The child abuse case of popular American Youtuber Ruby Franke and family therapist Jodi Hildebrandt has once again taken prominence after the recent documentary “Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story” by Netflix, which explains the background that led to the arrest of both women in 2023.

The film - with a duration of almost two hours - begins with security camera videos showing Russell, one of the children of the influencer and creator of the YouTube channel “8 Passengers”, wandering around an exclusive residential area in the state of Utah, asking for food and to locate the authorities.

From that shocking instant - a child with open wounds and homemade bandages with adhesive tape - and with the subsequent discovery of Eve, her younger sister, with her head shaved, an investigation was carried out that revealed one of the most chilling crimes of child abuse in recent years.

The Netflix documentary featured the participation of countless people familiar with these influencers, as well as police officers and detectives in the case, in addition to victims of Mormon family therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, creator of the ConneXions platform, where she offered therapy services to families and couples.

One of these voices was the testimony of Laura Howells Leavitt, who met Hildebrandt in the 1990s during a religious mission and revealed a fact that perhaps many went unnoticed about the beginnings of the also self-styled “life coach”, who is attributed with a great power of persuasion, of which it is alleged that many people - including Ruby Franke - were somehow manipulated “victims”.

“I was on a mission in Puerto Rico and I really enjoyed it,” Hildebrandt is heard saying in the documentary.

“At that time, the 1990s, it wasn’t common for women to go on missions. But Jodi was very persuasive, and people wanted to do what she said,” explained Howells, her mission partner at the time.

“Jodi and I were mission partners in Puerto Rico with the LDS church. Our goal was to convert as many people as we could,” he recalled when talking about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian denomination also known as the “Mormon church.”

During this part of the documentary, several photographs of Howells and Hildebrandt in what is understood to be their mission in Puerto Rico are presented.

“LDS missions are very hard, there are a lot of rules. We would get up at 6:00 a.m. and read ‘The Book of Mormon,’ and have fellowship studies. We were always busy. We would talk to people in a parking lot or go door to door. We had to talk to a certain number of people a day. We’d ask them the golden question: Do you want to know more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?”

As detailed, during these missions their participants were required to record their day-to-day lives in a diary, so Howells read an anecdote from his own about a particular situation during his stay on the “Island of Enchantment,” which describes how convincing Hildebrandt could be.

“We were working with a family who had delayed the day of their baptism. And I wrote in my journal how everything changed when Jodi was able to sit with them. You should hear how Hil talks and helps them feel the Holy Spirit,” she maintained. “I didn’t feel comfortable with Jodi. Even though there were three of us, Jodi felt like she was the one who made the difference.”

Following that experience and years after that mission, Hildebrandt became an influential personality within the Utah Mormon community. With strict, orthodox “therapy” methods, he made a fortune with thousands of followers through his ConneXions platform.

“Jodi was very good at capturing vulnerable people who came to her because they weren’t having a good time in their lives and framing it in a religious context that fit quite well with other things they had been taught," Washington County Prosecutor Eric Clarke said in the Netflix documentary.

Later, she joined youtuber Ruby Franke, who along with her husband, Kevin Franke, had created a channel in 2015 on which they posted videos with their six children - Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve - from their home in Springville, Utah. Their YouTube page eventually reached 2.5 million subscribers and surpassed 1 billion views.

The pair of content creators met Hildebrandt through her “chats” for couples and quickly became her clients. Eventually, Hildebrandt joined Ruby and together they created another platform: “Moms of Truth,”where the two were dedicated to offering parenting talks and advice to parents, which many considered abusive.

However, behind the perfect appearance they projected on social networks, these women tortured Franke’s children in Hildebrandt’s house, considered by the authorities as a“concentration camp” and shielding themselves in what they labeled as “discipline”.

Among the acts of mistreatment included tying them up, beating and kicking them, restricting their food, among other actions, described as“horrible and inhumane”. All these acts were evidenced in written diaries.

In 2024, both women pleaded guilty and were sentenced to serve four prison sentences of between one and 15 years each.

“I will never stop crying for the damage I did to your fragile souls,” Franke said of his children during a hearing. “My willingness to give everything for you was manipulated into something very dark. I took from you everything that was tender, safe and good.”

However, both will serve a maximum of 30 years in prison due to a Utah state law that limits the total length when sentences are imposed consecutively. On the other hand, bothcurrently have parole hearings scheduled for December 2026.

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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.