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This is a long crime network presentation.

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

Honestly, my biggest fear ever since I started blogging was, what if I wake up and my children are just staring at a wall all day and there's nothing to film? My god, you guys having kids is so much fun.

Hi guys. I Kevin, where the drivers of the eight.

Her rise to fame really started by publishing constantly about her family insides and outs on youtube, and that is why her channel a massed over .

two millions subscribers. My dream was to be a state home, home and to make like dinner for my family and to have lots of, lots of baby .

SHE always had this saying that said, a motherhood is powerful .

if get back. Thank you.

He was like, during her household, i'm going to play under her rules. She's recording.

you're gonna there when your child falls down and gets hurt, her crushes on their bike and the kids getting up for help. And the first thing they see is a camera stuck in their face. Get the .

views of emergency.

I just had a twill year old boys up here at my front door asking for help. We need to come through soon possible. And my kids are literally starving. I hesitate to say this because its going to sound like i'm like a mean barbarian. But I told the kids, I said i'm not going to let you brick until you get your choice done.

They can only keep up those appearances and put on the mask for the camera or for the public are so long and it's like the lives gonna come off with this. And all of this is hidden, is gonna come out.

I'm polyborus and this is the rising fall of ruby Frankie presented by law crime.

What are we doing? what.

Is this and color.

meet the Frankie. They call themselves the eight passengers. Ruby is the blond, beautiful and high energy mom. Kevin is the bald, handsome, fun loving dad. And baby number six is on the way around out their team.

By all appearances, there are stereotypical american mormon family, wholesome, charming and full of a lust for life and gratitude to their creator. They love to go to church, play sport ards and practice their musical instruments. Oh, and by the way, they're filling all of IT.

They are very much in the way that a lot of moments present themselves online。 Very cookie cut. All of the children are blonde.

They go to church every week, active within their award communities that had a lot of contact with their own extended families who would often appear in their blogs. The children were very well grown. The children were polite .

that Alice does a history teacher who wrote thesis on Christian fundamentalist families in the midwestern U. S. She's been following the franchise from .

the beginning.

It's twenty and fifteen in their spring value to our home. The five Frankie children and a glowing and visibly pregnant ruby are gathered around the kitchen island preparing to cut into a cake. Its agenda reveal party.

And Kevin is graef l. Ly filming his family as they embark on what will be a seven year journey to internet. Starting every moment, egg hand small will be blasted out to their subscribers on their youtube page.

It's peak is its blue. go. Is part of me grow.

This is the first video ruby and Kevin Frankie post on their new family vlog. Eight passengers.

what do. You think staring out .

IT will make a .

turn blue? Now.

ryan chi is a reporter from K. U, T, V. In salek city, utah.

Twenty fifteen is when ruby started really publishing a lot of content on a ray passengers page, and I just grew exponentially from there. Obviously, part of IT was family focused, really inside baseball to her family. I mean, something that people don't typically show of their lives, the disciplining, the, the tears, the hard conversations.

Carl and dyson, a documentarian in x morman. Blogger based in utah, met ruby, an Kevin, at a youtube convention.

There's different types of content creators on youtube, and some of them, they approach IT in a daily blog ing manner, which means they wake up every morning and all of their activities from doing breakfast is all the way until they teach their kids into bed is what their content is.

In their second video, viewers get to meet the entire Franky bunch. Of course, there's ruby and Kevin center stage, as they often are, but also there are six children. Cherry, age eleven, chat, h ten. Abb, age eight, july, age six, Russell, h three, and baby eve, whose now .

one hi guys, i'm Kevin. Be where the drivers of the eight passengers were. Mom and dad, we have thought to be fun. You just say hi and introduce our family.

And if you know good, I will turn this car around and we will go home serious.

My associations and .

affiliations with a Frankie family had to do mostly as family content creators, and youtube s in the same sort of nitch and category, going up through a the area, through im and you talk. We all kind of knew each other.

intending for this blogging lifestyle to become the new Normal for their family. Rubie celebrate her thirty third birthday with the internet as she's being filmed blowing out the candles on her cake.

Happy birthday. everyone. Birthday to you.

some families, content creators, they wake up. And no matter what, whether your kids hurt, you're going to the hospital or whatever, your goal is to not miss a day.

Ruby and Kevin had been married for fifteen years. They met when ruby was just eighteen years old. SHE had finished high school and was beginning college at utah state, and her new apartment was hosting a main greed. Kevin was twenty one years old and also attending new task state, working on his degree in civil engineering.

