August 30, 2023 | 5
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This is a long crime network presentation.

This podcast explores themes of child abuse and trauma. Please listen with care.

He's got wound. He's got dark tape on his ankles. He doesn't say he's weight, but we know that he is severely more nourished.

So really, this is an army of law enforcement this day trying to figure out not only what happened, these children and Evans, but are the two other children in northern new to us safe, please, for me. Is a reason you're so scared ing now its bids us. okay.

My intention is not to scare you. Are you OK or there is something that I can do to make you not feel scared right now? I not talk. And from that point on, everything just spiral into a very, very deeply situation that really involves a number of court cases, all in one surrounding the entire passengers sug.

I'm pa barons, and this is the rising fall of ruby. Frankie presented a long crime.

It's a heart late summer morning in the ivan's, utah, when a washington county nine one one dispatcher receives an alarming call, a man in the quiet community of kain ta has just entered a knock on his door to find a barefoot in injured Young boy.

Begin for help. Ankles are take up each other. Yeah, the stores around that when he has been around this list as well OK, this boy has been.

As good as I think you, he's been detained. He's been. He's obviously covered in woods.

The dispatch immediately sense for police and paramedics to respond to the scene. SHE keeps the man on the line gathering more information over the course of the ten minute call.

He says he just left to the porch at the neighbor's house um her name is jodie, held a brand and he lives two doors at the street so he walked, just book to get our house right, my door about, and ask me to call the police ruby, Frankie is his milk U.

T, V. branch. Ney, recall the details of the call vividly.

Initially, the neighbor asks the child, where did you come from and how did you get out of the house and he tells the dispatcher he left through the porch so he goes to a home that is a throw away from jodie, held a bran's house and calls for help.

And what happened from there? Is this neighbor, or who has not wanted to talk about this sense to anybody? Has this boy who comes up to the front door? He notices this boy is immediate, clearly has wrists that were bound, as he described, and ankles that were bound.

There were wounds there. The neighbor starts to get really emotional that points during this conversation he's having with the boy, and also the nine one one dispatcher as SHE asks him questions. So SHE is asking him questions, he relates the question to the child that comes to his door.

And it's kind of like he's the relay, almost the lifeline in this instance, for what this little boy has gone through. And you can feel and hear the pain and agony in describing to the dispatcher what this little boy looks like. And IT doesn't sound good. IT sounds like something out of a horror movie, right?

Russell, Frankie ruby's Younger son, had finally broken free IT was a tremendous act of courage for anyone, but especially for a child. Eight passengers follower Alice doors paints a picture of his .

escape broute he had tracked over hot red sand that there are, you know, tumble weight. We're talking wearing the the desert of southern utah here. So it's hot.

It's very, very dry. There's no tree cover. We're talking scrubby plants that he had made the track at least half a mile. I am not sure if that's correct, but lets some nice. That is a long way for a twelve year old .

boy once wrestlers cry for help was heard unannounced to him, jodie hills, the brain and his mother, ruby, or now under their biggest spotlight yet.

So the nine one one call was pretty right away. That was something that people that listen to IT, I think, immediately felt for this little boy and what was going on. And at that point, we didn't really know a whole law right? Like this is the initial stages of how the ruby, Frankie, jodie held a brand child abuse case really got unfolding.

The santa ivans police were in route to the neighbour's house to respond to russ's plea for help, and they arrived to find them exactly as described by the man who called .

IT in he's got wounds. He's got dark tape on his ankles. We find out from the wealthy report later that cane, pepper and honey had been used to dress wounds and then ducked, put over those, put over those wounds. He he doesn't say he's weight, but we know that he is severely malnourished.

Inside the house, officers found ten year old eve SHE showed signs of similar torture and abuse, but unlike was hesitant to CoOperate.

we find out later that his sister returns ten the next day fort for four hours with paramedics and welfare staff before he would consent to go to the hospital.

Alex believes eve's apprehensions was further confirmation that he was being severely abused.

SHE was a bit of a spitfire. SHE didn't always toe the party line. And so to see this child who had that, you know, that strike in her, say, that streak still kind of alive and well, but fighting the very the people wanted to help her was hot breaking .

