250: Kevin Franke: “This is A Story of Love” | Is He Still Protecting Ruby Franke?!

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 9 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny, infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 14 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 18 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 21 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 23 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 25 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 29 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 21 Some days parenting requires uncomfortable conversations.

Speaker 32 But a disturbing reality was revealed after Ruby's youngest son escaped in August of 2023. This chilling 911 call leading to her arrest.

Speaker 32 I just had a 12-year-old boy show up here at my front door asking for help.

Speaker 32 He's emaciated, he's got tape around his legs.

Speaker 33 My wife, Ruby, sole ambition was to be seen as the perfect mom.

Speaker 32 Frankie's estranged husband, Kevin, and oldest son, Chad, now opening up in a new Hulu docuseries, Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Frankie.

Speaker 35 Hey, True Crime Besties, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep. Lee.

Speaker 35 Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialess Lee with me, Annie Elise.

Speaker 35 Now, as I'm sure a lot of you probably already know, especially the ones who have been following this case for years now, a new three-part docuseries titled Devil in the Family, The Fall of Ruby Frankie, was recently released on Hulu.

Speaker 35 I also did an episode a couple of weeks back where I did a deep dive into this, where we talked all about, you know, the documentary, still some things that the documentary didn't show, just the overall story of Ruby Frankie and Jodi Hildebrand.

Speaker 35 And I would say that this documentary wasn't necessarily a look into anything super new or anything revolutionary or groundbreaking.

Speaker 35 Nothing that really wasn't already known before, but it was definitely now a new look into certain perspectives.

Speaker 35 And what I mean by that is certain perspectives that maybe we haven't heard much of up until this point.

Speaker 35 And although there were a few interviews in this documentary, such as interviews from neighbors, police officers, and so forth, the main focus was really on the children.

Speaker 35 The main focus was on Sherry, Chad, Kevin, and Chad and Kevin, Chad the son and Kevin being the father, they really were at the forefront of this.

Speaker 35 Within the first few minutes of the very first episode, we hear a background voice stating that ever since the arrests, Kevin has been trying to clear his name.

Speaker 35 And when he said that, that really got me thinking because Kevin Frankie is an extremely polarizing topic. We all know this.

Speaker 35 I think we can all agree on this, especially if you've been following the case.

Speaker 35 Most people either feel very sorry for him and their hearts are, you know, bleeding for him because they see him as a victim in all of this, and they feel like he was just as much a victim as the children.

Speaker 35 But then others can't stand him and others think that he should have been punished because not only was he an active participant in what I believe to be like the crescendo of all of the allegations and what they were convicted of, but he stood, he enabled it.

Speaker 35 He stood right alongside his wife and he thought that those methods were okay. He co-signed them.
He enabled her. He was right there.

Speaker 35 So now that he's coming in after the fact, after Ruby and Jodi have been charged, it just doesn't really sit right with me because it's like, okay, now that they've been charged and convicted, you're sweeping in and saying, oh, I love Ruby, but I'm so glad she's not here anymore.

Speaker 35 The kids are laughing again. They're smiling again.
I just want custody of them. I'm going to fight for custody as though you're their savior.
When, no, bro, actually,

Speaker 35 you participated. You were a willing participant in this for years

Speaker 35 and you co-signed her.

Speaker 35 You enabled her all the way up until when Ruby was arrested and one of the children went to go get passports, hard drives, and things from the house to seize and give to the police.

Speaker 35 He tried to actually file charges against his own child for, I don't remember if it was burglary, robbery, or something within that realm, because they were trying to take that, because they were going against Ruby.

Speaker 35 So, like, now for you to come out and be like, oh, yeah, the kids are just so much happier now with me, and we're rebuilding and this and that.

Speaker 35 Just because you weren't there when the arrest went down does not, in my opinion, make you any less responsible.

Speaker 35 So my point in this follow-up episode is it's going to be all about Kevin and we are going to drag his ass because I want to show the clear contradictions from what he is saying now to what his behavior, his documented behavior was in the past and how he truly did enable this.

Speaker 35 He co-signed it, but now he's backpedaling and acting as though he's the children's savior because he doesn't, of course, want to be thrown in prison like Ruby and Jodi. But it's disgusting.

Speaker 35 and i know there are like i said a lot of different opinions about kevin this is my opinion i'm sure you have your own as well but i want to dive into kevin a little bit deeper and i want to talk about all of his questionable life choices and i also want to talk about his involvement with the eight passengers youtube channel that channel uh that ruby had started that was their rise to fame millions of dollars millions of subscribers all while exploiting their children, humiliating their children, and also then even abusing their children.

Speaker 35 So we are going to talk about all of that. We're going to talk about his connection with connections, the freaking alleged cult.
I'm going to say alleged, but hello.

Speaker 35 If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a freaking cult.

Speaker 35 And his connection with connections and how he co-signed that as well. thought Jodi was great too and practiced the principles and all of those other things.

Speaker 35 And we're going to talk about then his absence when everything escalated with Ruby and Jodi and what he was doing. Why were you away from your kids for a year?

Speaker 35 Especially knowing the kind of conflict and the kind of methods and punishing methods. And it's just, how can you even call yourself a father, honestly?

Speaker 35 And I'm sorry, but if you're a Kevin Frankie Stan, this episode probably isn't for you because we are here today to drag him.

Speaker 36 Parenting does not take a break. So the reason why Eve did not go skiing with us was because she left her ski coat at school.

Speaker 36 And over the Christmas break before New Year's, they took everything from the Lost and Found and took it

Speaker 36 to donate. And Eve said, well, that's okay.

Speaker 36 Just buy me a new one. Just buy me a new ski coat.

Speaker 36 I said, that is a very entitled attitude. And that is not how we work around here.
If you lost your ski coat, you lost your privilege to go skiing.

Speaker 35 Now, although this episode is going to be strictly Kevin-based, I will bring up a couple of points regarding other family members and other dynamics, just because it helps illustrate

Speaker 35 the story as a whole, just so that, you know, it's not super disjointed and you can understand where we're going. Now, of course, Kevin, he was his own person before ever meeting Ruby.

Speaker 35 But for the purpose of this video, I really want to start with when he and Ruby first met, because truthfully, that's when all of this started. So let's jump right in.

Speaker 35 If you've read their daughter Sherry's book, or even listened to the episode that I did covering this book, you know that Sherry had a lot to say about her parents' relationship.

Speaker 35 She described that her mother Ruby, in her opinion, was just way more hyper-focused on finding a man, a man who checked all of the right boxes, all of her personal boxes, rather than actually genuinely looking for true love.

Speaker 35 She literally had a checklist of all of these things that had to be checked off in order for her to find her potential partner. You know, were they willing to get married? Check.

Speaker 35 Would they be open to having as many children as she ever dreamed of? Check. Were they close to God? Were they in the LDS faith? Check, check, check.
I mean, a literal checks and balances.

Speaker 35 Now, Kevin himself really validated all of this in that documentary, but he also kind of had this whole new behind-the-scenes type look into it, if you will.

Speaker 35 He claimed that when it came time to winning Ruby and then standing out against all of these other potential suitors, that he cheated, that he rigged the game, that he thought it was some type of board game or, I don't know, some kind of competition, and that he cheated so that he would come out on top.

Speaker 35 See, apparently, Ruby had this handwritten poster that was hidden in her closet, and this poster had columns of all of the different men that she was talking to or the people that she was dating, and their names were all written down horizontally at the top, and then vertically down the side, she wrote everything that she was looking for in a husband.

