‘Truly jaw-dropping’: astonishing true-crime show Devil in the Family is next-level TV

The shocking tale of a Mormon family YouTuber who was imprisoned for child abuse distils thousands of hours of footage to genuinely push the story forward. It’s as sensitive as it is out-there

Ruby Franke turned her life into content for years, so there is a bleak irony in her content being repurposed now to reveal the extent of her crimes. As a vlogger, she and her husband, Kevin, made a living from YouTube, posting videos on the popular channel 8 Passengers, now defunct, about Mormon family life and parenting their six children in the picturesque city of Springville, Utah. But in 2023 Franke was arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse and sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. The astonishing three-part documentary Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke tells the story, from the beginning of the family’s internet fame in 2015 all the way to Franke’s imprisonment.

It starts with the now infamous and distressing doorbell-camera footage of one of the Franke children, a 12-year-old boy – the documentary blurs the faces of the four youngest children and does not name them – who turns up on a neighbour’s porch, asking to be taken to the nearest police station. He is evidently injured and emaciated. Later, we see more from that day and witness the neighbour sobbing when he realises the state the child is in. The boy has escaped imprisonment from the house of a woman called Jodi Hildebrandt. It is the spark that lights the inferno.

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