Ruby Franke's Daughter "Petrified" After Being Found, Police Say
Originally appeared on E! Online
Content warning: The story discusses child abuse.
Another heartbreaking detail from Ruby Franke's child abuse case has been revealed.
A little over a month after the former YouTuber—who shares six children with estranged husband Kevin Franke—was given four consecutive one to fifteen year sentences (equivalent to four to 60 years), the Washington County Attorney's Office shared previously unreleased evidence from her case.
Police bodycam videos show authorities discovering Franke's 9-year-old daughter, referred to by the initial E. in the case, sitting alone in an empty closet in the Utah home of Jodi Hildebrandt, Franke's business partner who was also convicted on child abuse charges and is serving the same sentence. Authorities described the young girl as "petrified" when they found her in a press release that accompanied the clips.
In one video, police check rooms before finding E.—who wears jeans and an oversized light pink henley shirt in the videos—sitting cross legged in a low lit closet off of a bathroom on the morning of Aug. 30.
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"You doing okay?" the officer asks her in one video, to no response. "You don't want to talk to me? That's okay. Can you come with me?"
When the girl continues to remain silent, the officer sits down in front of her.
"You take your time," he tells her. "I'm a police officer. I don't mean to hurt you at all. Are you scared? Yeah?"
In another clip, time-stamped nearly two hours later, another officer comes in while playing "Payphone" by Maroon 5, and gives her a small pizza and a drink. E. sits in front of the food for a while without touching it.
"You're more than welcome to eat," the officer tells her. "Eat all you want, sweetie. That's all you."
After being encouraged by the officer, the video shows E. helping herself to some of the pizza. In a later clip time-stamped at around 3:30 p.m. Aug. 30, about four hours after authorities initially found her, a woman EMT is seen in the closet and chats softly with the child, who appears to respond to her in redacted portions of the audio.
"We helped your brother," the EMT reassures E. "We want to get you some help too."
Finally, the young girl stands and walks out of the closet.
The scene unfolded shortly after Franke's 12-year-old son escaped and ran to a neighbor's home for help—prompting her and Hildebrandt's arrest. In a case summary, the Washington County Attorney's Office says that Franke and Hildebrandt held the two aforementioned children in a "work camp like setting."
"The children were regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in, and virtually all forms of entertainment," the summary reads, also describing physical abuse in graphic detail. "The children suffered emotional abuse to the extent that they came to believe that they deserved the abuse."
Indeed, authorities posited in the case summary that Hildebrandt and Franke—who each pleaded guilty to four felony counts of second-degree aggravated child abuse—"appeared to fully believe that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined "sins" and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies."
In addition to the bodycam videos, the attorney's Washington County Attorney's Office released journal entries from Franke that referred to her 12-year-old son as a "demon," and her daughter as "sinful" as well as audio from a phone call with her estranged husband two days after her arrest. At the time, she maintained her innocence.
E! News previously reached out to attorneys for Ruby Franke, Kevin Franke and Jodi Hidelbrandt regarding newly-released evidence for comment but did not hear back.
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