Speaker 35 Just again, all of her check boxes and checks and balances. And then, as each man checked off those boxes, she would just fill them in, basically keeping track of who was doing what.
Which

Speaker 35 look, everybody does their own methods, whether you're online dating, whether you're in-person dating, whether you want to have a freaking pros and cons list, a Venn diagram, whatever it is.

Speaker 35 This to me doesn't exactly read authentic love, but, you know, who am I to judge? Maybe I need to make a dioram or something.

Speaker 35 So as Kevin is talking about all of this, He even claimed that somehow he saw this poster and that he studied it, that he memorized this poster like it was life or death, pretty much molding himself into this perfect person that Ruby had been looking for her whole life.

Speaker 35 Red flag, okay, first of all, mega red flag. Like, how about, what's that song? Be yourself, be yourself, be yourself.

Speaker 35 Like, this guy, he's crafting himself into who he thinks Ruby, not even who he thinks, but who Ruby wants as a partner.

Speaker 35 Now, not only is that a red flag because you're changing yourself, but it's a huge red flag because it's showing you are fixated on Ruby.

Speaker 35 You are willing to change yourself, change your personality, change your hobbies, your dreams, your aspirations, everything so that you can be with Ruby, which case in point, look where it got us.

Speaker 35 You allowed and participated and endorsed and co-signed and all of these things that Ruby wanted to do that were dangerous to your own flesh and blood, all because Ruby was end game. She was the goal.

Speaker 35 You wanted her no matter what, and you were willing to, quite frankly, do anything. You were willing to do anything to your own children to be with Ruby.

Speaker 35 So this moment where he's trying to be this yes man for Ruby, it really does end up being this huge foreshadowing moment of seemingly their entire adult lives together.

Speaker 35 So of course he's checking off all these boxes. So they quickly get engaged, they get married, and then right away they start having children.

Speaker 35 And something that I think is really important to note here from this documentary itself is that it seems like there are still a lot of varying feelings from Kevin, Chad, and Sherry when it comes to Ruby, specifically when it comes to the old Ruby and then the, hypothetically speaking, new version of Ruby where she turned into this awful evil person.

Speaker 35 A lot of people on the outside looking in think that maybe it was YouTube and maybe it was the fame and the money that began to corrupt Ruby.

Speaker 35 While some people think that it was when she got involved with Jodi and with all of Jodi's insane teachings.

Speaker 35 But what's interesting is that even her family members, the people who were around Ruby the most, cannot really agree on one specific thing. And to be fair, each person's feelings are valid.

Speaker 35 It could be either one of those things. So it's their own version of events and really their own truth.
Now Sherry's feelings are very clear-cut.

Speaker 35 She has always believed that Ruby was not a good person or a good mother, not at all. And her earliest memories of Ruby are even of her yelling at her and smacking her.

Speaker 39 When I was younger, around like five, six, like Ruby was really physical. Like, you know, whether it was like a slap to the lip or a slap to the cheek.

Speaker 39 When I would practice the piano, you know, like her hand would slam and like, it was really scary.

Speaker 35 She even even specifically said in this documentary that she believes that Jodi only set off the things that were already deeply rooted inside Ruby's heart, which I kind of imagine that almost as like a ticking time bomb, that it's just been years, just somebody, something waiting and waiting for something to come along and just set it off.

Speaker 35 And that's how Sherry describes it. Then there's Ruby's son Chad.
And it seems like maybe he still holds some kind of soft spot for her deep down.

Speaker 35 You can tell that he seemed slightly more wary than Sherry. I mean, just not quite as angry or resentful as her.

Speaker 35 He mentioned in the first episode that Ruby, quote, was always a good mom until she just kind of wasn't, which is clearly very different than from what Sherry had felt.

Speaker 35 She felt like Ruby was born and bred evil.

Speaker 35 Now, of course, Chad did get into the rougher times where their relationship was strained, but it seems like he didn't even really start to have those negative feelings toward his mom until her YouTube became a full-time job and really the priority in the home.

Speaker 35 That took the focus focus over everything. It was YouTube or nothing.
And it's almost as though every decision she made was reliant on what the outcome was going to be with YouTube.

Speaker 35 So that's when he started feeling like his life was scripted and like he just was never in control of anything. And that's also when he started acting out, both at school and at home.

Speaker 35 And then lastly, there's good old Kevin, because he's a lot harder to read, as you will see in here in this video, because it really does seem like he's always choosing his words very carefully, very crafted whenever it comes to, you know, bashing or I guess not bashing Ruby.

Speaker 35 And it's almost like he always has Ruby still in the back of his mind. Still, how's she going to respond to this? Am I saying too much?

Speaker 35 Once she gets released, will she be with me if I speak too freely? Something like that. And again, this is strictly my take on things based on what I'm seeing and what I know so deeply about the case.

Speaker 35 So maybe I'm totally wrong. You tell me if you come to that same conclusion.
So this sort of leads us to the creation of the eight passengers YouTube channel.

Speaker 35 Because Kevin claimed that when Ruby first started picking up the camera and documenting every single thing in their house, in their lives, and turning it into content, that he was really uncomfortable with it.

Speaker 35 But what's crazy is he wasn't uncomfortable because she was documenting the private moments like a child getting their period or a child being punished or a child having their door ripped off their hinges.

Speaker 35 No, he wasn't uncomfortable with the children's faces being shown or all of their personal moments and thoughts and behaviors being exploited.

Speaker 35 he was just uncomfortable because he said it was, quote, awkward for him. Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry it was awkward for you, Kevin. I'm sorry that it was awkward for you.

Speaker 35 So Ruby could put on this mask, honestly, kind of like a trained actress, where she knew the lines that she wanted everyone in her house to say. She knew where she wanted them to all be standing.

Speaker 35 She knew how she wanted them to be dressed, how they should act. But Kevin, he said, you know, for me, it was difficult because I'm not a natural at that.
I'm not, I'm not able to have that vision.

Speaker 35 At least not in the way that Ruby was.

Speaker 35 He says that he would forget his lines, he would forget when he was supposed to interject in conversations and jump in the scene, and that he just couldn't quite figure it out.

Speaker 35 He says, even the times where I did remember that I needed to jump in the scene and say something, it just sounded too scripted. It sounded fake.
It wasn't like a natural flow in the conversation.

Speaker 35 Yet, he still sat next to Ruby, just smiling for the camera, trying to do whatever it was she wanted. Which again, this just ties back into that poster that was inside Ruby's closet.

Speaker 35 He knew what she wanted. He molded himself to fit it.
No questions asked. He was going to do whatever Ruby wanted.

Speaker 35 Now, interestingly enough, Kevin admitted during the first episode of this series that after he saw the paychecks that were coming in and that they were increasingly getting bigger and bigger, he just wanted more.

Speaker 35 He saw green. All he saw was money in his eyes.
He just wanted more of that. Now, their first check was only around $85,

Speaker 35 but month after month, those numbers just started doubling, then tripling, then quadrupling, and then I don't even know what the next word is, but you know what I mean?

Speaker 35 Just snowballing and just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And he then says that sometimes they would bring in as much as six figures a month.
Can you imagine? Six figures a month.

Speaker 35 That is what some people don't even earn in a year, yet they were earning that monthly. So at this point, it's like greed just is tunnel vision.
And it's like, we don't care about our kids.

Speaker 35 We don't care about anything. We need to keep churning out this content because now there's no glass ceiling and we can earn as much as we can possibly make by however much content we put out.

Speaker 40 I haven't decided yet,

Speaker 40 we are live!

