she was the one making the difference.
The story of Jodi Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke
is definitely a Mormon story.
That is a religious story.
Missionary work has a big value in the Mormon culture.
Spreading the gospel to others.
And you can do this formally,
like Jodi Hildebrandt going on a mission and knocking on doors and proselytizing.
Or you can do this informally, which is basically showcasing your life.
Utah is kind of this hotbed for influencer culture,
and a lot of times it is the influencer mom.
The focus on the family is so important in the state of Utah,
which is a beautiful thing.
And naturally, a lot of women grow up with this idea of,
"I want to be a mother."
So with that in mind, it's like,
"How do I then become the best version of myself as a mother?"
"Maybe I could be an influencer, share my story."
That's actually exactly what Ruby was doing on YouTube.
"Ruby, beautiful, mother of six, lover of Kevin."
So the Frankes are influencers. They're very popular on YouTube.
They kind of represented this idea of the influencer family.
Someone who could tell the story of what it's like to be a "real family."
My job is just to keep the house from burning down and keep the kids
from… not killing each other.
Hey. Are you done?
And from what I understand, they also joined the ConneXions program
kind of for the same reason other people were,
trying to improve their marriage.
But when I first encountered the Frankes in ConneXions,
I had never heard of them before.
I was like, "So what?" Like, I didn't get the hype.
It wasn't until people came and started sharing things like,
"No, they're kind of a big deal in this realm."
"This influencer realm."
8 Passengers was a big YouTube channel.
They had over two million subscribers, over a billion views,
and they were able to make a substantial income off of that platform.
There's this kind of pressure to put forth a certain type of veneer,
a certain type of way of life,
where others are going to want to ask you about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ruby is posting on her social media, sharing being a mother and a wife.
"Is my house clean? Are my children fed?"
"Do they look a certain way?"
"Am I teaching them correct gospel principles?"
Which is the woman's role.
But there's a lot of opportunity to feel pretty badly about yourself.
Like, "I'm not meeting the standards."
You can say the same thing of Jodi Hildebrandt.
That sense of perfectionism
is something that also tied into her own personal story,
and throughout her career, she would talk about it publicly.
You are probably like, "She's setting herself up for addiction."
Sure enough, I ended up with an eating disorder.
I started trying to control everything
because I had no outlet to emote my emotions.
I married in 1993.
When my marriage dissolved three years later,
it caught me somewhat by surprise.
Because my tribe, as I call it,
had not taught me or prepared me for divorce.
I was really wounded inside from
not feeling a protection from the church.
At this point in my life, I have two children,
and I decided to enter graduate school.
So I chose to go into the Educational Psychology department,
and began a field of study that intrigued me,
and I began to ask questions about the LDS religion.
This is Jodi Hildebrandt's dissertation that she did during her master's degree.
I started asking friends of mine what their sexual experience was about.
The responses were at times full of confusion,
doubt, guilt, and at many times a lot of shame,
and that stayed with me for many years.
Interesting that this was her dissertation.
This is where she started.
She was concerned about the messages,
in particular, that women were internalizing in regards to sex.
So I met Jodi Hildebrandt in 2011.
Coming to her was the lowest place I'd ever been in my life,
of just, like, "I don't know how else to fix what's going on in my marriage."
"Was it me? Was I, you know, not good enough?"
To be honest, our sex life was off,
but most people in the Mormon culture are raised to be pretty sexually immature.
And I was one of those.
And so I had a friend that had been recommended to Jodi by her bishop.
Whenever a bishop gave advice,
I took it very much like, "This is from God,"
because that is what we are taught.
Jodi Hildebrandt found success in an area of mental health
that was very aligned with church teachings.
In high-demand, conservative religions,
they're going to have stricter codes around sexual behavior.
Those standards tend to be quite rigid.
No premarital sex, no masturbation even,
no viewing erotic materials like pornography.
The scriptures repeatedly teach
that the Spirit of the Lord will not dwell in an unclean tabernacle.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
put out this type of messaging, which is very effective.
It scares people.
Those who seek out and use pornography for sexual stimulation
obviously violate that covenant.
In the early 2000s,
with the advent of the Internet and of smartphones,
pornography became much more readily available.
So this, in a sense, created a porn panic
that was then very quickly tied
to the addiction language by the church.
Pornography is as addictive as cocaine or any illegal drug.
Jodi Hildebrandt was instrumental
with the 12-step addiction process that the church pretty much implemented.
And now she is saying that addiction models should be used
to treat concerns and issues around sexuality.
The Diagnostic Statistics Manual
is basically the Bible of mental health disorders.
You can't find a code in the DSM-5 for sex addiction or porn addiction.
But treating men who are looking at porn and who objectify women
and who lust after women was supported by the church.
And so Jodi Hildebrandt was on these approved lists of therapists
that a bishop would feel comfortable referring.
Working with Jodi was the first clinical job I had.
She ran groups for men with sexual addiction
and women experiencing betrayal trauma because of that addiction.
I didn't even know about sexual addiction.
In the interview she said, "Do you know how to confront people?"
And that's the one question I remember from the interview
because it gave me pause.
It was an odd language to use.
Confrontation itself is not a therapeutic method.
I said, "I can be honest with feedback."
And she said, "Great,"
and kind of immediately hired me.
She was very direct.
I thought she was kind of the embodiment of a woman who knew who she was
and where she was going.
You can see this passion in her videos.
Addiction is just ravaging our world. Like, what's going on?
Well, this is what's going on.
People don't understand that they're choosing distortion
rather than choosing truth because they don't even know this is a thing.
