Latest / Rachel Oates / Ruby Franke's Daughter Reveals All In New Book

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Ruby Franke's Daughter Reveals All In New Book · Rachel Oates

• 0:00
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to a new video.
• 0:01
  Today's video topic is going to be a little bit different and a
• 0:04
  little bit hard for some of you because we're not doing a kind
• 0:07
  of regular book review where I critique something and kind of
• 0:10
  pick it apart and try and be constructive with it.
• 0:12
  But instead I have a lot of really positive things to say
• 0:14
  about this book. We are going to be looking at
• 0:16
  and reviewing the book The House of My Mother, A Daughter's Quest
• 0:19
  for Freedom by Cheri Frankie, who is the eldest daughter of
• 0:23
  Ruby Frankie of eight passengers.
• 0:25
  This is kind of a bit of a follow up to the past videos.
• 0:28
  I think I made two of them on the Ruby Frankie and Jodie
• 0:31
  Hildebrand situation. So please be aware going in that
• 0:34
  we are going to be discussing some really difficult topics
• 0:37
  surrounding children today. So please use your best
• 0:41
  judgement before watching the rest of the video.
• 0:42
  And you are more than welcome to skip if it's something that you
• 0:46
  don't feel you can handle listening to it this time.
• 0:49
  You know, that's absolutely fair.
• 0:51
  Well, I know it's a really hard topic.
• 0:52
  I do think it's important to keep talking about these topics
• 0:55
  that are a little bit difficult because they can be helpful,
• 0:58
  they can be educational, they can be comforting to other
• 1:00
  people and letting them know that you're not alone, you're
• 1:02
  not the only one going through this.
• 1:04
  I think the topic needs to be discussed with care and
• 1:08
  compassion and kindness. But I do think it's important to
• 1:11
  keep talking about it, to keep raising awareness, to educate
• 1:14
  people on what these situations are like, and also to make sure
• 1:17
  we're providing kind of sources and resources for people to go
• 1:20
  find other information and help if they're in a similar
• 1:22
  situation. But videos like mine can only do
• 1:25
  so much. And what can be way more helpful
• 1:27
  and empowering is hearing from other survivors themselves.
• 1:31
  And that's why Shari's book is so damn important.
• 1:35
  And I hope that with today's video, I can help just elevate
• 1:38
  her voice a little bit further. Not that she needs me, she's
• 1:40
  great. But like if I can play any part
• 1:43
  in like helping more people learn about her book and hearing
• 1:46
  from her and her side of things, then that's what I want to try
• 1:48
  and do. So if you do want to check out
• 1:50
  her book for yourself, and I would recommend it because even
• 1:52
  though we're going in depth in this video, it's not.
• 1:55
  Obviously there's a lot more to the book.
• 1:58
  Sorry, Garrett scribbling in the background.
• 1:59
  So if you want to go check it out for yourself, I will leave a
• 2:01
  video in. No, I will leave a link in the
• 2:04
  video description. But I must still want this video
• 2:06
  to be kind of commending Sherry and her siblings for their
• 2:09
  resilience and bravery and honesty.
• 2:12
  And I think she's done an incredible thing by putting out
• 2:15
  this book. Isn't that right, Cubes?
• 2:18
  Yes. If you're unfamiliar with the
• 2:20
  back story here of Who the 8 Passengers YouTube channel was
• 2:24
  and who Ruby Frankie is and who Jody Hildebrand is, then I'll
• 2:27
  also leave links to my first two videos down in the video
• 2:31
  description. But again, be warned, they're
• 2:33
  not very nice watching. They're very difficult, very
• 2:36
  emotive, but they're not necessary to watch because
• 2:41
  Sherry touches on at least the vague outline of the situation
• 2:47
  in this video. She talks a lot more about kind
• 2:49
  of like. Before a lot of the bad.
• 2:51
  Stuff happened and the after she obviously wasn't there herself
• 2:54
  for the during and she doesn't feel it's her story to tell,
• 2:57
  which is absolutely fair. So yeah, if you want more
• 3:01
  information, those videos are there, but they're not
• 3:03
  necessary. So let's let's jump into this.
• 3:08
  She starts with an introduction titled Finally and this is set
• 3:11
  on August the 30th, 2023. It's really hard reading my
• 3:15
  notes around this little lump. Even the introduction to this
• 3:18
  book is absolutely harrowing. So in August 20231 of Ruby
• 3:23
  Frankie's six children managed to escape from the family home
• 3:26
  where I think just two of the youngest children had been
• 3:29
  staying. I don't, I can't remember what
• 3:31
  happened to the other two. There's like 2 in the middle
• 3:33
  that it's very unclear where they were at this time, but
• 3:36
  they, the two youngest children have been staying there with
• 3:39
  Ruby and Jodi Hildebrandt, who we'll kind of get to.
• 3:43
  And they had been mistreated so horrifically and they had been
• 3:48
  tied up. They'd been locked inside.
• 3:50
  They'd been physically hurt and assaulted and punished.
• 3:53
  And one of the kids finally managed to escape from the
• 3:55
  house, go to the neighbour's house.
• 3:57
  And the police were finally called Sherry, who is the eldest
• 4:00
  child and was an adult at this point and was away at college
• 4:04
  and she'd already managed to leave the home.
• 4:07
  She'd got out of there before the worst of the abuse started.
• 4:12
  Well, she'd left. She'd kind of been thrown out
• 4:15
  the family by her mother, that was a thing.
• 4:17
  And she was constantly worried about her siblings.
• 4:19
  She was in constant contact with Child Protective Services trying
• 4:23
  to get them help, but it wasn't really going anywhere.
• 4:25
  Nothing was really happening. They kept saying there wasn't
• 4:27
  enough evidence. It was really frustrating for
• 4:30
  her. So she opens her book by
• 4:31
  describing it in a call from the neighbours about the police and
• 4:34
  genuinely thinking that this meant that one of her siblings
• 4:36
  must be dead at her mother hand. It is absolutely horrifying to
• 4:40
  read. It's a year passed since I'd
• 4:42
  heard their voices, seen their faces, and the thought of them
• 4:45
  trapped in that house was eating me alive.
• 4:47
  Despite all my efforts, the countless phone calls, the
• 4:49
  desperate police, anyone who would listen, it seemed like
• 4:51
  there was nothing we could do to remove them from harm's way.
• 4:54
  My phone rang, our neighbours name flashing on the screen.
• 4:57
  My heart skipped a beat. Each call from this neighbour
• 4:59
  represented a lifeline. It meant an update about the
• 5:01
  kids. It meant that they were still
• 5:03
  alive. Sherry, the police were at your
• 5:05
  mother's house. The words exploded through the
• 5:07
  speaker. No time for hello.
• 5:09
  They've got guns out, they're about to bust down the door.
• 5:11
  My heart seized in my chest as vivid, horrifying images flooded
• 5:14
  my mind. Tiny body bags being carried out
• 5:16
  from my mother's home by faceless figures and uniforms.
• 5:19
  It's happened. Came to thought they're dead.
• 5:21
  I hadn't been back to that house since Ruby had disowned me a
• 5:23
  year prior. Ruby, the self anointed St of
• 5:26
  motherhood. Ruby had who would turn my life
• 5:28
  into a surreal version of the Truman Show for her social media
• 5:31
  disciples, Ruby who'd subjected me and my siblings to her
• 5:34
  twisted interpretation of crime and punishment all our lives
• 5:37
  until Jodi came along, adding terrifying new flavours of
• 5:40
  sadism to the regime. So Shari really doesn't hold
• 5:43
  back with her descriptions of Ruby or Jodi throughout this
• 5:46
  book, Jodi in particular, she just goes straight and she does
• 5:49
  not hold back. And for a while I've been
• 5:52
  calling Jodi like a cult leader in my videos.
• 5:54
  And in that very first video, I think, I think it was that one,
• 5:57
  I made a lot of comparisons to like how their behaviour was
• 6:00
  very like cult like. And I use like Hassan's bite
• 6:04
  model to like draw comparisons and stuff like that.
• 6:06
  The other thing to. Quickly mention here before we
• 6:08
  look at specific content is that a lot of people claim
• 6:11
  connections, it's a cult and it's certainly just check a lot
• 6:15
  of boxes on the cult checklist, or at least Hassan's Bite model.
• 6:19
  Jodi and Ruby have, through their content, advocated for
• 6:22
  isolation from family members, including your own children who
• 6:25
  don't follow their beliefs. They absolutely try to control
• 6:28
  people's behaviours, diets, the way they dress, what they can do
• 6:31
  in their leisure time. They actively discourage
• 6:33
  individual individualism and punish disobedience.
• 6:37
  The Reality Snark writes that additionally, cults are always
• 6:40
  about control. The leader demands complete,
• 6:42
  unquestioning, zealous commitment from every member.
• 6:45
  Jodie managed to manipulate others into joining her in
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  connections, despite having no qualifications for the type of
• 6:50
  work she claims to be doing. Plus, within a few months, she
• 6:53
  managed to sway Ruby to join her work and hate and aid her 24/7.
• 6:57
  There are even rumours that she moved herself into the Frankie
• 7:00
  home, making viewers question just how how strong the
• 7:02
  manipulation and control over Ruby are.
• 7:05
  Going back to the BITE model, there's definitely evidence of
• 7:07
  deception, discouraging access to non cult sources of
• 7:10
  information, thought control, encouraging only good and proper
• 7:13
  thoughts, labelling alternative belief systems as evil or wrong,
• 7:17
  promoting feelings of unworthiness, guilt,
• 7:19
  manipulating feelings, instilling fear and so on.
• 7:23
  I I could just list off this whole thing and Connections
• 7:26
  would check off most of it. Connections might not be the
• 7:28
  most obvious example of a cult, but it definitely fits a lot of
• 7:32
  criteria and I don't think the theory that it's a cult is 1 we
• 7:35
  should easily dismiss. And then of course you have
• 7:38
  other tactics of deception which aren't really that bad at all,
• 7:41
  but are still villainized by Jodi and Ruby.
• 7:43
  Look at that last one, they have a whole video on how if a kid
• 7:46
  feels they're each unique, they're living in deception.
• 7:50
  Once again, refer back to the BITE model about cults, where
• 7:53
  one of the tactics of behaviour control is literally to
• 7:56
  discourage individualism and encourage groupthink.
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  We are all beings. Who we are on the inside doesn't
• 8:03
  change. We are not unique from one
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  another in that I am a soul and you are a soul and we all
• 8:10
  originate from our Maker. And So what I need are the exact
• 8:16
  same things that you need emotionally and physically.
• 8:20
  I have the same needs as you do, and you have the same emotional,
• 8:24
  physical, spiritual needs as I do and.
• 8:27
  Of course this just isn't true. Like it's objectively wrong.
• 8:31
  We absolutely don't all have the same emotional and physical
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  needs. Everyone is different and will
• 8:37
  need a different approach in order to grow and develop.
• 8:40
  And Sherry, bless her, just comes straight out and says it
• 8:43
  too. She does not hold back.
• 8:44
  She calls Jodie a cult leader straight up.
• 8:47
  She wrote Jodie. Our family's very own cult
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  leader, a false prophet who swept into our lives like a
• 8:52
  hurricane, turning my mother into a fawning, starstruck
• 8:55
  acolyte who lapped up her every demented word like it was holy
• 8:59
  water. My father, once our anchor, had
• 9:02
  been banished, leaving Ruby and Jodie to rule unchallenged of my
• 9:05
  4 youngest siblings who were still there with them.
• 9:07
  And again, I just have to say, I really commend her for her
• 9:10
  honesty throughout this book. She has done a really amazing
• 9:13
  job. Accountants warnings had already
• 9:15
  been sent to the Division of Child and Family Services, to
• 9:17
  law enforcement by me and by concerned neighbours.
• 9:20
  I've been shouting from the rooftops for a year.
• 9:22
  Yet despite the gluttering signs of trouble, no action had been
• 9:25
  taken. The red flags we'd raised might
• 9:27
  as well have been invisible. And the system that was supposed
• 9:29
  to protect my siblings had left them at the mercy of two women
• 9:32
  drunk on delusion and unchecked power.
• 9:34
  I mean, now of course we know those kids are finally someplace
• 9:37
  safe and that thankfully none of them did die.
• 9:41
  But just reading this introduction, like you're filled
• 9:43
  with so much dread and fear for these 4 little ones.
• 9:46
  Because like, you can imagine what that feeling's like.
• 9:50
  It's horrific. No one should have to go through
• 9:52
  that. Neither the kids nor Sherry.
• 9:55
  OK, so Part 1 of the book is titled The Garden of Earthly
• 9:58
  Delights. And in the very first chapter of
• 10:00
  this book, Shari gives some basic background on who her
• 10:02
  mother is, which is really helpful for helping.
• 10:05
  I know, which is really helpful for helping us understand why
• 10:10
  she became who she did and kind of how she could treat her kids
• 10:13
  so badly. It helps us understand, I mean,
• 10:16
  doesn't excuse her behaviour, but it does explain it, I think.
• 10:19
  So it's it's really helpful background.
• 10:21
  But in summary, her family had been part of the Church of Jesus
• 10:24
  Christ of Latter Day Saints and had a whole lot of children
• 10:27
  themselves, which were the focus of Ruby's whole world growing
• 10:31
  up. Now, I do have to say I have two
• 10:33
  little criticisms of this book. And 1 is that she constantly
• 10:38
  downplays her father's role in all of this, but we'll talk
• 10:41
  about those points when they come up.
• 10:42
  And the other is that she constantly downplays the harm
• 10:46
  that LDS and like that whole religion and church system of
• 10:52
  it, like the harm that that that they can and do do.
• 10:56
  She doesn't seem to realise that.
• 10:57
  I mean, she's still very much follows the religion and is very
• 11:01
  into it and fully believes and it's caused some clearly
• 11:05
  harmful, I guess maybe thought patterns in her and stuff like
• 11:09
  that. Are you OK?
• 11:11
  You're right. And yeah, some like kind of
• 11:13
  clearly harmful thought patterns in her, if you want to call them
• 11:15
  that. She doesn't seem to realise the
• 11:17
  harm that that religion has done and she doesn't seem willing to
• 11:19
  call it out at all. So it's, yeah, it's a little bit
• 11:22
  difficult. There is that.
• 11:25
  You'll notice it a lot. Like, I'm not saying straight up
• 11:27
  she should call herself an atheist and denounce everything.
• 11:30
  But I think she's not quite at that point where she's ready to
• 11:33
  be critical about some of the bigger power structures in her
• 11:35
  life, like the church. And I think maybe she needs to
• 11:40
  be. And in that sense, I kind of
• 11:42
  wish she'd waited a few more years to write this book until
• 11:44
  she has a little bit more perspective and a little more
• 11:46
  healing. But at the same time, it's a
• 11:48
  it's a minor gripe I have. Do you know what I mean?
• 11:51
  It's still a very good book and a very important book.
• 11:54
  I want to make that clear. It's.
• 11:56
  Yeah. I don't know.
• 11:57
  OK, so let's read about Ruby's childhood.
• 11:58
  As the eldest in a strict conservative home, Ruby's
• 12:01
  childhood was less about play and more about responsibility,
• 12:03
  as she was tasked with helping raise her younger siblings.
• 12:06
  I can easily imagine a young Ruby, spying straight and eyes
• 12:09
  determined, navigating her family's expectations with a
• 12:12
  sense of righteous purpose, eagerly anticipating the day
• 12:15
  when she would have a family of her own, relishing the thought
• 12:17
  of finally being the one to make the rules and shape her home
• 12:19
  exactly as she saw fit. For Ruby, motherhood wasn't just
• 12:22
  a future role, it was the pinnacle of her aspirations, the
• 12:25
  one thing she'd always wanted for herself above all else.
• 12:29
  And so I've spoken a lot in other videos about
• 12:31
  parentification and the problems with it, so I won't repeat
• 12:34
  myself too much. And basically, parentification.
• 12:36
  This is when parents force their children to take on more adult
• 12:39
  roles before they're ready, including doing things like
• 12:42
  making them look after younger siblings, take care of the home,
• 12:45
  or in some cases, the children have to take care of their
• 12:47
  parents. This can cause a hell of a lot
• 12:50
  of trauma and developmental issues for these children, and
• 12:54
  it is often a form of child abuse and neglect.
• 12:59
  Clearly this happened to Ruby when she was younger and then as
• 13:01
  an adult she continued that cycle of abuse with her own
• 13:04
  kids, which is really sad to see, but it does happen you
• 13:08
  know. Sherry is quite forward with
• 13:10
  pointing out these generational patterns of behaviour too.
• 13:13
  And she talks about how at 18 Ruby began to hunt for a
• 13:16
  husband. She writes on a colour coded
• 13:18
  vision board, Ruby outlined the key quality she required in a
• 13:20
  man 5 inches taller than me. Handsome car paid off Engineer.
• 13:25
  Her own father was an engineer, so perhaps she liked the idea of
• 13:27
  history repeating itself. It goes without saying her ideal
• 13:30
  man had to be devoted to the church.
• 13:33
  Thank you. And it's at this point that
• 13:35
  Sherry introduces her father to, I don't want to say the story,
• 13:38
  but like to the, well, to her story, you know what I'm trying
• 13:42
  to say. And she paints him as, honestly,
• 13:45
  a bit of a pushover. This is one of my issues with
• 13:48
  this whole book. And I like I say, I'm not sure
• 13:50
  how to feel about it because we've seen in the old family
• 13:52
  vlogs that he was to quite an extent complicit in plenty of
• 13:57
  the less extreme child abuse and neglect.
• 14:00
  So I don't feel like Sherry should be painting him as this
• 14:03
  like naive innocent party who just, oh, he was a complete
• 14:08
  victim of rubies and he had no agency of his own.
• 14:11
  But that's what she does throughout the entire book.
• 14:13
  And I'm a bit like, but we saw he did have his own agency.
• 14:18
  Like before, before connections became involved in anything.
• 14:22
  He, he did have his own agency. He made his own choices and he
• 14:26
  was still doing really questionable things and causing
• 14:29
  harm to the kids. And he went along with the
• 14:31
  family blogging. He he was a big part of
• 14:33
  everything. And I again, can't help but feel
• 14:36
  like she downplays that throughout the entire book and
• 14:37
  it's a little frustrating to read.
• 14:40
  I understand why she's doing it because like she like her
• 14:44
  father's kind of all she's got now and she's going to be
• 14:46
  clinging on to him. And I guess like, I don't say
• 14:49
  want to keep him on side, but you know what I mean?
• 14:51
  Like so maybe she really does believe all this stuff about him
• 14:54
  and she's just not able to see him as having done anything
• 14:58
  wrong. Or maybe she's just downplaying
• 15:01
  it to keep him happy. I I don't know.
• 15:04
  But again, This is why I think this book would have benefited
• 15:06
  from being written in a few years time when she's done a
• 15:09
  little bit more healing and work because some of this is a little
• 15:13
  questionable. Anyway, she says that when Ruby
• 15:15
  met Kevin, he checked all of her boxes.
• 15:17
  Plus he seems so nice during genuine kindness.
• 15:21
  Kevin had a laid back aura that was a bomb to Ruby's intense
• 15:24
  spirit. Ruby had no interest in power
• 15:26
  struggles after all. What she needed was someone
• 15:28
  relaxed enough to take, to let her take the reins without too
• 15:31
  much resistance. A Co pilot content to let her
• 15:34
  navigate their shared journey, pay the bills and give her
• 15:36
  children and give her the children she longed for.
• 15:40
  He saw her first working the room at a welcome week hot dog
• 15:43
  social on campus. The undisputed queen bee, Ruby
• 15:46
  flitted from man to man, the flirtatious confidence unlike
• 15:49
  anything he's seen before. It helped that she was naturally
• 15:52
  beautiful, blonde and with a huge dazzling smile and spelt
• 15:55
  figure. Ruby was just his type.
• 15:58
  History methodically auditioned potential husbands like a
• 16:01
  director casting her leading man.
• 16:03
  Kevin sensed the clock was ticking.
• 16:04
  Ruby was a prize catch, and if he didn't somehow distinguish
• 16:07
  himself from the crowd, he'd wind up just another.
• 16:09
  Also ran in Ruby's race to the altar 2 weeks after the day they
• 16:13
  met. Ruby.
• 16:14
  Cut to the chase. So are we getting married?
• 16:17
  She asked. Kevin, caught off guard, uttered
• 16:19
  the most dangerous word in the dictionary.
• 16:21
  Yes, in just 14 days, they'd gone from strangers to engaged,
• 16:26
  which is, I mean, this is wild finding one's standards, right?
• 16:28
  Absolutely wild. All the red flags.
• 16:31
  This is not romantic. This is terrifying.
• 16:33
  And The thing is, I think Sherry's trying to paint this as
• 16:36
  like, see, see how intense Ruby was, See how like determine.
• 16:39
  Yes, I see that. But also this is very much a
• 16:43
  symptom of the whole LDS church and purity culture in general.
• 16:48
  And all of that. Ruby's entire self worth was
• 16:53
  built on exceptionalism, so she couldn't be extraordinary.
• 16:55
  Then what was the point? She needed a new dream, a
• 16:58
  French, a fresh source of validation.
• 17:00
  If music wouldn't find her greatness, then motherhood
• 17:02
  would. Cherubic faces to beam up at her
• 17:04
  with the love and adoration she graved.
• 17:06
  Blank slates ready to be inscribed with her wisdom, her
• 17:08
  values, her rubiness. A couple of kids would have
• 17:11
  suited Kevin flying, but Ruby craved a clan and Kevin was
• 17:14
  happy to agree to Ruby's grand vision, vowing to move heaven
• 17:17
  and earth to support her in her dreams.
• 17:19
  Thus the dynamic was set. Kevin, the perpetual supporting
• 17:22
  actor to Ruby's lead role in her epic production of Ultimate
• 17:26
  Mother. So this does seem like a really
• 17:27
  accurate portrayal of Ruby from all we know and what we've seen,
• 17:30
  but again, seems to be taking a lot of agency away from Kevin.
• 17:34
  I'm not OK with him just being presented as like another
• 17:39
  innocent victim in all this because it's a lot more complex
• 17:43
  than that. And I feel like Shari just isn't
• 17:47
  representing a lot of what we've seen of him.
• 17:50
  And I do admit that later on, Jodie and her cult did control
• 17:54
  him and brainwash him and isolate him, especially in this
• 17:59
  final few years. But let's not forget how he
• 18:01
  treated his children before Jodie was even on the scene.
• 18:04
  You know, this is the man who would take his children's phones
• 18:08
  and read their text messages aloud in vlogs to embarrass
• 18:11
  them. You know he.
• 18:14
  He played a role too, and is responsible for his behaviour at
• 18:18
  that time completely. Here's another example where
• 18:21
  Kevin takes their eldest son Chad's phone and starts to go
• 18:24
  through at the dinner table. This, in my mind, is already a
• 18:27
  big invasion of privacy, and we're going to be talking about
• 18:29
  Jodie and Ruby's thoughts on privacy later in a lot more
• 18:32
  detail. But in this video, Kevin then
• 18:36
  starts to read out the texts on camera in order to embarrass
• 18:39
  Chad and the girl he's texting these two children.
• 18:43
  It's bad enough to do this to yourself, but to call out a
• 18:46
  stranger like this and expose her text to the public as well
• 18:49
  is so completely gross. None of these kids consented to
• 18:52
  it. This is not OK.
• 18:54
  Chad, what are you doing over there?
• 18:57
  You take no texting at the dinner table.
• 19:00
  No texting. What do you see it?
• 19:04
  Let me see it. I see it.
• 19:06
  We should clarify that in our house, all our kids know that
• 19:12
  cell phones are freaking for parents so we can monitor
• 19:15
  safety. Yeah, no kid ever said yay.
• 19:19
  I'm so glad my parents read my text messages, said.
• 19:23
  No. I really like you.
• 19:30
  I hold on. I did not say that.
• 19:34
  How do you work this stupid phone?
• 19:39
  The only downside to giving your kids a flip phone is I swear I
• 19:43
  have to remember how to work it every time I go through it.
• 19:47
  Who are you texting? No.
• 19:49
  One any girlfriend. Whoa, whoa.
• 19:53
  I really like you. I saw you in my dreams last
• 19:57
  night. I'm telling you, it's not her.
• 20:01
  It was her brother. Look, go down, she said.
• 20:03
  I'm so sorry. That was my brother.