I saw her and I thought, oh, she's pretty, so I want to talk to her. And so as I talk to her, SHE was kind of flat with me. And so I kind of took that as a sign as how he likes me.

And so I came to discover a little bit later that she's just kind of fury with all the boys, which is another funny part of the story. But I know is just something about ruby. SHE was the hot st. Hot dog at the social at the hot dog party.

They have one of their first states at all of garden, and within days they're introducing one another to their parents. Just two short weeks after meeting ruby, an Kevin are engaged. They set a date for just a few months later time, and not in december two thousand.

Ruby, wear a big White, modest stress, Kevin, or a tux. Their official wedding portraits are snapped outside in the ut winter. A couple bundled up under .

a blanket of you like, dream at home, mom, and to make like dinner for my family and to have lots and lots of babies like that has always been doing to take care of them. And you have always flowed through and come through and provided for us. And I know that's not easy.

Thank you. Come here, you come here, you.

Thank you. I love you.

Kevin works as an assistant professor at brigden Young university in utah, commonly referred to as B Y U. In the department of civil and environmental engineering. Over the course of their relationship, they've moved from washington state to idaho before finally settle back in utah. The Frankie purchased their spring bill home in twenty twelve, a four bedroom, three bathroom, three thousand square foot home with a finished basement that's .

like your picture. Perfect location for so many people that move or wanna settle in in utah. You'd like a little bit of both.

You're close enough to the main access points, but you're just far enough at the town where you've got a nice mountain view. Um there are temples there. There are meeting houses there. I would say there is a lot of later day saint faith in you talk county specifically spring bill has lots of homes, lots of big families.

Ruby, an Kevin, create their youtube page with a pie in the sky mentality. The eight Frankie want their fans, their subsidies to come along for the ride as they celebrate their hides, their loves, their heart and everything in between. And hopefully they makes some money along the way.

Rubie sister, eli, was the first one to really go online and do the family ali blogging stuff. And then her sisters boney and ruby in the rest of the family, when they saw the success, they jumped on board, started youtube channels likewise. And then the success of ruby and bones channels actually took over and they got bigger, faster than l their sister.

yeah.

Tell me.

no.

what's going on, what you.

Okay, tell me, how did you know you're eating raw fish right now, right?

It's not all adventures most of the time. It's just the basics. It's their everyday lives. The kids are all extremely active and involved in extra curricular activities. Chad plays basketball, a fixture on their driveway.

shooting hoops. It's january and there be on the ground, and he is at here every morning shooting hoops.

The girls do arts and craft and try out .

wearing makeup. I am in the kitchen and I am playing with play, and I am trying to make a he pot.

Positioning herself as an authority on parenting and motherhood. Ruby is most insistent on illustrating how close kt they are as a family. We see them spending time together, everyone playing musical instruments from the violin to the piano. And even the sharp viewers are soon completely immersed in every moment of the family's home life. Sometimes IT feels .

like you're actually there, two, three.

And you are doing the right risom。 I know entire .

packaging of their channel and their and their entertainment is wrapped around what they did as a family and the dynamics of that.

okay. Well, i'm just going to in the vlog here. Thanks for watching. I know that i'm just learning how to use the camera learning.

I know that, uh, the videos are kind of choppy and i'm learning how to take other videos. No, no, no, not the serial. Not.

no. 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 ad free top pocket included with your prime membership to start listening, download the amazon music for free or got a amazon dot com flash add free podcast that's amazon dot com flash add free podcast to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

As described, numbers grow. Ruby an Kevin don't shy away from sharing their deeply personal decisions or stories with the world, the family and everything that comes with. IT is the main source of content for the platform. After all.

her mantra that motherhood is powerful really became the focal point of her life, and wanted to be able to, or SHE promoted, to wanna be able to coach other mothers and families through the issues that might be having with their teenagers, and be able to point to her own family and say, hey, this, look how well i've done here.

Some people go even either where they try to, or tray a certain message, or teach a certain message, or sell certain class and things like that, and try to make themselves up to be an authority on family, or parenting or marriage. And they start giving out advice in that aspect.

In twenty and fifteen, ruby makes the announcement that ten year old chat will now be home schooled.

The big project that I have been working on has been I am home school in child this year. You excited.

Ruby says she's identified certain areas he needs to work on, and he just won't get the one on one attention he needs at school.

D, he's just he's a great kid and there were some needs that we're not being met at school and I think can be Better met at home and then will try school again next year. And so last year, when we were having kind of a rough year, I offered a few suggestions, and I said, home school can be an option that might address first. Then I came my mother. Yes, yes, you were really excited. Such day is day one.