Speaker 40 Hi, guys!

Speaker 40 Looks like you just got out of bed.

Speaker 41 Russell just came out of bed to join us.

Speaker 40 Russell's supposed to be in bed, Russell.

Speaker 40 All right, jump up here, my daddy.

Speaker 40 Does it

Speaker 40 flip it like this? No, I don't think so.

Speaker 37 I don't think so. Okay.

Speaker 41 Well, we'll just make do. So we're almost all here except for Eve.

Speaker 37 Eve.

Speaker 40 She's asleep. Eve's asleep.

Speaker 43 I'm not in it.

Speaker 41 So we're excited to have another live YouTube session. So we're going to just shout out and say hi to a few folks as you hop on.

Speaker 40 So hey, Alexi.

Speaker 41 Hey, Candra Skinner.

Speaker 41 Welcome to the session. It's a lot of fun.

Speaker 35 So just like that, he completely changed his tune.

Speaker 35 And now that he saw the money and the amount of money that they had the potential to earn, he went from being, you know, slightly annoyed that Ruby had a camera out and was documenting every single moment, every single interaction, to now making sure that they always caught every single thing that they could on camera and that they could always interject it into their latest vlog.

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 9 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming Manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 14 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 18 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 21 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 23 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 25 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 29 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 18 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 21 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 23 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 25 One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

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Speaker 35 There was another moment in this documentary where I kind of scratched my head almost because Kevin never says or admits that they shouldn't have exploited their kids online for money.

Speaker 35 He never really even says that he believes what they were doing was harmful, which it's like, how can you not come to that conclusion at this point unless you are just so beyond it dense that you can't even have a thought that's clear in your mind?

Speaker 35 But during one of the episodes, he even had the freaking audacity to bring up the fact that if there was anything to do with Chad in the episode or Chad in the thumbnail or the video title, that would perform better when it came to views.

Speaker 35 And that is sick because that tells me that they were watching the analytics, they were gauging the performance and they knew what child performed better over the other.

Speaker 35 And then they would cherry pick that child out and exploit them even further because they knew that that's what the audience wanted.

Speaker 35 And speaking of Chad, people would all the time, very often comment how he was so handsome, how people wanted to marry him, how they had a crush on him.

Speaker 35 And keep in mind, Chad was a minor during all of this at the time so it is beyond gross and just disgusting but instead of ruby or kevin stepping in and seeing that these comments this behavior this fixation and interest on their minor son was gross or predatory they used that knowledge to their advantage they used that information to exploit him In this, Kevin even mentioned that Ruby specifically exploited Chad for views.

Speaker 35 And the interviewer then chimed in and asked if he felt like he had also exploited Chad in all of this. To which finally he did say, Absolutely.

Speaker 37 Who are you texting?

Speaker 43 No one.

Speaker 35 Any girlfriend?

Speaker 37 Whoa, whoa.

Speaker 45 I really like you. I saw you in my dreams last night.

Speaker 45 I'm telling you, it's not her, it was her brother. Look, go down.
She said, I'm so sorry, that was my brother.

Speaker 35 I saw you in my dream last night.

Speaker 37 What else?

Speaker 45 Oh my gosh, sorry, that was my brother.

Speaker 45 What is the

Speaker 46 nature of your relationship with this individual?

Speaker 45 I mean, there's like 300 picks in here.

Speaker 48 Do you like or like her, or do you just like her?

Speaker 46 Is she a new friend?

Speaker 43 That is really, really messy.

Speaker 43 I don't know.

Speaker 48 I saw him with her, and he likes her.

Speaker 46 Does she like you back?

Speaker 35 What I will say is that something something about that specific scene didn't exactly sit right with me personally. Maybe it was his tone of voice, maybe it was his facial expressions.

Speaker 35 I'm not really sure. But to me, he really just did not seem sorry for it.
It did not land. It did not seem authentic to me.

Speaker 35 In my own personal opinion, it sounded very much like he was just kind of admitting, like, yeah, absolutely, to almost like a business model or something so topical and surfacy, something that they had followed for years, not something as serious as the exploitation of their own son who was a minor.

Speaker 35 And this just seemed so different than the solid open stance that Sherry takes against family vlogging and all of the hard and amazing work that she has been doing to raise awareness about how harmful it is for any family vlogging channel and just how hurtful it is to all of the kids, even pre-Jodi and pre-all of her batshit crazy teachings.

Speaker 35 But in the documentary, Kevin just didn't say much about that topic specifically. And it made me wonder: does he regret it? Does he see what he did was wrong?

Speaker 35 Does he wish that his children were not left vulnerable and exposed to millions of people on the internet?

Speaker 48 Okay, so I'm pulling out the camera because Kevin is laughing his head off and he's like, you have to film this story. You have to film it.

Speaker 35 And I'm like, I'm in too nasty of a mood to film it, but

Speaker 48 you're saying it's worth filming.

Speaker 37 Oh,

Speaker 33 anyone who knows Eve has got to hear this story.

Speaker 35 Now, in an effort to be as unbiased as possible and give you the full story, you know, both aligned with what I think and not, after this documentary was filmed, Kevin did end up speaking up about his thoughts and opinions on the family vlogging space.

Speaker 35 And it seems he does have some regrets and also some negative feelings towards it. So that was most recently on February 18th, 2025.

Speaker 49 I have three statements to read.

Speaker 49 One is my own, and two are statements that were prepared and written by two of my minor children at their request. And I will be reading them verbatim to you.

Speaker 49 I'd like to also clarify that these statements went through the process of approval in the juvenile court and the judge agreed that these statements could and should be read to this committee.

Speaker 49 My name is Kevin Franke. I am the father of Sherry Franke and the former husband of Ruby Franke.

Speaker 49 I am a former family vlogger who is intimately familiar with the world of family content creation on social media.

Speaker 49 I have my own story and journey to share when I'm ready, but obviously now is neither the time nor the place to do that. Today I want to be direct and clear.

Speaker 49 Vlogging my family, putting my children into public social media was wrong, and I regret it every day.

Speaker 49 Children cannot give informed consent to be filmed on social media, period.

Speaker 49 If we as adults cannot understand the emotional and psychological impacts of sharing our lives to millions of strangers online, how can we expect our children to understand them?

Speaker 49 Few, if any, legal protections currently exist for those children, and I believe it's time to change that.

Speaker 49 I support Representative Owens's bill, and I believe it to be a great first step towards protecting child influencers here in the state of Utah. And there is much more to do in the future.

Speaker 35 Now, that video alone is probably going to have a lot of different opinions, and I'm honestly curious to know your thoughts on this.

Speaker 35 Do you feel like it was too little, too late, or that he's only sorry because he's been caught?

Speaker 35 Do you think that he is now trying to save a face because he knows that the public probably is not going to receive what he was peddling before so warmly?

Speaker 35 Or do you stand more on the side of better late than never? Like, I'm glad he finally figured it out. We're all capable of growing.

Speaker 35 We're all capable of educating ourselves on topics that maybe we once in the past felt strongly about. As a parent, I just don't really personally allow for that kind of grace.

Speaker 35 I think that you know when you are being a good parent or not from the get-go.

Speaker 35 I don't think that that needs to necessarily be something you should be educated on over time, that you need to grow from being a parent who exploits your child and uses them for money, but maybe I'm too harsh.

Speaker 35 I don't know.

Speaker 35 I'll be honest, it's just really hard for me to ever take things that he says seriously, especially things like he said in that last clip, but then also saying things like what he says in this next clip, where it sounds like he's almost justifying the abuse.

