87: Shocking New Details & Bodycam Footage: YouTuber Ruby Franke of '8 Passengers'
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Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you could save money by doing it right from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner, and more. So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what.

Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Hey, True Crime Besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie. Whether you are listening to this on your morning commute to work...

cleaning your house, watching the video version of this wherever you are. Thank you so much for tuning in and taking a listen and hearing today's case. Now the case that we are talking about today, I'm going to jump right into it, but I do want to just kind of give you a little bit of a warning, disclaimer, whatever you want to call it before we jump in. It's one that's really been at the forefront of everybody's minds and one that so many of us have been talking about. But

topic itself and the details within the case are really difficult to hear. It's a case that has taken the media by storm, specifically YouTube, because one of the primary people involved in this case is a famous YouTuber, and it's just a really unnerving and unsettling case, especially as more details continue to emerge. So I'm

I kind of want to jump right into it today, guys. But we have been closely following the case of Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt. And today, I want to go over all of the updates in this case for you. Hi, my name is Sherry Frankie. My four younger siblings are living in Springville. And my neighbors have been telling me that they have been left home alone for about four or five days. Went to the house and found children malnourished and locked in a safe. In a safe? In a safe. Ever warm from my house?

Specifically for you. Yeah. Now set to face a Utah judge over the custody of four of her six children. As of this moment, you're going to be detained right now, okay? Okay. I'm going off what you're saying. I'm going off what they're saying. I don't know what's the truth. Keeping them home from school and wiping the floorboards would, like, really bring pain. I did make her scrub the floor, and they vacuumed and stuff because I have company coming tonight from Costa Rica. Okay.

Now, if you're new here or if you're unfamiliar with this case and you've never heard about it before, I have done a couple of podcast episodes and YouTube videos on it that you can go back to, listen to, watch, get fully caught up. But as a quick summary, if you are not familiar with it, Ruby Frankie and her family rose to YouTube fame with their family vlogging channel called 8 Passengers.

The channel started back in 2015, and it grew very, very quickly and became one of the most popular family vlogging channels out there on YouTube. I mean, they were documenting every single day of their life, day in, day out, all of the milestone moments, even the small day-to-day ones. They had no limits. There was literally nothing awful.

limits. Ruby would post vlogs of not only her everyday life with her husband, but also her six kids, who are Sherry, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell, and Eve.

The Frankies, I guess you could say, were attempting to show what a quote-unquote normal LDS Utah family was like. However, people quickly began realizing that this family was far from normal. You see, Ruby's parenting styles became heavily scrutinized and critiqued and started a lot of controversy on the internet.

Some of those parenting styles and discipline actions that she documented on tape and put on YouTube included telling her six-year-old child's teacher not to give her six-year-old lunch so that she would learn her lesson about being responsible and bringing her own lunch to school because apparently she had left her lunch pail on the counter that day.

day. So she was trying to teach her a lesson, this six-year-old. She would also vlog about her younger daughters going bra shopping for the first time, a private and very vulnerable moment for any young girl. She would also document about using food as a reward system and even as a punishment system. And she even went as far as sending her teen son to a wilderness camp. And then when he returned,

didn't allow him to have a bedroom or even a bed for months upon his return. Chad showed that he was not able to manage himself sharing a bedroom with Russell. So when we moved,

The bigger room in the basement was automatically his and I didn't have a room, but we like put one on hold for me. So a lot of you are like, hey, that's not fair because Chad got the bigger, the lesser bedroom and Russell got the bigger bedroom. The smaller bedroom.

Russell got the big bedroom and Chad got the smaller bedroom. And Russell's bigger bedroom also had a bathroom. But what you guys didn't know was Chad didn't get any room. He didn't get anything. He was sleeping on the floor in the family room. And he just got the bedroom back. And it's because he's shown up consistently without bullying the kids. Yeah.

In a separate video, Frankie explains her then six-year-old daughter Eve forgot to bring her lunch to school. I just got a text message from Eve's teacher and she said that Eve did not pack a lunch today and can I bring a lunch over to the school?