She's so happy with this decision, in fact, that he tells her viewer SHE intends to home school each child for one year so that they can get a one time with her, which is array and a family of eight.

A lot of kids OK. So every kid I have decided has something that they struggle with.

Eight passengers is soon posting content five days a week.

They were very focused on the youtube channel. So a lot of the parenting tactics, a lot of the kids you almost saw grow up in that youtube channel.

Ruby seemingly has the camera rolling at all times, even when they thought an animal broke into their home and died, but the sower actually flooded their basement and stunk up the whole house. This is around the same time that they're .

party training. Eve happened. what? Turn around, turn around. Oh my gosh, this nigh is getting worse and worse and worse. Eve popped on the chair and star IT looks like this is the next night ever.

Reliability and gender are very important to the Frankie. In two thousand and fifteen, as the subject is becoming less taboo, american culture ruby reveals her personal experience with misCarries.

Eve is our little sweet heart. SHE is the baby of the passengers. SHE came to our family because we felt like our family wasn't complete.

Maybe we really were meant to have a six baby. And so we tried again and and got pregnant very quickly and easily. And we were very excited and just knew that he was what we actually thought.

I was gonna be a boy. We really thought he was the kavos, but then we lost that baby too, which actually made for five misCarries for us, not in a row, but, but those two were right in a row. And I was really discouraged, and I thought that SHE just wasn't going to be here.

Alexius Anderson found the eight passengers youtube page. When he was in the north grade.

I began watching rubie Frankie, actually, from her sister alica. I was diagnosed with indeede rosea in high schools. I was like, oogly like, look at at all these different people are going on youtube. And IT comes found out the early how a lot of miss carriages, you know, it's the beginning of her family.

Fans like alex is are already well aware that ruby is not the only member of her extended family who's a blogger. Ruby's own parents chat and Jennifer griffiths run the youtube channel and grandpa griffith, their bio reads, with five married children and twenty two grandchildren, we know first hand the work and wary of raising a family.

Hi everybody. I am at my daughter ruby's home from eight passengers. You might have heard of them. I'm staying with her children while her inner husb on a vacation in thailand.

Ruby is three Younger sisters. l. Julie and boni also have their successful youtube channels. Just like their big sister, they publish videos about raising their families and what that means to be a morman mommy loggers.

This is not unique to ruby in the family. It's almost like he was just following the family trade by being a youtube blogger and and really showing some of the more vulnerable parts of of their family's daily lives. But this is something that is rooted in the Frankie family or the griffis family with her made a name.

It's very common for youtube ers, especially up to the outlier valley and utah to uh youtube ers to get together that are members of the mormon church and try to collaborate and filling ate with one another. There's even specific conventions that were held in provo, utah that were built around that morman influence and mormon content creators. While there was other youtube ers and content creators that did attend and come as featured creators, most of IT was centered around that morman focus and empathy is says family content creators in the utah valley, representing that that image to the public.

Morman families are overwhelmingly wealthy. They're overwhelmed ly White. They're overwhelmingly educated, all of which looks good on screen. Their families are generally exceedingly nice people, even if that politics or values on exactly what you know everyone would aspire to. Um they're definitely palatial to a wide, wide community, which I think helps their popularity. And so when you see a family who seems to have IT all together, who beautiful to look at, who have polite well dressed children, it's going to be something that um is a bomb suits, how you might you know what might otherwise look like a uh you know a country or a town or a city that is a feels fragmented and I think that's also a part of the appeal.

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By june of twenty sixteen, a year and in a half after its launch, eight passengers hits one hundred thousand subscribers. By summer two thousand seventeen, the youtube page is a certified sensation. As their popularity grows, the Frankie are able to secure sponsorships from brands from hair care companies to photography storage systems. It's all going according to plan.

Okay, you guys, we are almost ready to go. J. C.

Penny is sponsoring ing the kids back to school close. I am so excited. We just hit nine hundred thousand subscribers. We are almost at a million, you guys. And I thought to celebrate, we need to do something big. So we are going to go shopping for ten girls and ten boys in need and buy them a full outfit, a jacket, a pair pants, underwear, socks that pat shoots the works.

By the end of twenty eighteen, the channel has racked up two million subscribers to celebrate the momentous occasion. Ruby and Kevin fly the kids to her wai for Christmas. With a steady stream of income generated from their platform, ruby is able to get more help around the house.

And before you know IT, ruby is announcing she's even writing a book. The sponsorships keep rolling in is at this time that they move into a new larger home. Everything's coming up roses for the Frankie family.

