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[speaker] I'm sorry. Are you fucking okay?
Obviously not.
Literally, get off YouTube and actually care for your kids.
Clearly, they don't even want to be in your videos
by their faces...
[Shari Franke] Over the days and weeks,
I think our numbers were, like, consistently declining.
And any engagement that we did have was, like, negative.
[speaker 2] Taking away their bedroom and their bed,
but not, not even for like a day or two, but for months...
[Chad Franke] We were basically canceled.
Like, our views just tanked.
We lost like 90% of our income.
What has happened in our home over the last few weeks
is a taste of the real world and we have not filtered it from our kids,
and they are seeing it, and they're like, "Wow."
[Chad] I remember us getting some very expensive lawyer involved,
and I remember him specifically suggesting to her
to make an apology.
Ruby's response to that was, "Over my dead body.
"I'm not sorry. I'm saving my family.
"We're gonna show the world what real parenting looks like.
"We're gonna show the world
"what it's like to make impossibly tough decisions
because you love a child."
Buckle up, guys.
[sighs deeply]
I have something to share.
[โช dramatic music playing]
[โช music fades out]
Okay. I have just been pondering about all the changes that have happened
and asking myself what changes I want to make in my life.
[โช curious music playing]
Okay.
Kevin and I have been looking-- We have no brand deals coming in.
So, we have enough to keep going...
[Chad] After the cancellation,
there was a very distinct switch in the kind of content she was filming.
This is often what happens when things go awry,
is it really brings us back to home base,
which is, I am a child of God.
I am the center-- That-- That is where I am centered.
And, um...
So I've been brought back to base and...
[Chad] She went kind of from a, a fun, energetic, laughable mom
more to a very serious religious teacher.
[Ruby Franke] I decided that I was going to have more prayers
to get through the day
[crying] 'cause I feel like I have been working...
This is literally the way that God intended our children to be raised up.
What I am seeing is that you're upset with the outcome for being mischievous,
and instead of being humble, you're-- you're being selfish.
And what I would like to see is that you be humble...
[Chad] The 8 Passengers followers were furious from what I remember.
She didn't care about the followers at that point.
She wanted to move on to something else.
And for her, I get that,
it's just what she moved on to
was pretty much selling her soul to someone.
So, yeah.
[birds chirping]
[Jodi Hildebrandt] We were talking this morning about humility
and how choosing truth allows you to have freedom to move around.
[Brannon Patrick] Jodi was a business woman.
...to be willing...
[Brannon] And she would prey on the weak.
...see what I'm responsible for ,
[over laptop] gives me freedom.
[Brannon] She knew how to hit on a pain point,
the biggest pain point for people
in order to turn it into profit.
[โช stirring music playing]
In 2010, I had been shadowing Jodi for about a year
and, by that time, I knew that something was off.
One, was that she refused to pay me. [chuckles]
So that was one thing.
On top of that, she seemed very angry toward men.
This man, um, has shown his colors to you
and you don't know if this man has changed.
He didn't call. He didn't ask.
[Brannon] And I watched couples get torn apart again and again.
And I realized, "I can't do this."
But my neighbors were going to Jodi,
my friends were going to Jodi,
and I knew what she was doing and I knew how destructive it was.
So I had to kinda keep tabs and watch what was going on.
It was probably a year later that she opened up Connexions.
[Jodi] Welcome to Connexions.
I'm Jodi Hildebrandt.
If you're like me, you've had pain in your life,
anxiety, depression,
Connexions is the solution.
โช
[conference attendee] One of the most powerful things
that I have taken away from this conference
was recognizing that my soul is untouchable
and that I am the only person that has access to my soul...
When I first started Connexions, I was this big and now I'm tall, and...
[Brannon] Connexions was an opportunity for her to scale her business.
She wasn't doing one-on-one sessions.
She could work with 20 people at a time and make a lot more money.
And she was excellent at exploiting Mormon anxiety:
being pure, being sinless, being perfect.
[โช stirring music continues]
But Connexions was more than just therapy.
It was this, uh, community that she created,
uh, a whole platform of people that were drinking her Kool-Aid.
It was like a church within the church.
And Jodi was the prophet.
- [โช music fades out] - [birds chirping]
[Paige Hanna] Jodi very much, with many people, became the savior.
Jodi was absolutely my God,
and it was to her you were looking for forgiveness.
And it was to her that you were looking for redemption.
And there was this piece of Jodi
that when you brought somebody into Connexions,
it very much felt like a pat on the head.
