The Hulu Documentary “Devil in The Family” aired on February 27th, 2025, it follows the story of Ruby Franke who was arrested on August 30th, 2023, for child abuse. Ruby Franke was a very popular family blogger; she’d post vlogs of her daily life with her 8 kids. They were known as the 8 passengers, the 2 eldest, Shari and Chad, appeared most frequently on the channel because they were fan favorites. On the surface they seemed like a very wholesome Christian-centered loving family.
As the kids got older however, the kids started to lose interest in filming their daily lives and began to look more bored in each video, Kevin, their dad, would state that they would complain about everything. It started to bother the kids that they’d have to spend all their time in front of the camera when really, they wanted to spend time with their friends especially with Chad, he expressed that over time resentment started to build towards Ruby, and he started to become more disobedient. Chad started to become more disobedient and was soon expelled from school in May. The parents wanted Chad to have a more spiritual lifestyle, so Ruby and Kevin decided to put Chad into therapy. This is when everything started to change.
While Chad was getting therapy with a lady named Jodi, he wasn’t allowed to have any electronics, and he had the option to either sleep in the living room or in the basement on a beanbag which eventually became his bedroom for 7 months until he started behaving better. In the interview Kevin stated that Ruby’s mentality would be “…the moment you disobey me, you’re going to fear me.”. If the kids misbehaved, she would yell, spank, and whip her kids with a belt. Ruby received a huge amount of backlash from her fans after vlogging Chad’s punishment and through all the chaos Ruby became closer to Jodi for advice and eventually a mutual friendship. They were so close in fact that Jodi ended up living with the family.
Around this point, Shari and Chad weren’t in the house that much, Shari went to college and Chad was kicked out the house as well as Kevin. Now, it’s just Ruby, Jodi, and her 4 youngest children in the house. For the kids, they were now the troublemakers in Ruby’s eyes. On Christmas, the kids would not receive presents and Ruby would make the kids throw away gifts that were given to them by others. There were times where the kids would often be left home alone, and Ruby was nowhere to be seen. Police were called for welfare checks, but the police were not able to do anything.
On August 30th 10:45 AM, there was a ring cam footage recording one of Ruby’s youngest children knocking on the 2 other houses in the neighborhood asking to be brought to the nearest police station. The boy looked emaciated, and he had duct tape on both his wrists and ankles. The boy confessed to the police that he’d been tied up in his home and the police went to the house to locate the other 3 children. They found the other youngest child, a daughter, and she was as skinny as her brother and her head was shaved. They also found a safe in the house in the shape of a door, behind it they found ropes, handcuffs, gauzes, duct tape, and a cayenne pepper paste that was created to put onto the wounds of the children. They found the last 2 middle children in one of the neighbor’s homes. They also found Ruby in the living room, and she was immediately put into handcuffs. Ruby and Jodi were then charged on six charges of child abuse.
Ruby believed that her 2 youngest children were possessed by a demon. She would have her kids stand in the sun all day, sleep outside, run through a desert, jump on the trampoline all day without a break, and more excruciating punishments in an attempt to “exorcise” the demons out of her children. The family had been brainwashed into believing that what they were doing was right and god’s plan. Those who would question or disagree would be shut out. Now Ruby and Jodi have been sentenced to 30 years in prison.