• 20:05
  How do I I saw? You.
• 20:08
  In Oh, Oh my gosh, sorry, that was my brother.
• 20:13
  What is the nature of your relationship with this
• 20:17
  individual? I mean, there's like 300 texts
• 20:21
  in here. Do you like her, like her, or do
• 20:25
  you just like her? She's a new friend.
• 20:27
  That is really really missing. I don't.
• 20:32
  Know I seen him with her and. Does she like you back?
• 20:38
  Probably. No, she thinks.
• 20:41
  She's Here's an example of when Ruby and Kevin confiscated all
• 20:44
  their kids possessions and literally made them buy them
• 20:48
  back off them or everything gets thrown away can.
• 20:50
  I explain the rules to this seven.
• 20:51
  We're done, Julie. So you're all like, what?
• 21:00
  I have your attention now. Is that it?
• 21:03
  You're all going to listen. If you have something in the bag
• 21:09
  that you would like out, you can pay.
• 21:11
  Cash for it. So you will learn the value of
• 21:17
  your items or you can give what Dad'll let you take the
• 21:25
  conversation from here. You can do an equivalent value
• 21:30
  chore to get it back and whatever isn't claimed by the
• 21:36
  end of the day. Goes in the garbage.
• 21:40
  It's insane. This isn't teaching kids a
• 21:42
  lesson, this is just a sick power play on Ruby and Kevin's
• 21:45
  part. In chapter 2, Sherry talks about
• 21:48
  Ruby's first pregnancy with with her with Sherry, and it's clear
• 21:51
  to say that even from the beginning, Sherry felt
• 21:54
  objectified by her mother and treated more like a prize or an
• 21:57
  accomplishment or like a proper or even like a challenge rather
• 22:01
  than an individual person to actually love.
• 22:03
  Harry literally describes her birth as 21 year old Ruby had
• 22:06
  finally evicted me, her first baby from her womb, which is
• 22:10
  very telling, isn't it? I feel for her so much.
• 22:13
  Somehow, through her fog of pain and exhaustion, Ruby managed A
• 22:16
  victorious smile. In her in her arms lay not just
• 22:20
  a baby, but a woman's ultimate power, her divine right to mould
• 22:24
  a new soul in her image. And it's clear that Sherry kind
• 22:27
  of sees her father as a sort of saviour and her mother was just
• 22:29
  like a pure villain, again, a little bit biassed.
• 22:33
  When I was around 3 months, Ruby took me to a paediatrician to
• 22:35
  find out why I was so grouchy. My constant wailing was testing
• 22:38
  her vision of motherly bliss, but the doctor said it was just
• 22:40
  colic. When I began refusing my bottles
• 22:42
  and growing lethargic, Kevin freaked out, rushing me to the
• 22:44
  emergency room where they discovered that I had a life
• 22:47
  threatening intestinal blockage. Without the immediate surgery I
• 22:50
  received, I most likely would have died.
• 22:52
  So again, this is kind of like an example of where we see that
• 22:55
  bias a little bit. Both parents knew she was
• 22:57
  suffering and took her for medical treatment but she but
• 23:01
  she paints Ruby as clinical and ultimately unhelpful and only
• 23:04
  doing it out of selfishness where she paints Kevin as super
• 23:07
  emotional and really worried about her and totally caring and
• 23:10
  the one who saved her life. And maybe this was accurate, who
• 23:13
  am I to say I wasn't there? Part of me again feels like
• 23:16
  she's just trying to paint her father in a better light because
• 23:18
  one, he's the only parent she has left, two, anyone will look
• 23:22
  good compared to Ruby even if he is awful in his own way, and
• 23:26
  three, maybe he wouldn't let her say anything negative about him
• 23:29
  in this book. I don't know.
• 23:30
  I'm taking everything about Kevin with a massive grain of
• 23:32
  salt. You know, Ruby didn't believe in
• 23:35
  comforting me when I was a baby, not in the way most parents do.
• 23:38
  Why would she? Her families philosophy had
• 23:40
  always been that it doesn't hurt a baby to cry things out.
• 23:42
  Babies shouldn't be cobbled. Tantrum shouldn't shouldn't be
• 23:45
  tolerated. It's for their own good so they
• 23:47
  know who's boss and when they grow up they can learn to handle
• 23:49
  whatever life throws at them without being a weak loser or
• 23:52
  crybaby. Again, this 100% fits with what
• 23:54
  we know of Ruby and what she used to teach other mothers on
• 23:58
  the Connections YouTube channel and the videos and everything
• 24:01
  she did with Jodi. But it's interesting because
• 24:03
  when we watched a lot of that footage, I and others were like,
• 24:05
  well, how much of this did she believe before Jodi came along?
• 24:08
  And how much? And it seems like a lot of it
• 24:10
  was actually already there and she did already believe these
• 24:13
  things and she was practising these things, but Jodie just
• 24:16
  kind of ramped it up to another notch and gave her the
• 24:20
  confidence to say it all publicly and teach it to other
• 24:22
  women. And I think it's safe to say
• 24:25
  they were both toxic in their own way, but they brought out
• 24:28
  the worst in each other. And together they will worsen
• 24:31
  the sum of their parts, if that's even possible, because
• 24:34
  they're both awful individually. Anyway, in chapter 3, Sherry
• 24:38
  begins to talk about her other siblings.
• 24:39
  She names the next eldest, Chad, who is now also an adult.
• 24:43
  But she doesn't name the others who are still minors.
• 24:45
  And I think that's absolutely fair, She says I'll not be
• 24:48
  naming her in this book. Throughout this narrative,
• 24:50
  except for Chad, all my younger siblings will remain nameless.
• 24:53
  This isn't an oversight. It's my last line of defence for
• 24:55
  them. In a kind of world, their
• 24:57
  stories would not be folded for a book.
• 24:58
  Their private moments would be their own, known only to friends
• 25:02
  and family, not dissected by strangers on the Internet.
• 25:04
  But peace and anonymity were never in the cards for us.
• 25:07
  It's a really good point to bring up because like, everyone
• 25:09
  wishes that kids could remain anonymous online and not have
• 25:12
  this big social media presence. And I think this brings up a
• 25:15
  really important discussion point because obviously in an
• 25:18
  ideal world, these kids would have been anonymous online
• 25:21
  completely and we would have entirely given them their
• 25:23
  privacy. And like, obviously you don't
• 25:26
  want to talk about them and kind of make it worse and be like
• 25:28
  prying into their lives. But at the same time, it's like,
• 25:31
  well, this stuff did happen publicly, but this stuff all
• 25:35
  played out online and we have seen it.
• 25:36
  And we can't just pretend it doesn't exist because at this
• 25:39
  point, pretending it doesn't exist at all would be like being
• 25:43
  complicit in their abuse and just allowing it to happen.
• 25:47
  And for Ruby and Jodi to get away with it.
• 25:50
  The fact that it has all happened so publicly and we have
• 25:52
  all seen it, I think means that we kind of have a responsibility
• 25:55
  to talk about it and discuss it without invading the kids
• 25:58
  privacy any further in order to educate people about the
• 26:02
  situation and try and get other kids who might be in a similar
• 26:05
  situation help. Because if we can look at their
• 26:07
  situation, be like, well, these were the red flags.
• 26:08
  These were signs. This is what went wrong.
• 26:10
  This is why it happened for so long.
• 26:12
  This is how we change that in the future.
• 26:14
  That's the only way we grow and learn.
• 26:16
  We can't create a better society by just ignoring the bad stuff
• 26:19
  that's already happened. You've got to look at it and
• 26:22
  analyse it and be like, well, how the hell do we get better?
• 26:25
  You know, it seems like from the start that Ruby was putting
• 26:28
  immense pressure on her kids. Sherry writes that I quickly
• 26:30
  learned that any. Sherry writes that.
• 26:32
  I quickly learned that anything less than unbridled enthusiasm
• 26:34
  would trigger Ruby into a rage, one hint of displeasure on my
• 26:37
  face and whack a smack on my arm, a flick to a flick to my
• 26:41
  lips or a sharp tug on my ear. I rarely cried when Ruby
• 26:44
  punished me. Only one person in the house was
• 26:46
  allowed to shed tears, and it wasn't me.
• 26:48
  So I kept quiet, maintained A neutral expression.
• 26:51
  But beneath that calm exterior, A realisation was taking root.
• 26:54
  Mummy isn't very nice to me. Again, heartbreaking to see.
• 26:59
  In many ways, this feels really reminiscent to me of Michael and
• 27:01
  Debbie's, the way Michael and Debbie Pearl would discipline
• 27:06
  their children with violence. I've got a few videos on them,
• 27:10
  if you haven't seen them already.
• 27:11
  They're awful. And yeah, I feel, I feel really
• 27:14
  sorry for these kids at this point.
• 27:16
  Sherry does mention how extreme the religious beliefs were that
• 27:19
  she was brought up with and how that led to, like, her having
• 27:21
  major nightmares and fears as a kid.
• 27:23
  But this is kind of the only time we see her questioning this
• 27:27
  or thinking about like, what the LDS church kind of did to harm
• 27:31
  her. She doesn't quite go into it as
• 27:33
  much as I think it would have been helpful too, She says as
• 27:37
  soon as the lights went out, others would appear, grotesque
• 27:39
  figures straight out of a mediaeval hellscape, demonic
• 27:42
  entities luring with twisted grins.
• 27:44
  Their contorted faces haunted my sleepless nights, their agonised
• 27:47
  stories playing out in my dreams.
• 27:49
  Why might a little girl harp such tangible fears of demonic
• 27:52
  possession? I'm sure that I'm sure the
• 27:54
  deeply religious paradigm I was steeped in played a role.
• 27:58
  We firmly believed in Satan's power and the ability of his
• 28:00
  legion of fallen spirits to possess individuals.
• 28:03
  We believe that evil, evil can inhabit physical forms,
• 28:06
  sometimes fleetingly, sometimes for extended periods.
• 28:09
  Having been raised, I believe the very air I breathed was
• 28:12
  thick with unseen forces battling for the dominion of my
• 28:15
  soul. It was a small step for my young
• 28:17
  mind to imagine that battle raging in my own bedroom.
• 28:19
  Once again, I have to ask, can we please not tell children that
• 28:22
  they're evil, under constant attack from evil and surrounded
• 28:25
  by demons unlikely to go to hell?
• 28:27
  Please. It is unnecessary and cruel.
• 28:29
  It's or why would you tell a kid that of course you're going to
• 28:32
  traumatise them more than those heartbreaking early moments
• 28:34
  Comes in chapter 4 when Sherry is watching Ruby and her own
• 28:38
  mother, so Shari's grandmother interact and she comes to this
• 28:41
  realisation. I blurted out.
• 28:43
  Will you bring me silk pyjamas too?
• 28:44
  When I have a baby? Absolutely, Ruby said, her
• 28:47
  voice. Like when you have a baby,
• 28:49
  that's when we can be friends. In that instant, everything
• 28:52
  clicked into place, the distance I'd always felt the longing for
• 28:55
  a closer relationship with my mother.
• 28:56
  It all made sense. Ruby and I couldn't be real
• 28:59
  friends until I was a woman with a husband and a family of my
• 29:01
  own. Until I was a equal.
• 29:03
  Ruby had to become a wife and mother to truly earn her own
• 29:06
  mother's respect. I too would have to do the same.
• 29:08
  I would have to wait to be loved and this is just horrible and
• 29:12
  heartbreaking. I'm really sad and there's so
• 29:14
  much internalised misogyny at play here.
• 29:16
  This idea that women aren't recognising other women's worth
• 29:19
  until their mothers themselves is heartbreaking to see.
• 29:23
  It's awful. The moments of Sherry being
• 29:26
  overly sympathetic to her father continue in moments like this.
• 29:30
  And again, it's frustrating as a reader because you don't want to
• 29:34
  question her experience and you don't want to take away a
• 29:37
  potential ally from her. But again, we all saw his
• 29:41
  behaviour and now she's writing this and it's it's just a bit
• 29:44
  difficult for. And again, I'm an outsider.
• 29:47
  I wasn't there. I don't know what he was
• 29:48
  actually like day-to-day. And maybe she's absolutely
• 29:50
  right. But also, as an outsider, at
• 29:52
  least I can remain a little bit more objective and just go based
• 29:55
  on the actions of his I saw and not any like, emotions I have
• 30:01
  for him, because I have none. You know?
• 30:04
  He's, he's a stranger. No, no, the fork's gone.
• 30:06
  The left. How many times do I have to tell
• 30:08
  you? Ruby tutted disprovingly.
• 30:09
  My youngest brother, still just a baby resting on her hip.
• 30:12
  Kevin's eyes flipped to mine with a sympathetic glimmer.
• 30:15
  I'd always felt a strong kinship with him, like we were
• 30:17
  shipmates. Same sailing stormy waters side
• 30:20
  by side. There was a stoicism to him, a
• 30:22
  quiet strength that I couldn't help but admire.
• 30:24
  Kevin might not have been a visionary like Joseph Smith or
• 30:27
  an iron clasp like the widow of Nauvoo, but in his own way he
• 30:31
  was a hero, a man who had taken on the thankless task of being
• 30:34
  task of being the nice guy in our family.
• 30:37
  As my mother fussed over dessert, cursing under her
• 30:39
  breath, I sat on my father's lap, full of questions as
• 30:41
  always. So in one of my last videos on
• 30:44
  like Toxic Boy Mums, I don't know if you've seen it, but I
• 30:46
  spoke about like emotional incest or covert incest.
• 30:49
  It sometimes called particularly between like mothers and sons.
• 30:52
  But I also mentioned that it can happen between fathers and
• 30:55
  daughters. And I'm not at all saying that
• 30:56
  this is what's happening here. I'm not calling it that.
• 30:59
  But one of the points was brought up in a lot of the books
• 31:02
  that I read on the subject was how when there's like emotional
• 31:06
  incest going on, it can isolate the child from the same gender
• 31:09
  parent. So like if it's a father
• 31:11
  daughter, the daughter can feel isolated from the mother.
• 31:14
  I wonder if that's kind of like a reverse reversal of this here
• 31:17
  where she felt so isolated towards her mother that she
• 31:19
  became overly attached and reliant on her father and kind
• 31:22
  of couldn't see any of the negative stuff in him.
• 31:26
  I don't know. But all I said, I kind of feel
• 31:28
  like if we heard any of the other kids accounts of this and
• 31:31
  what their experience with their father was like, it might be
• 31:33
  entirely different. Like, I just have a feeling that
• 31:36
  Chad's account of this whole time period and everything would
• 31:39
  be very different to Sherry's account of it, and his
• 31:43
  experience with their dad would be very different to hers, you
• 31:46
  know? But he was always the one who
• 31:47
  was kind of on the receiving end of Kevin's not very nice
• 31:52
  behaviour, should we say so? Chapter 6 is titled Ruby's Rage,
• 31:57
  which I think alone is very telling.
• 31:59
  Ruby's hand would often find its way to my face, a sharp sting of
• 32:02
  displeasure delivered with precision.
• 32:04
  Her slaps were calibrated, never hard enough to leave those all
• 32:06
  bruises, at least on me, but always sufficient to instil fear
• 32:10
  in her twisted logic. She was moulding obedience,
• 32:13
  sculpting compliance with each singing blow.
• 32:16
  I also think that we were just her punching bag, a way for her
• 32:19
  to release her anger. She always seemed calmer once
• 32:22
  she blown off steam on one of us.
• 32:23
  Sherry then tells the story of Chad cutting off a chunk of her
• 32:26
  hair as a prank, so Ruby retaliated by well, apparently
• 32:32
  Ruby had buzzed a thick uneven stripe down the centre of his
• 32:35
  head, leaving him with a half harsh reverse Mohawk.
• 32:39
  Tufts of hair stuck out at odd angles, making him look like a
• 32:42
  plucked chicken. And like, this isn't punishment,
• 32:45
  this is straight up revenge. It's reminiscent of like what we
• 32:50
  saw in the old 8 Passengers video where like, Chad planned a
• 32:52
  harmless prank on a younger sibling, so Ruby and Kevin took
• 32:56
  away his bedroom and his bed for seven months.
• 32:58
  Like they made him sleep on a bean bag.
• 33:00
  It's a disproportionate reaction.
• 33:03
  It's not teaching him, hey, don't do this.
• 33:06
  It's not discipline, It's not a regular punishment.
• 33:09
  It's simply revenge. It's a power play.
• 33:12
  It's cruel. Ruby wanted to humiliate him and
• 33:17
  hurt him, not teach him not to hurt his siblings.
• 33:20
  You know? Some of the most damning
• 33:22
  evidence against Ruby and Jodi in their trials were the
• 33:25
  journals that Ruby herself kept, which detailed exactly how and
• 33:29
  when and sometimes why she abused her children the way she
• 33:32
  did. And a lot of us were asking at
• 33:35
  the time, like, well, why would Ruby write this down?
• 33:36
  This seems insane. She's incriminating herself.
• 33:38
  But in Chapter 7, Sherry offers a little insight as to why this
• 33:41
  might have been. She says record keeping is
• 33:44
  deeply ingrained in the LDS faith.
• 33:46
  It's a sacred duty, a way of bearing witness to God's hand in
• 33:49
  our daily lives. We're told that our personal
• 33:51
  histories will serve as testaments for future
• 33:53
  generations, Spiritual Rd maps guiding our descendants through
• 33:56
  their own mortal journeys. Every night, without fail, Ribby
• 33:59
  would make her rounds with a reminder.
• 34:01
  Did you write about what we did today?
• 34:03
  Don't forget to mention that funny thing your brother said.
• 34:05
  We all responded to this nightly rich with varying degrees of
• 34:08
  enthusiasm. I was definitely the most
• 34:10
  consistent writer among my siblings, so clearly this is
• 34:13
  like an LDS thing in general. It wasn't just Ruby keeping
• 34:16
  tarries the whole time, but the kids were too.
• 34:18
  And throughout this book, Sherry actually shares some of her own
• 34:21
  childhood journals or like journal entries.
• 34:24
  And it's interesting because it's the first time she comes
• 34:27
  close to saying anything even negative about her father, and
• 34:29
  it's something she wrote as a kid.
• 34:31
  Mum and dad pulled me into their room tonight.
• 34:33
  They said that all my friend problems in school were my
• 34:35
  fault. They said I'm not a fun person
• 34:37
  to be around and nobody gets me, which may be true.
• 34:39
  They said it seems like I try on purpose to annoy my family, but
• 34:43
  the truth is I just don't enjoy being around them.
• 34:45
  Ruby and Kevin are the ones who annoy me.
• 34:47
  It's so heartbreaking to read this from a child, isn't it
• 34:49
  really? It's like but this negativity
• 34:52
  towards her dad, if you can really call it that, doesn't
• 34:54
  last very long. She literally admits like even
• 34:57
  as a child in her old journals about Ruby and she's so
• 35:01
  stressed, uptight and strict that it's impossible to have fun
• 35:04
  or relax when she's around. Dad on the other hand, is loose,
• 35:07
  easygoing and handles stress very well.
• 35:09
  One thing's for sure, I am a daddy's girl.
• 35:12
  Part 2 of the book covers the time from when Ruby started the
• 35:15
  8 Passengers channel and the family getting big on YouTube.
• 35:18
  So this chapter told me something that I didn't realise
• 35:21
  and that's that Ruby only started vlogging after her own
• 35:24
  sisters started doing it. And her sisters found like a
• 35:28
  little bit of success with like family vlogging online.
• 35:32
  And then Ruby felt really competitive with them, so she
• 35:34
  did it herself. And she was like, well, I've got
• 35:36
  more kids than them so I can get more views than them and I'm
• 35:38
  going to be more successful than them.
• 35:39
  And there was a really kind of, I don't know, odd
• 35:42
  competitiveness there. Sherri says of her experience as
• 35:46
  a kid on YouTube. We never chose to be Internet
• 35:49
  celebrities, but that made no difference.
• 35:51
  Soon our lives now revolve around non-stop content
• 35:53
  creation, whether we liked it or not.
• 35:55
  Birthdays, barbecues, even lazy Sunday afternoons.
• 35:58
  No moment was too mundane to escape documentation.
• 36:01
  Ruby, her sisters and her brother Beau, who had also
• 36:04
  jumped about the vlogging bandwagon.
• 36:06
  We're now constantly filming us for their respective vlogs.
• 36:09
  You can sneeze without it being immortalised from multiple
• 36:12
  angles. And I think this just summarises
• 36:15
  so many of the problems with family vloggers and the impact
• 36:18
  they have on kids who absolutely cannot consent to it.
• 36:21
  You know, it's oh awful, they don't have any privacy.
• 36:24
  Sherry says. For me, a 12 year old girl, this
• 36:26
  constant surveillance was excruciating.
• 36:28
  All I wanted was to grow up in peace, deal with my bodily
• 36:30
  changes and these pesky new zits without it being recorded.
• 36:34
  But my mother was omnipresent, her phone and extension of her
• 36:37
  arm, directing as like a Hollywood producer.
• 36:39
  Do this, do that Cherie, we're filming Smile, Cherie say good
• 36:42
  morning. I was beginning to feel like a
• 36:45
  sideshow freak me. Every video shoot remained a
• 36:47
  special kind of torture. I could never get used to it or
• 36:49
  relax. It was like one of those
• 36:51
  recurring nightmares when you're suddenly naked on a stage with a
• 36:53
  sea of eyes staring back at you, mocking.
• 36:55
  I mean, puberty is brutal enough, let alone with an
• 36:58
  audience. Absolutely.
• 36:59
  And it's at this point I did notice 1 little tiny
• 37:02
  inconsistency though. And Cherie says that Ruby
• 37:04
  started posting YouTube videos in 2015, which we know to be
• 37:09
  true. But then Shari says hold this
• 37:13
  OK, She knew the main way vloggers make money is through
• 37:15
  YouTube's Adsense programme. But you have to hit a 1000
• 37:18
  subscriber milestone and rack up 4000 hours of watch time in the
• 37:21
  last year in order to qualify. Once you've checked these boxes,
• 37:25
  you start making money every time someone watches or clicks
• 37:27
  on an ad in your videos. Ruby became hyper focused on
• 37:30
  getting those first 1000 subscribers.
• 37:33
  It was her golden ticket to the big leagues.
• 37:35
  I interrupt our regular schedule to make an announcement.
• 37:37
  Ruby said on July 9th, 2015, filming a special announcement
• 37:40
  video. We've hit over 1000 subscribers.
• 37:43
  I'm so excited, especially considering the last month we
• 37:45
  only had 142. It had taken her about six
• 37:48
  months to hit the magic number, which I understand her being
• 37:51
  excited about. 1000 subscribers. That's not a big deal.
• 37:53
  I was when I got my first thousand as well.
• 37:55
  I mean, I get excited every time I hit like a new thousand
• 37:58
  milestone. It's nice.
• 37:59
  Like even at this point I'm like, oh, Click to have 344,000
• 38:04
  today. That's nice and it's lovely.
• 38:07
  But anyway, not the point here. The 1000 subscribers 4000 hours
• 38:11
  of watch time role for monetization didn't actually
• 38:15
  come in until 2018. So in 2015 Ruby wouldn't have
• 38:20
  been concerned with this for making money.
• 38:22
  She'd have already been making money on her videos even before
• 38:25
  the thousands of subscriber milestone.
• 38:28
  I think she just wanted to hit a big milestone and that's why she
• 38:30
  was excited about it. She wasn't just like we'll make
• 38:33
  money at that point because she'd already been making money.
• 38:35
  I think it's fine that Shari made a mistake here.
• 38:38
  She was like Young at the time when this was happening and
• 38:40
  probably didn't know the difference.
• 38:42
  I'm not sure why her editors didn't catch this, though,
• 38:44
  because it's like a factual error.
• 38:46
  But I don't know. I don't know if that made any
• 38:48
  sense. What I'm saying is Ruby couldn't
• 38:52
  have been excited for hitting 1000 subscribers because that's
• 38:54
  when she'd get monetized, because she was already
• 38:56
  monetized. Because those monetization rules
• 38:58
  didn't come in until three years after Ruby had already hit the
• 39:02
  thousandth mark. Yeah, OK.
• 39:05
  Don't know how much sense I'm making today.
• 39:07
  I'm so sorry. My head is so loud.
• 39:09
  I'm really stressed. I'm really tired.
