System Failure: Ruby Franke Was Reported to CPS for Years — Why Didn't They Stop Her?
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 908 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
CPS visited the Franke home in 2020. They investigated. They closed the case.
Three years later, Ruby's children were found bound and starving in Jodi Hildebrandt's house.
Part 4 of "The Good Mother" examines what happens when you see abuse, report it, and nothing changes. Why systems designed to protect children fail until the damage is catastrophic.
The Franke case wasn't hidden. Ruby documented her parenting publicly for 2.5 million subscribers. The warning signs were on YouTube — a teenager sleeping on a beanbag for seven months, a child denied lunch, public humiliation as content.
Viewers reported. A petition was launched. Ruby's own family tried to intervene — her parents, siblings, husband. All were cut off.
Shari Franke posted one word when her mother was arrested: "Finally."
She elaborated: "We've been trying to tell the police and CPS for years."
This episode examines why systems fail. CPS is overwhelmed. The threshold for intervention is physical evidence of severe harm — not patterns, not escalation, not warning signs.
The Frankes performed normalcy when it counted. Educated, affluent, religious. They knew what to say. The children had been trained to perform too.
By the time CPS showed up, the house probably looked fine. The children probably said what they'd been taught to say.
That's how children fall through cracks.
If you reported something and nothing happened, that doesn't mean you were wrong. The system failing doesn't mean you failed.
Keep seeing. Keep reporting. You can't know which report will be the one that matters.
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#RubyFranke #CPSFailure #8Passengers #SystemFailure #ChildProtectiveServices #ShariHildebrandt #ReportingChildAbuse #ChildWelfare #TrueCrime #JodiHildebrandt
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske. Here now, Tony Brewski. |
| 0:06.7 | In June of 2020, someone called Child Protective Services on the Frankie family. |
| 0:11.9 | And it wasn't the first call. And it wouldn't be the last. |
| 0:15.6 | Over the years, multiple reports were filed by viewers who watched eight passengers and saw things that didn't look right. |
| 0:23.1 | A teenager sleeping on a beanbag for seven months. A six-year-old denied lunch as punishment. |
| 0:28.6 | Children being humiliated on camera. Their worst moments uploaded for millions to consume. |
| 0:37.0 | CPS investigated. |
| 0:38.2 | They visited the home and they interviewed the family, and they closed the case. |
| 0:42.7 | Three years later, two children will be found bound and starving in Jody Hildebrand's house. |
| 0:48.3 | The same family, the same mother, the same warning signs that have been reported and dismissed. |
| 0:54.1 | This is part four of The Good Mother. |
| 0:56.3 | And it's about the weight that witnesses carry when they see something wrong, try to get help, and watch the system fail. |
| 1:03.3 | I love to get your thoughts in the comments section as we work our way through this. |
| 1:07.3 | Maybe you've been in this position before. |
| 1:09.2 | I'd love to get your thoughts. |
| 1:16.8 | Substack and YouTube are at the places to comment the links like i said in the descriptions be sure to press subscribe so you don't miss any of our reporting the frankie case isn't unique in |
| 1:24.9 | this way systems fail all the time. Children fall through the cracks. |
| 1:28.3 | Reports get filed and closed. Social workers are overworked, under trained, and underfunded. |
| 1:35.3 | The threshold for intervention is high, and the resources for follow-up are low. |
| 1:41.1 | A lot of kids live in homes where something is wrong and a lot of those kids never get help. |
| 1:46.1 | But what makes the Frankie case different is the scale of visibility. Ruby wasn't hiding what |
| 1:53.5 | she did. She uploaded it. She monetized it. She built a business around showing the world how she |
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