[indistinct chatter]
I know that Ruby had already been leaning towards it,
um, but to get Kevin onboard,
Ruby wanted help.
[โช stirring music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[Kevin Franke] I remember the first real introduction to it,
and it was a love versus lust workshop.
[Jodi] Love is giving, it's honest.
Lust... is all about taking.
It's about greed. It's about control.
And you can lust over anything.
If a man says he doesn't lust, he's lying.
[Kevin] Ruby was just into it.
And I noticed that
so many of the women in that room were just... fwoop,
laser-focused.
They were intent. They were on the edge of their chairs.
And I remember turning to Ruby and whispering,
this feels like a man-hating club.
This is a cult.
Our counterparts, many of them are lusting.
Whether they're lusting sexually--
They're being selfish.
[Paige] I remember the first conference that Kevin went to,
he said, "This is a cult."
And I laughed.
So we have a huge problem. And guess what?
[Paige] And I thought, "This is a good thing and this can help you
and you're just being too stubborn to look at it."
[interviewer] Do you feel you put pressure on Kevin?
[chuckling] I'll make this really easy for you.
We put so much pressure on Kevin. So much.
Okay, so that everybody's smiling at once. One, two, three.
We're all silent.
- [all laughing] - Yay, great.
- Thank you. - [overlapping chatter]
[Ruby] I am studying under Jodi Hildebrandt
and the Connexions classroom,
and what she's teaching us, I have never learned anywhere else.
[interviewer] Why did Ruby like it so much?
Because it validated things
that had been bugging her for a long time.
To be honest, we were pretty lost,
and Ruby believed that this was the road map
back to the place that we both wanted to go to.
And she sat me down and she said, "I am concerned about our marriage.
And I'd like to invite you to join a Connexions men's group."
[counter beeping]
[Jodi] Welcome to Connections Classroom. Thank you for joining us.
We are going to invite you to learn how to be...
[Kevin] It was all online.
And Jodi hopped on.
"Who wants to get us started?"
And so, then some guy said, "I'll check in."
And then started just going down a list of stuff.
It was a support group for addiction.
[interviewer] Addictions to what?
Everything.
[Jodi] Lust, the energy of lust,
is not completely connected to sexual encounters.
[Kevin] Most men were in there because of addiction to pornography.
There were men who would get in and they would report, "I've relapsed."
And Jodi would say, "How long are you going to keep choosing this?
Do you realize that you're losing your family?"
And this poor guy is sitting there dejected and miserable.
And Jodi would then add to this and say, "Look at Kevin.
"He makes choices every day that are responsible,
and he stands up, and he's a man."
โช
And it felt so good.
And I began to look forward to it
because all I wanted was praise.
[โช music fades out]
You want to know what felt the-- the most good?
Was seeing the way that my wife was looking at me.
[interviewer] How was she looking at you?
The way I'd always wanted her to look at me.
Good morning, Kevin.
[Kevin] Hi.
I'm making a breakfast you probably won't eat.
Because there's too many carbs.
I'm making breakfast for [muted]. She's still upstairs sleeping.
[Kevin] Over time,
there was a shared passion for one another.
Our relationship felt better.
There was so much less conflict.
We both felt like there was purpose again.
[โช hopeful music playing]
[Chad] My mom and dad were starting to use the language that Jodi was using.
Things got better.
She was happier
and she never really shouted anymore.
She did pretty much stop when Jodi, um, started working with them.
[laughter]
[family chattering]
[Chad] We really were like a happy family again.
- [birds chirping] - [muffled chatter]
[playful chatter, laughter]
- There was no sense-- - Whoa!
[laughter]
[Paige] When Ruby and Kevin joined, Jodi incorporated them very quickly.
[Ruby] The number-one job that I have as a parent
is to teach my children to be self-managing, to be self...
[Paige] One of the ways they were elevated quickly
was the fact that she allowed Ruby to go in and be a-- to train as a coach
when Ruby was relatively new, even to doing therapy.
[Ruby] All the truth that I have learned since getting involved in Connexions
is because everything is based in truth.
[Kevin] That was the point
where we began to become the face and the voice of Connexions.
There's nothing that triggers somebody, especially a woman, more
than saying or believing, "You're a bad parent."
That, that...
[Tresa Haymond] There were three friends that recommended Connexions to us.
- And we saw the Frankes on there. - Ruby and-- and Kevin were on there.
Yeah, and I was like, "Oh, they have kids at our school.
"We k-- We-- We kind of know who this family is,
"and they seem like they're kinda second tier to Jodi.