Having grown up very religious, it's common to face a lot of shame
with anything in regards to pornography.
That's something people struggle with, myself included.
It was something that ate at me. Because I felt like I was a good person.
One of the central beliefs
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
is that families are forever
and that families are an integral part of our experience here on earth.
To save a marriage is the number one priority.
I got married young.
And I feel like, for the most part, I didn't really know what I was doing.
You know, flash forward a few years now, and it's COVID lockdown.
I have a new baby.
I'm trying to work hard. I'm adjusting to work from home.
And honestly, I was depressed.
And because of that, my marriage was struggling.
I came down from work one day, and my wife said,
"Hey, just so you know, I've joined ConneXions."
"I think it'll be good for me."
"If you value our marriage, I hope you'd consider joining it as well."
I watched a lot of ConneXions videos,
and it made a lot of sense at first.
So there are three core principles. Honesty, responsibility, and humility.
I called Jodi and she said,
"Ethan, my name's Jodi Hildebrandt, and your life's about to change."
"You're gonna start seeing me, and if you value your wife,
if you value being a father and being in your kid's life,
you're gonna do everything I say."
We started meeting weekly that same week.
I went into it very readily to be coached.
As someone who's still very active in the church,
I was terrified of what divorce might mean.
Is this what I'm leaning towards? Like, what did I do to cause this?
I would have done anything to save my family.
My first interview was with Kevin Franke.
I just wanted to build a rapport, get as much information as I can.
And clearly, being the father, he's a suspect at this point.
How many kids do you have, Kevin?
I have six kids.
So are they all living with you? Or…
No, I haven't seen them for over a year.
Any of them?
No, none of them.
For a year?
-Over a year. -Okay--
I've been in a separation.
From who?
From my wife and family.
What's your wife's name?
Ruby Franke.
So when did Ruby and Jodi, to your knowledge, decide to collaborate?
Well, they decided to start a business
in 2021.
So while you and Ruby were together?
Yes.
Okay.
Okay, have a seat.
First room on the right.
Do you respect her? Jodi?
Do I respect her? Yeah, I think she's a very honest, truthful person, yes.
Okay. Is your wife a partner of hers?
Is your wife a roommate with her?
Your kids are living in her house, is what I'm trying to say.
I'm not aware of that.
We're just here to talk to you about,
you know, a few things involving your kids.
Ruby Franke, in the interview room…
It was weird. It was odd.
Do you live down here or…
I can wait all day.
So it's up to you if you want to talk to us about what's going on.
Just the long, long gaze, the blinking…
I don't know what's going on.
Or if you feel more comfortable talking to him, I can step out.
I'll wait until I have a lawyer.
Okay.
In Jodi's interview, she did put off this persona
like she was a good person and wanted to help,
but she was advised not to.
So I trust my attorney. He said, "Don't say anything."
I said, "I have nothing to hide." He's like, "I know,
but let me be there with you when we talk."
So, you guys seem… nice people.
Yeah.
I'm not trying to hide anything. I'm not trying to be difficult.
This is really…
If you knew all the pieces, I think you'd have a lot of empathy…
-Well… -…for what's going on.
From an investigation perspective, we had a thousand questions at that point.
We have two kids who are afraid to talk to authorities,
and we have two adults who we're assuming are the abusers.
And so we didn't understand what was the relationship between those two,
what was going on there, what was motivating any of this.
We weren't sure how we'd figure that out because no one was talking at that point.
We want to have an understanding of what's going on in that home.
I'd like to just tell you, but I don't know who you are.
I don't know if you're gonna flip my words. I don't know.
The good thing about cameras,
everything, it's pretty much double-recorded. Audio, video…
I'm a psychologist. I've watched people flip things all the time.
So I get it. I sit on your side. I get it.
I wish people didn't do that, but they do.
When I learned about ConneXions and had searched a little about Jodi,
I also learned that her therapy license had been put on probation.
This was years prior for some client confidentiality reasons.
In 2011, a subpoena came to our office one day,
and Jodi and I both were surprised. She opened it.
It was from a client who was accusing her of HIPAA violations.
HIPAA violations are when you share client personal information
that you have no right to share.
She let me know that the subpoena had stated that,
because the client looked at pornography,
she claimed he was a sexual predator
and gave that information to not only his college
but also his ecclesiastical leader.
She was angry and bothered, and said it was in his best interest
because he was still actively engaged in addictive behavior.
Her license was put on probation,
but Jodi's business still grew during that time
because she was getting around that restriction by presenting as a life coach
rather than a therapist.
And her new business, ConneXions, was exploding online.
She had revenue streams from groups and individual therapy.
She wrote workbooks. She had online content.
As a businesswoman, Jodi really knew and understood how to build an empire.
If you're like me, you've had pain in your life.
Feelings that you're not enough, that you're unlovable.
ConneXions is the solution.
As a therapist, you have appropriate relationships with clients.
You treat clients with dignity and respect.
Those are all reality in my world.
I think Jodi started moving farther and farther away from reality.
According to Jodi, my husband had a sexual addiction.
Her definition of addiction was
if you look at pornography one time in a year,
that is considered an addiction.
I was labeled a lust addict from the first time I met her.
I was like, "What if she's right?"
And so I was desperate for change,
and I think I was willing to try the ConneXions program.
Jodi invited me to start watching videos,
listening to podcasts.
Once you are caught in lust's lie,
hearing shame messages and not being able to feel emotion,
you just disconnect.
According to Jodi, men are like children that can't manage themselves.
They're an addict. It's like everyone just automatically got labeled as such.
