Jodi Hildebrandt’s niece, Jessi, has told The Independent of how difficult it was to start speaking about the mistreatment they endured from their aunt amid disgraced YouTuber Ruby Franke and Jodi’s child abuse scandal.
Franke, a Utah mother of six and former parenting YouTuber known for her channel 8 Passengers, and her business partner/therapist Hildebrandt, were arrested in August 2023 after Franke’s 12-year-old son escaped from Hildebrandt’s home. He was found malnourished, with open wounds bound by duct tape. Authorities later discovered Franke’s 10-year-old daughter in a similar condition.
Both women were charged with multiple counts of aggravated child abuse and last year were sentenced to serve between four and 30 years in prison.
ID’s new, four-episode docuseries, Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence, which airs tonight, features Jessi and her own allegations of abuse at the hands of Jodi.
Jessi — who uses they/them pronouns — alleged their aunt locked them in a closet-sized room for hours, where they were expected to write out all of their “sins,” made them sleep outside in the snow, and not speak to anyone aside from Jodi.
After escaping from Jodi, Jessi had gone years without hearing from their aunt until a friend told them about Jodi’s arrest alongside Franke.
“When she got arrested and I started speaking out, I remember when I made that decision to even just help, or help in whatever capacity I could,” Jessi said. “I remember having this moment of just… full body terror.”
“I thought that she was going to send out a hit on me, that she was coming for me,” they added.
Jessi said they still have recurrent nightmares that Jodi is running after them. “The main nightmare I have, even to this day, is just… she's right behind me,” they said. “I am deathly terrified of Jodi.”
Despite never contacting their aunt since they were a teenager, Jessi hopes to attend Jodi and Franke’s parole hearings, which are scheduled for December 2026. “I really hope I'm going to be there,” they said. “I'm terrified of it, but I think it would be an important place to be.”
Jessi also spoke about how important it is for people to understand their aunt in order to realize why Franke abused her children.
“It seems like most of it is centered around Ruby, which is completely understandable,” Jessi said of other documentaries about their aunt and Franke. “I think a lot of people are quite confused by it. They’re confused by Kevin [Franke’s ex-husband and father of their six children]; they’re confused. How could a mother… how could a father treat their children like this?”
“I think that by going more in-depth into Jodi, that answers a lot of those questions,” they told The Independent. “Ruby really does not make sense until you understand Jodi. Jodi doesn't really make sense until you understand the Mormon church. And there are so many puzzle pieces to make this a coherent picture, and I think by only focusing on Ruby, which a lot of these have understandably done so, they miss out on the big picture.”
Ruby & Jodi: A Cult of Sin and Influence premieres tonight on ID at 9 p.m. ET with its finale airing tomorrow. It will be available to stream on HBO Max.
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