US mum who gave parenting advice on YouTube charged with child abuse – Al Jazeera

Founder of defunct channel 8 Passengers Ruby Franke and her business partner arrested this week.A 41-year-old United States woman once popular for giving parenting advice on YouTube has been arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse in the state of Utah after her emaciated son approached a neighbour’s house looking for food, authorities say. Ruby Franke, whose now-deleted channel 8 Passengers had 2.5 million subscribers, was arrested on Wednesday night in the southern Utah city of Ivins along with her business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt. Franke, the mother of six, has recently appeared in YouTube videos with 54-year-old Hildebrandt that were posted online by the latter’s counseling business, ConneXions Classroom. The two women were formally charged on Friday in Washington County, according to the local website the St George News. They each face six counts of aggravated child abuse. ‘Duct tape on the boy’s ankles and wrists’ Franke’s 12-year-old son climbed out of a window in Hildebrandt’s residence in Ivins, ran to a neighbour’s house on Wednesday morning and asked for food and water, according to an affidavit filed by an officer with the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department. The neighbour saw duct tape on the boy’s ankles and wrists and
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