So then she started training you
and teaching you how to deal with an addict,
which was control.
Anything that could lead to pornography, I was advised to take it.
I took away his smartphone.
If I was afraid there could be something that was inappropriate for him to watch,
I would cancel our subscription.
I would get rid of our internet.
It was the first time that it was like, "Oh my gosh,
I can do something about my life."
I do believe Jodi Hildebrandt was
maybe more forthcoming about sexual topics
than we typically tend to be in our culture.
So you can see how women are feeling empowered.
Maybe for the first time, they can put limits
on a sexual life that may or may not have been healthy to begin with.
I always viewed sex as a currency, as an expectation.
This seems to be a video that Ruby and Kevin Franke put together,
as far as their experience… How well ConneXions is serving them.
Today, I would say there is a lot of safety.
There is a lot of trust.
For me, sex today is a million times more enjoyable
because it's real and because it's genuine and it feels…
wholesome.
The boundaries that were set,
a lot of times, they didn't come from the wife.
They came from Jodi inserting herself.
And that's not empowering the wife to be any stronger.
She's just listening to somebody else direct her.
I started attending one of her men's groups.
I was also meeting with Jodi every single week.
The language that Jodi would use to someone like me in the men's group
was very different from what she was using elsewhere with the women.
And it was then that I started to kind of see
how she shapeshifts in front of different people and audiences.
This is an excerpt from one of my journals that I recently kind of dug up.
So Jodi would say things like,
"You need to be looking up every word that's synonymous with
'ravaged,' 'exploited,' 'rape.'"
But in my situation, there was no infidelity.
There was no abuse.
It was just that constant push of,
"Ethan, you have no idea how deep your addiction runs."
"You are a monster."
I would hear things like,
"So whenever I relapsed, my wife would have to deny me sex,
or access to the children, or even being asked now to leave the home."
Those were very problematic things we started hearing about.
She kept telling us, "You don't need sex."
There would be no sexual relationship in any way.
My marriage was not improving.
And so Jodi advised that we have a year-long separation
with absolutely no contact.
During that time, I did end up, you know, in the hospital,
and she wouldn't let me call him or text him and let him know.
There was no help in trying to get us to reunite.
It was just no contact. The end.
My wife had just met with Jodi a few days before,
and Jodi had counseled her on what to say, how to approach the situation.
She said, "I'm gonna leave for a little bit,
and when I come back, I don't want you to be here."
At first I was like, "What is going on?" Like, I was completely shell-shocked.
I called Jodi, and she said,
"If you're in this program, it's because you are not safe."
"And so as Jodi Hildebrandt, the person called of God to fix this problem,
I have to separate you."
I've had men come to my practice after seeing Jodi Hildebrandt.
The wife has been convinced
that Jodi's program is the only way
they're gonna be able to save their family.
And he feels stuck.
Like, "If I push back…"
Immediately the wife says to him, "You are in denial."
Or, "You are in distortion," which is this word that Jodi Hildebrandt has used
prominently in her messaging.
You're either making choices that support truth or support distortion…
You have consciousness around truth and distortion…
…be attacked by distortion…
Truth doesn't matter. Let's go there. We're choosing distortion.
Learning principles of truth… …really is the truth.
As I went through my journal, six or seven times I had written down,
"I have a hard time trusting Jodi."
It was this crazy push and pull between her and I of,
I'm trying to be compliant, which is what she was looking for,
but I was just constantly
spinning around trying to understand what she was even asking me to do.
I went from the end of January until partway through May of that year,
almost completely in isolation.
My separation was very dark.
It was some of the darkest moments of my life.
It's like as if you were being tortured and someone is just beating you down
and they're saying to you,
"This thing could stop if you'll just listen to me."
Isolation, loneliness,
hopelessness.
It was something I hope no one ever has to go through.
And she tried so hard to break me down and to…
Excuse me.
To ruin my family.
Jodi threatened me that I would never see my kid again.
Did you ever try to reach out to the kids, drop by the home?
No.
I honored the separation boundary that we agreed to.
Is it that you came to the realization
you needed help 'cause you weren't doing things right?
Or is it that Jodi helped you guys recognize that…
I'm trying to understand her involvement in your guys' life.
-Um… -She's my focus, just to be honest.
I understand, and I can perceive that.
Uh, Jodi and Ruby have a close relationship,
and Jodi saw
the need for me to get help
to face, you know, my own addictions
and… and receive the support and help that I've needed.
It was important to us to understand
that Kevin was completely removed from the situation.
Because normally,
if someone's kids are abused over a course of three or four months,
the parent who's allowing that abuse to happen is guilty of a crime.
But he had been told by Jodi, "Move out and don't have any contact."
And so that's what he did.
Well, you're the custodial parent of these children.
I don't see why we can't explain to you why we're involved.
Sometime before eleven o'clock today,
we received a phone call from 911 on our dispatch
that…
a 12-year-old boy was knocking on doors asking for food and water.
That he was severely emaciated. That he had--
What does "emaciated" mean?
Skinny, scrawny, malnutritioned,
not enough food, not enough water to sustain life.
-So he had-- -I'm sorry, what?
He had duct tape on his extremities,
on his hands, on his ankles,
and those were covering rope burns that were used to tie him down.
Take a second and think about what I just said.
That's the condition of your son.
His shock is sincere.
He is just flabbergasted.
I wouldn't say Kevin's interview helped me understand
what went on in the house
because he had no involvement for the last year.
But we were really able to eliminate him as a suspect.
We were wrapping our heads around a really weird situation.