Speaker 46 The things that you see that are concerning in the documentary, such as the sternness, the yelling at the kids, to get them to comply, and the filming, and those kinds of things.

Speaker 46 I think a lot of people that aren't familiar with family content creation would look at that and go, that's horrible. That's abusive.
And it is abusive.

Speaker 46 But what I want people to understand is that was not unique to our family. I don't know a single family content creator that did not have interactions like that with their children.

Speaker 35 And I think what a lot of people have issues with when it comes to Kevin, myself included, is that just because he wasn't present during that year where Ruby was really losing her mind, starting to spiral and physically abusing the youngest two children, it doesn't mean that he wasn't there or present for other very questionable behavior and very, very questionable parenting choices.

Speaker 35 I'll go to the most well-known example and I'm sure you're already going to guess what it is here, but this is when Chad, their son, had his bed taken away from him.

Speaker 48 He's been sleeping on a beanbag side.

Speaker 37 Well, she'd been on a beanbag since October.

Speaker 36 Chad showed that he was not able to manage himself sharing a bedroom with Russell.

Speaker 49 So when we moved,

Speaker 49 The bigger room in the basement was automatically his and I didn't have a room, but we like put put one on hold for me.

Speaker 36 So, a lot of you are like, hey, that's not fair because Chad got the bigger, the lesser bedroom, and Russell got the bigger bedroom.

Speaker 36 Russell got the big bedroom, and Chad got the smaller bedroom. And Russell's bigger bedroom also had a bathroom.
But what you guys didn't know was

Speaker 36 Chad didn't get any room.

Speaker 39 He didn't get anything.

Speaker 36 He was sleeping on the floor in the family room. And he just got the bedroom back.
And it's because he shown up consistently without bullying the kids.

Speaker 35 Here's another example when their youngest daughter would continuously go hungry at school because she would forget to pack her own lunch. As a reminder, a six-year-old child.

Speaker 36 I know that her teacher is uncomfortable with her being hungry and not having a lunch and it would ease her discomfort if I came to the school with a lunch.

Speaker 36 But I responded and just said,

Speaker 36 Eve is responsible for making her lunches in the morning and she actually told me she did pack a lunch.

Speaker 36 So the natural outcome is she's just going to need to be hungry.

Speaker 36 And hopefully, hopefully nobody gives her food and nobody steps in and gives her a lunch.

Speaker 35 Now, yes, Jodi was in the picture at this point. At least she was for that chad incident.
I'm not 100% sure about the lunch situation.

Speaker 35 So sure, you could argue that the weird connections, ideologies, and the cultish mindset was already starting to settle in and that it was starting to take root.

Speaker 35 But regardless, these were parenting moves that Kevin was still present for, that he co-signed on, he enabled, he greenlit it. Like he hadn't left the house yet.
So he was okay with this behavior.

Speaker 35 And that's why it enrages me that he's now trying to get a pass.

Speaker 35 In a recent interview that Chad and Kevin did with People magazine, Kevin even actually brought up the time that Chad didn't have a bed.

Speaker 35 But instead of actually taking accountability or just simply saying like, you know, I really shouldn't have allowed that. That was a big mistake in hindsight.
I can't believe I ever let that happen.

Speaker 35 He just blamed the entire thing on Jody.

Speaker 46 As far as the things like sleeping on a bean bag, removing Chad from sports teams and things, all of those directives came from Jodi,

Speaker 46 the licensed mental health counselor. I definitely voiced my opposition and concern, and it was always flipped back onto me of saying, well, you know, this is why your children are disobedient.

Speaker 46 This is why you're having problems with your children because you just enable them all the time. You're the problem, Kevin.

Speaker 35 Now, look, I don't think that anybody is denying that at some point, Jodi instructed him and Ruby to do these things, especially when it came to Chad, since she was technically his therapist.

Speaker 35 But the problem lies with not just jumping in, not saying, you know, this doesn't feel right. This isn't something that I'm comfortable with doing to my kid.
This doesn't feel good.

Speaker 35 I'm not going to do this. Just because your therapist tells you to take your child's bed away, it doesn't mean that you should do it.

Speaker 35 Just like the age-old saying, if somebody tells you to jump off a bridge, are you going to do it? If a therapist tells you to torture or to ridicule your child, are you going to do it?

Speaker 35 That at what point do you man up as a parent and as a f ⁇ ing man, sorry, excuse my cussing, and realize like and say, no, I'm not going to do that. Like I would never treat my child like that.

Speaker 35 Especially if Kevin was so against it at the time as he claims it's not like she was in their home pointing a gun at them forcing them to do this they did this of their own volition they made these choices they executed these horrific actions when you become a parent it is your duty to step up and advocate for your child not to inflict harm on them and exploit them and it's like these children in my opinion they were failed every step of the way both of these parents equally damaging i don't care if Ruby is the one that was there for more of the physical stuff and when that all went down, in my opinion, Kevin, he is just as responsible.

Speaker 35 If you're not going to stand up and make sure that your kids are protected and safe and happy and healthy, who will? Who do you expect to advocate for your child? Surely not nutjob Jodi.

Speaker 35 Now, when this specific incident was brought up in the documentary, Kevin described at the time feeling persecuted for his parenting style, feeling persecuted for his religious beliefs.

Speaker 35 And his exact words to the viewers, apparently very harsh reactions to the video, were, we saw it as an innocent religious family that's being attacked unjustly by cancel culture.

Speaker 35 And cancel culture is winning. Those were his exact words.
His exact words, like,

Speaker 35 give me a break. You're sad fishing.
You are not taking accountability. You're pointing the finger at everybody else.
Like, it enrages me.

Speaker 35 Now, remember, those were the things that were going on in his mind at the time. So the interviewer even asked if he felt now that the people's reactions were justified.
And his response, sure.

Speaker 35 That's it. Not, yeah, you know what? They were justified.
And I wish that I had listened at the time. And in hindsight, I wish I could have gone back and I would have listened.
They were right.

Speaker 35 And I should have had, but it should have been more eye-opening to me. And that they were seeing something that I, unfortunately, at the time couldn't see or refuse to see.

Speaker 35 But instead, he just says, sure, sure, they were justified. Like, like so casual, so casual, like it's not a big deal.

Speaker 35 So very similarly to the topic of family vlogging in general, my question with that is, does he actually regret any of it? Or does he just know what people want him to say?

Speaker 35 I mean, this is for each and every one of you to decide. Now, there is one more thing I want to mention about Kevin pre-leving the house.

Speaker 35 I have a lot more to mention, but this is about Kevin before he left the house, and it really stuck out to me.

Speaker 35 At the end of the first episode, there's a very interesting conversation that is brought up about whether or not Kevin ever actually saw Ruby physically or verbally abuse any of the children in their home.

Speaker 35 And he straight up said, I had no idea that this is what was going on in my family. That is a direct quote.

Speaker 35 And I'll be honest, it's going to be a little bit hard for me to not get angry or share my opinion about that because right after he said this, the clip then jumped to Sherry, where she says that she tried to help her brother Chad whenever he would get in trouble or whenever he got hit, and that she would try to help him as best as she could.

Speaker 35 And she said that sometimes sometimes all she knew that she could do was get him toilet paper if his nose was bleeding, and that she could just offer him comfort and be there for him.

Speaker 35 Another time she said that she helped him clean his blood off of a wall after a very intense beating. And remember, this was all before Jodi ever moved in, pre-Kevin not seeing his kids for a year.

