State prosecuting attorney Eric Clarke described the environment in which Franke and Hildebrandt had kept the kids as “a concentration camp-like setting”.

While Franke has shown remorse and co-operated with lawyers, Clarke said, Hildebrandt did not and continued to place blame on the children. Hildebrandt’s lawyer, Douglas Terry, said during the livestreamed hearing that his client was not the remorseless woman she had been portrayed to be and accepted responsibility for her actions.

In a brief statement, Hildebrandt stopped short of apologising but said she loved the children and wanted them to heal. She reminded Judge John Walton that she accepted her plea deal instead of going to trial because she did not want the children to have to relive their trauma by testifying.

Hildebrandt pleaded guilty in December to four of her six counts of aggravated child abuse, and two counts were dismissed as part of her plea deal. Franke also pleaded guilty to four of her six charges and not guilty to two.

Franke and her husband, Kevin Franke, launched 8 Passengers on YouTube in 2015 and amassed a large following as they documented their experiences raising six children. She later began working with Hildebrandt’s counselling company, ConneXions Classroom, offering parenting seminars, launching another YouTube channel and publishing content on their shared Instagram account, “Moms of Truth”.

Franke admitted in her plea deal to kicking her son while wearing boots, holding his head underwater and closing off his mouth and nose with her hands. She and Hildebrandt said they also forced him into hours of physical labour in the summer heat without much food or water, causing dehydration and blistering sunburns. The boy was told that everything being done to him was an act of love, according to the plea agreements.

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Hildebrandt also admitted to coercing Franke’s youngest daughter, who was nine at the time, to jump into a cactus multiple times and run barefoot on dirt roads until her feet blistered. The boy and girl were taken to hospital after the arrests and placed in state custody along with two more of their siblings.

Before her 2023 arrest, Ruby Franke was already a divisive figure in the parent vlogging world. The Franke parents were criticised online for certain parenting decisions, including banning their oldest son from his bedroom for seven months for pranking his younger brother. In other videos, Ruby Franke talked about refusing to take lunch to a kindergartener who forgot it at home and threatening to cut the head off a young girl’s stuffed toy to punish her for cutting things in the house.

The 8 Passengers YouTube channel has since ended, and Kevin Franke has filed for divorce.

Both Franke and Hildebrandt have 30 days to appeal against their sentences.

AP

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