Kevin Franke

[Longtimelurker1980]

I have just watched the Iplayer documentary on Ruby Franke. I almost wish I hadn’t. It’s such an extreme situation and a fall from grace and I struggle to see how it happened and was allowed to happen by people around them, including her husband Kevin.

for those not familiar, ruby franke was a Mormon mummy vlogger in ( the very LDS friendly) Utah, US, who went viral and ran her 6 children’s lives around creating content that showed a ‘perfect’ life when it was actually controlling and cruel. Nasty even before she met a weird counsellor who said her youngest two children were possessed by the devil resulting in horrific child abuse, including her two youngest being starved and tied up, from which the boy thankfully escaped and sought help and rescue for his sibling. The middle two kids were left to fend for themselves at home (young teens) while the mum moved 300 miles away to live with the counsellor to ‘exorcise’ the youngest kids.

my question - her husband saw all of it except the last year, and he missed that because his wife instructed him to leave home and not have contact with either her or any of his 6 children including the young adults in order to ‘save’ his family. Which for inexplicable reasons, he did. He ignored his children when they messaged him and left them to their abusive mother. When he was called more than a year later to say his children were at the police station he wouldn’t believe the story the police told and initially chose instead to believe his wife who said the children were possessed, passing this story on to his brainwashed young adult children who also believed him. The end of the doc shows him saying quite openly that he still loves his wife.

he now has full custody of the 4 minor children. How the fuck did that happen?

I think he was as equally guilty for standing back and not intervening to stop the abuse. He should have also been jailed.

Mmm he does seem useless but was it coercive control. If it was a woman would we have a bit of sympathy?

I think he is an awful man. You cannot tell me he didn't see harsh parenting and abuse whilst he was still living in the family.
He bears responsibility.
And to trot off with no contact cutting off his children because his batshit wife told him to... pathetic. Children, because they are children, need protecting. He didn't, and he enabled his wife.

I would feel the same regardless of gender. Children always come first. His turning of a blind eye for more than a year (after a lifetime of allowing his children to be manipulated and filmed for financial gain) goes way beyond what can be justified by coercive control.

I saw it advertised on Netflix but couldn’t bring myself to watch it, glad I didn’t.😢

I couldn’t believe what a wet blanket he was! You just knew the wife was going to end up sharing a bed with the ‘counsellor’. Why did he just accept things. Then we she said to him to leave he just said okay and went! Poor kids, all of them, especially the youngest son. He should have stood up to her from the beginning (camera in his face on returning home from work) and definitely should have been visiting his children after the split. For some reason, he was totally under her spell. Such a very sad and traumatic childhood.

Yes I was left thinking that there was absolutely no justice for these children bar their mother and co-abuser being imprisoned. They are living now with the person who allowed this their whole lives because he was dazzled by an abuser.

I thought the eldest daughter was very brave, she has obviously broken out of the circle of abuse, she loathes her Mother, I can't remember what she said about her father.
The eldest son is still under the spell.

And I do wonder how much longer it would've gone on if the eldest son on camera hadn't said he had been deprived of his bedroom for 6 months and was sleeping on a beanbag in the basement. Because from that moment on, her pathetic Vlog imploded and people got wise. By the way, the awful husband Kevin was still around when that punishment was meted out.

He is an awful man.

Yes he was a weak man at best from the off, at worst he stood by and watched the abuse.

Daughter refers to her parents now as Kevin and Ruby, she’s disassociating.

No we wouldn't if she stood by and allowed her children to be tortured and abused. And still sided with the abuser even after the police had to intervene. We'd rightly condemn her, wouldn't we?

Religion plays a big part. These people are blindly told to believe in certain things and listen to the advice of certain people without questioning it. They’re not used to having their own train of thought or questioning what they’re told or how they live their lives.

To even begin to understand, you need to know a bit more about Jodi Hildebrand, Mormon culture and in particular the way women are encouraged to rely on the authority of men who are believed to have a direct line to god. There’s a podcast interview with a niece of Jodi who endured similar treatment in her “care” and the utter disinterest of the authorities in Utah is a huge part of this culture. There are other stories of kids who ran away from some of the breakaway polygamous Mormon cults to avoid being forced into incestuous marriages, who just get handed back to their abusive parents because they’re under 18.

