Former 'mommy blogger' Ruby Franke was jailed for 30 years for horrific child abuse.
The sadistic journal entries of jailed ‘mommy blogger’ Ruby Franke have been revealed, in which she outlines the ritual abuse and humiliation she inflicted on her children.
Franke, a former ‘momfluencer’ from Utah who ran a YouTube channel about her family life, was jailed for 30 years in December after pleading guilty to multiple counts of child assault.
Now a series of diary entries released by prosecutors outline the scale of the abuse Franke inflicted on her six children, along with images of the horrific injuries they were forced to endure.
Throughout the diary, Franke displayed religious fanaticism and frequently wrote about punishing her kids because she believed they were ‘possessed’ by the devil.
In one instance, she said her young son was gripped by ‘Satanic chaos’, and said her children were suffering from ‘deviant behavior’.
The redacted entries primarily focused on the abuse she inflicted on two of her children, whose names were abbreviated as ‘E’ and ‘R’.
On 10 July 2023, Franke wrote about her son’s birthday, and compared her son to a ‘snake’.
‘It’s [R’s] birthday,’ she wrote. ‘He doesn’t even know what month it is…I told [R] he emulates a snake. He slithers and sneaks around when no one is watching then he scurries.’
‘I told [R] that he needs to find God,’ she wrote in another entry. ‘I invited him to fast and pray. [R] is in and out of possession.’h
Elsewhere in the diary, she writes about depriving her children of food and water, shaving their heads as ‘punishment’ and forcing them to sleep outside.
She also says her daughter has started to make up rhymes about the abuse she puts her through.
‘All day, [E] makes rhymes about: “My mom starves me and calls it fasting.”
‘“My mom won’t lift a finger and bring me food because all she does is lie on the bed and eat brownies,’” Franke wrote.
She added: ‘[E] is better behaved with Jodi. She likes to think she can manipulate me. I gave her a pixie hair cut. All her long hair is gone. No more distracting [with] hair.’
She also wrote that her children ‘have been spawns of Satan’, and said when one of her kids tried to run away, she ‘screamed for another family, water, food, care, love.’
On July 10, 2023, she wrote: ‘It’s (R’s) birthday. He doesn’t even know what month it is.’
Photos shown to the court depicted the fragile bodies of the emaciated children who were covered with cuts, bruises and scars.
Images show the hands and feet of a young boy wrapped in duct tape as well as infected sores on his feet that are filled with blood and pus as a result of the restraints.
The nine-year-old girl was seen with scratches all over her arms and bruise marks on her ankle.
The children were subject to torture including being tied up with rope, forced to wear adult diapers and locked inside a tiny safe room.
They were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in and virtually all forms of entertainment.
Meanwhile, pictures show the kitchen and pantry was filled with food and Franke’s large office dedicated to making YouTube videos.
Police also discovered a cramped safe room in the basement of the property that was locked from the outside, rope that would be used to tie up the children and adult diapers.
Franke was eventually arrested alongside her business partner Jodi Hildebrant when one of her children escaped last August and asked a neighbour to call the police.
The boy, who was thin and covered in wounds, told investigators that Hildebrandt put ropes on his limbs and used cayenne pepper and honey to dress his cuts.
During her trial, Franke was told her abuse was rooted in religious extremism, with her family claiming she was ‘delusional’ in a statement to the court ahead of her sentencing.
‘She was so deeply brainwashed we could not recognize her,’ the statement read.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