• 39:11
  I'm ready for a good cry. Sherry ends this chapter by
• 39:14
  asking what are the lasting repercussions of growing up on
• 39:17
  camera without any say in the matter?
• 39:19
  How does that constant exposure shape a child's sense of self,
• 39:22
  their future relationships, their very understanding of
• 39:24
  privacy? And what does consent really
• 39:26
  look like when you're a child too afraid to say no?
• 39:28
  Personally, I'm mourn those precious, formative years spent
• 39:31
  in service to someone else's vision.
• 39:33
  Ruby might claim her kids were always on board, but the truth
• 39:35
  is we never really had a choice in the matter.
• 39:37
  And what about Ruby? What might be the emotional
• 39:40
  repercussions of her snowballing success online?
• 39:43
  Yes, Ruby's drive was the was bringing in money for her family
• 39:46
  and validation for her ego. But none of those superficial
• 39:49
  rewards could fix what was broken inside her.
• 39:51
  Instead, they seemed to fuel fuel a vicious cycle, pushing
• 39:55
  her to seek more validation, more views, more content after
• 39:58
  the often at the expense of her family.
• 40:00
  The most problematic element in our family dynamic, Ruby's
• 40:03
  reliance ambition, fueled by a potent mix of unresolved pain
• 40:06
  and narcissism, had become the driving force for our existence.
• 40:09
  It was as if we'd taken the most poisonous plant in our garden
• 40:12
  and instead of uprooting it, made it the centrepiece of our
• 40:14
  lives. And this, again, is really
• 40:16
  concerning to read. It's really heartbreaking to
• 40:18
  read. And it really does seem like all
• 40:20
  these problems that Ruby had were just being encouraged and
• 40:24
  exacerbated by YouTube. And then when you have someone
• 40:26
  like Jodi who comes along as well, that makes it all even
• 40:28
  worse. Like, it's very easy to see how
• 40:32
  she got to the place where she did, why she did the things that
• 40:34
  she did. And it's just really concerning
• 40:38
  that, like, there was no one to help her along the way or stop
• 40:42
  her or be like, whoa, this is going too far.
• 40:44
  Let's calm it down. You know, again, it kind of
• 40:48
  makes me question, what responsibility does YouTube have
• 40:51
  to its creators to keep them safe?
• 40:54
  You know, if a person's currently having like a massive
• 40:56
  mental breakdown online, how do you deal with that?
• 41:00
  Like, what does YouTube have to? What responsibility does YouTube
• 41:05
  have to protect its creators? You can't just entirely ban them
• 41:08
  and take away any income they have because that's just going
• 41:11
  to make them worse. But at the same time, you can't.
• 41:13
  For example, if social media is what's causing people harm, then
• 41:16
  isn't it irresponsible to keep allowing them to be receiving
• 41:20
  this harm? It's really difficult.
• 41:22
  I don't know. I don't have any answers at all.
• 41:24
  So at the same time, like platforms like YouTube, YouTube
• 41:27
  never do as much as they should or as much as they can.
• 41:30
  I've reported harassment from various of the great, well, one
• 41:33
  of the creator, umm, I've reported it to them so many
• 41:36
  times and like, sorry, it's not for us.
• 41:39
  Get the police involved. And then it's like the police
• 41:41
  can't find their address because they've all lied about their
• 41:43
  address. So the police can't get in touch
• 41:44
  with them. So the police can't do anything.
• 41:46
  As far as they're concerned, it's just a random person they
• 41:48
  can't get in touch with. I've reported like creepy men,
• 41:53
  like harassing me sexually online.
• 41:55
  Like there was this one creepy guy who would like find my
• 41:59
  Instagram photos of me just completely clothed, fully
• 42:01
  clothed, wearing normal regular clothes.
• 42:04
  And he would film himself recording my Instagram like
• 42:09
  profile on his computer and stroking the photos of me and
• 42:13
  like stroking my private parts. And like, it made me so.
• 42:16
  And he would make these creepy comments about like what he
• 42:19
  wanted to do to me and how he was going to rape me and all
• 42:21
  this sort of thing. And it was absolutely vile and
• 42:24
  disgusting. He made several of these videos
• 42:26
  and I kept reporting it to YouTube and they did absolutely
• 42:28
  nothing about it and they refused to take it down.
• 42:30
  They refused to do anything. And I'm like, why don't you
• 42:34
  care? Like you have a young woman here
• 42:36
  saying I'm being sexually harassed online via your
• 42:39
  platform. And they're like, yeah, that's
• 42:41
  fine. We can't do anything we don't
• 42:42
  want to. It's like, why not take some
• 42:45
  responsibility? And it's like here people are
• 42:48
  saying these kids are being hurt and harmed, these kids are being
• 42:51
  abused, and it's all being shown on your platform.
• 42:53
  And people are saying this to them for years about the 8
• 42:55
  Passengers channel and they did absolutely nothing.
• 42:58
  So again, what responsibility does YouTube really have and why
• 43:03
  aren't they doing more to protect people?
• 43:06
  It's it's difficult. In the next chapter, Shari talks
• 43:10
  about how she wanted to start her own YouTube channel when she
• 43:12
  was 14, but Ruby said that one, she wouldn't let her promote it
• 43:16
  at all using the 8 passengers channel, she had to just do
• 43:19
  everything herself. And two, Ruby would have to be
• 43:21
  the one to manage any money that Shari made, which first of all,
• 43:26
  seems a bit unfair, and the second of which is a huge
• 43:30
  problem amongst family vloggers and the like who use their
• 43:32
  children to generate income, but the kids never directly benefit.
• 43:35
  For years, all those six kids did a tonne of unpaid labour in
• 43:41
  those videos and they never saw a penny of it, you know, And
• 43:44
  then when Shari wanted to make her own videos and do her own
• 43:46
  work and profit from it herself, Rupee was like, well, no,
• 43:49
  actually, I'm going to take a cut of that as well.
• 43:52
  And so Shari really never benefited from any of her work.
• 43:54
  It was unpaid child labour and she's not OK.
• 43:58
  A few chapters later, Shari talks out.
• 43:59
  When she was 15, she finally reached that 100,000 subscriber
• 44:02
  milestone and Ruby did give her a minor shout out on the 8
• 44:05
  Passengers channel. But this was also around the
• 44:08
  time that Ruby told her that she would be taking 10% of her
• 44:10
  earnings as a management fee, which just feels incredibly
• 44:13
  selfish. Ruby was like, I'm not doing
• 44:15
  anything to help you. I won't help promote you.
• 44:16
  I won't. You want to do this all by
• 44:18
  yourself, but I will take some money from you.
• 44:22
  It's unfair again, it's not OK. Shari in her book calls this the
• 44:27
  mom tax. It feels me saying mom being
• 44:30
  English, mom, mom mom, mom, mom say it normally mom but she
• 44:37
  calls like a mom tax. Even that sounds weird now.
• 44:40
  I said it too much, you know what I'm trying to say.
• 44:42
  And Ruby replied to her. You really think you would have
• 44:44
  ever started a YouTube channel, let alone a successful one
• 44:47
  without my help? You owe me Shari.
• 44:49
  Business is business. I felt not forming my stomach.
• 44:53
  On one hand, mum had a point, her influence had undeniably
• 44:55
  boost boosted my channel. On the other, this felt like she
• 44:58
  was cashing in on my hard work. But as usual, what could I do
• 45:01
  about it? Nothing.
• 45:03
  And it's really sad to read about the kind of content that
• 45:05
  Shari was making on her channel because just like Ruby and her
• 45:08
  mother, we can kind of see the cycle of abuse continuing with
• 45:11
  Shari here. So Ruby was non-stop taking
• 45:15
  advantage of her kids and making them perform for her and that
• 45:17
  sort of thing. And Shari begin to do the same
• 45:20
  thing with her younger siblings. I post it twice a week and like
• 45:23
  my mum, I exploited my own siblings, doing shaving videos
• 45:27
  with my sisters and talking about periods because I knew it
• 45:29
  would get views. The guilt eats at me now, but
• 45:32
  back then I was just following the blueprint Ruby had laid out.
• 45:35
  This is what people like, this is what makes money, the
• 45:37
  personal stuff. And this isn't really
• 45:39
  surprising. And we can't blame Sherri for
• 45:41
  this. And I don't think she should
• 45:42
  feel guilt because it wasn't her fault at all.
• 45:44
  But we see it kids today sort of like form their personalities or
• 45:50
  online personas or both from the content that they're watching
• 45:53
  and they say around them and of course from the people they know
• 45:55
  in real life. So if you've grown up entirely
• 45:58
  online and the content you're watching is the content that
• 46:01
  you're in and the people around you are making this kind of
• 46:04
  content, then of course you're going to do it too.
• 46:07
  You know, there's this book called Growing Up in Public,
• 46:10
  Coming of Age in the Digital World by Deborah Hytner.
• 46:14
  I want to say that is, I hope to pronounce that right, which
• 46:17
  discusses what it's like for kids to grow up with the
• 46:20
  Internet these days. And 1 chapter in particular
• 46:22
  talks about kids having an online presence and an online
• 46:25
  persona. And she says posting about
• 46:28
  oneself is performative for both kids and adults.
• 46:30
  And to a certain degree, this is savvy and self protective.
• 46:34
  What worries me is when a child appears to be crowdsourcing
• 46:36
  their personality. Kids experience the jarring
• 46:39
  differences between their peers, public personas, and the real
• 46:41
  people. For teens, a certain amount of
• 46:44
  persona shifting between environments is a typical and
• 46:46
  expected part of their development.
• 46:48
  Kids, like adults, form a social identity that is different from
• 46:51
  their home identity. Over the years, though, I've met
• 46:53
  countless parents who worry how a life lived in public on social
• 46:56
  media will affect their children's identity and self
• 46:59
  esteem. They're concerned that the
• 47:01
  reinforcement from peers is leading their kids to sell their
• 47:03
  soul to social media. So like I say, except in the
• 47:06
  case of Shari, like growing up with her a mother posting her
• 47:09
  online constantly, there was a lot of clear blurring between
• 47:13
  the online and offline parts of her persona and her personality.
• 47:16
  And she learned to craft an online persona at the expense of
• 47:20
  herself, esteem and in some cases her morals and at the
• 47:24
  expense of her siblings from her own mother.
• 47:27
  So it's it's no wonder she did these things.
• 47:31
  And I don't think she deserves to feel guilty about it, and I
• 47:34
  don't think we can really blame her for it because she was still
• 47:37
  a kid who was just copying her mom.
• 47:40
  We also see Sherry talking about the impact of having an audience
• 47:43
  judge everything you do when you're so young.
• 47:45
  And I can really relate to this. I mean, not the young bit,
• 47:48
  obviously, but I know that like, even as an adult, reading
• 47:51
  comments about yourself is just impossible to deal with.
• 47:55
  And it bothers me so much. Like there's people who make
• 47:58
  these like big judgments about you for like the littlest things
• 48:00
  and people who talk about you like you're some fictitious
• 48:02
  character and not a real person. And I, I struggle with as well.
• 48:07
  Like sometimes people get me mixed up with other people and
• 48:09
  like start talking about me as if I've done one thing when I'm
• 48:12
  like, well, I never did that. I think you're thinking that
• 48:15
  someone else, Like I see it all the time.
• 48:17
  Like, oh, I don't like her since she made an edit, since she made
• 48:20
  a video with XY and Z and I'm like, I don't even know who that
• 48:22
  is. Never mind work with them and
• 48:24
  made a video with them, you know, or, or like, oh, and she
• 48:28
  said this, this and this. That's when I decided I hated
• 48:30
  her and oh, she's a terrible person.
• 48:33
  And then I'm like, well, I never said that.
• 48:34
  That like, I think you're getting me mixed up with someone
• 48:36
  else. I think, I think that's a
• 48:37
  different thing. But then someone else reads that
• 48:39
  post and says, oh, that she said that about that person and they
• 48:41
  go and spread it to someone else and it's spread to someone else.
• 48:43
  Then all of a sudden you have like 10 people who are like,
• 48:46
  yeah, I hate it because she said this, this and this.
• 48:47
  And I'm like, but I never said it again, think you're getting
• 48:50
  me mixed up with someone else. I've got quite a generic face
• 48:54
  and half the comments I get are like, oh, you look like this
• 48:56
  YouTube, that you look like this YouTube and that sort of thing.
• 48:59
  So I think it's easy for people to get me mixed up with other
• 49:02
  people, but it just really hurts to see and it's really
• 49:05
  frustrating and there's not really anything you can do about
• 49:07
  it anyway. I'm saying I find that really
• 49:11
  hard to deal with now as a 30 something year old woman.
• 49:14
  So I can't imagine how much worse that would have been for a
• 49:18
  14 year old girl. Like, it's hellish, it's unfair.
• 49:23
  No. Well, I don't think any adults
• 49:24
  should have to deal with it either.
• 49:25
  But no, children especially should have to deal with that.
• 49:28
  Like it's not something any kid should go through.
• 49:30
  And it's, yeah, horrible. So Sherry writes about it,
• 49:34
  saying my mind drifted to comments I'd read online about
• 49:37
  myself, words of strangers on YouTube who thought they knew me
• 49:40
  based on carefully edited snippets of my life.
• 49:43
  Sherry's such a kiss up. She's always writing out her
• 49:46
  siblings and trying to be Ruby's favourite.
• 49:47
  So smug. And I know the blame obviously
• 49:51
  lies with the people who wrote this stuff about a literal
• 49:53
  child. Like, let's not do that.
• 49:55
  Let's stop making those kinds of judgements about people,
• 49:57
  especially kids. Yeah, but but let's also think
• 50:01
  about the people who are exposed to this in the 1st place.
• 50:04
  Her parents. They definitely share a bit of
• 50:07
  the blame too. We can't deny that, right?
• 50:09
  She writes. I thought back to all the times
• 50:11
  I'd smiled and nodded along with Ruby's demands, even when every
• 50:13
  fibre of my being wanted to say no.
• 50:16
  The countless moments I'd bit on my tongue, swallowing my true
• 50:18
  feelings and opinions for the sake of keeping the peace and
• 50:21
  ensuring the money kept rolling in.
• 50:23
  Our subscribers didn't understand what it was like to
• 50:25
  live under Ruby's iron fist, and they didn't know the
• 50:27
  consequences of stepping out of line.
• 50:29
  I'm not sucking up, I'm surviving, I thought.
• 50:31
  There's a difference, Absolutely.
• 50:33
  And in this particular chapter, there's also more of the whole
• 50:37
  Ruby bad Kevin, amazing narrative.
• 50:40
  And while I do want to try and take this story at face value
• 50:44
  and be happy that she had this support, like again, just
• 50:49
  knowing what we've seen of Kevin, I kind of find myself
• 50:52
  questioning a little bit. Anyway, I'll just read.
• 50:56
  I'll read it out. You can make up your own minds.
• 50:57
  I'm not going to say anything. 8th grade year I took compulsory
• 51:00
  unit on mental health in school and I learned about the symptoms
• 51:03
  of depression. There.
• 51:04
  I recognised myself, hopeless, self loathing and sometimes a
• 51:08
  desire to just end it all. I'd never told anyone about
• 51:10
  those feelings before and now I knew they had a name I felt
• 51:13
  compelled to say out loud. Immediately after the class I
• 51:16
  texted Kevin. Dad, I'm depressed, I don't know
• 51:19
  if I want to live anymore. Thank you for telling me.
• 51:22
  He wrote back immediately. We're going to get through this
• 51:24
  together. He even shared a link to an
• 51:25
  inspiring talk that he thought might help.
• 51:28
  Dad's quick response sent a wave of relief washing over me.
• 51:31
  For the first time in what felt like forever, I didn't feel so
• 51:33
  alone. Sure, an inspiring talk wasn't
• 51:35
  going to fix everything, but knowing he was there, he's
• 51:38
  listening. Help.
• 51:39
  That was everything to me in the moment, which again, is lovely
• 51:43
  and wonderful. And I really hope he did get his
• 51:46
  daughter help. And if he did, I like, I can't
• 51:49
  complain about that. I don't.
• 51:50
  I don't want to be sitting here going like, oh, no, we know the
• 51:52
  truth. Kevin.
• 51:53
  Start. Like, I don't want it to be like
• 51:54
  that. I just like, yeah, I know.
• 51:58
  Continue the story. So not long after this, Kevin
• 52:00
  and Ruby found out about Shari's secret boyfriend at school.
• 52:03
  So they literally pulled her out to school entirely and
• 52:05
  transferred her to a different one.
• 52:07
  And again, it's interesting how this is told in the book because
• 52:10
  it starts with I came home from school to find Ruby and Kevin
• 52:13
  waiting for me, looking like a pair of disappointed statues.
• 52:16
  But the only person who does any talking in the conversation that
• 52:19
  Cheri remembers is Ruby. Apparently Kevin just sat there
• 52:22
  silent the whole time. Wasn't even a part of this,
• 52:24
  wasn't involved. Ruby continued, her voice
• 52:26
  talking on a razor's edge. Ruby cut me off, her words sharp
• 52:29
  enough to draw blood. And then when finally Kevin does
• 52:32
  come in and get involved. Kevin chimed in here, finally
• 52:35
  remembering he was part of this parental tag tag team.
• 52:38
  It will be a much safer environment for you, Cheri.
• 52:40
  He said softly. And again, it's just interesting
• 52:43
  how she portrays each of them. Is it because they were really
• 52:46
  that different or because that's just what she's remembering now
• 52:49
  based on where she's currently at and what she's been through?
• 52:52
  Like ultimately, Kevin did play a role in being angry.
• 52:57
  She had a secret boyfriend and wanting to pull her out of
• 52:59
  school and all these different things, but she's down playing
• 53:02
  the role entirely and being like, no, it was all Ruby.
• 53:04
  Ruby was the evil 1. Ruby did all of this and it's
• 53:07
  just a bit like. So after this, Kevin convinces
• 53:11
  Ruby that Sherry needs to see a therapist.
• 53:14
  Good on him. I appreciate that.
• 53:16
  This therapist is called Doctor Winters and while Sherry wanted
• 53:19
  to go and see her, she was also scared to talk about her mother
• 53:21
  to her. And because of this, Sherry's
• 53:23
  mental health kept suffering. Eventually Ruby stopped Sherry
• 53:27
  from seeing the therapist after the therapist had helped Sherry
• 53:31
  stand up to Ruby about not wanting to take piano lessons
• 53:34
  anymore. So this is one of the cases
• 53:38
  where I do think, OK, Kevin was trying to help.
• 53:41
  Ruby was not. So I think, I mean, that's
• 53:43
  that's something we can see. And yeah.
• 53:47
  Does does that make sense? I don't Anyway.
• 53:49
  Yeah. So yeah, at this point in life,
• 53:52
  Ruby was already been incredibly controlling to the point of,
• 53:55
  like, withholding medical care that Shari clearly needed.
• 53:59
  So I guess that is a difference between Ruby and Kevin in that
• 54:02
  like, he was trying to get his daughter medical care and she
• 54:04
  wasn't. So there's that in the next
• 54:07
  chapter. One of the things I want to talk
• 54:08
  about that's quite interesting is that, you know, earlier I
• 54:10
  said that I imagine that Chad's recollections of a lot of this
• 54:13
  time, especially about Kevin, were probably quite different
• 54:16
  from Cheri's. Well, that pops up again here.
• 54:20
  Cheri so far has been taking Kevin's side on everything and
• 54:23
  absolutely paint him to be like a St in all of this.
• 54:26
  However, we do know from the videos we've seen that Kevin
• 54:29
  mistreated his kids too. Except it seems like a lot of
• 54:32
  Kevin's anger was channelled and aimed towards the boys,
• 54:38
  specifically Chad. Like it seems that he's the one
• 54:41
  Kevin always kind of like picked on and mocked and probably
• 54:44
  humiliate publicly humiliated and all of that stuff.
• 54:48
  He wanted to send him to an abusive military camp at one
• 54:50
  point. There was the reading out his
• 54:52
  private texts on video thing. There was all all of that stuff.
• 54:56
  So now we're at the point in the book where that stuff starts to
• 54:59
  happen. But Shari seems to be blaming
• 55:01
  Chad entirely for this and not Kevin, and it's a little bit of
• 55:05
  an uncomfortable read. It only took a few more
• 55:09
  missteps, each as boneheaded as the last, before Chad found
• 55:12
  himself on the wrong side of the school's gates, expulsion papers
• 55:16
  in hand. My parents face is when they got
• 55:18
  the news. I'll never forget it.
• 55:19
  A mixture of fury, disappointment and bone deep
• 55:21
  weariness that made them look like they've aged A decade
• 55:24
  overnight. But the saga wasn't over.
• 55:26
  In 2018, Chad almost ruined our biggest family vacation slash
• 55:30
  brand collab and meticulously planned road trip to Universal
• 55:33
  Studios Hollywood and our biggest brand collaboration to
• 55:36
  date. It was all going so well until
• 55:38
  Chad brought the chaos. While Ruby was filming her brand
• 55:41
  deal talking points in front of the iconic globe, Chad was
• 55:44
  being, in her words, an absolute punk by by making constipated
• 55:48
  gargoyle faces and photo bombing her carefully orchestrated brand
• 55:51
  content. Ruby's dream of picture perfect
• 55:53
  family content was rapidly devolving into a blooper reel,
• 55:56
  so she banished him to the hotel room while the rest of us
• 55:59
  enjoyed the theme park. Chad, ever the rebel, wasn't
• 56:02
  about to let Ruby's parental decree keep him down, so he
• 56:05
  snuck out of the hotel, took a taxi, somehow sweet talked his
• 56:08
  way back into Universal Studios, and had a great time by himself.
• 56:12
  Honestly, I kind of don't blame him, to be honest.
• 56:13
  That sounds quite nice, doesn't it?
• 56:15
  When we got back to the hotel, he was gone.
• 56:16
  We had no idea where he was for a while, and that, as far as my
• 56:19
  parents were concerned, was the absolute final straw.
• 56:22
  In Ruby and Kevin's eyes, Chad had become some kind of juvenile
• 56:25
  delinquent, a malfunctioning robot, and they just needed to
• 56:28
  find some way to reprogram him. They'd already considered
• 56:30
  sending Chad to West Point Military Academy and have been
• 56:34
  dragging Chad from one therapist to another, desperate for a
• 56:36
  diagnosis, some official sounding label to slap on his
• 56:39
  misdeeds. Much of their disappointment,
• 56:42
  most of these professionals said that at 14, Chad was too young
• 56:45
  for them to conclusively pathologize.
• 56:48
  Not to mention he usually run circles around those poor
• 56:50
  counsellors. Chad was often the most
• 56:52
  manipulative person in the room. Turns out growing up on camera
• 56:56
  is excellent training. Training for pulling the wall
• 56:59
  over peoples eyes. Looking back, my parents should
• 57:01
  probably have just given Chad the space and time he needed to
• 57:04
  grow up. Teenagers act out.
• 57:06
  It's practically in the job description.
• 57:07
  But no, Ruby and Kevin couldn't fathom such a simple solution.
• 57:11
  Instead, they double downed, more determined than ever to
• 57:13
  find a Chad Whisperer, someone aggressive enough to
• 57:16
  breakthrough his defences. They were on a mission to find
• 57:18
  the perfect person to crack his code and rewire him to their
• 57:21
  liking. Which is how the monster came
• 57:23
  into our lives. A monster masquerading as a
• 57:25
  mental health professional. Hey, baby, armed with a tight
• 57:29
  smile and a mind full of psychological warfare tactics, a
• 57:33
  monster who would see my mother's inner darkness and
• 57:35
  cultivate it, nurture it until it eclipsed all light.
• 57:38
  A monster named Jodie Hildebrandt.
• 57:41
  So this is where we get the introduction of Jodie.
• 57:44
  And I feel like Shari is kind of harsher to Chad than she needs
• 57:48
  to be. And and now I'm, well, now I'm
• 57:53
  wondering if it's because she blames him for Jody being
• 57:55
  introduced to their lives. And she kind of harbours that
• 57:57
  little bit of resentment she's still not worked through.
• 58:01
  But she does seem to go really, really hard on Chad and calling
• 58:04
  him like a monster, manipulative.
• 58:06
  Like all, all of these things. I like the most manipulative
• 58:09
  person in a room. Like, that's pretty harsh to say
• 58:12
  about your equally as abused brother, you know?