This happens quite often when you're having raising children. She then tells viewers her daughter's teacher was uncomfortable that Eve may have no lunch that day. I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch and it would ease her discomfort if I came to the school with lunch. Um, but I, I responded and just said,

Eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning and she actually told me she did pack a lunch. Instead of bringing Eve's lunch to school, Frankie says she hopes her daughter goes hungry. So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry.

And hopefully, hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch. Like I said, very controversial. And what's so odd about that is the fact that she was publicly documenting all of this, standing by it, thinking it was normal, thinking she was doing the right thing. And the internet was, of course, telling her the complete polar opposite. But as she was doing all of this, Ruby eventually connected with a woman named Jodi Hildebrandt,

Jodi was the founder of a group, I guess you could call it, called Connections. Now Connections is marketed as a life skills class where they teach people how to, what they say, live in truth rather than distortion, which they use the word distortion almost as though if you are living in a sin. But in reality, Connections does seem more like a cult than an innocent life skills type of class. And it seems like Jodi Hildebrandt is the cult leader of this group.

Many of their teachings are similar to that of other well-known cults, such as NXIVM. They encourage people to distance themselves from family members. They have strict rules that you must follow. And they are constantly telling members that they are inherently bad, but that they can be fixed if they just follow the cult leader's guidance.

And in true cult fashion, they say that people who don't agree with their teachings are just, and I quote, living in distortion. Again, whatever that word means, however you want to tee it up. How would you describe some of the conversations or tactics without getting into the nitty gritty details, of course, but you mentioned perhaps a little uniqueness in her style. How so? Mm-hmm.

I would say with traditional therapy or other therapists I've gone to, there's a little bit more of a feeling of understanding of maybe what a person's been through. Whereas this was pretty strict on like, like no excuses. You're just going to make it happen and it's up to you a hundred percent. Yeah.

I would call it more military style if I had to give it a name versus something else. Now, what's very interesting about Jodi Hildebrandt is she, like the Frankie family, was rooted in LDS faith. However, we have seen it time and time again now that these members who are rooted in LDS end up

branching off into their own little niche path and they become radical they become extremists they become fanatical about religion almost as though they are interpreting the religion in their own way fitting it to their needs and their narrative we've seen it with chad and lori daybell we've seen it recently with the doomsday family the tibidows coming out of arizona who actually ended up allegedly kidnapping their teen son who they believed was god's chosen one

and then fled to Idaho, went to Canada, ended up getting caught on the border of Alaska. That case was absolutely wild, and I covered it in real time, so if you haven't heard of that one, it's definitely worth a listen. It's not only available on the podcast, but also over on YouTube. But it's very interesting because so many of these people, again, are rooted in the LDS faith.

I have made a comment in previous videos, but I do want to make this comment again. This isn't to say that all members or even most members of the LDS community are bad.

They're not. There are plenty of good LDS members who don't try to forge their own path and create their own group with these radical beliefs and these weird followers and all of the things that we've seen go along with it and then ultimately try to justify some pretty horrific actions. However, it would be irresponsible of me if I didn't mention how all of these people that we've been talking about lately seem to be rooted in the LDS faith.

And not only that, but apparently the Mormon church was actually referring Jodi Hildebrandt to several of its members, referring her for counseling, seeking treatment. Jodi was the person that they endorsed. They said, go see Jodi. She'll help you. She'll help your family.

Meanwhile, did they know what she was truly doing? Maybe, maybe not. We aren't sure. But I would say at the very least that it should be eye-opening for the LDS church to now, before giving blind recommendations, maybe just refer their members to a Yelp page for treatment. Like, this is bad, bad, bad. Now, the relationship between the Frankie family and Jodi...

started with Jodi being Chad's therapist, as well as Ruby and Kevin's. And eventually, Jodi ended up recruiting Ruby and trained her to be a certified mental fitness trainer. What that actually means, your guess is as good as mine, but let's just say, like, second in command. Like a cult leader in training, so to speak.