It had been over a year since anybody had any real contact with him other than Jodi,
who was still having regular contact with him,
and keeping him out of the house and estranged from the family
as she was "working with him."
The biggest thing that I missed out on was the relationship with my daughter.
She was young at the time,
and since day one, we had a lot of fun together.
I'm somebody who really loves being a dad,
and so I'd write in my journal constantly that I was afraid of Jodi's timetable.
She'd casually make comments like,
"Sometimes these things take six months, sometimes two years."
I ended up missing my daughter's first birthday because,
you know, I was trying to be compliant to the program.
I went in to Jodi and I brought that up, and she ripped me.
And she was like, "A humble person wouldn't question me even."
I had to depend on her.
Like, she was the authority figure of my life.
I got to a point where I even trusted her over religious leaders,
which was huge for me, since that was a big part of how I was raised.
Jodi is 100% convinced
that she is acting as a mouthpiece for God in addiction recovery.
She's told us multiple times that this was her calling,
that she had many dreams and manifestations
that confirmed to her that this was her life's work.
Jodi was so good at taking vulnerable people
who were coming to her because they were not in a great place in their lives,
framing it in a religious context
that kind of fit enough with other stuff that they'd been taught,
and then pushing them to do things
that I know a normal therapist wouldn't be encouraging people to do.
She found a niche and she marketed it.
And Jodi was very successful at getting people to give her money.
When we were searching the residence,
in Jodi Hildebrandt's closet, we located a large duffel bag
with about $80,000 cash.
Jodi was making a lot of money. I mean, I could do some math right now.
I was paying her $175 an hour for every individual session,
and then a men's or women's group, it's $75 per week.
Paying for yourself and another person, that was $2,000.
In Jodi's office, I located a book with all of her clients.
She was meeting, like, 46 people a week.
We were paying more than our mortgage to Jodi every month.
We ended up in so much debt, we had maxed out all of our credit cards.
We paid well over $50,000.
And I remember at the time saying, like, "It's worth it for us to heal
and then have a good life together."
I'm having a hard time accepting this and dealing with this.
You realize that I have a picture of my family on my wall.
And I look at it every day.
And I work. I work every day…
so I can get back to my family and save my family.
Everything you're sharing to me just sounds like a made-up story. Like, I…
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Up the stairs.
This just… It sounds like a horror movie.
We'll go out the front door that way.
We'll put her on the right side.
-Hang on one second here in the lobby. -Okay.
What's going to happen to my wife? I love my wife.
So you're under arrest.
It's going to be two counts,
second-degree felony in child abuse or neglect, okay?
Do you understand that or no?
Are you okay?
I'm wondering if there's a medical clearance that needs to…
Like, do you need medical attention before you go to the jail?
No.
Okay.
All right, well, we'll have you…
As soon as she gets done here, we'll bring her out.
Hop on in.
Ruby and Jodi were both under arrest for two counts of child abuse.
And when I put Jodi in the car, she said,
"I really want you to hear me out."
And I was like, "You asked for a lawyer, I will respect that decision,
and I'm not gonna ask you any questions."
And she said, "But hear me out when I say
those kids should never be around any other kids."
After she made that comment,
I knew that clearly she had direct involvement in isolating those children.
I believed she and Ruby were a threat to the children.
And that was enough for us to request the no bail on both of them.
Do you have any questions for me at this time?
No questions?
Okay, you can hop in.
You got her?
They were transported
to the Washington County Purgatory Correctional Facility
singing hymns in the back of the car on the way to the jail together.
This is a call from and paid for by…
Jodi Hildebrandt.
…an inmate at Purgatory Correctional Facility.
-Are you there? -Yeah.
Okay. So, The Lord says,
that, "First they'll lay their hands on you
and persecute you,
delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons."
Wow.
So then he says,
"And ye shall be betrayed by both parents and brethren
and kinsfolk and friends."
I'm like…
Oh my gosh, that's exactly what's going on.
Shocking allegations as Utah mommy blogger with millions of followers is arrested,
accused of child abuse.
Disturbing details have surfaced, and the reaction has been swift.
People are coming forward about their time with ConneXions Classroom.
It's the counseling service run by Jodi Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke…
I was getting an insane amount of phone calls every day.
A lot of the tips were from people saying they were victims of Jodi Hildebrandt.
And one of them was a family member of Jodi's.
Jessi uses the pronouns they/them.
At the time, she would have considered herself Jodi's niece.
I was left in her care when I was a teenager, for a little under a year.
Jessi described what Jodi had done 14 years prior.
Jessi talked about waking up one morning,
having Jodi come in to them, and say,
"Your parents are gone. You live here now."
Because Jessi needed to be reformed.
I experienced being tied. I experienced being duct taped.
I was forced to sleep outside in the snow.
I'm Christi Judd.
My husband and I lived in American Fork
right around the corner from Jodi Hildebrandt.
She was divorced at the time.
It was just her and her two children.
Jessi was full of life when she first got there.
She was the same age as my oldest son.
I just thought they would be instant best friends.
But then we'd make plans…
Always at the last minute, we couldn't get a hold of her.
While living with Jodi, I experienced severe isolation,
being told I shouldn't be around other people,
being told that I was dangerous to be around.
I just saw less and less of her.
I was never allowed to have the door closed because she was convinced
that I was just constantly masturbating.
She was convinced that I was addicted to porn.
I had no idea what these things were.
But I just believed her
because she'd use religion and God as a mode of control.
She wanted to make my life so uncomfortable
that it would force the sin out.
So I would confess to things that I didn't do as a way
of trying to get the abuse to stop.
Talking to Jessi really helped me better understand what Jodi's mindset is.