IT appeared .

that eve had been made to believe by her own mother that SHE had done something to deserve this haines st.

treatment. SHE had literally, SHE literally and figure vely had beaten her down but also, I think, brain washed her so much to believe that he was responsible for her own injuries and that was her fault that these things were happening to her which happens in the case of abuse. We know that um um particularly when is children who who are being abused in whatever a kind of capacity, they will internalize those things and believe, well, if this is happening to me then I must be my fault. But the fact that he was so against any medical help or intervention shows just has scan SHE was a ruby has scared he was a jody coming back to find that, you know, he had spoken to anyone else side of the the house that he had accepted help from strangers.

Eve finally agreed to join her brother, and the two were taken to the hospital for medical treatment. Hey, friend members, have you heard? You can listen to your favorite podcast at free. Good news, with amazon music, you have access to the largest catalogue of add free top podcast included with your prime membership to start listening.

Download the amazon music up for free or got a amazon dcom slash ad free podcast that's amazon dom lesh ad free podcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads. Meanwhile, the police still needed to search the rest of joy's partial ten thousand square food home. Calling IT at home almost feels like an under statement.

At first gLance, IT resembles an impenetrable fortress. There's nothing cozy about this place. If you're familiar with this story, you may remember there's something unmistakably stark about the property. Doctor khanda, host of the psychology and seattle youtube channel, describes how he interpreted the place when he first saw IT.

that this looks like some kind of evil villing compound. If you were to make a movie, a fictional depiction of a marvel villa that was like anti children.

If the sand declared ivans, police wanted to look further. They needed a warrant. And due to the high stakes nature of the situation, a judge approved the warrant in under five minutes. The officers immediately began to poke around.

So they're coming that home. They located a room that they described as a safe room. Keep in mind, a lot of large homes these days, do you have a, say, room for the, whatever are the inevitable, right? So was that the room these children were held in? That is what we were LED to believe initially.

But you can also argue that that is where somebody goes. If somebody enters their home, or they need to be safe for a moments notice, a lot of these large scale, almost matched style homes have those. But they described what they were, what I was like kind of walking through that home. They found the safe forum. And that immediate to people went, oh my goodness, where these children held in .

the safe room, recovering ruby's Youngest children and searching for clues. And jody's house was just the tip of the iceberg on August .

of what happened in ivans, set off a frenzy, really statewide, to figure out where are the other children. So the low enforcement in saint George wanted to find out where the remaining children were, at least the two others of the six passengers, right? So we had two passengers using the lining o that were in.

Jody held the brands home, two who are adults, and then two outstanding. So where are the two other minor children are, at least under the age of eighteen. So in this moment, on this day, in on August sixth, law enforcement that were handling the initial stages of this investigation wanted to find out where those two other children.

Their next stop is ruby house, two hundred and fifty miles away.

Officers from a number of agencies in, you talk county spring bill police, you talk counting major, major crimes task force. So when officers get to the house, they try to obviously knock on the door, and then they kick the door down. They basically blow right through the door and they clear the house, please.

Not only did they not get an answer on the door, they look through the home, they clear the home. Nobodies there. So then they're looking to find out where are those two other children? Turns out they were in american fork at a common friends home of both ruby, Frankie and jodie held the brand. Around noon or so, we start to hear that ruby Frankie called her friend, who is jody's longer friend, pen botcher in butchers, the third member of connections classroom.

There is one other things that we're still looking for considered still dangerous. And T F, have to want to take them both in the Cathy picking up in a springle red center on one fifteen today. And that's how we kind of figure that out, how you guess about there .

with this new information. Spring vell, police quickly pit to palm's house in american fork about twenty minutes to north.

Consider looking for a .

pam body cm. Footage shows a man in a White shirt and red shorts at the front door. It's pam's .

husband, roy. No, you don't.

Pm then appears on the body. Cm footage, two approaching the officer in a yellow and White tide t shirt, her hair in a ponytail, with their phone tightly gripped in her hand.

You have.

yeah, we do.

You just tell you, all right.

Roy turns his head, addressing someone at a frame.

Well, we have to physically .

see her door. So when they reach the front door and they asked to speak with pam botcher, both third husband are stumped. They don't understand what is going on.

Go and get the coy of the for you. okay? Have a warm from my house. Your child.

a Young girl, approaches the door way between pam and roy. Presumably she's one of ruby is outstanding daughters.

