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Ruby Franke not only thought her own children were possessed but believed her partner in crime Jodi Hildebrandt was too!
In the new Hulu documentary series Devil In the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke out on Thursday, viewers learned more about what happened when Jodi came into the picture. We already knew about a good chunk of the heinous things the business partners did to Ruby’s children once the cameras shut off due to their child abuse trial. However, it turns out we didn’t know everything! A lot more went down in the household behind closed doors — like possessions and exorcisms. Yes, really.
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According to the documentary, Jodi met the Utah family when she started to provide therapy for the oldest son Chad because he got expelled from school for acting out. This was around the end of their YouTube channel 8 Passengers, after Chad said in a video that Ruby and his dad Kevin Franke took away his bedroom and forced him to sleep in the basement on a bean bag for SEVEN MONTHS. Yeah, the horrific treatment of their kids started waaay before Jodi even entered the picture! And because Ruby refused to apologize for her actions, they were “canceled.” As Chad said in the doc:
“We were basically canceled. Our views just tanked. We lost like 90% of our income.”
Things began to change from that point on. The videos shifted from family content to what Chad described as having a more “religious teacher” vibe. Ruby also struck up a friendship with Jodi, which hurt her marriage to Kevin. When their relationship began to crumble, Ruby asked him to join the group Jodi ran for men with “an addiction for pornography.” While there, Kevin claimed he was used by Jodi as a model of what a husband should be.
Their relationship improved during this time. However, the situation with Jodi became more alarming. Ruby and Jodi transitioned the channel on YouTube from 8 Passengers to Moms of Truth, with the content becoming increasingly religious. The couple also started to lean more on faith.
By May 2021, Kevin said they started to believe that the “end of days” and “second coming” were beginning… with Jodi being the person hand-picked by God to guide them through it. Because she was chosen by God, she believed the devil “had it out for her.” He explained:
“We were preparing for it. We weren’t alone. We genuinely believed that Jodi was inspired, called by God, representative of God. Chosen by God. And this belief all culminated in May of 2021. Jodi calls Ruby, she was wailing and sobbing. Apparently, she was being haunted by hooded shadow figures that would just appear, surrounding her bed at night. She said Satan had it out for her and we believed it. We wanted to believe it, because we were in a state of mind where we were ready for something big to happen. We were expecting it.”
Whoa…
Soon, Kevin shared that unexplained things began to happen at the home where Jodi lived whenever he and Ruby visited like a giant handprint on the glass. This left him thinking something “otherworldly” or “supernatural” had been there. Eventually, Jodi moved in with the Frankes and took over the eldest daughter Shari’s room when she was leaving for college. Not everyone offered Jodi a warm welcome, though! Shari had been suspicious of the business partner. Although she told her parents her worries, they refused to listen.
The situation escalated when “weird things started happening” in their house, according to Kevin. He claimed Jodi would get into what he called a “possessed trance” where she would “start speaking in other voices.” And this was all caught on camera! The footage — shown in episode 2 — showed several instances in which Jodi would be red in the face on the ground, hitting herself in the head, and saying things in a deep voice like: “She’s mine,” “I own her,” and “She knows.”
Kevin said Ruby fully believed they were “meant” to help Jodi by “casting the evil spirits out, exorcising them out.” He even did the exorcisms himself! Kevin recalled that he would place his hands over Jodi’s head and “would command the demons to depart,” saying all the names of Jesus he could think of. Per the father, the “evil spirits were very reactive to those names” since Jodi “would thrash and hiss and wail and growl.” Jeez. He added:
“It was like she was being hurt every time I said one of those things.”
The exorcisms didn’t work, though. Her behavior continued and soon Ruby would check on Jodi in the middle of the night. Eventually, the content creator just moved into the room with her business partner and slept in the same bed. By this point, Shari and Kevin both believe Jodi and Ruby became “much more” than friends! Shari said:
“It felt really dark. At that moment, I kind of figured something was going on. I have my opinion. I do think that they were [lovers].”
To Kevin, it looked like Jodi “wanted Ruby to herself” and decided to get Kevin and some of her kids out of the picture. Chad, who was 17, said he was kicked out of the house:
“I always felt like I had to confess to Jodi when it came to anything like pornography or making out with a girl … Jodi thought it would be a good idea for me, as part of my repentance process, to tell my mom. I confessed to her that while Jodi was in the home, I was viewing pornography, I was making out with girls behind your back. I had never seen my mom more distraught, I had never seen her more red in the face. It wasn’t anger, it was a sadness.”
He alleged Ruby blamed his lustful behavior for Jodi’s possessions and told him to leave:
“I was 17 at this time. I really thought I was messing with the spirit in the house. I think that was my mom and Jodi’s perfect chance to find something wrong with me and my dad at the same time and kick us out.”
So awful…
At this time, Kevin also was kicked out for having “lustful thoughts.” But more than that, he said Ruby believed he was holding Jodi and her back. Ultimately, she ordered Kevin to no longer contact them or the kids after he left ––which he agreed to. He shared:
“One by one, I had the kids in, I sat them down and told them, ‘I’m going to go away for a time and I’m going to work on myself, so that I can come back to the family and be the dad that you deserve.’ One of my children, the look in her eyes, I cannot … it was a pleading.”
And he still left them. What the f**k. It wasn’t just Kevin and Chad ostracized from the family! Shari got the boot, too! She claimed Ruby told her she was “causing chaos” and her behavior showed she didn’t want to be in the family, so she was removed from the group chat. Wow.
All of this is absolutely wild! Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments.
[Image via Hulu & Moms of Truth/Instagram]
The post Ruby Franke's Family Believed Jodi Hildebrandt Was 'Possessed' — They Even Did An Exorcism! And There's Footage! appeared first on Perez Hilton.
