Hulu’s latest true crime docuseries, “Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke,” exposes the disturbing reality behind one of YouTube’s most infamous family vloggers. The series meticulously dissects Ruby Franke’s transformation from beloved “momfluencer” to convicted child abuser, revealing how the pursuit of online perfection produced a household built on control and cruelty. Yet, while “Devil in the Family” thoroughly unpacks Ruby’s role in the abuse, it sidesteps a crucial question: Where was her husband, Kevin Franke, as it all unfolded?
At its peak, the Frankes’ YouTube channel, 8 Passengers, attracted millions with its carefully curated portrayal of a wholesome Mormon family. Ruby and Kevin Franke, alongside their six children — Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell and Eve — documented everyday moments, from school routines to family vacations. But beneath the surface of faith-based parenting and structured discipline lay something far more troubling. Over time, Ruby’s approach to child-rearing became alarmingly extreme — punishments included withholding food, forcing children to sleep on the floor and isolating them from family members. Public concern mounted, and in 2022, the Frankes stopped uploading videos to the channel, marking the first visible rupture in their carefully controlled narrative.
As “Devil in the Family” reveals, however, this was only the surface of a far darker reality. Ruby’s parenting tactics became increasingly extreme under the influence of Jodi Hildebrandt, a mental health counselor and founder of ConneXions — a life-coaching program promoting authoritarian discipline and radical accountability. Hildebrandt’s ideology dismissed victimhood entirely and reinforced punitive parenting practices that deepened the psychological and physical suffering endured by the Franke children.
Focusing almost exclusively on Ruby’s actions and her alliance with Hildebrandt sidesteps a crucial question — how did Kevin’s inaction allow the abuse to persist? This oversight reflects a larger issue in true crime storytelling: when one villain takes center stage, those who enable them too often fade into the background.
The most brutal revelations come from events leading to Ruby and Jodi’s arrest. Law enforcement intervened after one of the children escaped and was found severely malnourished — a chilling indication of prolonged neglect. Through exclusive interviews with neighbors, friends and members of the family’s church community, the docuseries reconstructs how abuse within the Franke household escalated over time. The abuse caught on camera was only a glimpse of the far worse horrors that unfolded off-screen. What seemed like extreme, authoritarian parenting turned life-threatening as the children were denied basic needs, subjected to brutal punishments and forced into an oppressive, survival-based existence.
Yet amid this parental neglect, Kevin’s role remains conspicuously underexplored. As a father, his primary responsibility was to ensure his children’s welfare. Instead, he is portrayed as a passive observer, seemingly disconnected from the escalating mistreatment. The docuseries does not provide clear evidence that Kevin himself was abusive, but it also fails to investigate his level of involvement or inaction in any meaningful way. Was he entirely unaware, as the series suggests, or did he deliberately ignore warning signs? “Devil in the Family” presents him as an outsider, shut out by Ruby due to her devotion to ConneXions. Yet, it does little to explore whether he attempted to intervene or if he, too, subscribed to the same harmful beliefs.
The docuseries misses an opportunity to examine these questions in depth. By failing to scrutinize Kevin’s role, it leaves a critical gap in understanding how abuse within the Franke household was sustained for so long. Instead, it falls into a common true crime pitfall: reducing abuse to a single perpetrator while overlooking the broader systemic failures and the complicity of those who allowed it to continue unchecked. True crime narratives often judge mothers more harshly than fathers when parenting fails — a cultural bias that “Devil in the Family” inadvertently reinforces by letting Kevin off the hook. While Ruby’s actions were undeniably egregious, Kevin’s passivity deserves equal attention as part of understanding how such abuse was allowed to continue unchecked.
Ultimately, “Devil in the Family” succeeds in shedding light on the dangers of performative parenting and digital perfectionism but falters by not confronting Kevin’s complicity head on. A more nuanced exploration of his role would have provided audiences with a deeper understanding of how abuse thrives not just through perpetrators but also through enablers who remain silent or inactive. Until docuseries begin holding enablers as accountable as perpetrators themselves, stories like this will remain incomplete.
Contact Chloe Haack at [email protected].