(NewsSpace.com) – Parents often turn to online communities and so-called experts when they have an issue that they need guidance with. After all, who better to help you than someone who has children and may have been through the situation before? However, you may not always be able to trust the person behind the advice, as the scandal surrounding one popular parenting coach recently revealed.
In August, two women known online as “Moms of Truth,” Jodi Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke, were arrested after a horrific incident in which a malnourished child, later revealed to be Franke’s 12-year-old son, showed up at a neighbor’s house in Ivins, Utah, and asked them to call police. He appeared emaciated and had open wounds on his body as well as duct tape around his wrists and ankles. Franke was eventually charged with six felonies related to child abuse. She has since pleaded guilty.
The mom of six, who ran a YouTube channel called “8 Passengers” with millions of viewers until it was shut down in 2022, entered her guilty plea to four counts of aggravated child abuse on Monday, December 18. In doing so, she acknowledged that she repeatedly tortured her children, denying them food and water and locking them out of the house for hours on end. Court documents also show that Franke’s son was hogtied and bound with duct tape and handcuffs, and that his mother regularly suffocated him by covering his nose and mouth with her hands and holding his head underwater.
The defense is trying to paint Franke as having fallen under Hildebrandt’s influence, where she was “subjected to a distorted sense of morality,” per HuffPost. Franke is also reportedly planning to testify against Hildebrandt.
Franke is facing up to 15 years in jail and a fine of up to $10,000 for each count. She is due to be sentenced next year and will remain behind bars until that hearing. Her husband filed for divorce in November.
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