• 58:16
  And so I find it interesting that she's happy to go hard on
• 58:18
  him, but she goes so easy on Kevin and, like, glosses over
• 58:21
  the awful things that they in particular Kevin did to Chad.
• 58:25
  You know, again, I don't want to say that Sherry's feelings on
• 58:28
  this aren't entirely valid because they are.
• 58:31
  And I don't want to say like, oh, she's wrong.
• 58:33
  But I also, again, I kind of feel like maybe she's still too
• 58:37
  close to this, too hurt by this to have been right in this book
• 58:41
  at this point, you know? Anyway, on to Jodi, because
• 58:45
  we're finally having her introduced into the equation
• 58:48
  now. And Sherry says of Jodi, a
• 58:52
  licenced clinical mental health counsellor, Jodi had built a
• 58:54
  reputation in Utah's LDS community as something of a
• 58:58
  miracle worker. Her Connections programme
• 59:00
  promised to help people overcome everything from porn addiction
• 59:03
  to distorted thinking. And she preached A philosophy
• 59:06
  based on three core principles, impeccable honesty, rigorous
• 59:09
  personal responsibility, and vulnerable humility.
• 59:13
  Intrigued by the idea of turning Chad from Dennis the Menace into
• 59:15
  an LDS poster child, Ruby immediately set up a Zoom call
• 59:19
  for Chad and Jodi. This high stakes video
• 59:21
  conference took place in our hotel room in Orlando, where
• 59:24
  Chad had been grounded for the remainder of the trip.
• 59:27
  This was also when Jodi suggested that Chad be sent away
• 59:31
  to the wilderness camp that ended up being an abusive,
• 59:34
  dangerous nightmare and was absolutely awful.
• 59:37
  But again, like at this point, Ruby and uh, Ruby and Kevin
• 59:43
  chose this for Chad. They like, they didn't have to
• 59:46
  listen to her. They weren't manipulated by her
• 59:48
  at this point. They weren't suddenly under her
• 59:50
  spell. They weren't deep in the cult.
• 59:52
  They made the choice to send their son to an abusive
• 59:55
  wilderness camp knowingly. And I don't think we can
• 59:59
  downplay their responsibility in that.
• 1:00:01
  I just, I don't think we can. Anyway, the important thing to
• 1:00:04
  take away from this bit of. The story is that this is where
• 1:00:07
  Jodie began to become ingrained in their life and she started
• 1:00:11
  trying to get as much money out of them as possible, and these
• 1:00:14
  poor kids were the ones left suffering for all of that.
• 1:00:17
  She had some other ideas for his immediate rehabilitation,
• 1:00:19
  including sending him way to Anasazi, a wildness therapy
• 1:00:22
  programme in Arizona for troubled teens.
• 1:00:25
  Jodi painted Anasazi is a transformative experience, a
• 1:00:28
  place where Chad could shed his rebellious ways and emerge as
• 1:00:30
  the obedient, spiritually aligned son my parents craved.
• 1:00:34
  It sounded like a miracle cure, all pricing to fix every
• 1:00:36
  conceivable teenage problem with a bit of fresh air and
• 1:00:39
  wilderness survival. Never mind the eye watering
• 1:00:42
  price tag of $13,945 for just 49 days of treatment.
• 1:00:51
  Air quotes there were mine, not Cherie's.
• 1:00:53
  But my parents, flush with YouTube money and blinded by
• 1:00:55
  desperation, didn't even blink at the cost.
• 1:00:58
  They were too. They were too entranced by
• 1:01:00
  Jodie's promise and too eager for a quick fix to question
• 1:01:02
  whether this was really in Chad's best interests.
• 1:01:05
  Whatever you say, said Ruby, desperate for a solution and
• 1:01:08
  thrilled to be collaborating in Project Chad with this supposed
• 1:01:11
  guru of self help. Cherie says that she saw the red
• 1:01:14
  flags in Jodie right away. I looked Jodie up online, and
• 1:01:18
  something about her rhetoric made me feel uneasy.
• 1:01:20
  Her photo was off putting, her gaze sharp and efficient.
• 1:01:23
  Her smile seemed severe, unyielding.
• 1:01:25
  In retrospect, though, it wasn't just her physical appearance
• 1:01:27
  that unsettled me. It was a complete absence of any
• 1:01:29
  nurturing energy, the warm, comforting aura one might
• 1:01:32
  normally expect from someone who has supposedly dedicated their
• 1:01:35
  life to helping others heal. Instead, her messaging and her
• 1:01:38
  appearance seemed oddly smug. Later I dig deeper into Jodie's
• 1:01:43
  back story, much of which she herself has shared online in
• 1:01:45
  various media Media, although it's hard to believe anything
• 1:01:48
  she says. But she says she was the 6th of
• 1:01:51
  seven kids born to a fighter pilot dad and stay at home mum.
• 1:01:55
  Having grown up with very little affection, she admitted finding
• 1:01:58
  the sight of tenderness between parents and children disturbing.
• 1:02:01
  Jodie has publicly shared stories of being sexually abused
• 1:02:04
  by a 15 year old neighbour when she was two to five and again by
• 1:02:07
  a 16 year old who lived with them when she was 7 to 9.
• 1:02:10
  She said at age 21 she finally told a counsellor about the
• 1:02:13
  abuse. So it's so again it seems like
• 1:02:16
  Jodie was a victim and then grew up to be a perpetrator of abuse
• 1:02:18
  herself. The cycle of abuse continuing.
• 1:02:21
  It's sad to see but again explains but doesn't excuse her
• 1:02:25
  abusive behaviour. On the day that Chad left for
• 1:02:28
  camp, Shari defends Kevin's behaviour towards him again.
• 1:02:31
  True to form, Ruby and Kevin couldn't resist recording a
• 1:02:34
  video to explain their decision. They painted Chad as some kind
• 1:02:37
  of juvenile delinquent in desperate need of an attitude
• 1:02:39
  overhaul. Kevin uncharacteristically took
• 1:02:42
  the lead, his voice stern as he laid out the situation.
• 1:02:45
  I could almost see Ruby's puppet strings controlling his words as
• 1:02:48
  Ruby spouted this nonsense. I watched Kevin nodding along at
• 1:02:51
  all the right moments, but there was something in his eyes.
• 1:02:53
  A flicker of doubt, perhaps he'd like to claim he disagreed at
• 1:02:57
  the time before eventually falling in line.
• 1:02:59
  In that moment though, he was the perfect supportive husband
• 1:03:02
  backing up his wife's delusions. Again, it makes me a bit
• 1:03:05
  uncomfortable that she's not holding this man accountable for
• 1:03:08
  his actions. I mean, she has to admit he did
• 1:03:10
  this because we saw it on camera, We have evidence of it,
• 1:03:12
  but she's still finding excuses and trying to explain it away
• 1:03:15
  and it just frustrates me. He was not just Ruby's puppet,
• 1:03:20
  he was a grown adult man, the oldest one in this situation,
• 1:03:24
  making his own choices about mistreating his children.
• 1:03:27
  Like he, he had agency here, he really did.
• 1:03:30
  Let's not downplay it. I don't know why Sherry's going
• 1:03:33
  so hard defending him. Oh, I mean, I have ideas, but I
• 1:03:38
  don't know. Sherry then offers other
• 1:03:39
  concerning stories about Jodie's behaviour that she'd read
• 1:03:42
  online. We actually talked about a lot
• 1:03:44
  of these accusations in, I think it was the first video I did on
• 1:03:48
  Ruby and Jodie. Seeing her.
• 1:03:50
  Watch that if you want more detail.
• 1:03:51
  Jodi founded Connections in 2012, the same year she was put
• 1:03:54
  on probation and risked losing her licence as a clinical mental
• 1:03:58
  health counsellor. In fact, her licence was
• 1:04:01
  suspended when she founded Connections.
• 1:04:04
  According to a blog called The Reality Snark, the probation
• 1:04:06
  occurred when Hildebrandt violated her patients privacy
• 1:04:10
  and even took to blackmailing him.
• 1:04:13
  A patient referred to as John Doe began marriage counselling
• 1:04:16
  with Hildebrandt in 2008. However, the patient quickly
• 1:04:19
  realised he was receiving very little counselling, with
• 1:04:22
  Hildebrand instead alleging he had a porn addiction, which he
• 1:04:24
  denies. She began charging the couple
• 1:04:26
  1200 to $2000 monthly bills in therapy sessions, and when Doe
• 1:04:33
  attempted to question her counselling, she turned to
• 1:04:35
  blackmail. She purportedly discussed Joe's
• 1:04:38
  fictitious addiction with the LDS Church officials and BYU
• 1:04:42
  officials to unravel his personal life.
• 1:04:44
  That is, she went to the people at the university he was
• 1:04:47
  attending and attempted to get him like kicked out of his
• 1:04:50
  course and stuff like that. The reality snap goes on and
• 1:04:52
  says as as a result of violating state laws by disclosing
• 1:04:56
  classified information, Hildebrand was put on probation
• 1:04:59
  for 18 months. This story is backed up by an
• 1:05:02
  article in the Salt Lake Tribune who back in 2012 reported that
• 1:05:05
  all the claims made by Jodie Nan Hildebrand were false.
• 1:05:08
  The man asserts, but they led to his loss of privileges in the
• 1:05:11
  church and ejection from Brigham Young University.
• 1:05:15
  The article goes on, quoting the man who says she just lied
• 1:05:18
  wherever she went to further an agenda to destroy my life.
• 1:05:21
  We came there for marriage counselling and she pulled us
• 1:05:24
  into her porn marathon. So I have to ask.
• 1:05:27
  What is wrong with this woman? Why would she do this?
• 1:05:31
  Like why would she do this? Surely at this point it can't
• 1:05:33
  just be about money right? Like you'd have to be cruel or
• 1:05:36
  delusional to do this surely? Jodie is also known for
• 1:05:40
  repeatedly blurring the lines between patient and friend and
• 1:05:43
  she did it back then with this John Doe and his wife.
• 1:05:46
  While she was giving therapy to this couple.
• 1:05:48
  She apparently she also gave the wife a job in her clinic without
• 1:05:52
  documenting whether she had given the patient information
• 1:05:55
  about the benefits or risks of blowing their therapeutic
• 1:05:57
  relationship, which sounds similar to how she recruited
• 1:06:00
  Ruby almost 10 years later. So just to recap, she was giving
• 1:06:05
  therapy to this couple also private therapy session sessions
• 1:06:09
  to the man. She gave the wife a job in her
• 1:06:12
  office where the wife could very easily get access to the private
• 1:06:15
  notes of the husband and other patients and stuff like that.
• 1:06:18
  It is an ethical nightmare. So it was while she was on
• 1:06:22
  probation and had her licence suspended that Jodie founded
• 1:06:24
  Connections, a company where legitimate credentials really
• 1:06:27
  aren't necessary. As the author of The Reality
• 1:06:30
  Snog writes, the whole concept of creating a counselling
• 1:06:33
  business that is not compromised of licenced professionals is
• 1:06:36
  very troublesome. For one, the lack of licence and
• 1:06:38
  professional training means these unqualified life coaches
• 1:06:42
  are not actually held to any laws, ethics or HIPAA
• 1:06:45
  confidentiality as a medical professional would be.
• 1:06:48
  Sherry summarises here and. And she ended up expressing
• 1:06:50
  concern to Chad. Ruby found out and told her you
• 1:06:54
  don't like Jodie. Anyone who doesn't like Jodie is
• 1:06:56
  hiding something. It means you're threatened by
• 1:06:58
  the truth she speaks. I can't imagine how awful and
• 1:07:02
  isolating it must have been to be Sherry at this point when
• 1:07:06
  like, you're the only one in your family who can see the
• 1:07:08
  problems with this woman. And I just like I do, I do have
• 1:07:10
  a lot of sympathy for her. And I felt really awful for her
• 1:07:12
  here in my first video on this topic as well, I did a deep dive
• 1:07:15
  into the Connections website and all the stuff I found on there.
• 1:07:18
  And I came to the conclusion that it was basically like all
• 1:07:20
  one big con to try and get as much money out of people as
• 1:07:23
  possible. And like one of their big ways
• 1:07:25
  to do this was by selling a training course where they would
• 1:07:27
  train other people to become Connections counsellors or
• 1:07:30
  trainers. So then they could go on and
• 1:07:32
  counsel people and Connections would take a cut of the money
• 1:07:35
  and then they would go on to train people and so on.
• 1:07:37
  And so it's basically one big therapy MLM, half cult, half
• 1:07:42
  MLM. But MLM's are a lot like cults
• 1:07:45
  as well. So all cults again, Shari still
• 1:07:50
  defends her death throughout this time period as well.
• 1:07:52
  One day Ruby and Kevin went to a connections conference where
• 1:07:54
  Kevin came back, he seems. And when Kevin came back, he
• 1:07:57
  seemed stressed. He wasn't sure he liked the
• 1:07:58
  community and would later say he felt like he was surrounded by a
• 1:08:01
  bunch of man hating women. Still, a lot of people who he
• 1:08:04
  respected were part of connections at this time, so he
• 1:08:06
  ignored his doubts. Beside, Ruby seems so enraptured
• 1:08:09
  by Jodie and her philosophy, he dared not burst her, burst her
• 1:08:13
  bubble. It was easier to go along with
• 1:08:14
  it than risk becoming the next target.
• 1:08:16
  Of Jodie's Truth seeking missiles.
• 1:08:18
  But that was the beginning of the end for them.
• 1:08:20
  Ruby became more and more involved in connections, diving
• 1:08:23
  into Jodie's concepts of truth and distortion. 2 innocuous
• 1:08:26
  sounding words that would soon become the bane of my existence.
• 1:08:28
  The programme was as expensive as it was extensive.
• 1:08:32
  The six week team leadership training, which included 690
• 1:08:36
  minute sessions with a Certified Connections trainer and access
• 1:08:39
  to Jodie's ever growing library of more than 100 podcasts, came
• 1:08:43
  at a hefty price tag of $4995 per person.
• 1:08:49
  Extortionate for those truly committed to Jody's philosophy,
• 1:08:52
  or perhaps those she deemed in need of more intensive help,
• 1:08:55
  there was an 18 week Pro company leadership programme costing
• 1:08:59
  $14,985. It seemed Jody believed in the
• 1:09:03
  old adage, if you're going to flee someone, you might as well
• 1:09:05
  go for the whole sheep. The fruits of her labour were
• 1:09:08
  evident in her $5,000,000 luxury home in Ivan's, A picturesque
• 1:09:14
  town. A picturesque town 4 hours
• 1:09:16
  South, complete with the pool and safe room, it stood as a
• 1:09:20
  gleaming testament to how lucrative the business of fixing
• 1:09:23
  people could be, and just haplesswise if Jodie was at
• 1:09:26
  reeling in disciples and indoctrinating them.
• 1:09:28
  Jodie's playbook focused on isolation and control.
• 1:09:31
  To fully embrace her teachings connection, students were urged
• 1:09:34
  to distance themselves from anyone not living by Jodie's
• 1:09:36
  truth. It was like watching a real life
• 1:09:38
  Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Sherry also points out how Jodie
• 1:09:43
  made a habit of isolating, villainizing and pushing out all
• 1:09:45
  the husbands so she could control the wives.
• 1:09:48
  We saw her do this with Ruby and Kevin, but apparently they were
• 1:09:50
  not her first targets. It was a patented behaviour.
• 1:09:53
  In Jodie's rigid world, innocence was rare.
• 1:09:55
  Those deemed distorted, usually husbands, were told to abandon
• 1:09:59
  their families to work on themselves alone.
• 1:10:01
  Jodie seemed to specialise in guiding wives to distance
• 1:10:04
  themselves from their husbands or kicking them out entirely.
• 1:10:07
  Connections language framed this as inviting him to leave.
• 1:10:10
  Code for I'm going to make you isolate yourself from everyone
• 1:10:12
  you know except Jodie. Shockingly, the husbands often
• 1:10:14
  went along with it, fully convinced that it was in the
• 1:10:17
  best interest of their families. It was like watching lemmings
• 1:10:20
  jump off a Cliff. And this is where I do have to
• 1:10:22
  say I do have sympathy for Kevin and I do think he was the victim
• 1:10:26
  here. At this point I do genuinely
• 1:10:29
  feel for him. I don't agree with excusing
• 1:10:31
  everything he did pre Jodie but I do think after a certain point
• 1:10:35
  when Jody was in their lives he did become indoctrinated and he
• 1:10:39
  was like I think he went into it willingly and then he got too
• 1:10:43
  far in and then he was manipulated like the rest of
• 1:10:46
  them and I do think he was a victim of her and the cult to
• 1:10:50
  that extent. So the book goes on.
• 1:10:52
  And then in regards to Ruby and Jody's relationship and how
• 1:10:55
  these two people together became more toxic than the some of
• 1:10:59
  their parts. Like I said before, Sherry
• 1:11:02
  provides this what I think is a really important insight.
• 1:11:04
  It's interesting to compare Ruby's glacial approach to
• 1:11:06
  parenting with Jodie's rigid philosophy.
• 1:11:09
  These two weren't just similar, they were symbiotic.
• 1:11:11
  Jodie's Connections doctrine wasn't such a revelation to Ruby
• 1:11:14
  as it was a mirror, reflecting and magnifying the harsh
• 1:11:16
  worldview she'd always held. Connections wasn't introducing
• 1:11:20
  Ruby to a new way of thinking, it was giving her the vocabulary
• 1:11:23
  and the pseudoscience backing to justify what she'd been doing
• 1:11:26
  all along. Jodie's system had simply
• 1:11:27
  slapped a fancy label on this emotional starvation diet and
• 1:11:30
  called it therapy. In the end, connections didn't
• 1:11:32
  change Ruby's tactics, it just gave her a manual to refine
• 1:11:35
  them. Sherry then spends several pages
• 1:11:37
  detailing all of the one-on-one counselling sessions that she
• 1:11:41
  personally had with Jodie. And mostly this just meant Jodie
• 1:11:44
  telling her over and over again about how she wasn't a good
• 1:11:47
  person, she wasn't doing enough, and she made Sherry keep these
• 1:11:52
  meticulous lists of all the bad things she'd done in her
• 1:11:55
  day-to-day life. And these are like, relatively
• 1:11:57
  minor things compared to what she ended up doing to the
• 1:12:00
  younger children later on. But interactions like this show
• 1:12:04
  just how she'd get inside people's heads and make them
• 1:12:07
  insecure enough that she had complete control over them.
• 1:12:10
  This explains how she started the manipulation and how it
• 1:12:13
  could get so bad with some people.
• 1:12:14
  OK, this is much better, Sherry. Jodie said, five weeks in her
• 1:12:17
  eyes, scanning the pages of my meticulously documented mess
• 1:12:20
  ups. Now I'm going to teach you a
• 1:12:21
  very important technique, a way to transmute the adulation and
• 1:12:24
  turn it into something useful. OK?
• 1:12:26
  I said, my voice filled with an eagerness that was surprising
• 1:12:28
  even to my own ears. Next time you identify
• 1:12:31
  adulation, Sherry, I invite you to explore.
• 1:12:33
  It's opposite, Jodie continued. Think of it as a balancing
• 1:12:36
  exercise. So I should self denigrate
• 1:12:38
  instead? Very good, Sherry.
• 1:12:40
  So let's say you assume you're going to ace a test because of
• 1:12:42
  course you think you're so very clever.
• 1:12:44
  Change the language in your mind.
• 1:12:45
  Flip it. Think to yourself.
• 1:12:47
  Oh my gosh, I'm going to fail this test because I'm a very
• 1:12:50
  stupid little girl. Excuse me?
• 1:12:52
  Yeah, I want you to imagine what it feels like to fail the test.
• 1:12:54
  Really inhabit that feeling, Sherry.
• 1:12:57
  Be humble. You are far less clever than you
• 1:12:59
  think you are. Now tell me how that feels.
• 1:13:02
  Be honest. And this is so damn unhealthy.
• 1:13:04
  This is literally like the opposite of what therapists will
• 1:13:07
  tell you to do and encourage you to do and teach you what to do.
• 1:13:10
  You know this is how Jodie got exactly what she wanted.
• 1:13:12
  She would whittle down their self esteem so much that it was
• 1:13:16
  so easy for her to control and manipulate.
• 1:13:19
  It's absolutely disgusting. Sherry says like Ruby, Kevin and
• 1:13:22
  Chad. I drank the connections kool-aid
• 1:13:24
  more like chucked it by the gallon.
• 1:13:25
  Within a few months of starting my one-on-one therapy sessions
• 1:13:28
  with Jodie, I was a card carrying, insufferable
• 1:13:30
  connection convert, obsessed with analysing every thought
• 1:13:33
  that crossed my own mind, as well as every thought that
• 1:13:35
  crossed anyone else's mind too. I could practically hear my
• 1:13:38
  friends eyes rolling back in their heads as I launched into
• 1:13:40
  yet another lecture on the dangers of distorted thinking.
• 1:13:43
  But I couldn't help myself, couldn't resist the age to
• 1:13:45
  correct their flawed perceptions, to show them the
• 1:13:47
  error of their ways now that I understood truth and I should
• 1:13:50
  drive away most of my friends at school.
• 1:13:52
  Surprise, surprise, no one wants to be around a preachy 17 year
• 1:13:55
  old firebrand and Minnie Jodi obsessed with calling out their
• 1:13:58
  every cognitive distortion. But hey, they're lost, right?
• 1:14:01
  Sherry writes that as the pandemic hit in 2020, she
• 1:14:04
  started to see Ruby change even more.
• 1:14:06
  She had changed. The yelling had stopped.
• 1:14:08
  She seemed calmer, more in control.
• 1:14:10
  She no longer flew off the handle at minor infractions or
• 1:14:12
  disagreements. But something else had taken its
• 1:14:14
  place, something worse. Ruby's punishments became more
• 1:14:17
  psychological in nature, more focused on our emotions and
• 1:14:20
  minds and our bodies. Punishments themselves took on a
• 1:14:22
  more elaborate, almost theatrical quality instead of
• 1:14:25
  swift, straightforward consequences.
• 1:14:27
  Flicking the lips and slap on the cheek, Ruby began to devise
• 1:14:30
  complex object lessons meant to teach us about empathy,
• 1:14:33
  responsibility, or whatever virtue she felt we were lacking.
• 1:14:35
  These often involved grand gestures or prolonged periods of
• 1:14:39
  deprivation, all designed to make us truly feel the weight of
• 1:14:43
  our transgressions. And honestly, this stuff is also
• 1:14:45
  scary to read. And this is also the time when
• 1:14:49
  Chad's punishment of having his punishment of having his bed and
• 1:14:52
  bedroom taken away happened. And it's kind of interesting to
• 1:14:56
  read about it from this perspective because I remember
• 1:14:59
  at the time, everyone's like, how the hell can the parents do
• 1:15:00
  this? They're monsters.
• 1:15:01
  Why? Why would they do this?
• 1:15:02
  And why would they post it? But Sherry offered some insight
• 1:15:05
  about why they felt it was not only OK to do but to post online
• 1:15:08
  because they didn't think they were doing anything wrong, which
• 1:15:10
  is one of the scariest parts of all this.
• 1:15:12
  In a video titled What We Haven't Told You, Chad dropped a
• 1:15:15
  bomb that would soon detonate our family's carefully curated
• 1:15:17
  image. He mentioned casually that he'd
• 1:15:19
  been sleeping on a beanbag on the basement floor for seven
• 1:15:22
  whole months. Ruby saw nothing unusual about
• 1:15:24
  this. Chad acted like he didn't care.
• 1:15:26
  It was a master class in emotional suppression, a skill
• 1:15:28
  we'd been forced to perfect. When he let slip during filming
• 1:15:31
  what his current sleeping arrangements were, he did it so
• 1:15:33
  coolly I doubt Ruby really even noticed.
• 1:15:36
  But Ruby's new editor did, and he made Chad's revelation the
• 1:15:39
  focus of the video. Misguidedly thinking it would be
• 1:15:42
  interesting content, Ruby didn't hesitate to post it.
• 1:15:44
  Why would she? Jodi had been pumping her full
• 1:15:46
  of misplaced confidence, convincing her that her unique
• 1:15:50
  parenting philosophies were not just acceptable, but admirable.