The power play. The control over everything.
While Jodi hadn't previously been charged for abuse,
this is a pattern, and it's been ongoing for many years.
And Ruby Franke's two kids are not the first victims.
I went to the police when I was 16. I went…
I tried to do what I could.
And no one believed me, because why would they?
She destroyed my credibility. I was an angry teenager.
When I realized the truth of what was happening,
there was so much guilt that I was right there and didn't even know.
And to be honest, I was so naive.
I never believed that a parent figure, an aunt,
would ever treat a child like that. I didn't even know that that was possible.
I learned more about Jodi's family.
Her two children were adults now,
and she was estranged from both of them. They didn't want any contact with her.
Jodi shared very little with us about her own history.
She told us one time about her Thanksgiving
where she went home to her family and how just everyone hated her.
I remember thinking, "That's weird."
"Like, I'm coming to you so that I can repair these relationships with my family,
and yet you have no one in your family that values you or respects you."
I don't know much about Jodi's past.
In her youth she was in the paper because she was a basketball star.
She was a beauty queen.
But later, there were videos
suggesting that she had trauma that she experienced in her youth.
I remember as a teenager and young adult feeling so overwhelmed with pain.
Sometimes it was low-grade. Sometimes it was really intense.
But it always had this base that said, "You don't matter. You're not enough."
And then in 2020, she announced that she'd written a book.
I wanted to share with you
a book that I wrote called, You Are Not "Not Enough."
She wrote about her childhood.
How she was abused several times by teenage boys.
"These experiences encased me in confusion, isolation and fear,
so much so that I conveniently forgot about them
until I was in my early twenties."
"God's grace allowed me to forget so I could manage my young life,
though there were signs
that I didn't recognize of my armor cracking."
She talks about the disassociation she had from her trauma.
And people that experience that level of trauma in their childhood
usually have a diagnosis later in life
of what's called Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
You're going to lose touch with reality.
That's what you're disassociating from.
One of the symptoms is reenacting the trauma.
With trauma reenactment, you can go from being the victim as a child
to being the perpetrator as an adult.
Who had the power when she was growing up?
In her world, men had the power.
And so when she became a therapist, that script flipped,
and now she felt like she had the power and control.
Thanks for your time.
I want to cooperate, though,
on anything related to Jodi.
So a few weeks after the arrest, I met Kevin Franke for a second interview.
We just are more curious of the dynamic,
and Jodi coming into your relationship, your lives.
Ruby started to speak with Jodi towards the end of 2018
with the intention of having her work with Chad.
Chad is the second oldest of Ruby and Kevin's kids.
He was going through this rebellious teenager phase.
And that was documented on their 8 Passengers YouTube channel.
Chad, what are you doing over there?
-Nothing. -No texting at the dinner table.
Okay.
-So this morning, thank you… -We don't have time to vlog.
"We don't have time to vlog." We always have time to vlog!
It didn't take long for me to see tons of content online
featuring Jodi and Ruby together.
And it was really clear to me that
Ruby was very entrenched in what Jodi was teaching.
Ruby will attest I was quite blunt with her.
The first day Jodi said, "You need to hold boundaries with your kids."
And it was uncomfortable.
I took their own social medias away. I took the phones away.
She saw the wisdom in learning principles of being honest, responsible, and humble.
And her children's lives and her life shifted abruptly.
Ruby and Kevin saw Jodi in a trusted position like a family member.
They looked up to her for guidance, wisdom.
Their 8 Passengers YouTube channel
shows how integrated into the family Jodi was at the time.
So I had a phone call yesterday with my therapist,
and she taught me about truth and distortion.
Mom probably talks about Jodi all the time, but…
Jodi saw a platform that she liked,
and that was Ruby and Kevin's 8 Passenger channel.
And when they asked her for help as a therapist,
I think she maybe felt she could inherit some of that success.
Ruby was making her living off of marketing her kids.
And now she's following Jodi's advice,
and they kind of team up professionally to market ConneXions.
And that's where the Empowering Joy class comes in.
Because of Empowering Joy,
my entire family now has a common vocabulary.
We can communicate.
I supported it,
and so together, we held boundaries for our son Chad.
I saw a few videos Ruby had posted
about taking her boy's bedroom away.
I've been sleeping on a bean bag since October.
And they gave my room back, like, two weeks ago.
I don't think our viewers know that.
After that video,
I just saw that people on the internet thought this was beyond strict parenting.
8 Passengers is finally getting exposed.
For years I've been saying that they are abusive.
I'm going to take the scissors…
Look at me. And I'm going to cut its head off.
This woman was just horrible to her children.
We told them that this year they are not going to be visited by Santa.
People on the internet just…
They shut them down.
They had been canceled.
I think Ruby was "fringy."
Kind of on the edge there
of what's good parenting and what's bad parenting.
We don't have any evidence on the 8 Passengers YouTube channel
of Ruby criminally abusing her kids.
And then Jodi gets involved.
And the step to go from fringy parenting to child torture
is a huge step.
Towards the beginning of 2021,
the COVID lockdown was very much a real thing.
It was clear to me, at least, that Jodi's content was becoming
more aggressive and serious.
And honestly, her presence online, I felt like, was becoming more fanatical.
God has a work for all of you to do.
And it's time to provide, preside,
and protect truth, your families, your children.
Jodi is a massive doomsday prepper.
She would say to me, "Ethan, I strongly believe that I am helping to prepare you
for the second coming of Jesus Christ."
And I definitely saw evidence of Jodi
feeling that timetable was being accelerated.