Then throw in purity culture, extreme prepping for end times, gullibility on a near population-wide basis, Kevin ends up looking like the competent, caring parent. Not because he is, but because no one there seems to grasp that it’s a whole shit show from beginning to end.

At least Ruby’s kids survived.

I also finished this doc last night and felt the same. I then went on Spotify and started to listen to the eldest's book "The House of My Mother" - it sounds like Ruby targeted Kevin specifically because he was passive but also in complete adoration of her.

According to the eldest's Instagram, her father has done a lot of work to earn forgiveness from his kids, so I don't think we've seen the full picture. However, I was shocked at how he said he still loves Ruby. I just don't know how you could love someone that did that to your kids.

I do think he shoulders a degree of responsibilty, but his religion, idolisation of Ruby and passive nature left him vulnerable to being brainwashed and controlled.

He reminds me of my own father

My mother is just like Ruby and he stood back and allowed awful things to happen (it would be called child abuse nowadays)

He did it to protect himself from her-he would shove us kids in the firing line or he'd cop it,he couldn't deal with her so used us as a shield

If she'd told him to leave (in fact she did many times) he would have left (she would 'allow' him to come back) and he would have (with her permission) stayed away if she'd pulled a Ruby and told him to stay away from her and us

How he got custody of his dc back is beyond me-neither man should be around kids,they are just as abusive

My father will swear blind he will always love my mother (even to the detriment of his adult dc/grandchildren/great grandchild/friends/other family members)

I'm nc with my family but did try to make contact with him years ago-he told me to 'fuck off'

He'd chosen my mother over me just like Kevin did with Ruby

It's very hard to explain-its a combination of narcissism,weak personality,fear and control

I also saw that he has remarried. I know there is a religious culture to reckon with but my god after all that happened you would think he would just concentrate on his bloody children for a bit. It is impossible to understand from the outside and I wanted to give him a massive shake when he was talking in such weak and passive terms about horrific child abuse.

So sorry you have experienced this. It is just unfathomable to me how anyone could choose a romantic partner over a child.

I remember telling my partner this very early on, and him being both hurt and bemused, with me explaining that my primary role as a parent is to my children whereas he is an adult who can look after himself. I think he gets it now but he was definitely bemused at the time and he is a good man. I was about to say maybe men don’t have the same fierce parenting instincts as women but this is not the case to demonstrate that.

I was horrified at how he dissociated himself from earlier 'abuse' of the children. He has completely framed himself as a passenger in his own life. Which is OK until you have children and then you have a duty to them. Virtually everyone in the programme is creepy, just some more than others.

I have just watched an interview of him and Chad, eldest son. He still insists he loves Ruby but is relieved she is no longer in his life.

He was asked why he just left when told to by Ruby and Jodi. He said he thought the therapist was legit and was helping his marriage so he did what he was told to do by Ruby and Jodi. Yet earlier on in the interview he said that it all started going wrong when Jodi was involving herself in their marriage. Somewhat contradictory methinks. He has a lot to answer for, and he is very very lucky he still has some of the children living with him.

When I watched it I thought his actions were only understandable within the context of the controlling religion. It wouldn’t have worked outside that. He was brainwashed by it and the women

From what I remember he was brainwashed as well. I think he attended weekly (or daily?) zoom meetings with the councellor and numerous other men….cant fully rememebr the content but it was all very cultish and brainwashing.

I don’t know the answer. I don’t know how it happened. I was aghast at the level of influence that councillor woman had and don’t understand how she did it.

she made a fortune. She was a multi millionaire.

don’t understand any of it.

Yes, I think this is how the councillor woman was able to take hold with her brainwashing.

I would be interested to know how much the Mormon church has done to disassociate from the issues in this case: the widespread mormon family vlogging culture to spread ‘the word’ and convert people to Mormonism, the alleged ‘demonic possession’ and ‘treatment’ of young kids, etc. Has the church said anything at all?

I watched this last night too. Agree with the poster above, the Mormon Church requires a surprising and unquestioning level of belief,.so it's possibly more understandable that so many in the family believed in the 'possession' of the kids. We know a family through school who were raised in this church and it's a world away from the Church of England style of Christianity

If you can, watch the Heather Gay documentary on surviving the Mormon church. Some heart breaking stories from victims of the church.