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Shari Franke, the eldest daughter of Ruby Franke, a once-popular mom influencer now in prison for child abuse, has released a memoir detailing her traumatic childhood.
Franke launched the 8 Passengers YouTube channel in in 2015 featuring her husband Kevin and six children. The videos on the channel covered parenting and home-schooling topics by the couple, who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The 8 Passengers channel had a following of almost 2.3 million subscribers before it was removed from YouTube in 2023 for unknown reasons. In addition to the YouTube channel, Franke, with Hildebrandt, ran the @moms_of_truth account on Instagram, with 341,000 followers.
The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom
While Franke presented a a picture-perfect family life for her millions of followers, a much darker truth lurked behind the cameras. In September, 2023, after police obtained a search warrant for their home, all four of Franke’s children were “taken into the care of the Department of Child and Family Services,” according to the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Dept. release. Ruby Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, “were arrested in connection with the incident,” the release stated. “Due to the sensitive nature of this case, no additional information will be released at this time.”
Two of the kids were in such a “physical condition of malnourishment” that they were taken by local emergency medical services personnel to a hospital for treatment, according to the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Dept. She was later arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse in Ivins, Utah, officials announced.
On the day of her mom’s arrest, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home, with the caption reading one word: “Finally.”
In “The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom,” Shari reveals the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers for the first time, in addition to her family’s involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, “ConneXions.”
Purchase “The House of My Mother” on Amazon.
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