Ruby Franke’s daughter has opened up about the distressing mistreatment she and her siblings experienced, revealing the moment she realized her mother’s lack of affection towards her.
Ruby, a mother of six from the Mormon faith, was arrested and charged with severe child abuse involving her two youngest children in September 2023, following an incident where her malnourished son fled the oppressive environment and sought help from a neighbor.
She’s now serving up to 30 years in prison in Utah after pleading guilty to the charges against her alongside her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt.
Ruby’s daughter Shari Franke wrote a brand new tell-all memoir about growing up under her mom’s reign of terror called The House of My Mother.
In one heartbreaking chapter, Shari recalled the moment she realized her mom didn’t love her after an upsetting interaction over a social media app.
During a confrontation with her parents, Kevin and Ruby’s daughter, Shari, then 13, disclosed that Ruby expressed distress over Shari installing Snapchat without their knowledge, believing it jeopardized their family’s stability.
But Ruby’s tirade, as Shari described it, wasn’t ever about the teen’s safety.
“It was about control,” Shari wrote. “About maintaining the perfect image for her precious audience.”
Shari’s parents took away her iPhone and gave her a flip phone instead, she wrote.
But the revelation about her relationship with her mother came while journaling after Ruby’s tirade.
“The words seemed to write themselves, stark and undeniable on the page: I don’t think my mother loves me,” Shari wrote.
But as she continued to reflect on her mom’s outbursts and actions, Shari also made another realization.
“I’m not sucking up,” as followers of the 8 Passengers YouTube channel claimed she was.
“I’m surviving. There’s a difference.”
RUBY’S MILITARY ‘OBSESSION’
Shari also detailed in her memoir shocking instances of abusive behavior her mother exhibited toward her and her younger siblings.
Early on in the book, Shari described the “calibrated” way Ruby would slap her and her siblings.
Franke’s horrific punishments for children
Starting in May 2023, disgraced YouTuber Ruby Franke journaled about the punishments she imposed on her children.
She appeared to justify the abuse by referring to “Satanic choices” and “the devil’s” influences on her kids’ actions.
Some of the horrific punishments detailed in the journal include:
- Poking her children with cactus needles
- Pouring cold water on the kids
- Whipping with a towel or belt
- Forcing them to stand in the hot sun
- Forcibly dunking her son in the pool
- Forcing them to sleep on the ground
- Restricting food
“Never hard enough to leave visible bruises, at least on me, but always sufficient to instill fear,” Shari wrote.
“In her twisted logic, she was molding obedience, sculpting compliance with each stinging blow.”
But in some of the most damning evidence in the book, Shari revealed how Ruby began punishing her children “like soldiers.”
Shari included an excerpt from one of her diary entries at the time that detailed her mom’s “obsession” with the West Point Military Academy
“For example, earlier today she got mad at Chad and me for not putting away the clothes, so she punished us by making us run around the block five times.
“Then at dinner, Chad was hiding and refusing to help me clear the table, so Ruby made us both do pushups — Chad for shirking his responsibilities, me for not being enough of a leader.”
Shari’s accounts match up with Ruby’s sickening journal entries from the time – which revealed she hit, starved, and chained up her kids to punish them.
She also made her daughter work outside in bare feet for hours on end with no protection from the sun.
Sadly, the abuse the Franke kids suffered was more than physical – it was emotional, too.
Shari also revealed that Ruby never drove her and her siblings to school. Instead, they took the bus or, in Shari’s case, were forced to walk a mile there and home.
Birthdays were the one day they were “treated” with a ride home from Ruby.
“The excitement of seeing her car in the pickup line, knowing I wouldn’t have to make that long walk home, was better than any wrapped gift,” Shari wrote.
“It was a glimpse of the mother I longed for every day – attentive, interested, present.”
Shari further wrote about her struggles to overcome the emotional manipulation and abuse her mother inflicted upon her.
In her twisted logic, she was molding obedience, sculpting compliance with each stinging blow.
Shari Franke
Luckily, through therapy and other resources, Shari continues to recover from those torturous years.
‘HAPPY WITHOUT YOU’
After Ruby’s arrest, her four kids who were minors were taken into custody by the Division of Child and Family Services.
Ruby apologized to her family in court, saying she’d “never stop crying for hurting [their] tender souls.”
She was sentenced to four terms of one to 15 years in prison.
Shari, her dad, and her brother Chad are set to share even more of their story in a docuseries coming to Hulu and Disney+ on February 27 called Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke.
The eldest daughter wrote that she has no interest in reconnecting with her mother.
When asked what she’d say to Ruby’s face if the two were reunited, Shari said on Good Morning America, “[I’d] probably tell her I’m happy without you.
“I was scared of her for so long and I am here without her approval. I am just fine.”
The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom is available to buy now.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 800 422 4453 or live chat at https://www.childhelphotline.org/.
If a child or other person is in immediate danger, contact 911 immediately.