They ask pm to come with them. They do place her into custody in in a tainted form by actually putting cups on her and putting her in one of the patrol cars. They talk to pam about what he knows about ruby, what the two girls were doing there, how he had the two girls initially.

pm. Is filmed from the back seat of a police car SHE strapped in a handcuff ft. Responding to questioning, it's important to note here just how we wildered pam looks in these moments.

And his daughter, she's a friend of war SHE, comes over and helps me ever once you have to be cleaning and stuff I didn't makers scrap the floor and they've acute and stuff because I have company coming tonight out cost ka, but he did her own free will. We have lunch. Pm says about five to ten to twenty times in this conversation of the body camera.

They were just doing some cleaning for me. We ate some ice cream at all. IT is.

but the officers need more clarity at this point. Pam is out of handcuff s leaning against the police car door. The officer questioning her is taking down .

notes on a clipboard. Really want you to have a emergency girt 服， 衣服。 You could do that. But I just wait the call and said he, they have a family emergency. Can I pick up you want so you can come help me clain today he is okay, brian, china confirmed. This is when the .

details start to get a little merkel for everyone. SHE instructed pam .

to go find them and pick them up and take them to her home without much detail, at least that's outlined by pam from that body camera interaction with american fork police, who are also very confused about the situation. Keep in mind, they're getting like second or third hand instructions. Go find these children and they were having the hard test time putting all this together. And I can't blame them for that because there's like three different families were talking about.

The whole scene appears under ably, confusing and bizarre for all parties involved. Brian shares his insight from reporting that day.

So in pens defense, SHE was extremely confused because I don't think the officer had all the facts, because they were getting this from another agency. And then finally, things started coming together as we sit here and talk today. Pm has not been charged with anything.

though pam has not been charged in connection with the events of August thirty, twenty, twenty three. SHE was certainly a central figure in both connections, and the recovery of ruby's other children, who, like their sister eve, were also very suspicious of the authorities when officers are finally able to approach one of the girls, assistant attorney jee media remembers pam husband roy stepped into protection mode when police do end .

up finding the children at pam's house and they sit down and they talk to pam it's not just a conversation that they have with pam um in the police car they talked pampers husband who is is very stand office um in and really quite and obstinate in a way.

Rose arms are crossed against his chest. Ruby's daughter, whose face is still .

blurred out, is coLoring behind him. Stay solute you i'm i'm I know what .

you .

I tell you a matter question. I don't number one, I don't want to go on. Number two, I don't want spring will to drive after you guys whisker away. And the number three, her mom isn't here right now and I feel like i'm kind of trying to protect her from getting into that situation.

When officers finally get to speak with the teenager seated at a rocking chair on permanent yse front porridge, she's timid and .

seems scared. SHE .

doesn't respond. The officer continues to make an effort to get through to her.

Is a reason you're so scared right now with us, okay? My intention is not to scare you. Are you okay? Or is there is something that I can do to make you not feel scare right now? Or would you rather not talk?

The children don't really want to engage with police, their stand office.

but eventually the girls complied.

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If you are having trouble putting the pieces together from this world wind day, you're not alone. Law enforcement were working off of limited and evolving details, too, searching for six kids read across an entire state. IT was a lot of ground to cover, with very little to go off of to bring you up to speed at this point in the story. Brian, who reported on the search in utah that day, breaks down the order of events from ivans to american fork.

but ultimately the two of children found in ibs and jodie held the brand home were first. Then two other children that were ruby, Frankie and other two children were found in american fork that day, and then chat and Sherry on their own as adults later. It's a village, so you have sent car ivans.

You likely have a washing to county task force. I'm sure that comes in that features people from all over the county. Then they call up to utah county, which is not close.

State of utah, massive. And this spans two very far points from each other. So they call up north. If we were to use that as just a geographical reference to not only springville police, but then american fork police and the new accounting major crime task force gets involved.

they were on a time sensitive and a potentially life saving mission.

So really, this is an army of law enforcement this day, trying to figure out not only what happened, these children and Evans, but are the two other children in northern new toss safe what they were taken away out of the, I guess, fluidity of the situation, right? What do you know about what's been going on? And sure, they were asked questions and they wanted to make sure they were in good care.

