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 watched it Netflix a while ago. The husband was a complete drip

Religion has a lot to answer for.

The LDS, the Mormons, even the Plymouth Brethren over here have skeletons in their cupboard - child sex abuse, systematic cover ups, NDAs, they're all at it, no wonder religion passed me by.

I was unimpressed with him as well. I hope child protection services have been improved.

i agree it is a terrible advert for religion.

Religions that encourage their followers to not think. And not step outside the religion to engage with the wider world.

It’s Cult Mind Control and a fast track to losing sanity.

Mental illness, delusion, is rife in Cults like this and creates abuse and war.

Yes, this added to the behaviours of a cult, professional strong women and coercive control, He was abused and brainwashed too
The group he joined for support, led by Jodie was also controlling his feelings and actions.

He was destroyed just as any human would be.

I don’t think ‘any’ human would be destroyed. I would say the vast majority of parents would see her behaviour as abusive and step in to protect the children. Anyone who doesn’t can’t just claim brainwashing as a way to absolve themselves of any responsibility.

The man is a disgrace. Yep she tortured my kids but I still love her. What???

I couldn't believe, when he was at the police station, that he thought the police were making up all the allegations and still believed Ruby.

How could he still love that woman after she'd done that to his kids?

Unfortunately a lot of Americans seem to believe blindly the teachings of churches and so called therapists.

Yes, and they put their beliefs way before their children.

You should watch "Trust me: False Prophet"

If she were released today, I wouldn't be surprised if he divorced his new wife and went back to her. Madness.

Yes! Watched it. And the series prior to that which puts it all in context "Keep Sweet, Prey and Obey"

Jaw dropping, both series.

No wonder I give religion a wide berth.

I was just going to say that!

If he hadn't married again and she got a joke of a sentence, he would go back to her just like that. Not sure they could both have the children under their roof again though? But what do I know, the children are with him which is bizarre.

I read that Ruby is not allowed any contact with the children while they are minors. So that would rule out cohabiting but who knows whether he would abandon them again and run after her.

Thanks for the other series’ suggestions although I think I’ve seen enough of the Latter Day Saints to last a lifetime.

She’s not and most of the kids (possibly all) don’t want any contact sith her either. Her eldest daughter says Ruby did not need Jodie to become evil, she was always evil,

I recommend watching Cults to Consciousness on YouTube or listening to it as a podcast. The lady who runs it left the LDS and she interviews people who have freed themselves from all sorts of high-control religions and cults. It's interesting to understand how people are either born into or drawn into it.

My experience was the other way around. I grew up in a high-control religion (somewhat cultish) and after breaking free as a late teen, I ended up in two high-control AKA abusive relationships. It makes sense to me now how this happened and I'm in therapy to try and develop my own sense of self, boundaries, and autonomy.

I’ve just finished watching “The Way Down” miniseries about Gwen Shamblin and her church/cult. The coercion, the treatment of children and women, all very similar and massively depressing.

I have unending sympathy for all of RF’s children, they all went through hell. But I haven’t got any for the husband. I honestly believe he could have prevented a lot of it, especially the last year or so when the abuse escalated as much as it did. When I’ve seen him interviewed for documentaries I don’t think I’ve ever seen him take any responsibility for what his children went through.

I agree. The fact he wouldn't believe what the Police were telling him, sums it up.
That poor boy and his sister (along with all of them of course). He was so thin it was unbelievable, and how heartbreaking that the young girl was too scared and traumatised to talk or move.

They are all going to need so much therapy to get through all this.

Yes they’d been completely dehumanised. Separated in the same house so they hadn’t seen each other for at least a month. Starved and tied up. Wounds medically untreated. The girl had had her head shaved. Just outright cruelty.

And his first instinct in the police station when he was told some of this detail was not to ask how his children were but to cover for his wife by not revealing it was her who had told him the kids were with the police.

Part of me thinks that he is almost more culpable as her enabler. She was clearly off her rocker mad on religious fervour and/or mental illness. He has no excuse.

Yes, I had forgotten that the young boy and girl had not seen each other for a month despite living in the same house. That is just so cruel, they must have felt so alone.

I don’t understand how or why people have children - and so many of them - if they don’t actually like children. The doc showed her filming content, veering between ‘on’ and ‘off’ camera personas - she was awful to them ‘off camera’ (while she was filming but considered herself interrupted), shouting and shrill, in direct contrast to her smarmy on camera perfection. What on earth was she trying to achieve?

Watching this doc has had a profound effect on me. I like to think that people are not ‘bad’, are the product of their own traumas and experiences, but I am struggling to explain how on earth this woman could have been allowed to get away with what she did. And Kevin franke is at the heart of that conundrum.

The two youngest children will never recover from that experience. I would love to know how he convinced authorities that he was the best person to care for them in their recovery.

The children were not returned to him immediately. He had limited and only supervised contact for months while it went in and out of court and I think initially only the older children went back and that was monitored before the younger children were returned.
He wanted them back straight away, thank god the child protection people and courts said a big fat no,

Ruby and Jodie are exactly where they belong. I hear Jodie is not so happy now with her plea deal and is trying to appeal it. She won’t succeed. I don’t think she will ever be a safe person. Ruby has more chance of rehab than Jodie but Ruby will never have that loving relationship with her children as she has abused them too badly.

I think one of the older sons says he might want to have contact with her again someday but can’t see when that will be.

I started a thread about this last week.