Speaker 35 So it was well before the younger kids had apparently turned into demons who were possessed and way before Kevin, Sherry, and Chad were all kicked out of the house.

Speaker 35 So I find it pretty damn hard to believe that his oldest daughter, who is, of course, obviously much younger than him, that she remembers multiple instances of having to intervene and step in and clean blood off of the walls and blood off of her brother's face or comfort her brother and remembers all of these surroundings in vivid detail, yet he had no idea that any of it was going on.

Speaker 35 The math, a math, and it does not equate. It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 35 He can also be heard in the background of videos where Ruby is yelling and where she's she's being just incredibly harsh toward her kids. Yet, he claims he had no idea that any of this was going on.

Speaker 37 Sit down right here.

Speaker 35 Set her down on the flipping couch.

Speaker 35 He was there during the times that Ruby would post parenting tips and different parenting guides that are incredibly concerning, yet he apparently had no idea that these things were going on.

Speaker 36 This is what love sounds like. When you see someone hurting, you acknowledge the hurt.
If your kid came to you on fire, fire, would you say, I'm so glad you trusted me to tell me you're on fire?

Speaker 36 But if I put out the fire, that's going to really hurt and you're going to end up with scabs anyway.

Speaker 37 So I'm just going to love you where you are right now.

Speaker 36 No, you throw them on the ground and you start rolling them. You get a blanket and you start hitting the flames.
And they're going to say, you're hurting me. You're beating me.
You're controlling.

Speaker 36 It's like, no, dear, hold still. I'm getting the fire out.
That's what a loving parent does. And because nobody will do it, it looks to the world crazy.

Speaker 36 And because they've never been loved before, it looks like I'm angry. To them, it looks like I'm controlling.
It looks like I'm militant. It looks like I'm a monster.
It looks like I'm mean.

Speaker 36 It looks like I'm full of hate. It looks like I'm not accepting it because they don't know what love looks like or sounds like.

Speaker 35 So this is something that he has seemed willing to die on that hill about.

Speaker 46 A lot of the physical violence that was described was hidden and kept for me. I didn't even know that those things happened.
And I think Ruby was really careful to hide a lot of that from me.

Speaker 35 Again, that's for you to decide. This is just my opinion.
And maybe you really do believe that he has somehow had no idea about any of this as it was going on. And that's totally fine.

Speaker 35 Maybe I'm just more skeptical because It just doesn't make sense to me. How could you not know?

Speaker 35 I think it's way more likely that you knew and you were a witness to this, but your bank account was growing and so you chose to look the other way. That's my personal opinion.

Speaker 35 I think that the content was good enough, the paychecks were good enough, so why stop it? That's my opinion.

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Speaker 35 So now we're caught up to when the 8 Passengers YouTube channel was created. But I want to get us to when Jodi became more heavily involved in the Frankie family dynamic.

Speaker 35 Because the documentary and even the interviews that Kevin did within this documentary really start to point to this huge shift, describing it as almost a pre- and post-cancellation for that Chad video.

Speaker 35 And instead of taking constructive criticism or feedback from their viewers after a lot of people saw this huge issue with how Chad was being treated, they just kind of doubled down on all of this.

Speaker 35 They treated this criticism as people who just didn't understand, who didn't agree with their parenting methods, and who just didn't understand that this was the right approach, although it was super harsh, Kevin included.

Speaker 53 There's so many culturalisms today that

Speaker 53 are being just

Speaker 33 promoted and celebrated and

Speaker 53 taught from the highest towers in every part of the land.

Speaker 53 And some of these parenting isms, these culturalisms that have contaminated parenting are things like beliefs that it's my job to make my kids happy.

Speaker 36 Give them a magical childhood.

Speaker 53 It's my job to give my child a magical childhood. It's my job to make my children smile and laugh.

Speaker 53 It's my job to make my children successful.

Speaker 53 It's my job to prevent my children from having pain, right? All of these, they all come from the same place.

Speaker 49 And it all comes from this belief, this distorted belief, that

Speaker 53 I can measure my worth as an individual by how I parent and I can judge how good of a parent I am by how my children turn out.

Speaker 53 And there is not a greater untruth than that. That leads to so much pain.
That leads to so much resentment on the part of the parent to the child and the part of the child to the parent.

Speaker 35 And instead of stepping away from Jodi or lessening her therapy sessions with Chad until they could decide on a different route of treatment, Jodi's involvement just increased.

Speaker 35 Chad was seeing her multiple times a week, and Kevin was also at the same time attending this men's group session every week with Jodi.

Speaker 35 And Ruby, of course, well, we know she was just turning in and morphing into this little like Jodi Hildebrandt prodigy, just terrifying, this little evil culty dictator.

Speaker 35 And these men's group sessions were just yet another time when Kevin was actively molding himself to whatever Ruby wanted.

Speaker 35 He said that Jodi would praise him in front of all the other men and that he knew that the praise would get back to Ruby.

Speaker 35 And so he loved the idea that he just wanted to be a a perfect little puppy dog on his best behavior, listening to Jodi, wagging his tail, doing everything she said.

Speaker 35 Because, ooh, if I do everything I say, I'll get a treat. And Jodi will go tell Ruby that I was a good doggy.
So I want to make sure that Ruby knows I'm a good doggy.

Speaker 35 And like, I know that that sounds so cringe and juvenile, but like, that's literally what this was. He is such a sad sack of garbage, in my opinion.
Like, grow backbone, grow ball sack, be a man.

Speaker 35 Like, this is so embarrassing. And

Speaker 35 it would be even more pathetic than embarrassing if it wasn't so dangerous. And what he allowed, in my opinion, to go on and go down in that house.

Speaker 35 So, he said that during this time in particular, while he was doing these little, you know, men's sessions, barking at every single need that Jodi and Ruby were throwing at him, his relationship with Ruby, of course, just grew stronger.

Speaker 35 She was finally seeing him the way he always wanted her to. He was finally getting the accolades and the attention of beautiful Ruby, you know, perfect Ruby on a pedestal.

Speaker 35 The validation that he was receiving from Jodi and Ruby both, that was his literal drive for attending these men's sessions and for getting more involved in connections.

Speaker 56 Hi, we're here at Mann School in St. George, Utah.
These are two of these lovely men. Kevin just got done giving a talk about from cuddle to cradle.

Speaker 56 And we're here together with about 40, 45 men who are interested in learning how to connect.

Speaker 56 And you probably don't know this, but in order to be able to connect, you have to live three principles. They are being honest, responsible, and humble.
And so these men have

Speaker 56 pretty much perfected, right, guys? Perfected.

Speaker 56 Living.

Speaker 56 Here's the advantage of here's the denigration. That's right.
That's right.

Speaker 56 Living honest, responsible, and humble. That's what we're all practicing so we can have relationships of connection.
So Kevin just gave this amazing talk about coddled.

Speaker 56 Can you share a little bit about what that is?

Speaker 50 Yeah, we focused a lot and had a great discussion with the men here about the principles of self-reliance and about responsibility and being able to not run away from responsibility but to embrace it and to accept it because those responsibilities are exactly what will lead you to greater connection and happiness

Speaker 35 so he got deeper and deeper into the cult that is connections the documentary talked a lot about how jodi and her teachings had all of the typical characteristics of a cult too, which definitely wasn't really unknown before this documentary came out, but I think we all have long suspected it was a cult, but it was nice to hear from some of the people that were on the other side of things, you know, closely working within connections as well.

Speaker 35 One member even said in the documentary that she really believed at the time that Jodi was God.