What do you write after you found that youtube siblings were found four hour south of you roughly, and are in rough shape? And these two didn't appear to be in any sort of harm's way in that moment, or maybe even showed physical signs of anything in terms of not eating or wounds that you can see. They seem to be just fined going about their daily life.

One of them was at work, the other one was elsewhere. So they were not in captivity like these two other children appeared to be. In that moment.

the four minors were finally taken in a state custody by day's end, only to face another upheld battle. Where would the department of child and family services play the four of them .

from this situation forward? IT just got really messy, right? There's a child welfare portion of this case in terms of who lives with who, and where is this going in terms of the well being in the future of not only these children, but two other children that are under the age of eighteen.

And where was there, dad, Kevin, in all of this?

And I know without the course of this, a lot of people have asked, what about Kevin? What about Kevin?

Kevin's attn y rane casters says at this point, Kevin wasn't aware of the whereabouts his children at all. As we reported in previous episodes, ruby had kept those details from him in their separation.

He was shocked, devastated, hurt, felt deceived. Didn't know any of that was going on. He didn't seen his kids for twelve month more and didn't know that they were even in um in Evans in southern new tak. He didn't even know that they're been taken down there where he probably would have objected strongly but he didn't tell him and apparently took the kids down there even as early as june. And in nothing about IT.

Then, like pam, Kevin was contacted by ruby on that fateful August day.

I think IT was a text, may have been a phone call. And he respondents that I might work on, I need to get back here. And SHE essentially said, this is an emergency and need you to come get the kids. So he, of course, torn down there, not knowing in me the details of all this that was going on to be out there in .

a state of panic about his children, Kevin traversed the state of utah looking for them.

He actually went there to get his kids. When he found out about this, he drove all the way to other new toe, which is two hundred and fifty miles, and met with the enforcement and gave statements and made an effort to try to get his kids out of that mess.

But Kevin was too late. IT wouldn't be as simple as just picking up the kids and taking them home. This was now an active investigation.

Two of the children, as everyone knows, that already been taken to the hospital. So yeah, he was prevented from, uh, taking his kids all with so .

many questions left s unanswered by law enforcement at the time, it's possible that Kevin could have been considered a person of interest.

I don't think at that point anyone knew that Kevin wasn't involved in the physical abuse of these kids. And so just out of an abon caution, it's my impression that while they did their investigation, they weren't letting anyone have contact with their kids.

Kevin had made contact to the police. But I bet you're wondering where are jodie and ruby in all of this? Given the sensationalism of the search for the children, you'd think there are arrest would have garnered similar fan fare that the exact details are limited in.

The story began to come out bit by bit about what had actually happened.

Substantial information didn't begin to trickle out to the public until the following morning.

August thirty first. Twenty twenty three is when I first heard about, will be Frankie. That is when the sanctions ir ivans police department or public safety department, there are two small towns come together. A lot of people got the dates wrong because they waited till the following day to put out the information where we learned August thirty this when jodie hill, the grand and rubie Frankie were taken into .

custody at nine thirty three pm. On the thirty, ruby and jodie were arrested, taken into custody and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse. They were ordered to be held without bail in the washington county jail. Kevin Frankie has not been charged in connection with this case.

And from that point on, everything just spiral into a very, very deeply rooted situation that really involves a number of court cases, all in one surrounding the entire passenger saga.

When the news broke, ruby's eldest daughter Sherry took to instagram posting a photograph of police outside the family home. The caption read finally, and this was just the beginning of a social media firestorm.

and really gained the interest from people around the world about how this could take place, and how these two lives between ruby, Frankie and jodie held the brand, came together, and just how messy IT gets. And I think the rest of the world couldn't believe IT either, because this is something that happens in a movie, right? This is something that the worst of the worst.

whether people were included into ruby, Frankie and jody hilled the brands Operation prior to their arrest or not, they certainly were now. Armchair detectives began scouring the internet to compile evidence of past transgressions and signs of suspicious behavior in a twisted turn of events, the two women were more popular than they'd ever been. Internet chatter on youtube and redit continued. But after the arrest of ruby and jody, mainstream media attention on the case slow down. That is, until december twenty, twenty three.

I gotten note from ruby atterley of about a week or so before the wave of hearing that is waving the right to a preliminary hearing.

