YouTuber Giving Parenting Advice Jailed for 60 Yrs For Abusing Own Children

A YouTube vlogger Ruby Franke of the US, popular for her online parenting advice, received a sentence of up to 60 years in prison on Tuesday on charges of child abuse, according to The Independent.

Franke, 42, is a mother of six children. She had 2.3 million followers on her now-deleted YouTube channel. She was arrested in the southern Utah city of Ivins in August 2023, when her malnourished 12-year-old son, with open wounds and bound with duct tape, climbed out of a window at the home of Jodi Hildebrandt, owner of a self-improvement counselling business, to ask for food and water from a neighbour.

Another daughter of Franke was also found in a similar malnourished condition in Hildebrandt’s home.

Franke and Hildebrandt, who collaborated on parenting and relationship advice videos posted on Hildebrandt’s life coaching service ConneXions, pleaded guilty to second-degree aggravated child abuse in December 2023.

Hildebrandt was also sentenced to the same 60-year prison terms as Franke.

After receiving the punishment from the court, Franke apologised to her children and said: “I was so disoriented that I believed dark was light and right was wrong.”