“And no one believed me. Why would they?” said Jesse. “She destroyed my credibility. I was an angry teenager.”
Ruby and Jody, who were business partners in a life coaching service called ConneXions, were arrested in August 2023 after Ruby’s son escaped from Jody’s house and ran to a neighbor’s house for help. Police said Jodi was malnourished at the time with duct tape on her wrists and ankles, and her sister was later found malnourished at Jodi’s home.
Jesse said the arrest was not surprising.
“I knew Jodi was doing this. I knew she was already doing this to me 14, almost 15 years ago, and people saw and witnessed it and didn’t do anything,” Jesse told ABC News in 2023. “Just because you reframe it as ‘tough love’ or ‘harsh parenting’ doesn’t mean it’s love. It’s abuse.”
At her sentencing hearing in February 2024, Ruby, who started vlogging on the 8 Passengers YouTube channel in 2015 with her then-husband Kevin Franke and their six children, explained her actions by saying that she was “led to believe that the world was an evil place.”
“For the past four years, I have chosen to follow advice and guidance that has led me into dark delusions,” Ruby told the court, according to footage shown in the documentary. “My distorted reality went largely unchecked and I was isolated from anyone who challenged me.”
Ruby and Jody are serving sentences ranging from four to 30 years, the length of which is determined by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