So there was a lot of speculation online surrounding this newfound venture that Ruby was on, and people were highly suspicious about it. And although the community was ultra suspicious because of everything that they had been vlogging, their parenting techniques, their discipline styles, now Ruby getting roped into this connections thing with Jodi Hildebrandt,

The suspicions were there, but nobody really thought that it would ever turn criminal. Certainly that it would never turn extremely dangerous. So everybody was completely shocked when on August 30th of 2023, Ruby and Jodi were both arrested for child abuse after Ruby's youngest son, Russell, had actually escaped from Jodi's house and ran to a neighbor's house.

who then called 911. Now, I guess I should clarify that people weren't necessarily shocked at the fact that they were arrested for something. Rather, they were shocked at just how bad the circumstances were. See, the neighbor called 911, and in this 911 call, you can hear the neighbor actually shedding tears as they explain to the operator what condition this young boy is in.

saying that he was hungry, that he had duct tape on his wrists and on his ankles. And when the police arrived, it was found that Russell and his younger sister Eve had been tied up and almost kept hostage all at Jodi's home. They were dehydrated, malnourished, and had lacerations on their arms and legs, all from being tied up.

12-year-old Russell and 10-year-old Eve were both found to be extremely malnourished with wounds on them that had been dressed with gauze, honey, and cayenne pepper. Russell and Eve were then placed in the care of the state along with Ruby's two middle children, Abby and Julie. You see, Abby and Julie had been found unharmed and they were found at the house of another Connections member and business associate named Pam Botcher, which we are going to talk a lot more about Pam in a moment here.

So following this revelation, Ruby and Jodi were arrested, and they were charged with six felony counts of child abuse. So that's a little snippet of the backstory, just to get you fully caught up to speed. But today, we're going to go over all of the new updates that have come out in the last couple of weeks, including some pretty alarming body cam footage.

Today's episode of Serialistly is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Now, most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yes, I know you are. While you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you are not in some kind of moving vehicle, there is something else you can be doing right now, getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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Now, to start, let's discuss Ruby and Jody, because honestly, there really haven't been many updates here regarding a bond hearing. As we know, the September hearing was canceled because the attorneys needed more time to go over the mountain of evidence and be prepared for all of it. But here we are nearly a month and a half later with zero updates, no motions filed and what seems to be nothing on the horizon in the near future.

Which, to be honest, I'm kind of shocked that neither of their attorneys have pushed this bond hearing forward in any sort of way, at least from what the court website is showing. Especially considering that the whole reason that they were initially trying to get an expedited hearing in Jodi's case was because she had some sort of medical issue.

Well, clearly the medical issue isn't dire. It's not super severe if she's still locked up in jail right now and you guys aren't pushing forward, but what do I know? I'm not an attorney. I'm not a medical person. I'm not a doctor. So now I want to move on over to the other members of the Franke family. On October 10th, the judge officially sealed the child welfare case regarding the four minor children, which means that there will not be any updates regarding their whereabouts or any sort of information on them coming from the courts at least.

The only way that we would be able to know anything is if another member of the family or somebody close to the family decides to share that information, which I really hope for the kids' sake anyone who is privy to that information would have enough respect and decency to keep those details private so that the kids can actually start healing and moving forward in their lives.

We know that the court hearings are continuing to happen, though, and the last one was on October 17th. There has not been any sort of information after the fact. However, we do know that Ruby was in attendance at that hearing. Now, if you'll remember, before the case was sealed, we learned that Ruby had accused her youngest son, Russell, of inappropriate sexual behavior toward other children, saying that it started from when he was just two years old and also that he was addicted to pornography.

Now, this prompted the judge to place Russell in a home away from the other children, away from his siblings, which is devastating given what he went through, yet at the same time is completely understandable because if allegations are made that are that extreme and that serious, you do have to take into account everybody's well-being and the safety of the children. So,

The judge separated Russell from his siblings. However, when you really break it down and you break down those allegations, in my opinion, Ruby made that up in a last-ditch effort to try and control the situation, control her narrative, and also make Russell suffer even more or even retaliate against him for being the whistleblower of what was happening inside that house.