Certainly SHE was .

earning the most out of her siblings at that point from blogging social blade at the time um which rates different youtube channels or different social media sites, gave her an a plus rating at this time. Her siblings didn't have that at one point. They had over two million views.

They were breaking in a lot of money. Her husband Kevin said at one point that he was earning over six figures and certainly earning more than him as a professor of engineering at B. Y. U.

But there is something simmering ing under the surface. Loyal fans of the eight passengers page have been picking up on something startling over the years.

People started to question some of the strategies that he was using, and those kind of comments became more and more prevalent as opposed to the ones that we're raising what he was doing or were overwhelmingly positive. That's when he would either begin to hide a lot of those strategies. And you see in a number of blogs where he says the discipline happens off camera, and that's true for a lot of these families who block their children. I miss the discipline will happen off camera or SHE will go into detail in a um a talking head kind of segment where SHE will speak to the camera about exactly what happened um and how he dealt .

with the situation usually after the fact the biggest difference I think I found between and ruby and her sister's ellia banny and even july is her willingness to .

corporal .

punishment IT on camera like you could tale that sometimes that her girls were uncomfortable even when he started talking about like mr like they were uncomfortable. They act to not they were still cm through at all, you know, on bunny channel, for example, not a her key. We've got older.

We don't hardly see them. Like if they choose to not be there, they just aren't there. But they didn't really seem to be an option with really he was like, you're in her household.

You've going to play under her rules. If she's recording, you're gonna be there. From very beginning, you could always tell that there was something off with her that you just cleaning quite, put your finger on. I have to figure out where is going all life.

No, rubie Frankie isn't your average mom. Viewers are actually starting to wonder, is SHE something much worse? Her curious parenting style moves many people to speak out in the comments sections across social media. One video where ruby is disciplinary parenting style is on bold display.

those viral I, A text message from use teacher, and he said that you've did not pack a lunch today. And can I bring a lunch to the school? This happens quite often when you're having raising children, because I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having the lunch, and I would ease her discomfort if I came to the school with a lunch. But I I responded and just said, eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning and he actually told me he did pack a lunch. So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry and hopefully, hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody stepped in and gives her a lunch.

Long time bans are now conflicted and voicing their anger. What is going on in that home is ruby abusing her children.

Like some days you will watch video, you're like all SHE, maybe just a tab. In Normal, another day you'll watch something and preparing choices would be just so strange.

My bedroom was second away for seven months. And then you give me back like a couple weeks ago. I don't think no. 随便 用 的 冰袋。

随便 的 冰袋。

Give my room back back two weeks ago.

It's interesting because they had been position to themselves as authorities on parent hood. They had six children, well behaved, well presented, well spoken children. So when you see the flip side of this in the punishment methods, I don't think he had done something as serious as taking away her child's bed for seven months until this point. This is a step in a direction that I didn't say this .

family going in one video, others chat and rustle are seen play rustling on the floor before. Ruby is annoyed, like any mother would be, but it's what he believes to be a fitting punishment that sends .

fans into a tailspin torturing him. Stop IT. I know you're not that IT looks like you are. Take rustle. I'm only to say one more time and then you're going to lose .

the privilege to eat dinner IT become to a point where I was maybe I to be the to make sure that thinking you know above.

ruby even instructs her Youngest daughter to sleep on the bathroom floor after accidentally waiting .

to bed about to this morning. She's like, mom, I peed the bed, which is not like her SHE piece the bed maybe like once every eight months like it's been a very long time that he went the battle like that. That's all right. Sleep on the floor in the bathroom.

Within these kind of types of parenting strategies, they were asserting their power um as the parent of a child and obviously within a legal sense, a parent has got dian ship and legal responsibility for their child. But what they were doing was taking that into the home and using IT to illicit a certain type of behavior. And when that behavior wasn't what they wanted and usually wasn't immediately when they wanted IT, that's when the punishment would occur.

In another video posted to the eight passenger's youtube ruby broadcast that her son rustle has forgotten his socks outside a punishment for him this time.

As you see now, i'm using bad language. That's how bad of a mood. And you get your socks picked up and don't you leave your stuff out anymore right over there running? Go pick them up and then give me ten pushes, put them in your pockets.

You can take him down to the hamper and drop and give me ten. What if your hands straight out? There's they're not supposed to be out. Shape your hands forward. There you go when to down further, bring your butt down.

My one has nothing to do with the other, because he love thoughts. You in your yard, your punishment is to do push up. IT just never made this to me.