March of 2021,
Jodi really opened up to Ruby
that she believed she was being tormented and haunted
by shadow figures every night.
Ruby was convinced that we could intervene and help Jodi.
And I was like, "Oh, hell no. I don't want this in my house."
But I relented.
There are many things Jodi Hildebrandt was doing
that are unethical.
She was the children's therapist, she was the parents' therapist,
and now in her moment of need, which sounds like a mental health crisis,
she's moving in with her clients.
Jodi would go into possession mode.
She would talk in, like, different voices.
Jodi would wake up in the middle of the night.
She'd be having these… what they believed were prophecies at the time.
And at that point Ruby decides,
"I'll stay in the room with Jodi, and I'll handle these night terrors."
And that was that. They started sleeping in the same bed.
Basically there were all these rules now placed on me.
I couldn't come into the kitchen to eat until Ruby gave me permission.
And the upstairs where Jodi roamed was completely off-limits.
They'd just go up and lock themselves in a room for four or five hours,
and then they'd come out, and they'd just be on cloud nine.
And then Ruby would share with me,
like, "She had this amazing vision,
and I wrote it all down."
And that's when she asked me to leave.
I was always very intrigued by Jodi's relationship with Ruby,
how she talked about her, how she looked at her.
Jodi and Ruby posted a promo video
that I think shows just how close they were.
Come spend two days with us in southern Utah
hiking, jet skiing, engaging in training sessions,
and one-on-one coaching.
There's been some talk that she might be lesbian,
but then some of the comments she'd made
is that if you were LGBTQ, that that was an addiction
that could be recovered from,
but that was a shameful thing.
Like, you have so much shame and that's why you're going to it.
When you're part of a high-demand religion,
if you are LGBT,
often it feels like there isn't a healthy space for you to even exist.
You can't even entertain the thought of being LGBT.
And so I think what happens sometimes with believing members
is they go inward, and they can self-loathe,
and then that can dangerously turn into extremism.
I listened to some of her videos, and they were pretty anti-LGBT.
And people will say, "Well, homosexuality is not the same as pedophilia!"
Okay, it may not be the same thing,
but what is the same thing is sexual deviancy.
I know she has strong stances around the LGBTQ community.
I have seen a clip where it felt like Jodi was being defensive about it.
I am a daughter of God. That's who I am.
I am not gay…
because I am divine.
I thought maybe Jodi had feelings she was trying to suppress.
Once Jodi was able to isolate Ruby from Kevin,
she was really just able to brainwash her into thinking she was a living prophet.
So you can see how Jodi Hildebrandt justified the next step.
"I'm right on how I have done sexuality,
I am right in having separated families,
and I am right in making sure your children stay on the right path,
making sure your children aren't being given into by evil influences."
Ruby and Jodi were completely determined to do this work
that they felt God had for them.
We know that over the course of the summer,
Ruby and Jodi were living down here in Jodi's house,
and the children are being systematically abused
and then tortured in the home.
And at the same time,
Jodi and Ruby are continuing filming in the house.
You wonder where I've been on my vlogs?
You wonder why I left YouTube?
It's to save my kids.
The 8 Passengers channel changed to Moms of Truth.
Hello and welcome to Moms of Truth with Jodi and Ruby.
Moms of Truth is pretty much parenting advice.
In this home,
you don't get personal space because this is my space.
Because I'm the parent.
Harsh parenting advice.
You're scared to hold your child accountable.
Instead of chasing your kids all over the place,
you need to learn what's called Principles of Truth.
You're being canceled in your own home.
I witnessed the entire dynamic of Jodi's public-facing content shift.
She was using Ruby.
I… I love children.
I love children. I love your children.
And I have a very sacred charge to help you protect them.
And Ruby, that's what she's doing. She's allowed me to be in her life
so I can help raise and teach and guide her children.
That's what we want to share with you, how to…
What Jodi got in Ruby
was someone who was willing to be taken by the nose
and do everything Jodi said.
And I wonder if part of the reason that this got as awful as it got
is because Jodi just was seeing how far she could push Ruby
before Ruby would ever push back.
And there's no evidence that Ruby ever pushed back.
As long as Jodi said,
"I talked to God this morning, and this is what we're supposed to do,"
then Ruby just did it.
When you look at the definition of a cult,
and I can speak from my experience and basically nothing else but,
she was the unified leader. There was zero defiance.
There was a lot of brainwashing. There was a lot of isolation.
My gut was telling me, "Something's off."
"This doesn't feel right."
"The things she's asking me to do are not kind."
It's really hard to look back and see areas where I follow Jodi,
despite what my gut was telling me.
I was separated for the first five-ish months,
and then I continued to see Jodi throughout that year.
It felt like things were changing.
Her language actually got looser over time.
It's almost as if, like, she was, like, losing a filter.
"Ethan, like, you don't even know what it's like to hear the voice of God."
"You've never heard it in your life."
To watch somebody completely unravel, I just think
the castle was going to crumble at some point.
That was the most stark and clear guidance to leave the program.
Shortly after, my wife and I split ways.
I believe 100% it's because of Jodi.
I feel like Jodi was able to really get into, honestly,
my psyche, my decision-making,
because I was so desperate for help.
I needed to have some sort of hope for my marriage.
But eventually we saw enough red flags that we decided to leave.
Jodi definitely had a huge hand in ruining my marriage.
Within a year, we were divorced.
We're all going to have to…
as a culture, figure out,
how do we parse out intentional falsehoods, misrepresentations,
and truth and fact, and how do we
live in this world?
We still had so much left to uncover.