Speaker 35 Feels very reminiscent of Chad Daybell, doesn't it? And Chad even said basically the exact same thing in a newer interview with Good Morning America.

Speaker 42 Looking back, I treated her as a god, and I I trusted her so much and thought that she was someone that was chosen, someone that was special.

Speaker 35 I mean, it's hard to not say that that is a cult through and through, especially with that kind of information. Jodi was incredibly convincing.

Speaker 35 She made you feel like you were doing the right thing, and she encouraged you to isolate yourself from anybody who didn't agree with the teachings or those way because, you know, as Scientologists say, I think it's you're a suppressed being.

Speaker 35 She said that you are living in distortion or in untruth or whatever she said.

Speaker 35 It's like this perfect cult-like mentality concoction, just the perfect recipe to isolate somebody and to cut them off from everyone.

Speaker 35 Now, skipping ahead a little bit, I want to talk about the moment that Kevin decided to leave because this is another really huge part in this entire story.

Speaker 35 We're already familiar with all the things that happened in between, right? Jodi got possessed, she moved in with them, Ruby started sleeping with Jodi to apparently keep the demons away.

Speaker 35 She would come out of the room, you know,

Speaker 35 under a love spell, candles lit, sweaty, hair a mess, just,

Speaker 35 you know, awful. And I'm going to use my words really carefully here, but me saying that he decided to leave is pretty purposeful.
He did choose to leave.

Speaker 35 Yes, Ruby told him he needed to pack his bags. He needed to go.
He needed to get out, but he's an adult. He's the husband.
He's the father. He had free will.

Speaker 35 At any moment, he could have said, Ruby, you're insane if you think that I'm going to move out of this house that we bought together. You're insane if you think I'm going to leave the children.

Speaker 35 You're insane if you think I'm going to stop talking to them. He could have decided that it was the last straw and that he was going to be done with them and actually be a parent, but he didn't.

Speaker 35 He chose not to. He chose, once again, wag his little tail, put it between his legs, do whatever boss Lady Ruby wants him to do because he always wants to be in her good graces.

Speaker 35 And I feel more sympathy for Chad and Sherry being excommunicated from the family because they were still basically kids themselves.

Speaker 35 Nothing that was happening to them or that had ever happened to them was ever of their own free will. They had no no choice in who their parents were.

Speaker 35 They weren't able to just be like, screw this, this is crazy, I'm out. They didn't have the same luxuries that Kevin did.
And Kevin was the adult. He should have made those decisions.
Tough decisions?

Speaker 35 Sure. It wouldn't be very tough for me, but let's chalk it up to, okay, maybe it was a tough decision to make.
That is what you have to do when you are a grown-up, Kevin.

Speaker 35 You have to make the tough decisions to protect your children. So Kevin had the choice, and he made his choice.
He did what Ruby said.

Speaker 35 And this is despite a very heartbreaking moment, which he described, where one of his younger children was sobbing in his arms, hugging him, pleading with their eyes, because they were fearful that if they used their words and verbalized their fear that they would get in trouble, so sobbing and pleading with their eyes not to do this, not to leave them.

Speaker 35 And he left anyway. Even when he was out of Ruby's watchful eye and now living on his own, he still chose to ignore Sherry and Chad, who he knew were out on their own as well.

Speaker 35 It wasn't like they were locked up with Ruby and he couldn't contact them. He just chose not to.

Speaker 35 When Sherry tried to talk to him and when she tried to reach out, he blocked her with seemingly no second thoughts, no remorse, no question about it, just blocked, blocking my own kids.

Speaker 35 And that's not even under the direction of Ruby anymore. That is an independent choice that he made.

Speaker 35 Now, I know I sound like a broken record and I need to like get it together, but I cannot even just for a second imagine putting myself in Kevin's shoes and doing the things that he did.

Speaker 35 It is baffling to me. And I'm not the most perfect person in the world.
Trust me, I'm not.

Speaker 35 But the idea of blocking one of my children when they're trying to get in touch with me and not talk to them, not reach out, not make sure they're okay, it makes me sick to my stomach.

Speaker 35 His children were excommunicated from their family, alone in the world, lost, scared, trying to figure out who loved them, who cared about them, who was there to help them. And he

Speaker 35 blocked her. It makes me sick.

Speaker 35 So Kevin mentioned in the documentary that even though he was sad about this and even though he didn't quote love the idea of it, he did it because he was terrified of Ruby asking for a divorce.

Speaker 35 So once again, you will cut off your children because you're scared of Ruby, because you don't want precious Ruby to not be in love with you anymore.

Speaker 35 It's like you are the biggest twerpey, nothing bag of just garbage in the world. Like again, I've said it before, grow a backbone.
Like you're so embarrassing. It's so embarrassing and pathetic.

Speaker 35 He just completely put his trust in Ruby and Jodi. And those are words that have come from his own deadbeat mouth.

Speaker 38 How could you have left your family?

Speaker 55 The bottom line is that I was

Speaker 54 choosing to trust a licensed professional mental health counselor and my wife.

Speaker 58 And they gave some terrible counsel.

Speaker 35 Again, molding himself to who Ruby wanted him to be. She didn't want him to be the the husband who questioned her authority or undermined her rules and her boundaries.

Speaker 35 She didn't want him to have his own feelings or opinions on how they parented, how they shared their children. She wanted a husband who obeyed her.
So he just did that. He became that.

Speaker 35 Now, obviously, I think it's clear where my feelings lie with all of this, but I am trying to be as fair as possible.

Speaker 35 So there was a moment in the documentary that Kevin did admit that he does feel guilty for leaving his kids behind like that because he knows that he was, as in his words, he said, quote, their last line of defense.

Speaker 35 Which am I glad that he admitted to that and hopefully truly does feel that way? Of course.

Speaker 35 Does that kind of seem like the bare minimum in the grand scheme of things when you find out that you could have avoided and saved your children from being literally starved, duct taped, and chained to walls because they were, quote, demons in your wife's eyes?

Speaker 35 I don't really know about that.

Speaker 35 Towards the end of the documentary, there was a point when Kevin talked about the moment that his eyes were finally opened to the fact that he was in a cult, that he had been brainwashed, and that what happened to his kids really actually happened.

Speaker 35 And I want to go over that quickly because it leads into something to this day that has stuck with me and has been one of my bigger issues that I take up with Kevin.

Speaker 35 Sometime after Ruby and Jodi's arrests, Chad and Kevin had apparently began texting back and forth.

Speaker 35 Chad had basically reached out saying he saw the news, he was confused, he didn't know who to talk to, he was trying to get some clarity as to what was going on.

Speaker 35 So Kevin told him that he was going to go over to the house that following day to check things out and for Chad to meet him there so that they could talk.

Speaker 35 Now, even though I don't know the exact day that this happened, it was after the arrests, and that is key.

Speaker 35 This was after Kevin had heard the conditions that his kids were living in and all of the things that they had faced. It was after he had full knowledge of the situation.

Speaker 35 And he describes that before he stepped foot into that house, he didn't really believe any of it.

Speaker 35 Just like when people were commenting about Chad and all of those things, he felt like the police were setting him up or that it was all fake or it was orchestrated or whatever.

Speaker 35 But he claimed that when he saw that the house was a complete mess inside, the gears in his brain started turning.

Speaker 35 He was slowly realizing, walking room to room, that none of that correlated with the ruby that he was picturing in his mind.

Speaker 35 Then one of the neighbors, a couple that they had come to know and like since living in that neighborhood, they came over and they ended up staying up with Kevin for six hours, answering any and all of his questions, just giving him all of the details.

