Ruby Franke, a mother of 6, and a family blogger, was convicted with 4 counts of aggravated child abuse in December of 2023. Franke’s therapist, Jodi Hildebrant, also plead guilty alongside Franke for the charges. The Franke children were found with duct tape surrounding their wrists and ankles. Wikipedia states, “According to a statement from the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department, the arrests were triggered after Franke’s twelve-year-old son, who appeared emaciated and had “open wounds and duct tape around the extremities”, had climbed through a window of Hildebrandt’s house and asked at a neighboring house for food and water.” 

The two could serve up to 30 years in prison. “Jodi Hildebrandt, who pleaded guilty to child abuse, has been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison, the same sentence as Ruby Franke. That’s the maximum sentence,” states the Today Show. The website also states that Franke victimizes herself and says that her children were the perpetrators. She also consistently insisted that her children were possessed by demons. Ruby Franke would attempt to “work out the demons.” The New York Post states that Ruby was “shaving their heads, starving them, dousing them with dirty mop water, making them stand outside barefoot in the desert heat for hours and forcing them to wear adult diapers.”

Adam Urbina, a student who attends Don Lugo, states that he used to watch the family’s blogging channel on YouTube, “I never expected this to be the outcome of the channel but now that I look back, there were signs”. Urbina states that some of the signs included taking her oldest sons bed away and even sending him to a wilderness camp. “In August of 2019, when their oldest son Chad was 14, the Franke’s sent him to the Anasazi Foundation Wilderness Therapy Program, which is an ‘outdoor behavioral health program’ for kids 12-17 who struggle with ‘defiance, family, conflict, mental health, lack of motivation, and other self-defeating behaviors’.”, states The Weddington Witness.