But the biggest thing we wanted was to interview the children.
The young boy gave an amazing interview, very detailed and descriptive.
We're getting a better picture as to what's happened to these kids.
It starts out with what I would call extremely poor parenting,
but probably not criminal acts.
Physical tasks, carrying boxes up and down stairs as a punishment.
But then it progresses.
The young boy described very extreme corporal punishment
for very minor things.
We need to go back to the house because there is so much more,
and now I'm going to be looking at it from a different perspective,
trying to corroborate his story.
We got a call from the detectives at the house,
and they said, "Holy cow."
That's when we got the journals.
The LDS faith is very big in journaling.
They're told to document everything.
There were several journals located, and Ruby's was really…
unlike anything I've seen.
We found written documentation of everything that was happening.
Everything they had done to the children and why.
"The young boy and girl have been in so much deviant behavior."
"Their selfish, sinful lifestyle is being intervened upon."
"Day two of young boy jumping on a mini trampoline."
He would have to jump on the trampoline for hours at a time
in the dead heat of the summer,
and if he would take a break,
he was now deceitful. He was trying to cheat.
"He is defiant."
"The young boy, or I should say his demon, stays in the shade."
"I come back with a cactus poker."
"When I poke his back to get in the sun, he doesn't even flinch."
"He is in a trance and doesn't appear to feel anything."
We found the exercise trampoline…
along with the actual physical indentations,
marks that it had made on the concrete.
You know, I'm seeing the calcium buildup on the trampoline,
and that's because he was sweating.
That's not just a leisurely activity at this point.
He was being tortured on that small trampoline.
Ruby's journal corroborated the young boy's story.
Line by line, everything he had described, she had written down in her journal.
The journal documents that Ruby is doing what she's doing out of love
to drive evil spirits away.
And I believe that all of that comes from Jodi.
"The spirit told Jodi very clearly,
'Don't let these kids' choices ruin your life.'"
In Ruby's journal, she talks about how the boy had escaped once before
in the middle of the night.
"Oh God! Oh Father! We need a miracle."
"Show us where the boy is."
"I've done everything you've asked."
"Protect me. Protect Jodi. Protect us. Protect us."
But he didn't go and knock on any doors.
He just tried to make it to the main part of Ivins where he could see the lights.
"I speed up to cover as much road as I can,
racing the sun, racing the devil."
"Then I see the young boy walking on the side of the road."
The worst abuse happens
after the boy tries to run away and is caught.
They start tying him up.
They try different ways, they tie him to Ruby,
they tie him to weights,
but they eventually land on the,
in their mind, most efficient way of binding him,
is to handcuff his wrists together, handcuff his ankles together,
lay him on his stomach,
and then tie those two sets of handcuffs together.
He's hog-tied.
And that's where his really, really bad injuries happen,
because he's left in that position for hours at a time.
It's difficult to imagine the level of depravity that it would take
for adults to do that to children.
Yes?
Hi, I was just
wondering if you could do two favors?
Well, what are they?
Taking me to the nearest police station.
Well actually, just one's fine.
He was always told by Jodi and Ruby that
for things he had done, he'd be going to jail.
"Today he rages for hours."
"'I'm never going to change! Take me to jail where I belong.'"
He's hungry and…
He says he…
What's happened to him is his fault.
It's that level of manipulation
where these children believed they were deserving of the punishment
and not deserving of unwavering love like a parent should have for their child.
Is Jodi up there right now?
-Yes. -Okay.
Jodi Hildebrandt is up there right now.
Okay.
So, she may come looking for him here soon, but…
All right, we need the cops here as soon as possible.
She's a…
She's a bad lady.
Our initial responding officer,
on his way there, he observed a vehicle traveling down the road.
He was pretty aware that was probably Jodi Hildebrandt at that point,
looking for the young boy.
So when Jodi stopped him and asked if he had seen a boy,
he thought on his feet pretty fast and he was like,
"No, I haven't, but if I do, I'll let you know."
She said she lives over here. I said, "All right, well,
I'm just on the phone with my sergeant right now."
I believe that Jodi went back to the residence
after she saw the officers.
She took the rope and the handcuffs, which the boy had removed from himself,
downstairs into the safe room,
put them in the bottom drawer, and closed the safe room.
The safe room that she then told us she didn't have the password to.
That thing has been locked for a couple of years…
I think that she did that because she knew
that was clear evidence of her involvement.
This is a witch hunt.
The devil's been after me for years.
-You know my heart. -What are they charging you with?
Second-degree felony for child abuse.
Wow, that's very serious.
Adults have a really hard time understanding
that children can be full of evil and what that takes to fight it.
And so I don't know any adults who are willing to see the truth.
You have one minute remaining for this call.
The children,
they're going to be in the hospital for three days.
So weird.
It's just not necessary.
They're trying to exaggerate this.
You have exceeded the allowable time for this call. Goodbye.
When they were at the jail, initially Ruby still thought
that Jodi was the chosen one
that was delivering the word of God to her.
Poor Jodi. They misinterpret her and they misunderstand her.
She puts her neck out on the line for people, and then they get mad at her.
I mean, it is just horrendous.
It's horrendous.
And you know what? Every Joseph Smith,
every wonderful man of God has had to be misunderstood.
Nobody wants the truth.
Because these kids…
I woke up. The Spirit told me it's all the devil.
You've seen him.
You've watched him come at me, come at me, come at me, come at me.
"The young boy says he worships the devil."
"We decided the escalation of the kids is not manageable here."
The journal talks about how Jodi is getting her house ready to sell.
"Those kids have no idea the sacrifices being made for them."