I think Ruby was trying to think quickly on her feet, to have an excuse for why she inflicted such horrible treatment on her own children. And the first thing that came to mind was, hey, let me make up this lie about Russell so that it'll sound like I'm protecting my children and that that's the whole reason that this all happened. But again, when you...

really look closely at it. It starts to break down and make no sense. Because to start, a while before she stopped vlogging, she and the rest of the family discussed how good of a kid Russell was and spoke about the qualities that he had, such as him being empathetic, unable to tell a lie, extremely caring and forgiving, all of those things. Which, sure, we know that sometimes people can act differently or harbor secrets that people don't necessarily see on the outside. But

But also, Ruby and Kevin documented every single moment of these children's lives. 24-7. What they ate, what they wore, their punishments, bra shopping, periods, wilderness camp, all of the things. So you're trying to tell me that all growing up, while you're documenting your family 24-7, you're not catching your three-year-old watching porn? And you're missing it so many times to where he actually develops an addiction to watching it?

Not to mention the actual technological aspect of the whole thing. I get that some three-year-olds know how to work tablets and TV remotes, but for a young child to be able to find porn, access porn, get into the app, do all the things, then watch it so frequently, he becomes addicted. Then that addiction takes over, so as a toddler, his patterns begin to escalate, and he starts sexually assaulting other children and touching them inappropriately. Maybe that could happen later.

Possibly. I've never heard of a toddler doing it, but let's just give her the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe it could happen. But when there's a video camera shoved in your face 24-7 and nobody's catching wind of it, I think that the likelihood of that starts to decrease rapidly. So I don't believe it for a single second. Like I said, I think this was just some piss-poor attempt from Ruby to

to really try and save her own skin, to have some sort of excuse as to why her son was literally bound in Jodi's basement while he had his wounds dressed in gauze,

honey cayenne pepper it is absolutely enraging and then for her to throw all this and dump all of this on russell as though he is the villain in this when he is the victim and then it of course forces the judge to separate him from his other siblings while he's already probably feeling alone and isolated and grappling with what just happened to him at the hands of his own mother

How evil do you have to be, truly? And how freaking selfish do you have to be, trying to save your own skin, throwing your 12-year-old son under the bus, and making up cruel, disgusting lies about him? Now again, anything is possible. I just do not believe for a second, given what we know about that family and the circumstances around how much they like to document everything...

I don't think that it's true. I don't think that a three-year-old became addicted to pornography and was watching it all the time without his parents knowing and then started to escalate and touch other children. And even if he did, honestly, as a parent, that's your fault for not monitoring what he's watching. Personally, that's my opinion. Incredibly mature for his age. His ability to empathize with other people and to connect with them at an age of 10 is incredible. Like,

He truly thinks about other people and doesn't think about himself. And he's been that way ever since he was a little kid. Yeah, he was just born that way. Russell's sincerity. I don't think Russell knows how to tell a lie if he tried. He's so honest. I love his willingness to share. He's very generous. I like that he's like unapologetically himself. I love that Kevin was his age and...

That was not him. I was not empathic at all, but that was just all that happened to me. I like how he forgives me no matter what I do. Oh, he's very forgiving of me. So throughout all of this, there has also been a lot of conversation about Ruby's husband, Kevin, and their oldest daughter, Sherry. Kevin has been separated from Ruby for about a year, and he hadn't seen or spoken to any of his children during that entire period of separation.

And apparently, this was all done at the advice of Jodi Hildebrand. Now remember what we said about cults and separating members from their families, and we did a very big deep dive on connections over here on the podcast and on my YouTube channel, and it really is, it's like, it walks, talks, breathes, smells, looks like a cult.

100% through and through. So Kevin has been under a lot of fire as well because of all of this, which honestly, rightfully so, because he was uninvolved in his kids' lives. But according to his attorney, he was apparently unaware of what was happening to the kids in Jodi's home. Now, personally, I really don't understand how a parent can just stop seeing their own children. I don't care what your quote unquote therapist says. You don't just give up on your kids.

Not only that, but he was there for the original rollout, for lack of a better term, of the parenting techniques, the discipline techniques, all of those things. So clearly he knew what probably would have been going on in that house because he was a part of it before it escalated. Would he envision how bad it could get?

Maybe not. But again, that's your job as a parent. You brought these kids into this world. It is your duty to protect them, to keep them healthy, keep them safe. So by you dipping out at the advice of Jodi because she's like wedging her way in between your marriage for whatever reason she wants, which I have my theories on what that is, but you just dip out and never check on your kids again?

