Ruby Franke, the mother of six behind the family YouTube channel “8 Passengers,” has been charged with six counts of felony child abuse by the Washington County Attorney in Utah, a spokesperson for the attorney’s office confirmed to NBC News on Tuesday.
Franke and her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were arrested last week after law enforcement found Franke’s 12-year-old son emaciated and with open wounds and duct tape on his wrists and ankles. The boy had climbed out of a window of Hildebrandt’s home and ran to a neighbor house for help, according to a probable cause affidavit acquired by NBC News.
Franke’s 10-year-old daughter was found at Hildebrandt’s home in a similar malnourished condition, according to the affidavit. Officials said the condition of the children was so severe that they were transported to a local area hospital. Franke’s other four children were taken into the care of Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services.
Hildebrandt was also charged with six counts of felony child abuse. Each count carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000, the county attorney told NBC News in an emailed statement.
not the person you replied to, but someone with similar opinions: of your 3 examples, only you are still working in the community you presumably grew up in and live in. homeschooling can make it difficult to feel tied to your local community; often, they are perceived as “other” and feel themselves separate, at least the ones I’ve met. you may all feel driven to work for “communal good”, but it seems like it’s often done as an outsider to the community. there’s no “communal empathy” because you(generally, the home schooled) aren’t part of the community.
I have awful social anxiety - when I was little it was just called “painfully shy” - and my mother considered home schooling as an alternative. my grandmother was an elementary school teacher in the local public school system, and said the most valuable thing they taught in school was how to navigate socially. everything else can be taught outside school, but it’s extremely difficult to give kids the opportunity to learn societal norms and how to deal with peer groups when they aren’t interacting with people outside their small group on a daily basis. I’m honestly not sure how well I’d function in society as an adult if my mother hadn’t listened to my grandmother. I learned a lot of my social skills at school, more than I could in church or clubs where the peers were fewer and our similarities greater.