By Anumita Kaur, Kelsey Ables and Kim Bellware
Ruby Franke, a Utah mother of six whose YouTube parenting channel had more than 2 million subscribers, has pleaded guilty to aggravated child abuse.
Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were each charged in August with six counts of aggravated child abuse, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
Franke was arrested after her 12-year-old son showed up at a neighbour's home appearing emaciated, malnourished and with open wounds. The boy was asking neighbours for food and water, local police reported.
As part of a plea agreement accepted by Utah Judge John J. Walton Monday, Franke, 41, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse, a second-degree felony.
"With my deepest regret and sorrow for my family and my children, guilty," Franke said in court, according to video from Fox 13.
She is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 20; her attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment afternoon.
Franke gained popularity for her YouTube channel that she began in 2015, which featured her husband, a former engineering professor at Brigham Young University, and their children - Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve.
She discussed parenting strategies, such as what books she allowed her children to read, and she shared scenes from daily life, such as eating family dinners, preparing meals and driving her children around. At one point, Franke was posting videos of the family five days a week.
She amassed more than 2 million subscribers on the now-deleted channel 8 Passengers.
But viewers began raising concerns about Franke's approach to parenting, which had included withholding food from her children as a form of discipline or instruction.
In a 2020 video, she said one of her children slept on a bean bag for months as a punishment.
Viewers then began digging through 8 Passengers for evidence of child abuse, resulting in a 2020 petition calling for an investigation into the Frankes.
The petition received about 18,000 signatures. The channel fizzled in 2021 and was removed from YouTube.
In August, Franke's son escaped out of a window at the Ivins, Utah, home of Hildebrandt, Franke's co-defendant.
The Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department said in a Facebook post that the child appeared "emaciated and malnourished," and had "deep lacerations from being tied up with rope" and duct tape around his extremities.
After searching Hildebrandt's home, police found Franke's 10-year-old daughter in a similar state.
After the incident, Franke's oldest daughter, Shari, 20, wrote on her Instagram story that she was "so glad justice is being served."
"We've been trying to tell the police and CPS for years about this," she said, adding that her siblings are safe, but there's a "long road ahead."