Th-- This is super interesting."
And, um, they were sharing a lot of things,
a lot of vulnerable things, a lot of personal things and--
Very personal things.
The only way I know how to make sex work is through lust.
[Paige] With the other coaches,
there was a happiness that they were gonna be a part of it,
but also some curiosity because we had all done a lot of work.
[Ruby] Kevin slept upstairs and...
[Paige] But I'd started seeing that Jodi was really careful with who she collected
and it was evident that what was more important to Jodi
was having their influence and their audience
over their understanding and their comprehension.
Wow. Boy, you come up to places like this
and it's like everything comes into perspective for you.
[Jodi] Ruby's going in the bowl.
- Yeah! Woo-hoo! - Woo-hoo!
[indistinct]
[Brannon] Jodi was always enamored by money and fame.
Woo!
I saw her treat clients differently according to their status.
[panting]
She said to me one time--
So a client came in, who was well-known and had a lot of money,
and she said to me, "We really gotta take care of this one."
Um, and I thought, "Well, that's odd."
Like, we're therapists. We're trained to not care.
[โช curious music playing]
[interviewer] What do you think she meant?
[Brannon] I think she was salivating some.
She was salivating about money and power.
And-- So that excited her.
"What can I do with a client with a lot of money, and influence, and power?"
[Chad] Around that time was just the big breaking point of 8 Passengers
where she just called it quits.
And it went from 8 Passengers, the title, to Moms of Truth.
It just all transferred over to Jodi's business.
[Lisa McClean] I remember looking on my social media and I got an invitation
for joining this Moms of Truth group on Facebook.
- And it wasn't just me. - I did as well.
Ruby had sent out an invitation to the entire neighborhood,
inviting all of us to join Moms of Truth.
And I was like, "Heck, yeah." [clicks tongue]
I'm Jodi Hildebrandt, the founder of Connexions,
and I'm Ruby Franke, Jodi's sidekick.
[chuckles]
Don't let this sidekick fool you. She is full of wisdom and knowledge...
[Chad] She was all in on Connexions at that point.
[โช curious music continues]
She was all in.
- [โช music fades out] - [birds chirping]
[Ruby] You wonder where I've been on my vlogs?
[emotional] It's to save my kids.
No amount of money--
I-- And I'm telling you, I was making... millions
and I left it because my kids were being hurt
with entitlement,
they were being hurt with people's advice,
and they didn't have a mother at the front saying,
"I don't care what the world's opinion is..."
[Kevin] She believed, inside,
that we were destined to be a part of something earth-shifting,
part of God's work.
We would talk about this stuff all the time.
Jodi would talk about this stuff all the time.
We really felt like something big was coming.
It was just around the corner.
[reporter] We're gonna begin with breaking news
that deadly Coronavirus is now spreading so quickly
that the World Health Organization is calling it a global emergency.
More than 8,000 people have now been infected worldwide.
[Kevin] When I think about everything that had happened in 2020
that had really affected our family...
[reporter] In New York, nearly 800 people a day
have been dying from COVID-19.
[Kevin] ...we have COVID...
[rumbling]
...we have 5.8 earthquake in the west side of Salt Lake City.
Everyone is like, "It's the end of the world
and, um, we're all gonna die."
And, "Is this the second coming?"
[explosion booming]
- [people shouting] - [alarms blaring]
[Kevin] But even though there was all this going on,
it got exciting.
Like, "This is really happening. And we're here. We're living in this."
[interviewer] What is really happening?
That the world was ending.
How would you like to know what to expect prior to the second coming?
The Lord actually has given us such a document:
The Book of Mormon.
[Kevin] Everyone else is gonna burn,
but we felt like we were on the right side of it.
[John Hilton III] I testify that wickedness is rapidly expanding
in every segment of our society...
[Shari] The Last Days in the scriptures are a period of however long
that, like, the world's gonna burn
or, you know, a plague is gonna come and destroy everyone.
And then Christ comes and the world is saved
and everyone can be happy again.
But to get there, there's a period of just like absolute... hell.
[interviewer] Did Ruby think that was happening?
Um, she thought it was the start of it, for sure.
I'll do this for the intro.
Are you guys ready to become a food prepper with me?
No-- Emergency prepper.
Are you guys ready to become an emergency prepper with me?
[interviewer] S o did you really believe this was the end of the world?
That Christ was returning?
Oh, absolutely.
[interviewer] But if the world was ending, did it occur to you that
maybe you wouldn't go to Heaven, maybe you'd go to Hell?