In many cases, that means no trial you can enter your play agreement rubie Frankie statement from her attorneys on that friday before the hearing said initially miss Frankie believed that jodie hold the brand, had the insight to offer a path to continual improvement, missed the brand, took advantage of this quest and twisted IT into something haines. Miss held the brand systematically isolated miss Frankie from her extended family, older children, her husband, Kevin, Frankie. They also took the liberty to use most of that statement by pointing the finger at jodie held the .

brand assistant attorney Jerry media says in his experience, this approach from both the prosecutors in ruby is legal team isn't uncommon.

So is as a general matter, when you're talking about people with their co defendants, in this case you have two code defendants. The prosecutors are often times going to look at the evidence and they're going to try to see if they can zero win on somebody who they think is is more culpable than than the other in this case.

I think with what they had, it's pretty clear that the therapies here, the one who's providing the council again, kind of the puppet master, if you will, is more culpable. And the prosecutors office, I think, zero in on that pretty quickly. And so so with that, they approach ruby and her attorney and say, hey, this is what we're thinking by way of an offer.

In order to get this offer, you've got to come in and you've got to tell us everything that you know about jodie um and and how joe impacted you generally speaking. Um there's there's going to be some sort of debris agreement where there offered what is often times, at least in new talk called the a clean for the day agreement. It's is this basically a contract where you can sit down and you can talk to a detective and investigator and you can feel free to just kind of spill the beans, if you will, without any sort of recourse of IT being used against you at at trial? I mean, there are some exceptions related to that. I imagine that that that sort of a deeper is agreement was very much a part of this because before before a prosecutor will generally make an offer where you agree to testify, they want to have an idea of what you have to say. What kind of evidence would you provide a trial in order to get the offer extended?

Ruby entered a police deal agreeing to testify against joe taking the deal, and the case would not go to trial.

Miss Frankie, how do you plead to count one aggravated child abuse, a second degree felony guilty to count three aggravated child abuse, a second degree felling, guilty to count five aggravated child of us a second degree felony, and to count six aggravated child abuse a second degree filling with my deepest regret and sorry for my family and my children, guilty standing .

up in the courtroom in a gray and White prisoners uniform and our hands in cuffs, ruby pleaded guilty this .

morning goobie Frankly the guilty to four counts of vate child use the state agreed to dismiss the two other accounts of child abuse and SHE agreement to testify truthfully against jodie hill. The brand and return the washing county of chinese office agrees to remain neutral regarding future hearings. Before the youtube board of cartons of grow.

they needed ruby to be there to say, look, jodie was kind of the linchpin in all of this. He knew everything that was going on, and SHE was advising me, this is what he told me to do.

Ruby's plea agreement opened up yet another kind of worms. The plea details, the abuse Russell and eve endured in jody's home.

When you go through and you look at the injuries associated with russia, ruby had boots on and was involved in in kicking him. Molly was on the ground. He admits to holding his head underwater. Obviously, incredibly, incredibly concerning the .

tying up in the mountain. They talk about how the two children were forced to do physical tasks for hours, even days at a time, like Carrying boxes of full books up and downstairs working outside in desert climate they were denied water. They were doing so without shoes um in in the summer heat, they were out in the direct sunlight for several days they were blistering. But there was also part of the abuse about the isolation from other people. They were basically shunned, therefore leading to both of them having severe emotional harm.

While ruby may have spared herself under a family embarrassment from a public trial, outrage was growing online as more information emerged about the treatment of her Youngest children. Questions still linger. What will jody deal and would either women serve any time?

I don't understand why jody's fighting back the way that he is. I don't understand why SHE doesn't just say, well, you know what, I played a part in this and and i'm so sorry, I was wrong.

Jody held the brand, comes into the court room, a very stoic joy almost looked kind of lost. Not really understanding what was really happening in that moment in terms of what have I done, but maybe I have done nothing wrong almost by the look at her face.

I think that that's when he realized that there was no way that he would get out of this without an extremely long jail sentence.

What's happened now? If she's pushed into a corner, she's gna say and do whatever he can to try to make IT Better for her.

That's all coming up on the rise and fall of ruby. Frankie, this has been a law and crime production. I'm your host, polyborus.

Our executive producer is just to allow our producer and writer is Cooper mall. Our editor is brad. Maybe our bookers are elisa icier and dank and special links to Shawn panzer a for designing our key art.