• 1:15:53
  As the upload bar reached 100%, Ruby sat back satisfied in her
• 1:15:57
  mind. And she wasn't just a mother
• 1:15:58
  anymore. She was a truth teller, a
• 1:16:00
  revolutionary parent. Ruby, high on Jodie's toxic
• 1:16:02
  positivity, was about to proudly display her son's dehumanisation
• 1:16:06
  for millions to see. Even Dwight, our dog, had more
• 1:16:09
  comfortable sleeping arrangements.
• 1:16:11
  The Internet went ballistic. Ruby's face paled as she
• 1:16:14
  scrolled through the comments. Youtubers and Tik Tokers were
• 1:16:16
  accusing her of child abuse. But, but this is all wrong.
• 1:16:19
  They don't understand Ruby. Kevin suggested.
• 1:16:21
  Maybe we should take the video down so we don't lose
• 1:16:23
  subscribers. No, Ruby snapped.
• 1:16:26
  Jodie says we need to stand firm in our truth.
• 1:16:28
  We can't let the haters win. And again, sorry to keep hopping
• 1:16:31
  on about the Kevin thing. I don't.
• 1:16:32
  I don't want to pick this book apart.
• 1:16:34
  I don't. But this is the one little,
• 1:16:36
  little thing that's just like niggling up my brain like, oh,
• 1:16:39
  bothers me. Kevin isn't innocent in all
• 1:16:41
  this. He suggested taking the video
• 1:16:43
  down here not because he regretted what they were doing
• 1:16:46
  to charge, not because he saw anything wrong with it, but
• 1:16:48
  because he was scared to lose subscribers.
• 1:16:51
  He wasn't like, actually, let's give our son's bed back because
• 1:16:53
  this is barbaric. He was like oh let's just make
• 1:16:56
  sure no one knows about it so they keep seeing us as good.
• 1:16:58
  Kevin is not a good guy in all this.
• 1:17:00
  I do have some sympathy for him later but he had his part to
• 1:17:03
  play too. That one video burned down the 8
• 1:17:05
  passengers YouTube channel overnight and cost our family
• 1:17:07
  90% of our income. Hundreds of thousands
• 1:17:10
  unsubscribed and brands wants eager to associate with our
• 1:17:12
  wholesome family image couldn't distance themselves fast enough.
• 1:17:15
  Overnight we went from wholesome family influences to social
• 1:17:17
  media pariahs deserve. But also, it's scary that kids
• 1:17:21
  can have their family's income taken away this quickly.
• 1:17:23
  But then again, if that income is made off abusing them and
• 1:17:27
  they deserve better. Still, it's it's a complicated
• 1:17:29
  topic. Sherry even talks about how at
• 1:17:31
  this point people began to look back through all their old
• 1:17:33
  content and saw all the other things that Ruby and Kevin, I'm
• 1:17:36
  going to keep saying it and Kevin had done in the past.
• 1:17:39
  And obviously everyone was angry because these were children
• 1:17:41
  being abused. Obviously, Sherry writes about
• 1:17:43
  this angry viewers didn't just leave me in comments.
• 1:17:46
  They went after what remained of our family's livelihood.
• 1:17:48
  People bombarded BYU with calls and emails demanding they found
• 1:17:51
  my dad from his professor professor job.
• 1:17:52
  Someone even started to change the odd org petition accusing my
• 1:17:55
  parents of abuse. Just like that, Ruby and Kevin
• 1:17:57
  were cancelled. The truth was out there,
• 1:17:59
  replayed in countless reaction videos and commentary channels.
• 1:18:02
  Ruby and Kevin sent cease and desist letters to content
• 1:18:04
  creators who dead call her abusive.
• 1:18:06
  Interesting that it's dead call her abusive and not them abusive
• 1:18:09
  because it was definitely directed at both parents at the
• 1:18:11
  time, wasn't it babe? They were desperate to silence
• 1:18:13
  the criticism and the stuff and stuff.
• 1:18:15
  The genie back in the bottle. Things got real when Child
• 1:18:18
  Protective Services showed up at our house.
• 1:18:19
  They didn't find any evidence of child abuse, but the damage was
• 1:18:22
  done. There was no going back to our
• 1:18:23
  picture perfect online image ever again.
• 1:18:25
  Watching all this unfold, I've conflicted.
• 1:18:27
  Part of me was glad others finally saw what I'd known for
• 1:18:29
  years. But I was also worried if the
• 1:18:31
  public shaming would only make Ruby double down on her strict
• 1:18:33
  methods, would the very attention meant to help us end
• 1:18:36
  up making things worse? As the backlash intensified,
• 1:18:39
  Ruby's rage burned brighter, fueled by a mix of self
• 1:18:41
  righteousness and victimhood. In her mind, she was wasn't a
• 1:18:44
  controversial figure being held accountable.
• 1:18:46
  She was a martyr, crucified for her unwavering dedication to
• 1:18:50
  tough love. I am mother, I know best.
• 1:18:53
  I feel conflicted reading passages like this because it
• 1:18:55
  seems like Shari is still quite annoyed and bitter about the
• 1:19:01
  channels who've spoken about this whole thing even though
• 1:19:04
  like not long ago she was literally like hey anyone who's
• 1:19:07
  downloaded clips and archived them, like can you send them to
• 1:19:09
  me? We need them for like the court
• 1:19:11
  cases and stuff. Like she was reliant on
• 1:19:12
  commentary channels then and seemed happy to work with them
• 1:19:15
  but at the same time she's very much like they went after our
• 1:19:17
  income, how dare they blah blah. And I'm like, well again, on the
• 1:19:20
  one hand I'm not, I'm conflicted because you wouldn't want to
• 1:19:22
  take away a family's income like that.
• 1:19:24
  But at the same time they were millionaires.
• 1:19:27
  Like they hadn't, they weren't like me.
• 1:19:29
  They weren't just like scraping by paycheck to paycheck making a
• 1:19:33
  few £1000 a month. Like they were millionaires with
• 1:19:37
  like grand deals worth 10s of thousands of dollars.
• 1:19:39
  And they had a crap tonne of money in this huge house.
• 1:19:42
  They owned a house, they owned cars.
• 1:19:44
  They had all this stuff. Like even losing 90% of their
• 1:19:47
  income, they still had enough like savings and money in the
• 1:19:50
  bank, hundreds of thousands, millions to fall back on and
• 1:19:54
  live off. Like they could have still lived
• 1:19:56
  a very normal comfortable life even without the YouTube income.
• 1:20:00
  So it's not, not the same as like taking away someone's they,
• 1:20:04
  they need money every month to keep a roof up their heads.
• 1:20:07
  It's not, I don't know, it's it's difficult, it's
• 1:20:10
  conflicting. I don't know.
• 1:20:11
  Anyway, meanwhile, during this time, Jodie had started
• 1:20:14
  gaslighting Sherry like crazy. Like blessed poor girl.
• 1:20:18
  You're not getting it, Sherry. Jody snapped.
• 1:20:20
  This is about more than just tallying thoughts like an
• 1:20:23
  obedient little drone. I'm sorry, I'm mumbled, my voice
• 1:20:25
  barely above a whisper, cheeks burning with shame.
• 1:20:27
  Stop apologising. See, this is exactly what I'm
• 1:20:29
  talking about, Sherry. She barked, her voice rising for
• 1:20:31
  clarity. I asked her exactly what kind of
• 1:20:33
  ugliness I wasn't seeing. You see how focused you are on
• 1:20:36
  getting approval from me? She said.
• 1:20:37
  You're still in self adulation, Sherry.
• 1:20:39
  You need to hear. You still need to hear that
• 1:20:41
  you're the best, the cleverest. Your areas of weakness are
• 1:20:44
  compassion and empathy, but all you seem to do even now is look
• 1:20:47
  for ways to boost your own ego the next week.
• 1:20:49
  My heart pounded in my chest as I confessed to Jodie how much
• 1:20:51
  her words had affected me. Jodie.
• 1:20:53
  I said, my voice shaking slightly.
• 1:20:54
  I just wanted to tell you how much it hurt me when you said I
• 1:20:56
  was an obedient little drone. But you were right, and I'm very
• 1:20:59
  grateful for your honesty. Hearing truth is the only way we
• 1:21:01
  can bring about change. I never said those things,
• 1:21:03
  Shari. She replied calmly.
• 1:21:05
  Excuse me, that's not how I talk.
• 1:21:06
  You must have misinterpreted my meaning and then remembered it
• 1:21:09
  as fact. After the session, I took a look
• 1:21:11
  at my journal, flipping to the entry had written after last
• 1:21:14
  week's call just to check, and there it was in black and white.
• 1:21:17
  Obedient little drone, unempathetic, not getting it.
• 1:21:21
  I stared at the words, a sinking feeling in the pit of my
• 1:21:23
  stomach. Thoughts like tiny spiders began
• 1:21:26
  to crawl at my spine. How many of the times had she
• 1:21:28
  twisted my own memories against me?
• 1:21:30
  This really is classic gaslighting, and it is
• 1:21:32
  absolutely disgusting to see it used against a child.
• 1:21:36
  The final straw for me was when Jodie started talking about how
• 1:21:38
  babies are distorted. Those tiny, innocent bundles of
• 1:21:41
  joy with their soft downy hair and their wide, trusting eyes.
• 1:21:45
  According to Jodie, they're manipulators who feel entitled
• 1:21:47
  for their mothers to come tend to their every whim.
• 1:21:49
  The problem with society today is that we coddle children, she
• 1:21:51
  told me. We give them everything they
• 1:21:53
  want and then we wonder why they grow up to be selfish and lazy.
• 1:21:56
  She goes on to talk about how babies are apparently
• 1:21:58
  manipulative and awful and blah blah blah, and she says a baby
• 1:22:01
  cries because it's entitled and it knows someone will come
• 1:22:03
  running because it believes that the world revolves around them
• 1:22:05
  and their needs. Unless you train it not to be
• 1:22:07
  entitled, you're just reinforcing that behaviour in
• 1:22:10
  them. It's our job as women and
• 1:22:12
  mothers to break the cycle of manipulation, to teach children
• 1:22:15
  from an early age that they need to earn their blessings.
• 1:22:18
  Only then can we hope to create society free from distortion.
• 1:22:21
  Bile rose in my throat. Who is this monster?
• 1:22:25
  And I absolutely love that Sherry is calling this out here
• 1:22:27
  because I remember covering this in my first video and it was
• 1:22:29
  absolutely sickening the way that Jodie was talking about
• 1:22:32
  innocent babies this way. Like, I'm not a fan of babies,
• 1:22:35
  not a fan of children. I don't want to be around them.
• 1:22:37
  But even I know that, like, they're crying because they
• 1:22:39
  can't help it, not because they're trying to manipulate
• 1:22:41
  you. That's just stupid.
• 1:22:43
  Absolutely stupid. No Sickening.
• 1:22:46
  If I can find the clip from the original video, I'll pop it in
• 1:22:49
  here. They believe even newborn babies
• 1:22:52
  should be held responsible for every single one of their
• 1:22:56
  actions. Listen to this.
• 1:22:58
  The second that baby comes into the world, the second they're
• 1:23:03
  independent of you, of anyone, and they will start making their
• 1:23:08
  own choices. Even though we probably don't
• 1:23:12
  connect babies with agency, they have it and they're utilising
• 1:23:17
  it. From the second there in the
• 1:23:19
  world, they may see something flash over here and they may
• 1:23:22
  turn their head to look. That's a choice they're making.
• 1:23:26
  So yeah, they don't believe in going easier, even on babies.
• 1:23:30
  They're like, you're responsible, sort yourself out.
• 1:23:33
  If you can move your head, you're responsible for yourself.
• 1:23:35
  It's it's harsh, it's ridiculous.
• 1:23:38
  Stop it. You might think responsible.
• 1:23:40
  What exactly am I responsible for?
• 1:23:43
  Let's start at the beginning. When you were born, the very
• 1:23:47
  first moment that you took a breath into this world.
• 1:23:51
  I know you don't remember and you did do it.
• 1:23:54
  We all did. You were engaging in the act of
• 1:23:59
  responsibility and you came out and the umbilical cord was cut
• 1:24:04
  and there was a separation between you and the person who
• 1:24:06
  is primarily responsible for you.
• 1:24:08
  Now you're on your own. You're the baby bird on your
• 1:24:12
  own, learning to be responsible for yourself.
• 1:24:14
  This act of responsibility is at the epicentre of whether you
• 1:24:19
  will live a life where you have peace, you have connection, you
• 1:24:23
  have joy, you have clarity, or it is at the epicentre of you
• 1:24:28
  using your agency, your choices to choose distortion, which is
• 1:24:32
  everything Contra to peace, clarity and connection.
• 1:24:37
  So if you use your choices to live in victim, to choose
• 1:24:42
  victim, which means that the epicentre I'm not going to be
• 1:24:46
  responsible for myself. Again, they keep going back to
• 1:24:49
  this like we can even blame babies thing.
• 1:24:51
  They really believe you're responsible for yourself from
• 1:24:53
  the moment you're born and you can't possibly be a victim at
• 1:24:56
  all. So all those innocent babies who
• 1:24:57
  are abused. Their fault, right?
• 1:25:00
  Maybe they made the wrong choices.
• 1:25:02
  Maybe they should just take a little more personal
• 1:25:03
  responsibility. You know that six month old who
• 1:25:06
  couldn't help when his parents shook him to death?
• 1:25:09
  His fault, right? He should have made better
• 1:25:11
  choices. Chapter 24 was particularly
• 1:25:14
  interesting as well because it offered some insight into why
• 1:25:16
  people started to leave connections.
• 1:25:19
  So in my first video, I compared the Connections website and like
• 1:25:23
  their staff and the information about it and stuff like that
• 1:25:26
  over a couple of years. So I so I looked at an archived
• 1:25:29
  version of the site and then the most recent one before it got
• 1:25:31
  taken down. And I remember questioning why
• 1:25:34
  there'd been such a big change and why Ruby was suddenly in.
• 1:25:37
  A lot of the high repositions have been previously filled by
• 1:25:40
  like a number of people. Sherry offers an answer to this.
• 1:25:45
  Jodie's paranoia about her position at the apex of
• 1:25:47
  Connections was palpable. In moves that revealed both her
• 1:25:50
  greed and her fear, Jodie demanded that all her certified
• 1:25:52
  life coaches sign a new contract.
• 1:25:55
  No one could use her teachings or materials as independent life
• 1:25:58
  coaches unless they paid her a cut of the earnings MLM.
• 1:26:03
  It was a watershed moment. The majority of Jodie's
• 1:26:05
  followers, finally confronted with the reality of Jodie's
• 1:26:07
  boundless greed, baulked at these demands, seeing the
• 1:26:10
  contract for what it was, a desperate attempt to maintain
• 1:26:12
  control and monetize every aspect of their hard earned
• 1:26:15
  skills. One by one, people started
• 1:26:17
  walking away from connections, choosing their freedom of
• 1:26:19
  Jodie's increasingly unhinged requirements.
• 1:26:22
  Not all of them though. My mother, in her blind devotion
• 1:26:25
  to Jodie and her teachings, signed the contract without
• 1:26:27
  hesitation, hell bent on cementing her position as
• 1:26:30
  Jodie's most loyal disciple. And this here explains so damn
• 1:26:35
  much. And very, very glad Sherry took
• 1:26:38
  the time to include this and explain it all.
• 1:26:40
  It was also at this time that Sherry started to be involved
• 1:26:44
  with an older man who she saw as an ally against Jodie.
• 1:26:48
  Shari was just 18 and his name was Derek and he was a high up
• 1:26:52
  in the church, a family man and a landowner in his late 40s.
• 1:26:56
  In May 2021, right after I graduated high school, he asked
• 1:26:59
  for my help with social media strategy for his company,
• 1:27:02
  offering me a side gig to help him put the videos together for
• 1:27:04
  YouTube. Having just turned 18, it meant
• 1:27:06
  a lot to me that a respected adult like him had singled me
• 1:27:09
  out and recognised my skills and talents.
• 1:27:12
  He starts by massively love bombing her before he ends up
• 1:27:15
  quite literally sexually assaulting her multiple times.
• 1:27:19
  He groomed her, he used her, he assaulted her.
• 1:27:22
  He is not a good man. I don't know how much of this
• 1:27:24
  experience I want to talk about in the video because I feel like
• 1:27:26
  it's Shari's to tell and speak about in her own way, and she
• 1:27:29
  does in this book, she absolutely does.
• 1:27:32
  But I think 2 of the big things that I want to point out around
• 1:27:36
  it are the one even when she finally tells people and gets
• 1:27:41
  help and gets away from him, the church does absolutely nothing
• 1:27:44
  to punish him and he isn't punished in any way.
• 1:27:46
  But Shari is the one who is treated like an outcast and like
• 1:27:49
  she's done something wrong. This is clearly a massive issue
• 1:27:52
  with the church that she doesn't want to address or really look
• 1:27:55
  at, probably because she's still so involved and invested in it
• 1:27:58
  all. And to, I do think it is kind of
• 1:28:02
  like a teaching moment for us in an educational moment because
• 1:28:05
  one of the things I've spoken out a lot in my videos is how
• 1:28:07
  often predators will seek out vulnerable people.
• 1:28:10
  People have already been abused in the past who are who or who
• 1:28:13
  are traumatised or, you know, just people who are vulnerable
• 1:28:17
  and they take advantage of them. It's like they can single them
• 1:28:20
  out and hone in on them. And that's clearly what this man
• 1:28:22
  did. He knew about her rough home
• 1:28:24
  situation and he took advantage of it so he could abuse her.
• 1:28:27
  It's disgusting. It genuinely feels sometimes
• 1:28:31
  like every adult in this poor girl's life was out to hurt her
• 1:28:33
  and take advantage her in some of her in some way.
• 1:28:36
  And I am furious on her behalf. Thankfully, she later finds
• 1:28:41
  support from I think it's one of her old teachers and kind of she
• 1:28:43
  moves in with them and gets support that way.
• 1:28:45
  But OK, day 2 of trying to film this.
• 1:28:48
  Let's let's get this go. Apologies if you can hear my
• 1:28:52
  washing machine in the background.
• 1:28:53
  There's not a lot I can do about it.
• 1:28:56
  I, I need to do the washing and it's in this room.
• 1:28:59
  So. And it echoes through the whole
• 1:29:01
  flat. So it's life.
• 1:29:03
  I'm sorry. OK, so I think we got to the
• 1:29:05
  part where Sherry was just about to kind of leave for college.
• 1:29:09
  And it was at this point that Ruby decided to move Jodie into
• 1:29:13
  the family home, into what used to be Sherry's room because, and
• 1:29:16
  I quote, Jodie's. Not well.
• 1:29:18
  Ruby blurted out, skipping any pleasantries.
• 1:29:21
  She's been bombarded by the Adversary.
• 1:29:22
  Her soul is under siege from Satan himself.
• 1:29:24
  Sherry. He's trying to silence her
• 1:29:26
  truth, so she's moving in with us.
• 1:29:28
  We're going to get her better help.
• 1:29:30
  And then I dropped my phone. Wait, what?
• 1:29:32
  My mother's unhinged guru was locked in a battle with evil,
• 1:29:35
  and her solution was to crash at our place?
• 1:29:37
  Yeah, she'll be taking over your room.
• 1:29:39
  Ruby continued. Sherry's general time, it reads
• 1:29:44
  The House of Spirit, feels weird with Jodie here.
• 1:29:45
  Something's going on between her and my parents that we don't
• 1:29:47
  know about, and the whole thing is super secretive.
• 1:29:49
  I'm trying to spend as much time out of the house as I can.
• 1:29:53
  Sherry goes on to say that even knowing I was moving out soon,
• 1:29:55
  it wasn't easy being in that house.
• 1:29:57
  Jodie was in a dark place mentally.
• 1:29:59
  Night after night, she'd fall into these mysterious trances,
• 1:30:02
  Not quite seizures, not quite sleeps, but something eerily in
• 1:30:05
  between Ruby and Kevin, suddenly embracing a level of mysticism
• 1:30:09
  I'd never seen before, will conduct what they called
• 1:30:11
  spiritual interventions for her. Hushed, intense sessions meant
• 1:30:15
  to heal her. Ruby soon decided that it was
• 1:30:17
  best for her to bunk with Jodie so her friend didn't have to
• 1:30:20
  suffer through her demonic night terrors alone.
• 1:30:22
  I never remembered her being that sympathetic towards me when
• 1:30:25
  I was having similar issues as a kid, but this was different I
• 1:30:27
  guess. So I have always kind of
• 1:30:31
  wondered like, what this was because this was something that
• 1:30:35
  Ruby wrote about in her like, journals and stuff as well about
• 1:30:38
  like trying to save Jodie's soul and whatever.
• 1:30:40
  And I'm like, was Jodie having like a mental breakdown that
• 1:30:43
  they interpreted as like demon possession?
• 1:30:45
  Or was it all an act to try and like, get Ruby close to her, get
• 1:30:50
  wrong side? I don't know.
• 1:30:50
  I genuinely don't know. I'd be very interested to know,
• 1:30:53
  like, what was actually happening here.
• 1:30:56
  I've no idea. Next up, Kevin talks about Jodie
• 1:30:59
  opening up to Ruby and the other women in the cult about her
• 1:31:02
  delusions and hallucinations. She doesn't call them that, but
• 1:31:06
  that's what they are. She starts having video.
• 1:31:09
  She started having visions of being haunted by shadow figures.
• 1:31:13
  And again, this sounds to me, and I don't mean this in a
• 1:31:16
  disrespectful way, just an observation kind of way, this
• 1:31:19
  sounds to me like Jodie is or was mentally ill with some very,
• 1:31:23
  very serious issues and that Kevin was aware of these issues.
• 1:31:27
  So I have to ask, if you know this woman is having delusions
• 1:31:31
  and hallucinations, why did you allow her control over your
• 1:31:35
  marriage and your children? Why?
• 1:31:40
  March of 2021 when after a conference, a connections
• 1:31:47
  conference down in Saint George, all the, the like the inner
• 1:31:53
  circle, all the, the people who were, were being trained as you
• 1:31:59
  know, mental fitness coaches and stuff.
• 1:32:03
  So that was Ruby and a bunch of other people and their spouses.
• 1:32:07
  We went out to like a dinner afterwards.
• 1:32:10
  And that's where Jodie really opened up to the women in a
• 1:32:16
  private conversation that she believed she was being tormented
• 1:32:21
  and haunted by shadow figures every night, and that was
• 1:32:29
  spooky. We see Jodie's mental illness
• 1:32:32
  progressing and getting worse and worse because of the story
• 1:32:34
  at this point of Jodie having a mental breakdown, attempting to
• 1:32:37
  harm herself a lot, attempting to seduce a friend's husband,
• 1:32:42
  all sorts of really, really dangerous behaviour.
• 1:32:45
  And again, I feel a little sorry for Jodie going through that.
• 1:32:49
  But at the same time, I have to ask especially about Kevin and
• 1:32:53
  Ruby, why would you allow someone who is going through
• 1:32:56
  that herself to provide counselling for your children?
• 1:33:01
  At this point, Ruby and Kevin went to stay with Jodie for a
• 1:33:05
  bit to try and help her, and apparently he really genuinely
• 1:33:09
  start to believe that she was possessed or haunted.
• 1:33:12
  Because we'll listen to this. She opened up and talked about,
• 1:33:18
  you know, her struggles and, and what was going on.
• 1:33:21
  And I can't explain some of the stuff that happened while we
• 1:33:27
  were there, like crashes in the basement while we were talking
• 1:33:35
  upstairs and plates like in the kitchen just flying off by
• 1:33:41
  themselves. Like full speed smashing on the
• 1:33:44
  wall and falling through the floor by themselves.
• 1:33:47
  I, I can't explain it, but I saw it with my own eyes and, and I
• 1:33:53
  don't have any way to explain it other than there's some crazy
• 1:33:58
  shit going on and it turned into just like crazy house.
• 1:34:04
  So the moment she showed up at my house, which is the weirdest
• 1:34:07
  crap started happening. Lights turning on and off said
• 1:34:11
  sounds of people walking in walls and like sounds like
• 1:34:14
  footprints going up walls and across the ceiling and like
• 1:34:22
  stuff floating around and, and it was just, it was weird and I
• 1:34:28
  hated it. And I became the resident
• 1:34:34
  exorcist. That was the title I came up
• 1:34:38
  with myself. I thought it was kind of funny,
• 1:34:40
  but it was my job to like go and give her blessings whenever she
• 1:34:44
  started to like go into a trance and and go into possession,
• 1:34:50
  which started to be a lot. And Ruby would go up and check
• 1:34:55
  on her. It started like 4 every four
• 1:34:59
  hours at night and then it moved every two hours at night, then
• 1:35:03
  it moved every hour at night. And then at some point Ruby
• 1:35:06
  said, you know what, I'm just going to start sleeping in there
• 1:35:10
  and, and if I need you, I'll come down and get you.