Speaker 35 So at this point, it's like he's armed with information from the neighbors, he's seeing the house, he's hearing from the police different things.

Speaker 35 He has a full comprehensive picture of what was going on in that house and just how bad this had become. These neighbors even described what the kids were like after he left.

Speaker 35 They told him about all of the times that they called CPS when the kids were seen in the window, seemingly left home alone for days on end.

Speaker 35 And it again was apparently after talking with them that he had this great revelation of everything.

Speaker 35 However, let's not forget what happened two days after Ruby's arrest. Because Sherry had gone back into the home and she had taken a bunch of electronics.

Speaker 35 She took passports, electronics, but when Kevin found out about this, he tried to have Sherry arrested for burglary.

Speaker 35 According to the incident report, Sherry had taken three tablets, three cell phones, three cameras, written journals from the family members, and three passports.

Speaker 35 Now, I've always held the belief that Sherry was probably doing this to protect her siblings. I truly believe that.
She is the only one who has denounced what Ruby has done from basically the get-go.

Speaker 35 So I think that she was probably terrified that Kevin hadn't changed and that she knew deep down that he would probably do whatever it took to protect Ruby, hiding these tablets, hiding the hard drives, hiding passports, whatever it may be.

Speaker 35 Maybe she was worried that he was even going to wipe the devices of any possible evidence of abuse throughout the years. I don't know.

Speaker 35 But despite everything that Sherry went through, she always had her siblings' best interest in mind.

Speaker 35 And at the end of the day, all she wanted to do was prove that they were never truly truly safe in Ruby's care.

Speaker 35 Kevin, on the other hand, had only proved to her time and time again that he would follow Ruby's request no matter what they were. No questions asked.
It was Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.

Speaker 35 So Sherry did end up having to return all of that property, but no charges were ever brought against her.

Speaker 35 And watching the body cam footage of Kevin angry that his daughter wasn't going to get arrested, no,

Speaker 35 no.

Speaker 35 No charges were ever brought against her, which good. There shouldn't have been charges.
He never should have tried to have her arrested for burglary.

Speaker 35 She was trying to help her siblings, the kids that he never did help, even despite having a full picture of what had happened to them, which again makes me question how authentic he's being now with his remorse and, you know, trying to say he wants all the kids in his custody.

Speaker 35 I think it's more of a saving face thing. And I think it's because he thinks so it will make Ruby happy.

Speaker 35 And I say this because watching the body cam footage of Kevin getting angry that his daughter Sherry wasn't going to get arrested. To this day, this footage still makes me angry.

Speaker 59 There you go.

Speaker 37 Is it all there?

Speaker 59 Explain to me again why this was not robbery.

Speaker 39 Because it's a civil issue.

Speaker 59 It's you guys are family. She's been in the house before.
You haven't been in the house in a year.

Speaker 59 She had interest in the items. She didn't take them with the intention to deprive you of them.
Soft, that's the theft code. We have to prove intent to deprive you of the items.

Speaker 59 And that wasn't her intent in having them. So the detective sergeant said that we're not going to charge her for anything.

Speaker 37 Okay.

Speaker 49 I'll have to do some more research on that.

Speaker 59 You're welcome to do that. If you want to follow up with our detective yourself.

Speaker 59 okay. Yeah, he'll be here on Tuesday.
His name's Sergeant McCoy.

Speaker 35 I feel like I'm going to get mad all over again. She is your daughter.
She is the only one in your family who is trying to protect your children.

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Speaker 35 So, my biggest unanswered question is that I really am curious when this, you know, no pun intended, when this come to Jesus moment happened for Kevin.

Speaker 35 Because if he's claiming the day after the arrests that he realized his wrongdoings, but then the following day he was still actively trying to protect Ruby and was yet again choosing her over his own children, then I'm calling bullshit.

Speaker 35 I'm calling bullshit on the entire story. Or maybe the incident with Sherry happened and then a day or two later, Kevin had this come to Jesus moment and realized all of his wrongdoings.

Speaker 35 I don't really know.

Speaker 35 It would make a lot more sense, I guess, if that were the timeline, but it's of course not something that is being talked about or publicized, but it's something that's been stuck in my mind for the last year or so, and it isn't leaving anytime soon.

Speaker 35 Regardless of the timeline, though, this specific incident has always been a massive red flag to me because it is such a raw moment that clearly shows Kevin's feelings post-arrest.

Speaker 35 No matter what day it ended up being, it doesn't matter to me. It's post-arrest and you are still choosing Ruby over your children.

Speaker 35 It's also a moment when all of those excuses of not knowing what was going on in the house, not knowing how they were being treated, you know, not knowing what was going on while you were out of the house for a year, all those excuses evaporate in my mind because now you do know.

Speaker 35 You do know what was going on and you're still. choosing the wrong road ahead.
You're like, you're still choosing to protect Ruby.

Speaker 35 So there's not a whole lot for him to lean back on. He was made aware in graphic detail of why Ruby was arrested and why he couldn't just pick up the kids and go home.

Speaker 35 But he was still seemingly protecting her. Even when he was told that his son was found emaciated, he still was protecting her.

Speaker 35 The contrast in general between Sherry and Kevin is one that has to be noted because Sherry didn't care what crap Jodi was spitting and spewing.

Speaker 35 She didn't care that Ruby told her not to contact any of her family members. She was working with the neighbors constantly just to get an idea of how her siblings were doing.

Speaker 35 She was calling CPS time and time again.

Speaker 35 She was trying to get in contact with both Kevin and Chad, hoping that they would feel the same way that she felt that they needed to intervene and help the rest of the kids.

Speaker 35 But she was blocked by her own dad. She was in the exact same situation that Kevin had been.
She had been just as involved with Ruby and Jodi. Jodi was her therapist at one time, too.

Speaker 35 None of that mattered, though. She knew the difference between right and wrong, and she loved her siblings so much that she didn't care who got pissed off in the process.

Speaker 35 She was going to do the right thing. And I'm not at all saying that Kevin doesn't love his children.
But why was it possible for Sherry to do all of this and not Kevin?

Speaker 35 I think maybe he does love them in some ass backwards way, but I think he loves Ruby more. 100%, I think that.
And that is, arguably, if he loves his children authentically and genuinely at all.

Speaker 35 Kevin has even felt the need to comment on people's criticism, but it still doesn't really answer my question.

Speaker 46 I think it's relatively easy for somebody out there who's, you know, armchairing this and looking at this experience going, well, why didn't he just do that? I would have done that.

Speaker 46 If, you know, it was day number one and Jodi came to me and said, yeah, you know, you're selfish. You need to go into separation and repent.

Speaker 46 I would have told her to take a hike.

Speaker 46 I would have been like, you're crazy.

Speaker 46 And I did. I did say that in the first time I was introduced to Jodi's program.
But you have to remember, and these individuals have to remember, that this was now, you know, I was

Speaker 46 two and a half years in this program now. And Jodi doesn't start from day one saying stuff like that.
She gets her hooks into you and slowly begins to

Speaker 46 indoctrinate you and condition you to believe things about yourself

Speaker 46 and to

Speaker 46 willingly give power to other people because you come to believe that

Speaker 46 you yourself aren't capable of making good decisions.

Speaker 46 When that was suggested to me after all of that indoctrinating and conditioning, at the time it seemed like, oh, you're right, okay.

Speaker 46 But, you know, again, I understand for somebody who wasn't in it that it would seem strange. There was that coercion and flipping it back onto me, the gaslighting, that I was like, okay, well,

Speaker 47 maybe I am wrong. Maybe

Speaker 46 this is the right way to parent.