No, no, no, no, no, no, bro. Like, you are equally responsible for this, in my opinion. Now, sidestepping over to Sherry, the daughter. Sherry had started distancing herself from her mother when she became more involved with Jodi Hildebrand. She lives in an apartment separate from the family, and she has been actively fighting for her siblings for quite a while now.

Recently, a call that Sherry had previously made to the authorities was even released. Hi, my name is Sherry Frankie. My four younger siblings are living in Springville and my neighbors have been telling me that they have been left home alone for about four or five days.

She requested a welfare check for her brothers and sisters as they had been left alone while her mom visited a friend in St. George, a.k.a. that friend being Jodi. Sherry wanted to make sure that her siblings had enough food and water, which wise off that responsibility on another child. Again, it's the parents who should have been doing this, who should have been watchful, who should have been more mindful.

So we have known that Sherry, along with her aunts, have been pushing for the police to get involved in this situation for quite a while. And this call once again leads me back to wondering how on earth these kids weren't removed prior to this. Sherry wasn't the only one who had called either. Remember how many times the police and child welfare had been to that house?

Four or five days is an incredibly long time for four kids, including two who are still in elementary school, to be left alone at home. Now, prior to that October 17th hearing, we learned some very interesting, confusing, and quite honestly, angering news regarding Kevin and Sherry.

On the day that Ruby was arrested, the police had issued a search warrant for the Frankie home as they were making sure that Kevin was not there and wanted to get some personal items for the children. However, as we know, Kevin was not there because he had been living separately in a townhome for about a year, so the police had to break the door in as a way to get in, and Sherry was present during the search, and she ended up taking a few things from the home, including her parents' passports, some journals, a camera, and a couple of tablets.

Now, when her father Kevin discovered this, guess what he did? He filed a police report stating that his home had been burglarized and he suspected that it was Sherry who had broken into the home. And he actually wanted his own daughter Sherry arrested. However, when the police met up with Kevin to return those items back to him, Kevin began asking the officers how it was not considered burglary.

And they explained that Sherry used to live in that house. She used to live in that home, and she didn't take the items with any sort of intent of stealing them from Kevin. She was allowed to go in the home and take what she wanted. She was taking them for her siblings. But Kevin was not satisfied with that answer, and he wanted to make sure that they knew that he would be speaking with his attorney about it. There you go. Is it all there? Yes.

Yeah, explain to me again why this was not robbery. Because it's a civil issue. It's you guys are family. She's been in the house before. You haven't been in the house in a year. She had interest in the items. She didn't take them with the intention to deprive you of them. So that's the theft code. We have to prove intent to deprive you of the items. And that wasn't her intent in having them. So the detective sergeant said that we're not going to charge her for anything.

Okay, I'll do some more research on that. You're welcome to do that if you want to follow up with our techniques. Yeah, he'll be here on Tuesday. His name is Sergeant McCoy. You're welcome. Take care.

Now, for me, I think the biggest question here is what was stored within those electronic devices or written down in those journals that has spooked Kevin so much? Why was he so willing to charge his young daughter with burglary just because she took a couple of the electronics from the house? It makes no sense unless you're scared about what is going to be found on those devices.

And why did Sherry take those? Was she looking for evidence? Maybe she truly did have a fear of them fleeing the country and that's why she took the passports, trying to get a jump on them? Who knows, but the fact that Kevin was so concerned about pressing charges on his own daughter because of this gives me the creeps.

Given the circumstances and that he had just realized what had been going on in the treatment of his other children seems very suspicious to me. Now, I can imagine that Kevin's attempt to get Sherry arrested was basically like a slap in the face to her after fighting for her siblings for so long, not getting anywhere for quite a while until something finally did happen.

Maybe he was mad that she had left the family, that she had been drawing attention to the practices within the family. So maybe this was a form of him retaliating against her. But again, I think that Kevin's worry is misplaced here. Kevin should be worried about what the hell he was doing and do some self-reflection on how he had a complete oversight on the fact that his kids were essentially being held captive in some crazy cult leader woman's house in her basement while his wife was allowing it.

It's bizarre. On the evening of October 16th, Sherri also officially spoke out for the first time via social media.

She said,

Sherry's post immediately was flooded with likes, comments, just so much support from the outside world. But nobody was prepared for what would happen the following day at the hearing. You see, Sherry and Kevin walked in that courthouse together. And they were all so happy.