• 1:35:15
  That's kind of weird, but OK. And and that was that she's they
• 1:35:21
  started sleeping in the same bed and.
• 1:35:26
  Kevin then talks about how apparently Ruby said she started
• 1:35:30
  having visions from God and at this point her and Jodi started
• 1:35:35
  sleeping in the same bed and locking themselves away in rooms
• 1:35:38
  together for hours at a time. And this thing about Ruby and
• 1:35:42
  Jodi sharing a room? We'd heard this before.
• 1:35:44
  There was a lot of speculation about the relationship between
• 1:35:47
  Ruby and Jodi, that it may have been romantic or sexual in
• 1:35:52
  nature. But it's something that I've not
• 1:35:54
  really wanted to speculate on before because I didn't really
• 1:35:57
  think it was our business, although a lot of people did in
• 1:35:59
  the comments section of my videos.
• 1:36:01
  They were like, they have to be. And but it seems like Shari also
• 1:36:05
  suspected that there was something going on between them.
• 1:36:08
  I don't know that this part is really any of our business.
• 1:36:12
  Well actually because if she was cheating on her husband then
• 1:36:16
  yeah, that's pretty damn bad. But I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:36:20
  I'm just, I'm going to read you what Cheri says and you can make
• 1:36:26
  up your minds if you want to. So Cheri writes about how one
• 1:36:29
  day she came home and went into what was her old room to grab
• 1:36:32
  some books, which like I say is 1.
• 1:36:35
  Jodie had been saying in and Ruby had now taken to sleeping
• 1:36:37
  in most nights as well and. Cheri says.
• 1:36:39
  I pushed open the door to my bedroom and looked around
• 1:36:41
  confused. The room was bathed in the soft
• 1:36:43
  glow of candles. The air was heavy with the scent
• 1:36:45
  of lavender and vanilla wafting from the massage oils on the
• 1:36:47
  dresser. I quickly grabbed what I needed
• 1:36:50
  and got the hell out of there, feeling like I'd just walked
• 1:36:52
  into someone else's honeymoon suite.
• 1:36:54
  The only thing missing was rose petals on the bed.
• 1:36:56
  That night, I couldn't sleep. Maybe it was the fact that the
• 1:36:58
  couch just sat in my back, or maybe it was a sense that I'd
• 1:37:01
  seen something I wasn't supposed to.
• 1:37:03
  I toss and turned, thoughts swirling.
• 1:37:04
  It must have been around 5:00 AM when I heard a creak of
• 1:37:07
  footsteps upstairs. I cracked one eye open just in
• 1:37:09
  time to see Ruby tiptoeing out of my room, her hair messy, her
• 1:37:12
  cheeks flushed and her robe hastily tired.
• 1:37:14
  Heading back to the bedroom she shared with my dad, a strange
• 1:37:17
  smile on her face. She looked mischievous.
• 1:37:20
  What the hell was going on? Why was Ruby sneaking around in
• 1:37:23
  the middle of the night like a teenager trying not to get
• 1:37:25
  caught by her parents? Were they really doing handle
• 1:37:27
  light massages in my bedroom? How could this be happening with
• 1:37:30
  Oliver's in the house? In that moment I felt bone deep
• 1:37:33
  pity for my father, a once proud and rational man who seemed
• 1:37:35
  completely oblivious to what was happening right before his eyes.
• 1:37:38
  It was equal parts fascinating and horrific.
• 1:37:41
  Two women who preach truth while living lies, who condemn
• 1:37:44
  queerness very publicly in their connections videos while
• 1:37:46
  embodying it privately in my room, on my bed, most likely
• 1:37:50
  latest, she writes. I've bumped into a couple of
• 1:37:52
  neighbourhood acquaintances who I need to be gay and, without
• 1:37:54
  giving too much away, casually asking their thoughts on Jodie
• 1:37:56
  Hildebrand, the life coach, if they'd heard of her.
• 1:37:59
  Oh my God, that woman is so closeted, said one of them,
• 1:38:01
  arching an eyebrow. My other friend nodded, adding
• 1:38:03
  that often times the most homophobic people were the ones
• 1:38:06
  who were hiding something about themselves.
• 1:38:08
  I know my community isn't exactly leading the Pride parade
• 1:38:10
  when it comes to queer acceptance.
• 1:38:12
  A lot of older folks are still clutching their pearls at the
• 1:38:14
  mere mention of it. But times are changing, and the
• 1:38:17
  younger generations, myself included, see things a little
• 1:38:19
  differently. Personally, I like to remember
• 1:38:22
  that Jesus taught us to love everyone.
• 1:38:24
  So I found this really interesting and it's how do I
• 1:38:28
  say good? Good's the wrong word.
• 1:38:30
  I guess it's kind of validating for a lot of people who
• 1:38:32
  suspected it to know that someone who was there at the
• 1:38:34
  time witnessing it also felt the same way.
• 1:38:37
  I imagine. I don't know.
• 1:38:38
  Anyway, there you go. I found that quite interesting.
• 1:38:42
  At this point, she talks about her dad and she's still painting
• 1:38:45
  him as like, oh, naive little victim.
• 1:38:47
  He was just, you know, a pawn and all of this couldn't do
• 1:38:50
  anything. But at the same time, this is
• 1:38:52
  one of the few times she actually seems quite critical of
• 1:38:54
  that about him. So this was AI felt like this
• 1:38:59
  was a more appropriate response to his behaviour, she says.
• 1:39:03
  I felt helpless watching all this and fall.
• 1:39:07
  I know. She says.
• 1:39:08
  I felt helpless watching all this unfold.
• 1:39:10
  Dad, who seemed like a shell of his former self, wasn't doing
• 1:39:13
  anything to stop it either. I wanted to intervene, to shake
• 1:39:15
  him out of this compliance, but I didn't know how.
• 1:39:17
  I yearned for my dad to find his backbone, to set up, to step up
• 1:39:21
  and be the protector he was supposed to be, to shield us
• 1:39:23
  somehow and convince Ruby that Jodie needed the kind of care we
• 1:39:27
  simply weren't equipped to give. In the end, he never even tried.
• 1:39:31
  This is the part of the book where Pam is mentioned to, and
• 1:39:35
  I'll feel even a little bit about her in a second.
• 1:39:38
  Let's just read what Sherry has to say first.
• 1:39:40
  Pam, Jodi's oldest nearest friend high up in connections,
• 1:39:43
  was always popping by with a case of soda and a high pitched
• 1:39:46
  hello that set my teeth on edge. The three of them, Ruby, Jodi
• 1:39:49
  and Pam, would haul up in my old bedroom for hours on end.
• 1:39:52
  They went boating in Lake Havasu in Arizona for a week and would
• 1:39:56
  make little shopping trips down to Mexico, coming back with
• 1:39:58
  grocery bags full of pills. When I asked about it, Ruby
• 1:40:01
  claimed that it was part of their grand plan to stockpile
• 1:40:03
  antibiotics for the end of the days.
• 1:40:06
  For the end of days, it was as if they formed their own
• 1:40:08
  exclusive apocalypse collective and the rest of us were
• 1:40:11
  decidedly not on the list. So Parmison we spoke about quite
• 1:40:16
  briefly in the first video I made on this topic, and she was
• 1:40:20
  one of the few people who really stuck around connections for
• 1:40:22
  quite a long time. And she seems to have been
• 1:40:24
  massively enabling Jodi and playing a part in abusing the
• 1:40:28
  children too. So it's good to see her being
• 1:40:31
  mentioned and called out here and AS.
• 1:40:34
  Of 2021, Connections was primarily run by Jodie but
• 1:40:37
  alongside 2 people, Pam Bocher and Josh Miller.
• 1:40:42
  Now Josh at the time was described as the business
• 1:40:45
  manager for Connections, but he completely disappeared from the
• 1:40:48
  website sometime in 2022 and is now working for a company called
• 1:40:52
  Patch My PC. Very very different.
• 1:40:56
  Any connection 2 Connections seems to have been wiped from
• 1:40:59
  his public profiles online so I can only speculate that maybe he
• 1:41:04
  realised how harmful Jody and connections.
• 1:41:06
  Was or was? Becoming and decided to
• 1:41:08
  completely distance himself from it.
• 1:41:10
  Maybe, I don't know. So let's not send him any hate.
• 1:41:13
  He's not involved anymore. We all make mistakes, right?
• 1:41:16
  And there's no proof that he will use any of the stuff that
• 1:41:19
  Jody spouts online, so no shame to him.
• 1:41:22
  Pam. However, Pam is different.
• 1:41:23
  Pam is still associated with Connections.
• 1:41:26
  She is still listed on the Connections website as the
• 1:41:29
  president of the Connections Foundation.
• 1:41:33
  And while she might not be a public face of the company,
• 1:41:35
  she's very clearly been involved with it right from the
• 1:41:38
  beginning, and she's still involved today.
• 1:41:40
  I would be very interested in knowing what she has to say
• 1:41:44
  about Jodie and Ruby's arrest. The whole like holding pills and
• 1:41:47
  stuff. I feel like I may have heard
• 1:41:50
  something about that. Before, I'm not sure.
• 1:41:52
  But a lot of it seems like maybe new information, I can't
• 1:41:56
  remember now, but it's interesting.
• 1:41:59
  They really were like really deep into the cult thing.
• 1:42:02
  They were hoarding food and pills and all sorts.
• 1:42:05
  And, you know, they have their safe room and everything and
• 1:42:07
  it's just, yeah, it's a lot, isn't it?
• 1:42:11
  It was around this time when Pam started showing up that Kevin
• 1:42:14
  also began to be more and more isolated.
• 1:42:15
  And Jodie began to take control not only of Ruby's life, but her
• 1:42:19
  finances and business too. And again, this is something we
• 1:42:22
  spoke out in the first video, how like, the 8 Passengers
• 1:42:25
  channel became the Connections channel, the 8 Passengers
• 1:42:27
  Instagram became the Connections Instagram, and so on.
• 1:42:30
  So Jodie was really taking over everything.
• 1:42:32
  And this is just confirmation here that she also started to
• 1:42:35
  take a lot of money from Ruby as well.
• 1:42:39
  So as Ruby, Jodi and Pam grew closer, bonding behind closed
• 1:42:42
  doors and sharing whispered conversations, Kevin found
• 1:42:45
  himself increasingly on the outside looking in.
• 1:42:47
  He was told the upstairs was off limits.
• 1:42:49
  He could leave the house when he wanted, but he couldn't return
• 1:42:52
  without Ruby's permission. Even access to the kitchen for
• 1:42:54
  meals required her approval, and Ruby dictated if and when they
• 1:42:58
  were allowed to communicate new house rules, rules inspired by
• 1:43:01
  Jodi. Ruby even tried to transfer
• 1:43:04
  control of the 8 Passengers YouTube brand to Jodi.
• 1:43:07
  So this kind of stuff like controlling when and where your
• 1:43:10
  partner can go and taking like them money and business away
• 1:43:15
  from them like Ruby did with Kevin, that is abuse straight
• 1:43:18
  up. That is abuse.
• 1:43:20
  And this again, like I say, is where I feel really sorry for
• 1:43:22
  Kevin. He was the victim here.
• 1:43:25
  I will fully acknowledge that. So Shari finally left for
• 1:43:29
  college, but instead of this being like a moment of freedom
• 1:43:31
  for her, her creepy groomer Derek just took it as an
• 1:43:34
  opportunity to finally take advantage and sexually assault
• 1:43:36
  her, which is absolutely heartbreaking.
• 1:43:39
  She is so damn brave to talk about this.
• 1:43:42
  I'm so sick of predators. I'm absolutely like fed up of
• 1:43:45
  them. I feel like I talk about them so
• 1:43:47
  much on this channel, like especially the last year because
• 1:43:49
  so many people have just been outed for being predatory.
• 1:43:52
  But like it still shocks me every time.
• 1:43:54
  I'm just, I'm just angry and fed up and I'm, I'm tired of it.
• 1:43:59
  I do really commend Shari for her bravery though.
• 1:44:01
  And talking about this and calling out like, that's
• 1:44:04
  amazing, wonderful. She's doing so well.
• 1:44:07
  I think again, one of the creepiest things, and this is
• 1:44:10
  not only criticism of him as a predator, but how the church
• 1:44:13
  enabled him and that whole set of religious beliefs enabled him
• 1:44:19
  is so he, he got like really creepy.
• 1:44:22
  He got possessive. He was like tracking her phone
• 1:44:24
  and her movements, all while assaulting her.
• 1:44:27
  And he insisted that he was training me for marriage,
• 1:44:31
  showing me things I would need to do in order to please my
• 1:44:34
  future husband. It's just like, oh, it's
• 1:44:37
  horrible. This is what like, purity
• 1:44:41
  culture And this whole idea of like, you having to be married
• 1:44:43
  off as soon as possible and save yourself to my like, it all ties
• 1:44:47
  into this. And it's what enabled the abuse
• 1:44:49
  and sickens me, really does. So that year, Christmas rolled
• 1:44:55
  around and Sherry had to go back home to her family, and she says
• 1:44:57
  Christmas was just around the corner.
• 1:44:59
  Which would mean another two whole weeks sleeping on the
• 1:45:00
  couch and my mom and Jodi acting like giggling schoolgirls in
• 1:45:04
  their matching Christmas sweaters, filming their preachy,
• 1:45:06
  hateful Connections videos in my bedroom in front of the little
• 1:45:10
  mural I'd painted in between Daily Dairy Queen runs was now
• 1:45:13
  sleeping alone in the marital bedroom with Ruby and Jodi
• 1:45:16
  permanently installed upstairs in my room.
• 1:45:19
  Stoning the baby. Oh, stoning the baby.
• 1:45:22
  Stolen the baby. I need a hug.
• 1:45:24
  My but just go. I love you baby.
• 1:45:28
  Kyra, the baby. Kyra the baby.
• 1:45:32
  Oh Kyra the baby. There's you, there's you.
• 1:45:37
  Snuggle back and can't be cosy. Hey, if you want to go up, I can
• 1:45:42
  help you. There you go.
• 1:45:44
  Oh. You're safe, but you are safe.
• 1:45:47
  A few days before Christmas, the adults gathered us children in
• 1:45:49
  the living. Room, Ruby and Jodi addressing
• 1:45:51
  the four oldest of us, relegated my 2 youngest siblings to a
• 1:45:54
  corner while making you aware of something.
• 1:45:56
  Ruby began, her tone unnervingly calm.
• 1:45:58
  Your youngest siblings won't be receiving any presents this year
• 1:46:01
  while teaching them not to be selfish and entitled.
• 1:46:03
  Jodi avid, her face a mask of self righteousness.
• 1:46:06
  My father, ever the silent supporter, nodded along.
• 1:46:09
  I glanced at my youngest siblings.
• 1:46:10
  Their faces were pictures of dejection and confusion.
• 1:46:13
  Christmas should be magical for children, a time to feel
• 1:46:15
  cherished and celebrated. This punishment felt cruel, and
• 1:46:19
  this punishment felt cruel and vindictive.
• 1:46:23
  So again, this was something I spoke about in the first video
• 1:46:26
  that I made. And I know this isn't the first
• 1:46:28
  time Ruby and Kevin use gifts as a way to control and punish
• 1:46:32
  their kids. So this was just part of a
• 1:46:34
  continued pattern of behaviour for Ruby.
• 1:46:37
  They'd done it before and now she was here doing it again with
• 1:46:39
  Jodie. I think this time it was maybe
• 1:46:41
  more shocking because they got no gifts instead of just like
• 1:46:46
  bad gifts where they all got the same thing.
• 1:46:48
  But you know, and I think the other thing is like this time
• 1:46:52
  was particularly harmful as well because they were again, they
• 1:46:55
  weren't just like doing the same thing to all the children.
• 1:46:58
  They were singling out the two youngest and saying you 2 in
• 1:47:01
  particular are being punished. And that was The thing is, there
• 1:47:05
  was no reason for the punishment.
• 1:47:06
  These kids hadn't done anything wrong other than simply
• 1:47:08
  existing. And apparently that made them
• 1:47:10
  evil and awful and me, me, me, me, me, awful.
• 1:47:13
  And they made these two young kids sit and watch while
• 1:47:15
  everyone else other than them got an open presence.
• 1:47:18
  Like it's cruel for the sake of being cruel.
• 1:47:20
  It's horrible. Obviously, no one's entitled to
• 1:47:23
  Christmas presents. It's not like a human right to
• 1:47:25
  have Christmas presents. But it's still a mean thing to
• 1:47:29
  do. It's horrible.
• 1:47:32
  It's not the lack of presences that makes it abusive.
• 1:47:35
  It's. The vindictiveness.
• 1:47:36
  And the cruelness, that's what makes it abusive, you know,
• 1:47:40
  Sherry says. We opened our Christmas presents
• 1:47:42
  while my 2 youngest siblings watched wide eyed and silent.
• 1:47:45
  When the flurry of torn paper settled.
• 1:47:47
  Jodie's saccharine voice cuts through the air.
• 1:47:49
  Cleans up, she ordered them. As they wordlessly gathered the
• 1:47:53
  debris, Jodie launched into a. Sermon, her face glowing.
• 1:47:56
  With self satisfaction. Children are not entitled to a
• 1:47:59
  magical childhood. She cooed, each word dripping
• 1:48:02
  with poisonous sweetness. You can't just expect love and
• 1:48:05
  presence, many have nothing at all.
• 1:48:09
  Thankfully, it was around this time that Sherri genuinely
• 1:48:12
  started to get some of the help she needed.
• 1:48:14
  So one of the few things that the church she was going to did
• 1:48:17
  for her that was helpful was they helped her find a therapist
• 1:48:19
  who could actually help her, who was entirely separate from Ruby
• 1:48:23
  and of course Jodi. And this is exactly what Sherri
• 1:48:25
  needed. No, it's also around this time
• 1:48:27
  when she writes with her dad. Kevin had about as much autonomy
• 1:48:31
  as a wet noodle in a hurricane. Wasn't that a fantastic image?
• 1:48:37
  I mean, obviously not nice context, but great imagery.
• 1:48:41
  Love that, his every thought and action.
• 1:48:43
  Was dictated by the. Whims of his unhinged masters,
• 1:48:46
  Ruby and Jodi. The groundwork had been laid
• 1:48:48
  long ago, the seeds of doubt and obedience sun deep as it had
• 1:48:51
  with me. The only difference was I'd
• 1:48:53
  gotten out. Years of subservience to Ruby
• 1:48:56
  had left Kevin's psyche weakened, and now he was easy
• 1:48:58
  prey, low hanging fruit. With meticulous precision, Jodie
• 1:49:03
  had finished the job dismantling.
• 1:49:04
  The last remnants of Kevin's. Independence, stripping away
• 1:49:07
  layer after layer until nothing remained but a pliant puppet
• 1:49:10
  awaiting her command. With all her pieces in place,
• 1:49:13
  Jodie was poised to make her final move to eliminate Kevin
• 1:49:16
  completely. Sherry also points out really
• 1:49:19
  importantly about how Jodie was manipulating, caring, mostly by
• 1:49:23
  making him feel guilty about any interactions he had with other
• 1:49:27
  women. And not not even just in
• 1:49:29
  directions. Actually, if if he thought about
• 1:49:31
  another woman, woman, if he was just like she's nice looking,
• 1:49:35
  she would make him feel so guilty, RIP him apart to the
• 1:49:38
  point where he was tearing. Himself apart.
• 1:49:39
  Over having just like basic thoughts.
• 1:49:43
  Shari is pretty brutal with how she.
• 1:49:46
  Describes Jodie in this section, but it's.
• 1:49:47
  Entirely warranted. Jodie saw sex everywhere, in
• 1:49:51
  every interaction, every glance, every fleeting thought.
• 1:49:54
  In her mind, the world was the cesspool of lust and distortion,
• 1:49:57
  a rolling sea of desire, a 21st century Sodom and Gomorrah, with
• 1:50:01
  only her twisted version of truth offering any salvation.
• 1:50:05
  You know, we often say how often some of the most, like, sexually
• 1:50:08
  repressed people are the ones who are most obsessed with it,
• 1:50:10
  The ones who've been denied it, who've been told it's bad,
• 1:50:13
  terrible, awful, you need to feel guilty, you can't do it.
• 1:50:15
  You, the ones who've had like, a lot of restrictions on it,
• 1:50:18
  probably think about it the most.
• 1:50:20
  You know, Sherri says a part of me pitied her.
• 1:50:23
  A repressed self loathing, that deeply damaged woman trapped in
• 1:50:27
  an environment in which she felt compelled to conceal her true
• 1:50:29
  nature, surrounded by women she couldn't have, women who were
• 1:50:33
  married to the men she resented. In her mind, there was only one
• 1:50:35
  path to justice. Crush the sperm donors and
• 1:50:39
  liberate the females. I know in the twisted.
• 1:50:45
  Matriarchy Jodi had orchestrated.
• 1:50:46
  Kevin's innermost thoughts were a weapon to be wielded against
• 1:50:49
  him. With ruthless precision, Jodi
• 1:50:51
  would extract each secret shame, each hidden doubt, and turn it
• 1:50:55
  back upon him in service of her one true goal.
• 1:50:57
  To claim Ruby as her own, knowing full well that Kevin's
• 1:51:00
  shattered spirit no longer had the strength to fight back.
• 1:51:03
  The accusations took an even darker turn when Jodie twisted
• 1:51:06
  the happiness he felt in hugging his daughters into something
• 1:51:08
  sinister and perverse. She filled his mind with doubts
• 1:51:12
  and self loathing, making him second guess every interaction,
• 1:51:15
  every display of affection. Can't you see how messed up it
• 1:51:19
  was when you gave your girls those hugs?
• 1:51:21
  You enjoyed it, didn't you? Jodie would ask.
• 1:51:23
  I. I could only imagine the horror
• 1:51:25
  and disgust that filled Kevin's mind, the shame, the fear, the
• 1:51:27
  sickening idea he might not be a safe person for his own children
• 1:51:30
  to be around. It was all nonsense, of course,
• 1:51:32
  but these kinds of sexual accusations were Jodie's go to
• 1:51:36
  tactics, her nuclear option in the game of psychological
• 1:51:38
  warfare. She had used it time and time
• 1:51:41
  again to tear families apart, planting these doubt and
• 1:51:44
  spinning false narratives of incestuous thoughts, infidelity
• 1:51:47
  or porn addiction. And it is absolutely disgusting
• 1:51:51
  that someone would use a father's genuine familial love
• 1:51:55
  for his children against him in this way.
• 1:51:57
  It's it's revolting, it's disgusting.
• 1:51:58
  There's no excuse for it. It's just, it's cruel, it's
• 1:52:02
  awful, it's isolating him from everyone he knows and loves.
• 1:52:07
  It's absolutely not OK. I shouldn't be shocked by the
• 1:52:11
  things I hear about Jodie at. This point but I.
• 1:52:14
  Still am. She still manages to get worse
• 1:52:16
  somehow. Don't ask me how, I don't
• 1:52:19
  understand it. So eventually, all the lies and
• 1:52:22
  manipulation, everything. It worked and Jodi finally
• 1:52:26
  kicked Kevin out of his home. She also made him be the one to
• 1:52:29
  tell Sherry and the other kids and he had to tell Sherry.
• 1:52:32
  Your mum has invited me to leave the family home so I can work on
• 1:52:35
  myself, he said, his voice cracking.
• 1:52:38
  Once I'm better, I'll come back and we can be a happy family
• 1:52:40
  again. I'll be gone for at least a
• 1:52:42
  year, he said. I'm leaving and taking Chad with
• 1:52:45
  me. Chad is also selfish.
• 1:52:47
  I guess selfish people belong together, which is clearly just
• 1:52:51
  parroting Jodie there, isn't it? I don't want you to end up like
• 1:52:53
  me, Sherry, he continued. Maybe this can be a learning
• 1:52:56
  experience for you. Kevin then dropped another
• 1:52:58
  bombshell. He wouldn't be communicating
• 1:53:00
  with the other kids. Only.
