If you grew up with YouTube videos constantly playing in the background of your everyday childhood and teen years, especially those of family vloggers, you may be familiar with the family channel 8 Passengers. This family vlog channel consisted of a Utah Mormon family of six children, their father, Kevin Franke, and their mother, Ruby Franke. Their channel, to the public audience, was relatively normal although excessive with the lack of privacy regarding the children. On Aug. 30, 2023, the perception of this YouTube family entirely shifted when the mother, Ruby Franke, was arrested alongside her friend and counselor, Jodi Hildebrandt, and charged with six counts of felony aggravated child abuse. With the shock of this news, fans began looking to past videos, which have now been taken down, and saw moments of tension, fear, and anger in the family. Becoming one of the biggest trending stories in America, at the start of the new year, Hulu announced their exclusive documentary series, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, set to premiere on Feb. 27.
As an avid YouTube watcher myself, I grew up watching the family vlogs of 8 Passengers, and the announcement of this was jaw-dropping to me, so of course, the second I heard about Hulu’s original documentary, I was counting down the days until I could watch it. The day it premiered, I didn’t take my eyes off the screen for the entirety of its episodes.
Although there have been other documentaries and specials relating to Ruby Franke and her family channel, Hulu’s original documentary was the first time that the family agreed to give a detailed account of events. Throughout the episodes, we see interviews from the father, the oldest daughter, Shari Franke, and the oldest son, Chad Franke. Along with personal interviews, it also shows clips of unseen footage from the YouTube channel, with the family providing Hulu over 1,000 hours of unseen videos. The episodes show a neighbor’s camera footage of the youngest son escaping where he was held by his mother and Hildebrandt, a recording of the initial 911 call, and interviews with friends, neighbors, and police on the case. Footage of the court trial, pictures of evidence found in the home, and the mother’s journal, where she wrote entire descriptions of the abuse she inflicted upon her children, are also included. This documentary also kept the identities of the family’s four youngest children hidden by blurring their faces in video clips and pictures shown, offering them the privacy they were never given growing up as one of YouTube’s most popular family vlogging channels.
Although there are still many questions left unanswered, and fan/public theories about the parents, Hildebrandt’s involvement, and the case overall, this exclusive documentary was an addicting watch, as well as an emotional one, as we see and hear the abuse these children endured. Personally, I think this short documentary series did not disappoint, and the inside look we got through interviews and unseen footage was shocking, giving the public a deeper look into the seriousness of this case.
The final episode ended with the father telling us, “This is a story about love, about hope, about family, but this is also a story about deception, of control, and ultimately it’s a story about faith.” The story of the 8 Passengers family is not the first YouTube family vlogging channel to have accusations of abuse, and it will, unfortunately, probably not be the last.
In addition to Hulu’s Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, eldest daughter, Shari Franke has recently published a book detailing her life growing up with her mother and in the eyes of the Mormon faith, titled The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom. She continues to advocate against family vlogging, especially in the state of Utah. All episodes of Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke are available now on Hulu and Disney+. Ruby Franke and Hildebrandt have both pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse and are serving up to 30 years in prison.