And this left everybody wondering what must have happened for the two of them to be essentially walking in as a team now with their attorneys and Chad. But Kevin's attorney followed up all of those questions with a statement that simply said that he and Sherry are now trying to work together and let bygones be bygones. Now,

Now, obviously, we don't have any idea what the outcome of that hearing was, but I can't help but wonder if the two of them getting along now is maybe some sort of attempt to get the kids back together within the family. Although I hope that for her sake, relationships are actually starting to be mended because nobody deserves to grow up essentially parentless. But here is where we get into probably the biggest update in the entire case. We now have body cam footage from Pam's house,

which is where Ruby's daughters Abby and Julie had been when Ruby was arrested. Abby and Julie had been found that evening after multiple different departments became involved in the investigation. In the footage, a police officer who identifies himself as Officer Hawkins went to the door and began speaking to Pam's husband.

Pam came to the door and then confirmed that one of the girls was there. Now, the name of who she confirmed was taken out of the audio, so we aren't sure which one she confirmed to be there. But Pam confirmed she was there and said that she was there to help her do some house cleaning. In this footage, Pam and her husband are seemingly confused and are acting like they have no idea why the police officers are there.

The officer lets the couple know that he has a warrant for Pam and for the child. He then detains Pam, placing her in handcuffs, and then walks her to his patrol car. I'm Officer Hawkins, sir. I'm looking for Pam. Is Pam in today? Yeah, that's my wife. Is your wife, she's here? Hi. Hello, Pam, how are you doing? Good. I'm Officer Hawkins, American Fork Police Department. Hi. So we had an agency assist out of St. George in Springville that we're just looking for. Okay. When you picked her up...

What was the case? Did somebody ask you to pick her up, or did you just pick her up? What was going on? Well, I'm having guests coming, and she came and did some cleaning for me. Some cleaning for you?

Right now in the house. Okay, great. We're gonna have both of you come out here then. If you can, just for a second. We just had to go over some stuff. You have a warrant? Yeah, we do. Let me see it, please. So, it's in my car, but right now my concern is... Will you just tell them you're alright? Well, we have to physically see her. Under the doorway. We'll go ahead and get the copy of the warrant for you, okay? You have a warrant for my house?

Specifically for you. Yeah, for you and the child. Yeah. Okay. So, as of right now, I'll just need you to give your phone to your husband. Okay. And as of this moment, you're going to be detained right now, okay? Okay. So, what does that mean? Is there anything on you?

Uh, no. Okay, just put your hands in front of you, okay? I'm just going to place you temporarily under arrest. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'll explain to you. What are you guys doing? I've explained this already. I'm being as courteous as I can. Okay, well, I'm going to call an attorney. That's fine. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, I don't even know what this is all about. Okay, so I'm going to explain to you when we get to the car. Yes, I just explained to you that you're being detained right now.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk you to my car, okay? I need this officer to stay with your husband, and I'm going to explain everything to you when we get there, okay?

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Throughout the footage, Pam and her husband both tell the officers that Ruby had called Pam earlier in the day and said that she had some sort of family emergency. She then asked Pam to pick up Julie and Abby.

Abby was at the local pool and Ruby said to pick up Julie from Ace Hardware. Now Julie was supposedly at work working at the Ace Hardware and told her employer that her mom called and that she had to leave for that family emergency. Now it makes me wonder what this family emergency was and if Ruby was maybe possibly tipped off on what was happening back over at Jodi's house and then started making all those phone calls before she had even been arrested.

When Pam told the officers about the alleged family emergency, it was actually the first time that the officers heard that both of the girls were actually at Pam's house, not just one. Prior to that, they had only been told that one child was there. Pam then goes on to explain that she picked up the two girls, they went and got ice cream, they ate lunch, and then they helped her clean the house since she was having guests over that night from Costa Rica. She's not tied up and bound because you

I didn't make her scrub the floor and they vacuumed and stuff because I have company coming tonight from Costa Rica. But she did it of her own free will. We had lunch. We went to Rolly's Farm and had ice cream. Those children are...