• 1:53:01
  Me and I assumed Chad because he was with him, although actually
• 1:53:04
  no, we find out later. No.
• 1:53:06
  The next morning I woke up to the buzz of my phone, this time
• 1:53:08
  a lengthy, lengthy text from Kevin Sherry.
• 1:53:12
  Things have changed. Chad and I are going to ask that
• 1:53:14
  you don't contact either of us until we're ready to reach out
• 1:53:17
  to you. Please don't contact me.
• 1:53:19
  Don't be selfish about this and don't hold resentment for this.
• 1:53:22
  Use this time to get close to your mum and your siblings.
• 1:53:25
  I read the message once, twice, 3, three times, each word
• 1:53:28
  cutting deeper than the last. So this is clearly Ruby and Jodi
• 1:53:33
  trying to isolate not only Kevin and Chad, but also I think Shari
• 1:53:37
  from her family. It was the first second
• 1:53:38
  isolating her as well. And but it's for stuff like
• 1:53:41
  this. This is the reason I can kind of
• 1:53:43
  understand Shari's loyalty to her dad and wanting to make him
• 1:53:45
  look so good in this book and painting him as the hero.
• 1:53:48
  I just can't help but feel like she's making a few too many
• 1:53:52
  excuses for him in the earlier chapters.
• 1:53:54
  But oh baby, I know, I know it's OK, but I understand and have no
• 1:54:00
  issues with her portrayal of him later on in these sections where
• 1:54:04
  he, he was the victim. He was, she does actually say,
• 1:54:07
  and I'll give her credit for this.
• 1:54:09
  So at the end of this chapter she says.
• 1:54:10
  As days turned into weeks, I found myself reflecting on
• 1:54:12
  Kevin's role in all this. He was far from perfect.
• 1:54:15
  Over the years he'd made his share of mistakes, enabling
• 1:54:18
  Ruby's toxic behaviour and standing idly by as she
• 1:54:20
  steamrolled over everyone. He was her faithful servant,
• 1:54:24
  catering to her every whim, no matter how unreasonable.
• 1:54:26
  But Kevin was never a selfish man, and his greatest weakness,
• 1:54:30
  in fact his greatest weakness, was his selflessness.
• 1:54:32
  He gave and gave until there was nothing left.
• 1:54:34
  Now he'd gone willingly into exile, cutting off all contact
• 1:54:38
  with us, his children, to please his wife and protect us from the
• 1:54:41
  vile monster Jodie had led him to believe he was.
• 1:54:44
  I don't know, like, I like the first bit, the reflection bit,
• 1:54:47
  the conclusion I'm not sure about, but then again, I don't
• 1:54:50
  know him at all. It's like, as I said earlier,
• 1:54:52
  like am I able to see and judge him more clearly because I'm not
• 1:54:55
  involved and I have no bias? Or am I judging him too harshly
• 1:54:58
  because I only know what I've seen of him online?
• 1:55:00
  I, I don't know, it's impossible to say.
• 1:55:02
  We could say that like, Oh well, like we should trust Sharia
• 1:55:05
  because she knows him in person, but then she also has all these
• 1:55:07
  emotional connections and the biases and the trauma and the
• 1:55:10
  trauma influencing her opinions and everything.
• 1:55:12
  And it's, I don't think anyone can ever have a full picture.
• 1:55:15
  It's it's hard and like these aren't fictional characters
• 1:55:20
  we're talking about. I'll keep reminding you these
• 1:55:21
  are like real people and they're complex and there's no like holy
• 1:55:25
  good or bad people. It's all very complex and
• 1:55:29
  nuanced. And I know, I think as long as
• 1:55:31
  we're speaking re respectfully. So even though Kevin said he was
• 1:55:35
  having to take Chad with him, it turns out that Ruby had and Jodi
• 1:55:39
  had kicked Chad out of the house.
• 1:55:40
  But he was being made to live separately and work alone
• 1:55:43
  actually, without Kevin, and he was being made to be
• 1:55:48
  independent, but at the same time he was also completely.
• 1:55:50
  Brainwashed by Jodie. And fully believing all of the
• 1:55:53
  connection stuff. So Shari tried to reach out to
• 1:55:56
  Chad. She managed to track him down,
• 1:55:58
  find out where he was, only for Ruby to send her a really,
• 1:56:01
  really long text saying that because she tried to talk to
• 1:56:04
  Chad, Shari was now entirely cut off from the family.
• 1:56:08
  This letter included things like Ruby saying to her daughter,
• 1:56:11
  you've been deceiving me for quite some time.
• 1:56:13
  This makes sense now why you don't want to talk to me.
• 1:56:16
  You couldn't handle the duplicity.
• 1:56:18
  It's glitched me that you're not interested in being part of this
• 1:56:20
  family and you've chosen to disconnect by sneaking around
• 1:56:22
  and attempting to harm other other members of our family.
• 1:56:26
  It's come to my attention that you called me abusive.
• 1:56:28
  Wow, Cheri, that word is heavily loaded with intimation.
• 1:56:31
  It's hurtful that you would use that word knowing the pain that
• 1:56:34
  this lie has caused. And it's, it's wild because
• 1:56:39
  these are the exact kinds of things we saw Ruby saying to
• 1:56:41
  other parents in her parenting advice videos and posting in her
• 1:56:45
  Mums of Truth Facebook group and all sort of thing.
• 1:56:47
  But it, it's almost more shocking hearing her saying it
• 1:56:51
  to her own daughter like this. It's like, because before she
• 1:56:54
  was just giving like vague advice and it, I mean, it wasn't
• 1:56:57
  abstract, but you could almost like disconnect me and be like,
• 1:57:00
  well, no one's actually going to listen to her.
• 1:57:01
  And I was actually going to do that even though they were,
• 1:57:03
  which was the problem. But here we can see like, no,
• 1:57:07
  she was actually doing this to her own child.
• 1:57:10
  And that is damn heartbreaking. Around this time, Sherry also
• 1:57:13
  writes that the situation at home had escalated.
• 1:57:15
  With Kevin gone and Ruby increasingly absent, I felt a
• 1:57:18
  growing sense of dread about my younger sibling's welfare.
• 1:57:21
  The final straw came when a neighbour informed me that the
• 1:57:23
  children had been left alone for five days while Ruby was off
• 1:57:26
  doing God knows what with Jodie. Why?
• 1:57:29
  That's just neglect, straight up.
• 1:57:31
  There's, there's no other word for it.
• 1:57:32
  There's no excuse for it. No.
• 1:57:35
  I was stunned. 5 days, no adult supervision, no one to make sure
• 1:57:39
  they were fed safe, looked after.
• 1:57:41
  The thought of my younger siblings fending for themselves
• 1:57:43
  for nearly a week made my blood boil.
• 1:57:45
  As it should. I think we'd all feel the same
• 1:57:47
  way. I mean, I don't have younger
• 1:57:48
  siblings, but you know, any kid, like.
• 1:57:52
  Yeah, Because that's what normal people do.
• 1:57:55
  They care about the welfare of children.
• 1:57:56
  Like it just shows how messed up Ruby and Jodi were.
• 1:58:00
  So in that moment I knew I had to do something, consequences be
• 1:58:02
  damned. I made a call to the Division of
• 1:58:04
  Child and Family Services requesting a welfare cheque on
• 1:58:07
  the children. The police went to the house,
• 1:58:09
  knocked on the door and looked inside the windows.
• 1:58:11
  They reported back that the kids were there and apparently
• 1:58:13
  everyone was fine. I was relieved they were OK but
• 1:58:16
  frustrated by the lack of action.
• 1:58:17
  While there might not be specific laws against leaving
• 1:58:20
  mines alone, surely 5 days crossed some kind of line.
• 1:58:23
  This is crazy that this state doesn't have laws against
• 1:58:26
  leaving kids alone like I'm pretty sure the UK does.
• 1:58:31
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:58:32
  So the law does not. This is just.
• 1:58:33
  In the UK, so entirely different country obviously, but the law
• 1:58:37
  doesn't say an age when you can leave your kid on their own.
• 1:58:40
  But it's an offence to leave a child alone if it places them at
• 1:58:43
  risk. Use your judgement on how mature
• 1:58:45
  your child is before you decide to leave them alone.
• 1:58:47
  For example at home or in a car. So I think in the UK, if this
• 1:58:53
  happened, this would 100% be against the law, right?
• 1:58:57
  You would definitely have people get involved, surely?
• 1:58:59
  5 days, God's sake, it's barbaric.
• 1:59:03
  So in retaliation to Sherry getting social services
• 1:59:06
  involved, Ruby essentially. Held a bunch of legal documents
• 1:59:09
  that Sherry needed hostage. They were like, you know, like
• 1:59:11
  deeds to her car and birth certificates, that sort of
• 1:59:15
  thing. And thankfully Sherry did manage
• 1:59:17
  to get them back by taking a family friend with her.
• 1:59:20
  And despite it being like an absolutely awful interaction and
• 1:59:23
  Ruby using this to like manipulate Shari and get really
• 1:59:27
  nasty and whatever, like Shari did when she get her documents
• 1:59:30
  back, it's like, what? What kind of mother would do
• 1:59:31
  this? Horrible, horrible.
• 1:59:34
  And this was the last time that Shari and Ruby ever interacted
• 1:59:39
  with each other. So heartbreaking.
• 1:59:42
  And this was also around the time that Shari released a
• 1:59:44
  public statement distancing herself from Ruby and
• 1:59:46
  connections and the whole Internet started talking about
• 1:59:49
  it. Like I I remember this.
• 1:59:51
  So Sherry wrote that despite everything, Ruby and Jodi were
• 1:59:53
  pushing on with their obnoxious Mums of Truth crusade, seeming
• 1:59:57
  oblivious to the fact that the whole world was turning against
• 1:59:59
  them. The sheer hypocrisy was
• 2:00:00
  staggering. Ruby and Jodi had crowned
• 2:00:02
  themselves the ultimate authorities on motherhood and
• 2:00:04
  family, yet their actions spoke volumes about their true nature.
• 2:00:08
  Jodi, estranged from both her son and daughter, had no contact
• 2:00:11
  with her own children. Ruby, who'd cut me off entirely,
• 2:00:13
  was now hiding my siblings from the world, their lives shrouded
• 2:00:16
  in secrecy and in isolation. My siblings, once so close, have
• 2:00:20
  become strangers to me. I had no idea about their
• 2:00:22
  well-being, their daily lives or even their whereabouts.
• 2:00:25
  No one, no one knew how they were doing.
• 2:00:27
  No one except Ruby. She was the gatekeeper,
• 2:00:29
  controlling all information about my siblings lives.
• 2:00:32
  And again, this is so damn heartbreaking.
• 2:00:35
  Umm, not only because of Sherri being isolated and how hard that
• 2:00:38
  must have been for her, but because at this point, we know
• 2:00:41
  now after the fact that this was when Ruby really started to ramp
• 2:00:45
  up her physical and Jodie, their physical abuse of the young as
• 2:00:49
  kids. And it's horrible.
• 2:00:52
  It's absolutely horrible. And you have to wonder like,
• 2:00:54
  what was going on with Ruby at this point?
• 2:00:56
  Like was it some sort of mental illness, delusion, a breakdown?
• 2:01:00
  Like it had to be right? No one.
• 2:01:02
  I don't know, I'd like to think no one can just be this cruel
• 2:01:05
  and be sane, but I've no idea. I've absolutely no idea.
• 2:01:09
  I do wonder, like now if she's receiving any kind of like,
• 2:01:11
  treatment or psychiatric help. Like I wonder if she'll ever
• 2:01:14
  realise how wrong she was, if she'll ever feel any remorse.
• 2:01:17
  Like I genuinely do not know. So at this point, Ruby pulled
• 2:01:21
  all the kids out of their schools.
• 2:01:24
  She got rid of the family dog, which is how could you, how
• 2:01:28
  could you get rid of another child?
• 2:01:29
  I would never do it. OK.
• 2:01:34
  Thank you. Thank you Nikito.
• 2:01:36
  Love you. She really began to isolate the
• 2:01:40
  kids and the family from absolutely everyone.
• 2:01:41
  Else like one of the reasons she got rid.
• 2:01:42
  Of the dog was because she was like she didn't want the kids
• 2:01:45
  going outside and playing with the dog walking that I know it's
• 2:01:47
  it's sad isn't it she didn't want the kids going outside
• 2:01:50
  walking the dog or playing with the dog and being outside so she
• 2:01:53
  was like get rid of the dog and then they don't have to go
• 2:01:54
  outside it it's barbaric. This was when Shari started
• 2:01:59
  working even more closely with social services to try and get
• 2:02:02
  those kids help. And she says the next few weeks
• 2:02:06
  were below DCFS agents, lawyers. They even talked about bringing
• 2:02:09
  a forensic psychologist on board.
• 2:02:11
  I recount on my own childhood abuse every detail I could
• 2:02:14
  remember, my childhood with Ruby, my concerns that her cruel
• 2:02:16
  methods of psychological punishment and deprivation had
• 2:02:19
  worsened, and that the kids were now in significant danger.
• 2:02:22
  I talked until my throat was raw, begging them to step in
• 2:02:24
  before it was too late. The forensic psychologist
• 2:02:27
  believes there's significant evidence of emotional abuse, the
• 2:02:29
  DCFS caseworker told me, her voice reassuring.
• 2:02:32
  We have no evidence of physical abuse, but we're going to do
• 2:02:35
  everything possible to get this in front of a judge and get
• 2:02:37
  those kids the hell out of there.
• 2:02:39
  Which sounds fantastic until October 2022, when the DA
• 2:02:42
  apparently claimed there was not enough hard evidence to prove
• 2:02:45
  abuse. Which is just crazy, isn't it?
• 2:02:48
  I think one of the reasons I want to talk about this whole
• 2:02:53
  situation so much is that, like, Shari did everything she could
• 2:02:57
  to try and get these kids help, and no one was helping her.
• 2:03:01
  The authorities that should have been in place to protect these
• 2:03:04
  kids weren't doing enough. They weren't doing their jobs.
• 2:03:08
  And I think it's really important to talk about that and
• 2:03:10
  raise awareness of that in the hopes that because I am in the
• 2:03:13
  Uki can't do anything about like, American laws and
• 2:03:17
  politics, right? But I do have a large American
• 2:03:19
  audience. I feel like if I can talk about
• 2:03:21
  it, then you guys can go ahead and talk about it as well and
• 2:03:24
  get more people doing things. Sign petitions, vote
• 2:03:27
  accordingly. Like make sure something gets
• 2:03:29
  done, please, because we can't have situations like this
• 2:03:33
  happening again. Like it's just, it's not OK.
• 2:03:36
  So in December 2022, Ruby moved out of her house and into Jodi's
• 2:03:42
  house. I think the timeline's a little
• 2:03:44
  confusing here, and as well written as most of the book is,
• 2:03:48
  it does start to get a little bit unclear in places.
• 2:03:51
  So apologies if I'm reading some of this timeline wrong.
• 2:03:55
  But basically like at this point, the neighbours who'd been
• 2:03:57
  keeping Shari up to date with information about the kids as
• 2:03:59
  much as they could, could no longer help because they were in
• 2:04:02
  a different house I believe. And at this part in the book,
• 2:04:06
  Shari seems to have stopped idolising Kevin quite so much,
• 2:04:10
  but which is a lot less frustrating to read.
• 2:04:15
  She says things like, I wish I could have called Kevin, told
• 2:04:16
  him what was happening, asked for his help as my protector.
• 2:04:19
  He was right there every day, teaching on the university
• 2:04:21
  campus, the the university that she went to, and he just still
• 2:04:24
  refused to see her. But it was as if I was
• 2:04:27
  invisible. My dad, still the man who'd held
• 2:04:29
  me as a baby, who had taught me how to ride a bike and tie my
• 2:04:31
  shoes, could no longer see me. He wasn't my protector anymore.
• 2:04:35
  He was just another person who'd let me down, another person who
• 2:04:38
  turned their back when I needed them the most.
• 2:04:40
  It was also around this time that Shari really, really
• 2:04:42
  bravely opened up to the people around her and the people she
• 2:04:45
  went to church with about the abuse she was facing from Derek.
• 2:04:48
  And while some people were lovely and supportive, and she
• 2:04:51
  definitely needed that, like the family friend she was staying
• 2:04:53
  with, I think it was like her old teacher and his wife and
• 2:04:56
  stuff. And they were absolutely
• 2:04:57
  wonderful, very supportive, very helpful.
• 2:05:00
  But when she told like the church because like I said he
• 2:05:02
  was a higher up in the churches. He worked for the church doing
• 2:05:06
  stuff for them. But her church and her Bishop
• 2:05:09
  were just victim blaming pieces of crap.
• 2:05:12
  They punished her for his actions and never gave him any
• 2:05:16
  punishment. Like what the hell.
• 2:05:18
  She deserved so much better. But this is This is why I think
• 2:05:22
  there needs to be more critique of the church as a whole, and
• 2:05:26
  Sherry's not in a position to do.
• 2:05:28
  That at least. Not right now.
• 2:05:30
  And she's, she's not quite able to critically analyse these
• 2:05:34
  religious beliefs she holds because it's a belief system
• 2:05:37
  that is inherently misogynistic and blames women for the actions
• 2:05:40
  of men, shames women for the, again, the thoughts and actions
• 2:05:45
  of men is what purity culture does.
• 2:05:47
  This idea that it's what modesty culture does, this idea that
• 2:05:49
  women need to cover up in case they tempt men and so on.
• 2:05:52
  But in this case, it's like you had a young, vulnerable woman
• 2:05:56
  with a lot of trauma who was, oh, careful, baby, barely an
• 2:06:00
  adult. She was barely 18, being taken
• 2:06:02
  advantage of by a much older man in a position of power who
• 2:06:05
  sexually assaulted her repeatedly.
• 2:06:07
  And they're like, oh, it must be the girl's fault.
• 2:06:10
  Like, that's not not OK. Absolutely not OK.
• 2:06:14
  Sherry also reached out to her grandparents, who were Kevin's
• 2:06:18
  parents for. Help.
• 2:06:19
  And Sherry doesn't say much about what was happening in the
• 2:06:22
  house with Ruby and Jodi at this time, which is understandable
• 2:06:24
  because she wasn't there and she also feels like the kids stories
• 2:06:28
  aren't hers to tell. Personally, the focus in this
• 2:06:32
  section of the book is mostly on how she was trying to get the
• 2:06:35
  kids help and save them, not what she was trying to save them
• 2:06:38
  from. Again, absolutely fair thing is
• 2:06:40
  like it's very public knowledge what the kids were going through
• 2:06:43
  at that time because Ruby kept very detailed personal records
• 2:06:47
  of it all, journals and notes and that sort of thing.
• 2:06:50
  So we've we've sadly read it all.
• 2:06:52
  It was horrific. I actually hated making that
• 2:06:54
  second video. I just like was nearly crying
• 2:06:57
  constantly. It was horrifying.
• 2:06:59
  Yeah. So if you go watch that second
• 2:07:00
  video, just be careful going into it.
• 2:07:04
  Meanwhile, Ruby and Jodi's online content was becoming more
• 2:07:07
  and more unhinged. Again, we saw this in my first
• 2:07:09
  video. We went through it all.
• 2:07:11
  I I don't want to say I wasn't lucky.
• 2:07:15
  That's the wrong word. Basically, like my my timeline
• 2:07:18
  throughout that whole period was I'd been doing this like big
• 2:07:20
  deep dive into connections. And I was like, because I
• 2:07:25
  basically thought it was called like, and I was like, oh, that's
• 2:07:27
  something to talk about. So I downloaded like a crap
• 2:07:30
  tonne of their videos and I was making my way through them and
• 2:07:32
  watching them and making notes and clipping them for stuff.
• 2:07:35
  And I've been working on that for a couple of months when like
• 2:07:39
  the arrests happened and everything like that.
• 2:07:41
  Within a couple of days of that arrest, like the YouTube
• 2:07:43
  channels were just completely wiped and gone.
• 2:07:46
  And in a lot of ways I was like, well, thank God I'd already
• 2:07:48
  downloaded so much of it. Anyway, I say all that because,
• 2:07:51
  like, it meant that in that first video, I could like, show
• 2:07:54
  tonnes of this footage that Sherri is talking about here in
• 2:07:57
  her book. She says.
• 2:07:59
  Even the disturbing videos Ruby and Jodi kept posting in their
• 2:08:02
  connections classroom weren't seen as cause enough to justify
• 2:08:05
  intervention by Child Protective Services, They continued.
• 2:08:08
  They continued spouting their increasingly alarming ideas that
• 2:08:11
  adults can force children to do whatever they want, that
• 2:08:14
  children have no right to privacy or autonomy, that
• 2:08:16
  medication is a sign of living in distortion.
• 2:08:19
  They railed against social media, claiming it was
• 2:08:21
  corrupting children and turning them gay, while asserting that
• 2:08:23
  being gay was a sin and a choice.
• 2:08:25
  They argued that phones were more dangerous than guns and at
• 2:08:28
  school, shootings were simply a result of people being
• 2:08:30
  disconnected. Episode Truthful Touch Ruby
• 2:08:33
  released a barrage of alarming statements, offering a
• 2:08:35
  disturbing window into her most unhinged mindset.
• 2:08:38
  Most chillingly, she declared, if your child comes to you on
• 2:08:41
  fire, you don't pat them on the head and say it's OK, I'll help
• 2:08:43
  you. No, you beat them and you kick
• 2:08:46
  them and you hit them with a rod.
• 2:08:48
  You cannot put welts on your child's legs and then lovingly
• 2:08:50
  apply Gauls and expect healing. This statement sent shippers
• 2:08:54
  down my spine. Welts.
• 2:08:56
  Was this a hypothetical scenario or an admission?
• 2:08:59
  The casual way she spoke her inflicting harm on a child made
• 2:09:01
  my skin crawl. It wasn't just the words
• 2:09:03
  themselves, but the matter of fact tone, as if discussing
• 2:09:05
  something mundane as making breakfast.
• 2:09:07
  I knew how harsh Ruby could be when it came to child
• 2:09:10
  discipline, but this felt different.
• 2:09:11
  This felt like sadism. And then in the last 15% of the
• 2:09:15
  book, we get the talk about the kids managing to escape, the
• 2:09:18
  police rescuing them, and the aftermath of it all.
• 2:09:21
  We have, again, in that second video, seen the arrest footage,
• 2:09:24
  the interview footage. It's absolutely disgusting.
• 2:09:28
  It's heartbreak. Like, again, I was sobbing.
• 2:09:31
  It's not even funny. But Shari talks about it here,
• 2:09:34
  saying that when they were first taken to custody, both Ruby and
• 2:09:37
  Jodi played dumb, acting as though there must be some
• 2:09:39
  terrible mistake. Ruby refused to speak during her
• 2:09:41
  first interview with the police. Jodie on the other hand.
• 2:09:43
  Played the role of. Traumatised victim with haunting
• 2:09:45
  precision, she sat in the interrogation room, her eyes
• 2:09:48
  wide and brimming with manufactured disbelief, gently
• 2:09:51
  insisting that there'd been a terrible misunderstanding.
• 2:09:53
  Her act was as transparent as it was sickening.
• 2:09:57
  Ruby later told Kevin that the 15 minute drive was spent in
• 2:09:59
  silence, saying she couldn't bear to speak or even look at
• 2:10:01
  Jodie. I can only imagine what thoughts
• 2:10:03
  might have been racing through Ruby's mind as she sat there,
• 2:10:05
  her hands cuffed, staring out the window.
• 2:10:08
  Did she think of her children, of the life she'd left behind?
• 2:10:10
  Or was she lost in the enormity of what she'd done, what she'd
• 2:10:13
  become? I can imagine the fear clawing
• 2:10:15
  at her insides, the desperation to wake up from this nightmare.
• 2:10:18
  But there was no waking up from this.
• 2:10:19
  This was Ruby's new reality, Our new reality.
• 2:10:22
  Kevin was brought in for interrogation shortly after
• 2:10:24
  Ruby's arrest as the police tried to determine the
• 2:10:26
  circumstances surrounding the chain of events.
• 2:10:28
  He seemed unaware of the situation, telling police Ruby
• 2:10:31
  had called him to pick up the kids the day she was arrested,
• 2:10:33
  but he wasn't sure why. When asked about his family,
• 2:10:35
  Kevin admitted. I haven't seen them for over a
• 2:10:38
  year. I've been separated from my wife
• 2:10:39
  and family. I have some problems.