Speaker 35 Now, the very end of the documentary, it directly ties into Kevin's recent media presence, as well as his feelings on everything that is happening in general.

Speaker 35 During the last few minutes of the series, Chad, Sherry, and Kevin are all seen separately holding what I would assume to be a producer's phone, and on this phone, it has an old video of the family where things seemed not as scripted as they normally were.

Speaker 35 It seemed more authentic. And just like in the beginning, when they all had something different to say about when Ruby changed, their reactions were all different here too.

Speaker 35 Sherry said she doesn't care about how many times Ruby reaches out or what she even does in life. She will never talk to her again.

Speaker 35 That ship has 100% sailed for Sherry, and I applaud and commend her for that. Chad's reaction was similar, but with a little bit more nostalgia mixed in.

Speaker 35 He said that he missed those happy times way, way back and missed having a mother figure in general.

Speaker 35 And you could tell that he knows that the Ruby that he remembers from when he was a small kid is not the same Ruby who is in jail.

Speaker 35 And then there's Kevin's reaction, and his reaction was something else because his exact words were, the actions she did are atrocious, but I still feel a longing. I miss her.

Speaker 35 It is easy for the world to hate that woman, and so many people want me to join in that chorus, and I cannot turn off all of those other memories.

Speaker 35 Which I could say, I could lie to you and say I'm surprised, and I can't believe he said something like that and had the audacity to say that, but I'm really not surprised. It really doesn't shock me.

Speaker 35 He has 100% stood on still loving Ruby. Allegedly, though, not agreeing with her or the things that she's done, but still loving her.

Speaker 55 And I have regrets, and I wish that I hadn't done those things.

Speaker 58 Do you still love her?

Speaker 55 I do.

Speaker 55 I don't think I'll ever stop loving her.

Speaker 58 Does that mean that I want to let her back into my life, let her back into my kids' lives? Absolutely not.

Speaker 35 And I'm honestly glad that Kevin brought that up because a lot of people have this conspiracy theory that this is all just for show.

Speaker 35 People are questioning whether or not Kevin is actually being truthful when he says he doesn't want Ruby back in his life or his kids' lives.

Speaker 35 And for the sake of those poor kids, I really hope and pray to literally whatever higher power is listening that he is telling the truth.

Speaker 35 And that if she is released, he will not allow her back in their lives. Because remember, her sentence could be as little as four years.
It hasn't been determined yet.

Speaker 35 So my gut feeling, and I really hope I'm wrong, if she is released that early, which I don't think she will be, but if she is, I think he would a thousand percent allow her back.

Speaker 35 I think he would bring her back around the kids in no time at all, even if she, and let's just say, even if she was changed and saw the light and no longer was a threat, wasn't going to hurt her children, no longer had contact with Jodi.

Speaker 35 And he's like, you know, come back into the fold, come back into the family. I think he would do that despite whatever post-traumatic stress that inflicted or caused his children.

Speaker 35 Surely to be closely involved with her again or living under the same roof as her would be traumatic and scary, but I don't think he would even give that a second thought.

Speaker 35 I don't think he would care because if Ruby wants to be back in the house, Ruby's going to be back in the house and he wants to do whatever he can to make her happy.

Speaker 35 Like I've mentioned in my other videos and other episodes covering the most recent updates with this case, Sherry wrote in her book that she is working on her relationship with her dad, Kevin.

Speaker 35 And I just hope for her sake that continuing her relationship with him is her moving forward and healing her, not holding her back, not trying to cater to what he needs, especially since their truths are just so much different from one another.

Speaker 39 When I was younger, around like five, six, like Ruby was really physical.

Speaker 39 Like, you know, whether it was like a slap to the lip or slap to the cheek, when I would practice the piano, you know, like her hand would slam and like, it was really scary.

Speaker 54 Choosing to trust a licensed professional mental health counselor and my wife. And they gave some terrible counsel.

Speaker 55 And I have regrets, and I wish that I hadn't done those things.

Speaker 58 Do you still love her?

Speaker 55 I do.

Speaker 47 I don't think I'll ever stop loving her.

Speaker 55 Does that mean that I want to let her back into my life, let her back into my kids' lives?

Speaker 58 Absolutely not.

Speaker 32 Both Ruby and Jody pleaded guilty to four counts of child abuse against Ruby's two youngest children and could serve up to 30 years in prison.

Speaker 32 Kevin, recently speaking at a Utah State House hearing advocating for child protections around family blogging, reading a letter from his 11-year-old daughter.

Speaker 54 I feel like my mom used me for money.

Speaker 38 What do you want people to know?

Speaker 57 There is real danger.

Speaker 35 I mean, I guess smacking and slapping a six-year-old and that being considered criminal, I guess it just really depends on the person you ask, as far as Kevin is concerned.

Speaker 35 I thought it was black and white, but apparently not to him.

Speaker 37 How do you make sense of all this?

Speaker 55 Of what's happened to you all?

Speaker 47 This really is a story of love.

Speaker 37 Of hope.

Speaker 37 Of family.

Speaker 35 I'm sorry. A story of love? A story of hope? Are you out of your mind? What are you even talking about? This is not a story of love.
This is nothing even coming close to a story of love.

Speaker 35 And I'm honestly just curious to hear where you guys stand on everything. Do you think that having to live with his choices is punishment enough for Kevin?

Speaker 35 Or are you somebody who feels like Kevin just got away with way too much, that he hasn't taken a shred of accountability and that he hasn't had any repercussions for his role that he played in all of this?

Speaker 35 Some people have been quick to forgive, but some of us just aren't so sure yet. Myself included here.

Speaker 35 I think that this is all performative. That is what my gut tells me.

Speaker 35 I hope I'm wrong, but I don't believe this is genuine because his whole track record has a history of showing him choosing Ruby over everybody else, him being performative, him making these choices, being complicit, co-signing, endorsing it, enabling it.

Speaker 35 I think now he's just scared because it's public, it's out there, he doesn't want the public backlash, and he doesn't want to be like tied in with Ruby and Jodi because obviously they're so hated by the world.

Speaker 35 What do you think? I don't know. Are we in agreement on this? Or am I like on my own island over here just being like, this guy's the scum of the earth and still needs to grow a sack of balls?

Speaker 35 I don't know. Let me know what you guys think.
If there are any more updates in this case, I will be sure to keep you updated.

Speaker 35 But I just, after my last episode, I had to come on here and do this because I saw there were a lot of you in the comments who have a very similar mentality about this whole situation like me when it comes to Kevin.

Speaker 35 And so I felt, you know, we, he deserves his own episode. We got to really show all the inconsistencies and really outline it.

Speaker 35 What was his role, even though now he's trying to pretend that he wasn't involved and that, you know, he didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 35 Like, no, bro, I'm going to call your bluff and I'm going to put it out there and I'm going to show everybody you did know. You were complicit.
You

Speaker 35 co-signed it and like, you're gross. So I don't know.
Let me know what you guys think. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Serialously With Me.

Speaker 35 I will be back with you very, very soon with a brand new episode. If you're not following the podcast yet, make sure you take two seconds to do that so you don't miss these updates as I drop them.

Speaker 35 And if you are watching this on YouTube, take a second, subscribe to the YouTube channel. That way you will not miss the video version of these updates.
All right.

Speaker 35 Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Until the next one, say it with me.
Don't join a cult. Be nice.
Don't kill people. And definitely, definitely, definitely do not join connections.

Speaker 35 All right, guys. Thanks so much.
Bye.

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