Newly released video shows the malnourished son of a parenting advice YouTuber approaching a neighbor for help on the morning that his mother and her business partner were arrested on child abuse charges.

The malnourished and badly bruised son of a parenting advice YouTuber politely asks a neighbor to take him to the nearest police station in newly released video from the day his mother and her business partner were arrested on child abuse charges in southern Utah.

The 12-year-old son of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed advice to millions via a popular YouTube channel, had escaped through a window and approached several nearby homes until someone answered the door, according to documents released Friday by the Washington County Attorney’s office.

Crime scene photos, body camera video and interrogation tapes were released a month after Franke and business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, a mental health counselor, were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. A police investigation determined religious extremism motivated the women to inflict horrific abuse on Franke’s children, Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke announced Friday.

“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,” Clarke said.

  • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 months ago

    Um, every nation on the face of this planet has endured a genocide by Christian missionaries. Christians spent the better part of 2000 years slaughtering, plundering, torturing, and force converting every lower tech civilization they encountered. There is no organization in existence which has ever done greater harm to humanity.

    But we don’t want to kill you. We want to convince you all to stop. Stop believing you were ever a force for good. Stop hurting everyone around you out of self-righteous delusion. Stop believing a bunch of bronze age middle eastern mystical bullshit. We live in the modern world, and we know better than they did.