Parenting advice YouTuber Ruby Franke charged with child abuse amid claims of torture
A former YouTuber who gave parenting advice online has been charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse after two of her six children were found to be abused and malnourished.
Ruby Franke, whose now-defunct 8 Passengers channel chronicled her family life, was arrested last week in US state of Utah at the home of Jodi Hildebrandt and taken into custody.
Hildebrandt, who owns a counselling business that she says teaches people to improve their lives, was also arrested on Wednesday and faces the same six abuse charges.
Prosecutors claim Franke and Hildebrandt either caused or allowed someone to torture Franke’s 12-year-old son and injure her 10-year-old daughter. Both children were starved and harmed emotionally, prosecutors said.
Both women are being held without the possibility of posting bail, court records said.
It comes after Franke’s 12-year-old son climbed out of a window and ran to a neighbour’s house asking for food and water, according to a court filing last week by the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department.
According to the document, the neighbour saw duct tape on the boy’s ankles and wrists and called the police.
Ivins, Utah. Pic: AP
Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was later found malnourished and was also taken to the hospital.
Speaking to Sky News’ US partner network NBC News, two of Franke’s neighbours said people in the community had previously alerted child services.
“Everyone is just breathing a collective sigh of relief because we thought they were going to come out of that house with body bags,” a male neighbour said.
While the children were found at Hildebrandt’s house, Franke had been seen on a YouTube video filmed at Hildebrandt’s house and posted two days earlier, indicating that Franke was present at the residence and had knowledge of the abuse, malnourishment and neglect, arrest records said.
Elon Musk says he has created a new political party – the America Party –
after asking his followers if he should do so in an online poll.
It follows his public falling out with Republican President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the billionaire had asked his followers on X whether a new US political party should be created.
On Saturday evening he wrote on the same platform: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
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Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
The world’s richest man made the announcement just one day after President Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk had fiercely opposed.
Musk had previously said we would form and fund a new political party to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
From bromance to bust-up
The Tesla boss backed Trump’s election campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, later rewarded with a high profile role running the newly created department of government efficiency (DOGE).
But observers of the two men, both with huge wealth and reputations, wondered how long the bromance would last.
Donald Trump gave Musk a warm send-off in the Oval Office in May. Pic: Reuters
In May Musk left the role, still on good terms with Trump but criticising key parts of his legislative agenda.
After that, the attacks ramped up, with Musk slamming the sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and Trump hitting back in a barbed tit-for-tat.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billion-dollar federal subsidies that flow to Musk’s companies, and said he would even consider deporting him.
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