Russell would get punishments like fifty pushups, and we are talking fifty pushups for he would have been in at the time about six or seven years old, grube strategy with punitive. So usually there would be a consequence that wasn't working to restore the relationship, that wasn't working to help the child understand or or make the right choice.

Viewers are now so concerned they take the social media to raise the alarm.

There are ones that people really key in on and started speaking out at least loudly on the internet to some extent.

I think the audience in the subscribers were more keen on that. I think there was more criticism coming from the fan base and the general audience noticing patterns. And the things I saw were off camera, and they were all the stuff at parties. They were just patterns of behavior, saying things like, you know, my kids won't go to bed, I just give him thailand, thailand, all pms like every day, like ult medications and things for kids and stuff, and just certain things off the cuff .

IT one hundred percent felt like SHE pipped on. I'm not going to one few, a few of them over the others. Sherry always seemed to be the the Angel child.

The mini ruby is, people would call her growing up SHE just always seem to be the wine to be loved or more, to get more, you know, that kind of thing. Then they just can't wait down here from there. I mean, you could definitely tell those junk too head IT much harder than the other one.

Other punishments that Russell received and eve as well as they had the Christmas taken away because they weren't presenting as grateful to while rubye Kevin for what they had received um in the lead up to to Christmas. And so to teach their children, or to give their children the gift of kindness the Christmas, they decided that the Younger children would not receive presence while the older four did.

The online backlash against ruby Frankie reaches a boiling point in twenty twenty, according to a springville police report dated April twenty seven, two thousand twenty rubie called the police SHE reports that she's been receiving threats messages.

One message read, quote, i'm going to take your family down and there will be riots at your door when the world find out the truth unquote, ruby tells police about another message you received quote, leave her kids outside unsupervised unquote, and that SHE should not post on our social media. Quote, or there would be trouble unquote ruby doesn't know who is sending these messages, but he has their phone number. The officer called the number, but is unable to identify the person on the other line. When asked for their name, the woman on the line says, this is ruby Frankie and hangs up.

The disciplining is we're started to take notice. And in twenty, twenty, there are a few changes that work. Petitions that started coming out about the youtube channel itself about ruby is parenting practices, about how he was actually treating her children, about disciplining her children.

The first petition received only a few hundred signatures, but another petition started just the next day, a masses, thousands. All of the petitions are started anonyme sly by concerned citizens who ve been watching the page for years and are worried about the Frankie children's well being.

If IT looks like you know a half hour long video and being posted every single day after to realize there's like ten hours a word and effort, everybody involved and around that are being subject to in order to accomplish that. And then what's real and what's not real when you're you know, when your child falls down and gets hurt or crashes on their bike and the kids getting up for help and the first thing they see is a camera stuck in their face to get the views.

Just one week later, on june 5， twenty, twenty, ruby files another police report stating she's receiving more hateful messages on social media. K U. TV. Branche obtained a copy of this report.

IT says, quote, already, yog, grab your pitchforks. We're going looting at the place that actually deserves IT. And they actually traced the channel back to more than a thousand miles away. People were upset about whatever was happening on this channel.

Police are unable to gather enough information to issue a warrant for the threats. They closed the case shortly after. Records show that between twenty twelve and twenty twenty, when russian Kevin were still living in their first home, the springville police department were called to the Franky home twelve times once they were in their new home in spring. Vail record show that the police were called to the house nine times, with the division of child and family services assisting in four of those calls. Ruby doesn't feel like enough as being done to protect her SHE takes matters into her own hands the only way he knows how, through social media.

Online, who hate me, who would like to cancel me, who would like to see me either burn in hell or dispair of the face of the earth? And i'm not going anywhere. I I do want to look at how I deliver my message.

but is everyone would later come to learn. This is only the beginning of the fall of rubie. Frankie.

on the other of your emergency, I just had a twill year old boy to appear at in my front door asking for help. And we need to cops both going .

to realize how deef the rabbit hole goes, like it's it's not good.

If you cut one more thing in my house, i'm going to take this issues look at me and i'm gna cut its head off.

How long has this been going on and who are the other adults that allowed? And my kids are .

literally starving. I hesitate to say this because its going to sound like i'm like a mean barbarian. But I told the kids I said, i'm not let you break until you get your choice done. I think .

anything you put online, there's gonna an element of performative vary. But I also truly believed that he was um incensed, enrage and unable to control her emotions.

Welcome to district court. We're here in the matter of state of you to versus Frankie, case number two, three, one.

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

Our executive producer is just to allow there. Our writer is Jennifer tinker. Our editor is brad. Maybe our bookers are eliza, opie and dank and special things to shown panera for designing our key R.