• 2:10:43
  So he was still very much indoctrinated.
• 2:10:45
  Indoctrinated at this point he was still believing all the
• 2:10:47
  connections, nonsense plus him. The space has been very, very
• 2:10:50
  good for me, he said, parroting Jodie and Ruby's manipulative
• 2:10:53
  rhetoric. The disconnect between Kevin's
• 2:10:55
  calm demeanour and the reality of what had happened was
• 2:10:57
  staggering. But he was still living in an
• 2:10:58
  alternate universe, one in which he'd been brainwashed into
• 2:11:02
  believing that abandoning his family was somehow therapeutic.
• 2:11:05
  Kevin still seemed confused as to why I'd been called in for
• 2:11:07
  questioning, until the police painted a picture of what they
• 2:11:09
  suspected Ruby and Jodi had done to my youngest siblings and the
• 2:11:12
  condition in which they'd been found.
• 2:11:14
  Kevin was in shock responding. That sounds horrible,
• 2:11:17
  disgusting. No human being should be treated
• 2:11:19
  like that, Which is absolutely true.
• 2:11:22
  The police informed Kevin that his children, aside from me and
• 2:11:24
  Chad, were now in the custody of DCFS and under a medical hold
• 2:11:27
  for 72 hours. Kevin became emotional, asking
• 2:11:30
  what's going to happen to my wife?
• 2:11:31
  I'm with my wife. He continued to express trust in
• 2:11:34
  Ruby, seemingly caught between loyalty for his wife and the
• 2:11:37
  shocking revelation about what she and Jodie had done to their
• 2:11:40
  children. Oh, I've certainly conflicting
• 2:11:42
  feelings about Kevin. It's oh so complex.
• 2:11:47
  Ruby, meanwhile, was still clearly delusional as hell, even
• 2:11:49
  after her arrests. But Kevin, I don't know, like
• 2:11:53
  he, he was both a brainwashed victim of this whole situation
• 2:11:56
  and initially part of the problem and an enabler.
• 2:11:59
  And it's just, I don't, I don't know, it's a lot.
• 2:12:02
  I don't think we can call him the bad guy, but he's not
• 2:12:05
  entirely A victim either. It's just I think we have to
• 2:12:08
  acknowledge it's very complicated, Sherry writes.
• 2:12:10
  I'm completely misunderstood, Ruby said in her first call to
• 2:12:13
  Kevin directly after her arrest, expressing no remorse.
• 2:12:16
  That is the most horrible feeling.
• 2:12:18
  Like my own family misunderstands me, they
• 2:12:20
  misinterpret me. And poor Jodie, they
• 2:12:22
  misinterpret her, they misunderstand her, She
• 2:12:25
  continued, her voice rising with emotions.
• 2:12:27
  It is just horrendous. But you know what, like Joseph
• 2:12:29
  Smith, every wonderful man of God has been misunderstood.
• 2:12:32
  I'm going to get out of this. Who knows, maybe in 10 days I'll
• 2:12:36
  get out of this. Her words came faster, as if she
• 2:12:38
  was caught up in a vision. God spoke to me when I was
• 2:12:41
  driving before I called you. The Spirit said.
• 2:12:43
  Your children are going to be removed.
• 2:12:45
  A long pause. I am committed to our family,
• 2:12:47
  Kevin said. I'm committed to you in our
• 2:12:49
  marriage, no matter what happens.
• 2:12:51
  Well, thank you for stepping up, Was Ruby's reply.
• 2:12:53
  Amazingly, Ruby had expressed confusion as to why anyone would
• 2:12:57
  be concerned about the shocking state her youngest kids have
• 2:13:00
  been found in. I don't understand why they're
• 2:13:02
  in the hospital. They're perfectly fine.
• 2:13:05
  They're perfectly fine, she declared.
• 2:13:07
  The children were not fine. I knew that much.
• 2:13:08
  So did everyone who'd seen them. Paramedics, police, witnesses to
• 2:13:12
  the outcome of Jodie's and my mother's acts of extraordinary
• 2:13:15
  cruelty. Again, it's kind of shocking
• 2:13:17
  just how, like, delusional Ruby was, how far this delusion went.
• 2:13:22
  It's This is why I have to be like, well, was she?
• 2:13:24
  I'll, I, I don't know. There's another massive
• 2:13:27
  revelation at this point too, which I don't think was public
• 2:13:30
  public before this book. So Sherry went with the police
• 2:13:34
  to the home to try and pick up some old belongings and had a
• 2:13:36
  look through Ruby's laptop while she was there.
• 2:13:39
  Now I'm not sure why or how the police allowed this, because
• 2:13:43
  surely it's evidence and it needed to be preserved, but here
• 2:13:47
  we are. Apparently Sherry did see it
• 2:13:49
  all, she says. I walked in and accompanied by
• 2:13:51
  an officer and looked around. I found one of Ruby's laptops
• 2:13:53
  and easily figured out her passwords to her Apple iCloud
• 2:13:56
  account. I read some text messages,
• 2:13:58
  emails, and journal entries in the Notes app that confirmed for
• 2:14:01
  me the truth about the nature of her relationship with Jodie and
• 2:14:04
  how it spilled over into the physical.
• 2:14:06
  Ruby expressed her frustration about having to cater to Jodie's
• 2:14:09
  needs for physical affection without getting anything in
• 2:14:11
  return. My mother servicing someone else
• 2:14:14
  first time for everything I didn't read on.
• 2:14:16
  What happened between them romantically was none of my
• 2:14:18
  business. I didn't care to know nor think
• 2:14:20
  about it any further. So again, I think that's quite
• 2:14:24
  new. A lot of rubies, notebooks and
• 2:14:28
  things were released to the public but.
• 2:14:30
  Obviously this. Wasn't and I think I think
• 2:14:32
  that's fair. We don't need to know about what
• 2:14:34
  happened between them consensually.
• 2:14:36
  We can judge for a bit for cheating on Kevin.
• 2:14:37
  Also she kicked out the house. Was it cheat?
• 2:14:39
  I don't know. I don't know.
• 2:14:40
  But other than that, that is their business.
• 2:14:44
  And Kevin turned on Shari at this point, saying Kevin was
• 2:14:47
  furious when he found out I'd gone to the home and taken those
• 2:14:49
  journals, tablets, cell phones and everyone's passports from
• 2:14:52
  the house. Even though I was accompanied by
• 2:14:54
  the police, he was still so I'll so brainwashed back then, still
• 2:14:57
  loyal to Ruby and Jody above all.
• 2:14:59
  Kevin told the cops they should charge me with burglary and that
• 2:15:02
  pretty and they pretty much laughed in his face, pointing
• 2:15:05
  out that I'd just as much tried to retrieve the items from the
• 2:15:07
  family home as he did. Kevin was displeased with this
• 2:15:09
  answer and advised we would be hearing from his attorney, an
• 2:15:13
  officer wrote in his report. I felt sorry for Kevin more than
• 2:15:15
  anything. I gave the items back to the
• 2:15:17
  cops and they returned everything to Kevin.
• 2:15:20
  They then talk about the court case and you know.
• 2:15:22
  At first Ruby spoke out in Jodi's defence, but that loyalty
• 2:15:25
  quickly dissolved when she realised she can improve her own
• 2:15:27
  situation by turning against her friend.
• 2:15:29
  By pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against Jodi, Ruby
• 2:15:32
  could paint herself as a victim of Jodi's manipulation.
• 2:15:35
  So of Jodi's manipulative influence during the abuse of my
• 2:15:38
  siblings. The evidence of her pre existent
• 2:15:40
  abuse was already out there online.
• 2:15:42
  I mean, so was Kevin's in the form of 13108 passengers videos
• 2:15:47
  that she'd made during her seven years of vlogging.
• 2:15:50
  Alongside all the other evidence, those videos would
• 2:15:51
  surely provide proof that Ruby had utilised harsh and excessive
• 2:15:55
  discipline against her children long before Jodi came on the
• 2:15:57
  scene and so did Kevin. I took it upon myself to create
• 2:16:01
  a compendium of those videos so that the prosecution could more
• 2:16:03
  fully understand the person they were dealing with.
• 2:16:06
  That for me, Ruby had always been an abuser.
• 2:16:09
  But again, why isn't she acknowledging what Kevin did at
• 2:16:11
  this time? So in regards to the video, she
• 2:16:14
  was found once. Showing her taking with the
• 2:16:16
  kids. Bedrooms.
• 2:16:17
  Withholding food as punishment. Cancelling Christmas for the
• 2:16:19
  youngest kids for being selfish. One iconic reversal.
• 2:16:23
  The woman obsessed with showing her most intimate family moments
• 2:16:25
  online in exchange for fame and money was about to be exposed by
• 2:16:28
  the same videos. Evidence of her sins.
• 2:16:31
  Proof of her mean and bizarre parenting philosophies.
• 2:16:34
  And then, of course, was the Connections classroom.
• 2:16:36
  Hours upon hours of footage showcasing Ruby and Jodi
• 2:16:39
  preaching their dangerous ideology, their obsession with
• 2:16:41
  pain, their vitriol against children and those struggling
• 2:16:44
  with mental health issues. Their strange and unyielding
• 2:16:46
  manifesto was laid bare word for word, straight from the source.
• 2:16:50
  The harsh reality of her situation was finally sinking in
• 2:16:52
  for Ruby. Even in a prison population
• 2:16:54
  filled with women accused of heinous crimes like murder and
• 2:16:57
  assault, Ruby quickly realised that convicted child abuses were
• 2:17:00
  considered the lowest of the low.
• 2:17:02
  Apparently she was really, really scared.
• 2:17:03
  She thought she was going to be attacked.
• 2:17:04
  Maybe she did get attacked. I don't care.
• 2:17:07
  Good, she deserves it, Sherry writes on the day of Ruby's
• 2:17:10
  sentence, saying Ruby delivered her statement, painting herself
• 2:17:13
  as the ultimate victim, how she'd been deceived for so long,
• 2:17:16
  almost as if she'd been an unwitting participant in the
• 2:17:18
  abuse. Then, in a tone better suited to
• 2:17:20
  a Grammy acceptance speech, she launched into a laundry list of
• 2:17:23
  thank yous to every officer, lawyer and judge who'd snatched
• 2:17:26
  her out of the hell she didn't know how to get out of.
• 2:17:29
  Ruby declared that the moment of her arrest was the moment she
• 2:17:31
  gained her freedom. Then she turned her attention to
• 2:17:34
  Kevin. You're the love of my life, She
• 2:17:36
  said, and I watched as Kevin bowed his head, his shoulders
• 2:17:38
  shaking with the weight of emotions he could not hold back.
• 2:17:41
  After thanking everyone and their dog, Ruby finally turned
• 2:17:44
  her attention to me and my siblings.
• 2:17:46
  She didn't use our names, instead referring to us as her
• 2:17:49
  six little chicks and herself as our Mamma duck who had been
• 2:17:53
  dragged into a current while trying to lead us to safety.
• 2:17:56
  Not once did she acknowledge having been anything less than
• 2:17:59
  Mother of the year before Jodie entered our lives.
• 2:18:01
  There will be no apology for the years of torment and
• 2:18:03
  exploitation that preceded Jodie.
• 2:18:05
  Listening to her hollow words, I wondered if, in her narcissistic
• 2:18:09
  mind, Ruby would ever fully comprehend the gravity of her
• 2:18:12
  actions or experience genuine remorse.
• 2:18:15
  I don't think she will. I think she's an awful person.
• 2:18:18
  Do not, do not believe she'll ever really feel well.
• 2:18:20
  I don't know, Maybe if she's had like a breakdown she will
• 2:18:23
  eventually come out the other side and be better.
• 2:18:26
  But I next Jodie was escorted into the courtroom.
• 2:18:29
  I chose to look directly at her face.
• 2:18:31
  Gone was the meticulously coiffed hair that had once been
• 2:18:34
  her signature. It now hung limp and greasy,
• 2:18:36
  framing her ash and skin. As the judge rehashed the plea
• 2:18:39
  agreement, Jodie's lawyer tried to argue that there were two
• 2:18:41
  sides to every story, prompting the judge, clearly incensed by
• 2:18:44
  the audacity of the statement, to demand what other side there
• 2:18:47
  could possibly be to the torture of children.
• 2:18:50
  Jodi had been making phone calls from gaol to her followers,
• 2:18:52
  painting herself as a prophet, wrongly persecuted, God's
• 2:18:55
  messenger behind bars, comparing herself to Joseph Smith, the
• 2:18:58
  founder of my faith, saying things like God speaks directly
• 2:19:00
  to me. The sheer arrogance and delusion
• 2:19:02
  of her statements left me in no doubt.
• 2:19:04
  Jodi was entirely unrepentant. I'd assume that Jodi would
• 2:19:07
  remain silent, but to my surprise, she stood up to
• 2:19:09
  deliver a statement. Only a few brief sentences.
• 2:19:12
  I loved those children, she began.
• 2:19:15
  Funny way of showing it, as soon as the words left her mouth,
• 2:19:17
  Chad and I locked eyes, a shared sense of incredulity passing
• 2:19:20
  between us. She wished the children
• 2:19:22
  beautiful, happy lives. Showing 0 remorse or
• 2:19:26
  accountability. I hate this woman, I really do.
• 2:19:28
  There is one part I feel a little conflicted about in the
• 2:19:31
  last chapters though. So Sherry writes this.
• 2:19:34
  Everyone was talking about it, the news, social media, even
• 2:19:37
  people on the street dissecting every detail, feeding this this
• 2:19:41
  true crime circus. Didn't they understand?
• 2:19:44
  These are my, these are children, my siblings, real
• 2:19:47
  people who've suffered unimaginable horrors.
• 2:19:49
  It's not entertainment. It's not a story to be picked
• 2:19:52
  apart and analysed. I want to scream at them all to
• 2:19:54
  stop, to leave, to leave it alone.
• 2:19:56
  Something should remain unspoken.
• 2:19:58
  Some horrors should be left in the dark, where they belong.
• 2:20:01
  This was one of them. Again, this is where I'm
• 2:20:03
  conflicted. So I've spoken before in videos
• 2:20:06
  about how I am against the romanticization and
• 2:20:10
  commodification of true crime. I don't like it when people talk
• 2:20:14
  about it so flippantly while like, you know, doing their
• 2:20:16
  makeup or eating a bunch of food or whatever.
• 2:20:19
  I don't like when people romanticise criminals and talk
• 2:20:21
  about them like they're celebrities or heroes or
• 2:20:23
  whatever because we would have killed their family.
• 2:20:25
  That's hot. No, stop it.
• 2:20:27
  But I do believe that like when it's done respectfully, it is
• 2:20:32
  actually important to talk about these things.
• 2:20:34
  Like if it starts without online content creators and media
• 2:20:37
  outlets archiving so much of the 8 passengers and connections
• 2:20:41
  footage, then there wouldn't have been so much evidence
• 2:20:43
  against Ruby and Jodie. So you know, because they they
• 2:20:46
  immediately wiped their social media accounts when they were
• 2:20:48
  arrested. Shari was happy to work with
• 2:20:52
  Youtubers when we were like sending her footage like she she
• 2:20:59
  put a thingy out asking for like anyone who had clips like to
• 2:21:02
  send them to her and I sent her a big like I don't know if she
• 2:21:06
  ever saw it but I sent her a big like Dropbox file of everything
• 2:21:08
  I had. Downloaded and.
• 2:21:09
  I knew a bunch of other content creators did that too.
• 2:21:12
  So for that reason, like you have to admit there was a
• 2:21:18
  purpose in it. And also, while I understand
• 2:21:21
  it's hard to hear people talking about your family and I, I find
• 2:21:24
  it hard to like hear people talking about me online and that
• 2:21:26
  sort of thing. I get that.
• 2:21:27
  And I also think like it's important to remain like
• 2:21:29
  respectful and realise these are real people.
• 2:21:32
  But I do also think that when it comes to something as big as
• 2:21:36
  this, it is important to talk about these big issues and try
• 2:21:39
  to understand why sometimes people do the awful things they
• 2:21:42
  do. It's important to talk about
• 2:21:44
  what the warning signs were and what happened and how we can try
• 2:21:47
  and spot these warning signs in the future and stop it happening
• 2:21:49
  again. I talk a lot in a lot of my
• 2:21:52
  videos about like religious trauma, about like religious
• 2:21:55
  trauma and the dangers that come from like really strict
• 2:21:59
  fundamentalist belief systems. And again, I think it's
• 2:22:01
  important to talk about that and educate people on that and not
• 2:22:04
  just talk about hypotheticals of like, oh, if we don't do this,
• 2:22:06
  this might happen. It's like, no, when this
• 2:22:08
  happens, this has happened and we can't keep letting it happen,
• 2:22:13
  you know? And Shari said constantly in
• 2:22:15
  this book how the legal system and social services failed these
• 2:22:20
  children repeatedly. Again, we need to talk about
• 2:22:23
  this with examples to be able to identify like, well, why did
• 2:22:26
  this happen? How do we stop it happening
• 2:22:27
  again? What do people need to ask for
• 2:22:30
  to make sure real change happens?
• 2:22:32
  We won't see change in those things unless we talk about it.
• 2:22:35
  I feel like there's a lot of really complicated issues here
• 2:22:38
  because on the one hand, it's great for the people involved to
• 2:22:41
  be the ones talking about their experiences, and we should
• 2:22:44
  absolutely listen to them and lift their voices up.
• 2:22:46
  But we also have to be aware that, like the people involved,
• 2:22:49
  while they're the only ones who were there and experienced it,
• 2:22:51
  they also have probably a lot of trauma and biases involved, and
• 2:22:55
  they maybe don't have the most accurate memory of some of the
• 2:22:58
  things that happened. They've got thoughts and
• 2:23:01
  feelings and emotions that are influencing how they talk about
• 2:23:03
  it. Sometimes it's better to have
• 2:23:05
  like an objective outside of being like, hang on a minute,
• 2:23:08
  what do we actually see happening here?
• 2:23:11
  Sherry goes on mostly to complain about one particular
• 2:23:15
  2020 episode on which it showed photos of the kids injuries
• 2:23:18
  uncensored and without warning. And she, I think she's like
• 2:23:22
  mostly saying like, this is what's bad.
• 2:23:24
  And I completely agree with that.
• 2:23:25
  I think that's fair. I don't like that approach.
• 2:23:28
  It feels like a sensationalisation of the issue
• 2:23:31
  rather than like actually wanting to educate people and
• 2:23:34
  have like a real conversation. So in that regard, I'm
• 2:23:38
  completely on her side. I just think it's important to
• 2:23:40
  remember that, like, this is a very nuanced topic and it's very
• 2:23:44
  complicated, but I don't think there's anything wrong with
• 2:23:48
  talking about it as long as you're being respectful and
• 2:23:51
  remembering that these are real people involved.
• 2:23:53
  And you're going into it with like the mindset of like, I want
• 2:23:56
  to educate people because like people said the same thing with
• 2:24:00
  the Neil game and stuff like, well, why are you even talking
• 2:24:02
  about it? I'm like, because if we don't,
• 2:24:04
  it just keeps happening. If these women didn't come
• 2:24:07
  forward publicly with their stories, if people didn't
• 2:24:09
  amplify their voices, if people didn't talk about it, then he'd
• 2:24:12
  just keep getting away with it. When something this awful
• 2:24:15
  happens, you can't just bury your head in the sand and
• 2:24:17
  pretend it's not happening and be like, oh, we better not talk
• 2:24:19
  about it because that's how people get away with stuff.
• 2:24:24
  That's how abuse keeps happening.
• 2:24:27
  But if you if you use it as a learning experience to be like,
• 2:24:30
  well, what were the warning signs?
• 2:24:32
  What should we have seen? What can we see next time?
• 2:24:35
  How do we stop this happening in the future?
• 2:24:36
  How do we put policies in place to make sure this doesn't happen
• 2:24:40
  again? You know, that's that's the only
• 2:24:44
  way things change and get better.
• 2:24:47
  It's like people are like, well, what's the point in talking
• 2:24:49
  about the Neil Gaiman allegations, for example?
• 2:24:52
  And I'm like, because if we didn't talk about it publicly,
• 2:24:55
  then he'd still have fans and women would still be like going
• 2:24:58
  up to him and putting themselves in vulnerable situations and he
• 2:25:00
  would take advantage of it and hurt more women.
• 2:25:03
  And my camera batteries just died.
• 2:25:05
  So the last like 5 minutes I think are going to be black and
• 2:25:07
  white. I'm so sorry.
• 2:25:09
  Not black and white. So just a black screen.
• 2:25:12
  Sorry. But, and it's the same with
• 2:25:15
  this, like if we don't keep calling it out then and talking
• 2:25:20
  about it and trying to educate people, then more and more
• 2:25:23
  family vloggers are just going to keep putting their content
• 2:25:26
  out there and taking advantage of their kids.
• 2:25:28
  Not quite necessarily in this way, but in similar ways.
• 2:25:30
  And it's like, if by talking about this stuff, we can get
• 2:25:33
  people to see the warning signs and then maybe recognise that in
• 2:25:36
  other people, they know families, they know kids, they
• 2:25:39
  go to school or church or activities with, you know, it's,
• 2:25:44
  I don't know. I just feel like if talking
• 2:25:46
  about it helps save future kids, then why wouldn't we want to do
• 2:25:49
  that? Or do you just want abusers to
• 2:25:52
  just be, I don't say ignored because I mean, some ways we
• 2:25:56
  should ignore them. But do we just want their
• 2:25:58
  actions to be ignored? Like they're not a big deal?
• 2:26:00
  Like, oh, it's fine, it's happened, let's move on because
• 2:26:04
  I don't think we should move on. I think we should keep talking
• 2:26:08
  about it until real change happens.
• 2:26:11
  You know, I don't know. Anyway, sorry.
• 2:26:15
  Sherry ends the book with talking about how Ruby is a
• 2:26:18
  narcissist and that now she's going to have this big fresh
• 2:26:23
  start. She wants kids in her room one
• 2:26:24
  day who she'll treat better than her mum, treat her and all that
• 2:26:27
  lovely stuff. So great.
• 2:26:30
  OK, in conclusion, I thought it was a really good book.
• 2:26:33
  I really enjoyed it. Like I say, there were a few
• 2:26:35
  little little bits I had issues with, but I think we've covered
• 2:26:38
  them. Overall though, I mostly just
• 2:26:41
  want to say that like, I have very positive feelings about
• 2:26:44
  this book overall. I have a lot of respect for
• 2:26:45
  Shari talking about this and putting her side of the story
• 2:26:48
  out there. And even if she does have a few
• 2:26:50
  like biases and some ongoing trauma, I think overall the book
• 2:26:55
  does more help than it does harm, which is what's most
• 2:26:58
  important. I think she's brave.
• 2:27:00
  I think her siblings are incredibly brave and strong.
• 2:27:03
  And I would encourage you all to go and buy a copy of this book
• 2:27:05
  for yourself and support her and support everything she does.
• 2:27:09
  And yeah, just remember, if you leave a comment on this, like,
• 2:27:14
  just be kind, be respectful. These are real people involved.
• 2:27:18
  These are real kids. This is.
• 2:27:19
  A real thing that happened, like it's not fiction, it's not
• 2:27:23
  made-up. And but hopefully there are ways
• 2:27:27
  we can go about educating people and one day maybe we'll see some
• 2:27:32
  real change. I don't know.
• 2:27:34
  But hopefully for now I've at least can use something to think
• 2:27:36
  about and reflect on. And that's, that's all I really
• 2:27:39
  wanted. So yeah, thank you so much for
• 2:27:43
  watching. I appreciate you guys a lot.
• 2:27:45
  If you like this. Video then yeah, it'd be great
• 2:27:48
  if you want to subscribe and stick around.
• 2:27:51
  I talk about lots of different topics, just whatever kind of
• 2:27:54
  interests me and feels important at the time.
• 2:27:56
  I'll often do like book reviews. I'll talk about social issues, a
• 2:27:59
  lot of feminist issues and proud to be Q plus issues and all
• 2:28:02
  sorts of stuff like that. So yeah, if you want to stick
• 2:28:06
  around for that kind of content, then that would be great.
• 2:28:08
  Thank you so much. Otherwise, thank you for
• 2:28:11
  watching today. Thank you for your time, and
• 2:28:13
  I'll see you again soon. Bye.