I don't know the full details of how mistreated or how malnourished those children are. All I know is that's the words and treatment that they used. Which means that they are severely concerned of her well-being and every child that's in that home. Okay. So they'll just have to talk to her? Because there has been, I've been a part of many DCFS cases where as soon as the parents are hooked up, kids are taken. If there's any kids that aren't in the home immediately when the kids are taken, guess what?

They're scurrying around. Other family members are picking them up that way. The parent can come back and grab them before DCFS takes them. Oh, yeah. I'm telling you, you may be a good person, but there's a lot of people in this world that aren't. Right. Well, if DCFS is supposed to take her, then they can take her. I mean, I'm not going to try to fight that. I mean, I...

Well, that's what they're going to come talk to you about. They left already, so they should be here in the next 10, 15 minutes. But Springville just left as I got off the phone. So he's probably going to be about 20. So DCFS or whatever it is is coming? Yeah, so DCFS will come for their part first. And then the detective Munford is coming to talk to you. So they're just going to ask her if she came willingly to my house and if everything's okay? And she has to be taken into state custody. Oh, she does? Because I think her parents were arrested.

They were planning to pick tomatoes to make some salsa, but were taking a short break when officers knocked on their door. Pam said that she really didn't know what Ruby's family emergency was and that she just planned on taking the girls home later that night. We went to Roley's farm and got Roley's Red Barn and got ice cream at the Red Barn. And then we came here and we scrubbed the floors and vacuumed and made lunch at BLT's and...

We were going to go pick tomatoes and make salsa tonight. So that's kind of what we were doing tonight. So just to make sure I'm understanding all this correctly, Ruby contacted you around noon and said that they had an emergency. Around, I don't know if that's exact. That's your best guess. Said she had a family emergency. And needed you to pick up the girls. Yeah, she said, would you mind watching the girls while I'm gone? Because she was leaving. I said, yeah, I can do that because I need some help cleaning them.

Okay, and then did you say to bring them to your house for today and then take them back home tonight or to keep them here for...

She didn't say. I was just planning on putting them home tonight. Oh, okay. We learned that the girls had apparently helped Pam at her house before, and Pam had previously taught the girls various things like how to make jam and also how to sew. Pam told officers that she had known Ruby for almost three years and that she had met her through the Connections Academy. When officers asked Pam further questions about Connections, she started to get a little bit more quiet.

She was hesitant to explain what the purpose of Connections was, and she claimed that it was a life skills class, and also that the pillars of the class are being honest, responsible, and humble. Which is a little ironic, if you ask me. Especially when the leader of this class is far from humble and is basically like a narcissistic cult leader, along with her right-hand man, Ruby. But I digress. So that's what happened. We've been at home cleaning this whole time and dusting and...

Okay. Just, and then they were going to pick tomatoes and make salsa and then take them home. Okay. So this is... Yeah. We got a call from Ruby this morning. I, around, I don't know what to say. She asked, Ruby asked her to pick up the girls, gave them the locations of where their home would be at, and just said, we're going to get them. And the emergency down she's going, he wants the girls, and she said, okay, so she went down and got them, and they came back here, and they've been...

I just have house guests coming tonight. So I said, yeah, that'd be great. Could they come clean? She said, yeah, they'd love to do that. So, yeah. And then we went to the Rolly's Red Farm, got ice cream on the way because they'd never been there before. I said, what? You haven't been to Rolly's Red Farm? Have you guys been to Rolly's Red Farm? Yeah. So we were there and got ice creams and they bought some things and we came straight here and had lunch.

Where did you pick them up from? The Springville swimming pool. And then you guys went down to the salmon point after? Well, no.

That is Harper. Where at? In Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz, yeah. Does she work there or what was she doing there? I don't know, she just said. Ruby gave her the. Ruby just said she'll be at. She'll be at his firm there, yeah. Okay. So we picked up and I was there. We're always with Barman. He said, let's stop here. Gotcha. Came home. I said, okay, you guys, can you clean the downstairs and I'll start vacuuming upstairs and work for like, I don't know, a couple hours and then. Oh no, we have lunch first. We have lunch first. And then we did the cleaning.

And then we were just sitting down, we just finished cleaning, we were just sitting down when we got the knock on the door. And I came right out and got, you know, just did whatever he told me to do. They were cooperative. Yeah.