We did locate paperwork that indicated Jodi had purchased
several acres in Arizona in the middle of the desert.
She had purchased two tractors so that the kids could work.
"The girl I will bring into the cool house,
and she can sit in the pantry."
"They will think they won."
"They will think they got what they wanted. They will relax."
"Then, pop! We will drop them like hot potatoes in the desert."
It's the worst kind of torture when you take someone
and you slowly deprive them of what they need.
But Ruby and Jodi were so desensitized at the time that they were arrested
that I don't think there would've been anything to stop them.
When was the last time you talked to her?
Was it that day?
Mm-hm. It was when we were arrested.
They put us in separate cells. We've been separate ever since.
That's when things kind of started turning.
I was like, "She's not been honest."
A few months later, it seemed that
Ruby was maybe a little out of the haze on what had happened.
Believe that God has a hand in the old Ruby being set free,
or whatever you want to call it.
Yeah, absolutely.
This has been the strangest
and the most miraculous intervention.
It separated me from Jodi,
so I'm not hearing her.
And I think just being gone and not hearing her
has cleared a lot of things up for me.
I know this sounds crazy,
and I still can't put my finger on why it feels this way,
but it feels like I was being set up to end up here.
I know that sounds bizarro.
I mean, I shouldn't be here. I haven't done anything wrong.
It was clear that Jodi wasn't willing to accept responsibility.
She would say things like,
"We didn't abuse those kids. They did this to themselves."
We didn't do that.
Those pictures, we did not do. He did that to himself.
Did we put that on him?
And then he rubbed around and cut himself? Yes.
But we didn't do that.
Jodi denies everything.
She denies having anything to do with this, and I was shocked.
I think putting the pieces together and seeing…
And it's embarrassing too…
And it's like, oh my gosh, how gullible was I?
Oh my gosh, how…
How much power I gave this person,
and I didn't see it.
Being confused doesn't ever justify criminal acts.
I don't want to minimize.
Ruby committed crimes,
and Jodi manipulated Ruby and told her to commit all those crimes.
Both of those get to be true.
Trials in child abuse cases are hard on children victims,
and we all take steps to protect them.
We ended up offering a plea offer
that they would plead to four of the six counts,
and they would agree that each count would carry prison time.
Both of them pled guilty.
Two defendants charged with the exact same crimes,
but who was more at fault?
Ruby Franke's attorney issued a statement before her guilty plea,
saying Jodi Hildebrandt isolated her away from her family
and distorted her sense of morality.
All rise.
The Honorable John J. Walton presiding. You may be seated.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to district court.
Ms. Franke has a statement she'd like to make?
She does.
For the past four years,
I've chosen to follow counsel and guidance that has led me into a dark delusion.
My distorted version of reality went largely unchecked,
as I would isolate from anyone who challenged me.
I was led to believe that this world was an evil place.
It seemed that Ruby was
remorseful.
At least she fooled me a little bit.
Court is back in session. You may be seated.
Ms. Hildebrandt?
I sincerely love these children.
I desire for them to heal physically and emotionally.
My hope and prayer is that they will heal and move forward to have beautiful lives.
She wouldn't let the words come out of her mouth
that she had done anything wrong to those children
that she had taken to her home and tortured.
What happened to these children and your philosophy in dealing with them,
frankly seems detached from reality, or any objective standard of decency,
or even common sense.
The court imposes four one-to-15-year sentences
to be served consecutively
for each of the four counts of aggravated child abuse.
I was getting ready to move, and all of a sudden I ended up in prison.
You know, I thought, "What in the world?"
Now, I have been praying for five months, like, "Explain this to me."
"Please help me understand."
And then, I connected it to my blessing.
The first paragraph, it says,
"Through the power of your example and the spoken word,
you will be a great tool in the hand of the Lord
in teaching the gospel to many."
I probably cried for an hour straight. Just everything clicked.
And I said, "I'm happy to go to prison."
Jodi, I know, somewhere is thinking to herself
that she can take credit for all of this
in the same way an abusive father takes credit for toughening up his kids.
I think she is where she needs to be right now.
The cycle has to stop somewhere.
I don't know that this could've happened anywhere else.
Utah protects their own.
The religious base here is very willing to follow the leaders
that have been appointed without questioning.
And Jodi Hildebrandt somehow convinced people
that she was the leader.
As an active member of that church, it's just disgusting
to see someone on their own power trip
take something that can do good for a lot of people
and twist it into something that can be so harmful and rotten.
Because this is a story about religious extremism.
I think that's why Jodi is such a risk to society.
She seeks influence and power over people.
She'll get people to do things that are destructive for themselves
and for us as a society.
Now that she's in prison, I've thought a lot
about that dramatic change in her life, and wondered
if she's still reaching out and trying to suck people in
to those dark places that she's brought so many people.
I think she's extremely dangerous.
If Jodi got out and she had a way to still influence people,
she would find that way and continue.
She has a clear pattern of manipulation
and victims over the years.
It's a pattern that didn't stop after Jessi.
It's not gonna stop now.
She likes the control, and it's something that I would be very concerned about
if they allowed her to leave.
The blessing's pretty clear,
and it says,
"The strongest message you will ever teach is the power of your example."
What's a better example than to go to prison unjustly?
And then go teach the gospel.
Which I plan on doing.
These crosses all over my body
Remind me of who I used to be
Give myself up to him in offering
Let him make a woman out of me
I'm just a child But I'm not above violence
My mama raised me better than that
When the preacher talks That man demands his silence
Daddy said shoot first Then run and don't look back
So take me down to the river…