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25th March 2024
02:54pm GMT
Last month, disgraced YouTuber Ruby Franke was found guilty of abusing her children.
Following her trial, Franke was given a maximum sentence and will likely spend up to 30 years in prison.
The mum was sentenced to four prison terms of one and 15 years each on aggravated child abuse charges.
The court was told that her children were living in “concentration-camp-like settings”.
The children were “regularly denied food, water, beds to sleep in, and virtually all forms of entertainment”.
They were also severely malnourished when they escaped.
Franke reportedly kept a journal with records of the horrifying abuse.
According to a recent report by ABC, Franke wrote about how her children had demons.
In one entry, obtained by the Washington County Attorney’s Office, Franke wrote about her son.
“R was told to stand in the sun w/his sun hat. He is defiant. ... R, or I should say his demon, stays in the shade. I push R into the sun. R comes back. I come back with a cactus poker. When I poke his back to get in the sun R doesn’t even flinch. I poke him on the neck. He is in a trance & doesn’t appear to feel anything. Jodi taps him on the cheeks to wake him up."
The prosecutor believes both Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt believed the children were full of evil spirits.
The prosecutor also said they were trying to "cast the evil spirits out of their bodies".
"The women appeared to fully believe that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined ‘sins’ and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies," they wrote.
Franke's children were kept in “concentration-camp-like settings”.
Her six children were taken into care following her arrest in December.
Her son managed to escape their home before his mother noticed. He then alerted his neighbour and asked them to take him to the nearest police station.
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