by Katie Griffin

Are family bloggers really a happy family or is it all an act? The 8 Passengers were a family that put their life on camera, but the 8 Passengers had a lot of secrets hidden by mom, Ruby Franke. 

Ruby Franke was a well-known video blogging mom through YouTube, but the way that she treated her kids concerned a lot of viewers. “I watched their channel when I was younger,” senior Mary Post said. “I never saw anything wrong but the comments were filled with suspicion.” Comments like “this isn’t normal” or “something is definitely going on here” can be found on multiple of their videos.

The Hulu documentary series Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke goes deep into detail about the horrors the mom committed against her family. With released uncut videos of her outbursts and poor treatment of her kids, the documentary consists of three episodes that left people shocked, disturbed, and curious. 

The documentary talks about Ruby Franke and how her relationship with Jodi Hildebrandt ruined Franke’s family. Hildebrandt started off as the second oldest son Chad’s therapist, but then as she got closer to Franke and husband Kevin, she moved in with them when she believed she was getting tormented by shadow figures. 

However, Hildebrandt was still Chad’s therapist and still seeing Kevin in his marriage counseling group when still living there. Hildebrandt was very convincing, so convincing that she got Franke to kick her son Chad and husband Kevin out of the house. According to Vulture, “I think she wanted Ruby to herself, but to do that, she needed me out of the picture,” Kevin Franke said in the documentary. 

Senior Mary Post watched the documentary. “I don’t even know how a mother could treat her kids like that,” Post said. “That is not a mother: that’s a monster. My biggest shock is the way that Ruby talked to her kids on the cut parts makes me wonder what happened when the camera was off.” 

 “There was one part where Chad, the second oldest was beaten till there was blood, and was sleeping on a bean bag for seven months,” senior Addison Geloff said.

Franke and Hildebrandt were arrested and charged with six counts of felony child abuse in 2023. They both pleaded guilty to four counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse and were sentenced to up to 30 consecutive years in prison.

However, Franke’s husband was not charged with abuse. He claims he did not know about the abuse of his children.  “One of the many things that stuck with me was the husband, because there is no way that he didn’t know how crazy [Ruby Franke] was when he was in the house,” Geloff said. “He had to have known and been okay with it.”

Bellbrook students shared their thoughts after watching the docu-series. “I genuinely believe that Ruby was a horrible person before and after she was brainwashed,” Geloff said. “She only thought of herself not her kids and that’s not a mother.” Viewers noted Franke’s abuse definitely did get worse after she met Jodi Hildebrandt, and that Hildebrandt brain washed them all so much that Franke thought it was normal to torture her kids.

“One sentence [daughter] Shari said that stuck with me was, ‘You have one childhood, one mom, and that was mine,'” Post said.

“There’s so much that those kids went though, even the husband,” Post said. “But I truly believe that Jodi was the main cause of the downfall of Ruby. I think those kids are so brave.”

The kids now are all healing and going on to big things, mainly the oldest child Shari writing a book about her childhood and trying to get rid of family bloggers.