So throughout the whole body cam video, Pam seemed to be acting mostly oblivious and making it seem like she had a nice, wholesome day with the two Frankie girls. One of the most shocking things, though, that came from this body cam footage and got so many people talking on the internet, though, was something that one of the officers said while questioning Pam. Pam was sitting handcuffed in the patrol car. An officer was explaining the general reason why they had detained Pam and what was going on.

He was explaining to Pam that Abby and Julie's parents were involved in a child abuse case. When the Department of Children and Families investigated the home after the initial 911 call, they had searched Jodi's home and found children malnourished and locked in a safe. So as you can imagine, this just made everybody on the internet talk and speculate and truly think the worst. Her parents were in the situation of a child abuse case.

Allegation. Okay. DCFS made the report and went to the house and found children malnourished and locked in a safe.

In the safe? In the safe. When news first broke of Ruby and Jodi's arrest, I came across Pam's name, and I searched high and low to find out more about this Pam lady. Who is Pam? What about Pam? There's something about Pam, right? Like that other series, I forget what her last name is, but it's another true crime series. Sorry, I'm kind of going off on a tangent. But anyway, I wanted to know everything that there was to know about Pam. According to Jodi's niece, Jessie, Pam is actually Jodi's best friend.

And not only that, but Pam has played a pretty big part in connections. On their website, she is actually listed as the foundation president.

She's been in several Connections videos, which were usually filmed at Jodi's house. And you can also find old posts from Jodi's LinkedIn page about Connections retreats where Pam was listed as the teacher. She was also known to go on trips with both Ruby and Jodi. So if Pam works at a business that is completely run by Jodi at her house and is also her best friend, what do you think that she would have a better idea of what was going on?

If she was so close that she was going on trips with both Jodi and Ruby, wouldn't you think that she would have an idea of what was going on with Ruby's kids, especially if they were staying at Jodi's house this whole time? Or did she just somehow miss the bound and starving children in her boss's basement? Make it make sense.

And I mean, I have some massive suspicions when it comes to Pam, and I just find it really so hard to believe that she didn't know anything or at least suspect anything. Towards the end of Pam's questioning, the girls were brought out onto the porch, and they were told that they could either go into the state custody or they could stay with their older sister. Now, obviously, we know now that they were placed into state custody with Russell and Eve. So that made me wonder if they did in fact choose that over going to Sherry's house.

And if that is the choice they made, it really makes me think that they must have been brainwashed against Sherry completely. All because Sherry was not going along with Ruby's plan and had essentially left the family. I can't imagine that if they had the choice and they were not brainwashed, that they'd rather go live with strangers over their own sister who very clearly loves them. So I think they either were brainwashed against Sherry and were...

were made to believe that she is, you know, the devil, the problem, the person they shouldn't be with. Or they were scared to go with Sherry because they were scared of what might happen to them, what sort of retaliation may happen to them. I just can't imagine if it weren't one of those two reasons why they would willingly go with strangers instead of family. Now, while these updates have provided us with a lot more insight into the case, they've also left us with

Way more questions, and honestly just wondering when we will see a status change in Ruby and Jodi's cases. This case feels like one of the biggest ones in the age of social media and YouTube. It's one that just continues to shock people day in and day out, especially at a family who is that public.

and how they were able to get away with the things that they did for so long. And it really has left me wondering that too. And I just hope that as the months go by, we will finally start to see some justice being served for all of those kids that are involved. As always, I will be keeping you updated with any new information as it comes out. So if you are not following the podcast yet, make sure you take a quick second, look in the top corner, make sure you check the box that says following. That way you will be notified of any new episodes that get posted on the podcast.

As always, you can also go take a look at the video version of this episode on YouTube, 10 to Life. And if you want to get fully deep dive caught up in this case, in connections, all of the craziness, I will link all of those for you below. Not only the podcast episodes, but the video versions for YouTube as well. So take a look at those. All right, guys, thanks again for listening today. I hope you appreciated the case coverage. I'm so happy to have you over here on the podcast.

I have some very exciting news coming up. I can't share it yet, but again, make sure you are following the podcast so that you get notified of that.

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