Never.
It never crossed our mind because we were preparing for it.
And we weren't alone.
- Hello. Here we are. - [Ruby chuckles]
[โช ominous music playing]
All the shelves are full.
If you are here because you see the chaos that's going on in the world,
our job is to educate you.
- Oh, boy! - [Ruby] Oh, man. There we go.
[Jodi] There is a higher power
that's organized and is moving in this world.
And those principles come from that higher source,
that energy, I call God.
So we're here to teach you how...
Ruby would often talk about how Jodi had been called by God
and was doing a really amazing work,
and that God had also built up Ruby with her channel
and, like, the two were meant to combine together
and do God's will to share truth to the world.
- Yeah, that should do it. - Yeah, that's much better.
[Kevin] We genuinely believed that Jodi was...
inspired, called by God,
representative of God,
chosen by God.
[โช curious music playing]
And this belief all culminated in May of 2021.
Jodi calls Ruby.
She was wailing and sobbing into the phone.
Apparently, she was being haunted
by hooded, shadow figures
that would just appear surrounding her bed at night.
And she said Satan had it out for her.
And... we believed it.
We-- We wanted to believe it.
[interviewer] Why?
Because we were in a state of mind
where we were ready for something big to happen.
We were expecting it.
We just weren't expecting this.
โช
We drove down to Jodi's house.
And this was to go give support and help her.
She was... distraught to say the least.
[โช music stops]
[Chad] Her home was amazing.
[water pattering]
[โช light music playing]
Like, it's this mansion, a beautiful mansion.
She gave us a tour and that tour lasted probably two hours
because there was just so much.
She had like four levels of the house.
The whole bottom two levels, which were these, like, underground storage units
and it was all just for her food
and wilderness supplies and everything.
It just surprised me that, like, the house looked like
she was housing for kids or housing for family.
But there-- there's no one living there. She's by herself.
[insects chirring]
[Kevin] While we were there at that house, there were things that happened
that I can't explain.
There was a tremendous crash in the basement directly beneath us.
[โช dark music playing]
And there was nothing.
In that same visit, high up on the glass, I saw a big handprint.
The fingers came out like that outside of my hand.
And I didn't have an explanation for that.
[interviewer] Do you have a photo of that handprint?
- I do. - [interviewer] Can I see it?
Yeah.
[interviewer] Could someone else maybe have caused that smudge?
Did you believe you really were in the presence of Satan?
[inhales sharply]
I did.
[โช curious music playing]
I believed it was otherworldly or it was supernatural.
Jodi's bishop was also there blessing her, blessing her house.
And he just said, "I can't keep doing this
and we need to come up with another solution."
Ruby suggested the idea that she come to our house
and she will be able to heal.
Ruby said, "This is the second coming.
"This is God's returning to the earth.
"Because she is chosen by God,
Jodi plays such an important part in it."
We drove all the way back
and she began to live at our home.
[birds chirping]
โช
- [Chad] She's attacking me. - [Ruby] 'Kay.
[Chad] And I'm defending myself.
- So, to... four. - [speaker] Four.
[Chad] Yes!
- So you-- you have four troops left. - [speaker] I have four.
[child] Is it okay if I move all my troops over here?
- [Chad] Is it your turn? - [child] Yeah.
[Chad] You have to have one troop...
[Shari] I remember Ruby calling me
and she says, you know, "You have a couple of hours
"to take whatever you need out of your room and...
she's gonna have it."
[โช unsettling music playing]
I was moving out in two weeks anyway to go to college,
so I figured I only have to deal with this for two weeks.
[lawn mower rumbling]
[Chad] I remember thinking nothing of it.
I thought of her as a friend.
I thought of her as a praised therapist of mine.
I had respect and love for her.
[playful chatter]
I wanna try and belly flop.
[Chad] But also, when Jodi moved into the home,
I wasn't so much of an issue anymore.
It was now my baby brother and my baby sister that were more of an issue.
[children giggling]
They're perfect for Easter.
No! You're not entitled to talk while I'm recording.
Sit back up there and be quiet.
[Chad] My little brother was kinda talking back.
My little sister was being rude to my mom at some points.
[Ruby] Go downstairs! Now! Both of you!
[Chad] To my mom, that felt like evil and she wanted help.
[Jodi] Children are not entitled to privacy.
This is not an age thing.
It's an accountability thing.
[Shari] We weren't to tell anybody that Jodi was there.
I thought it was weird
that a therapist would move in with her patients.
[โช curious music playing]
I remember looking up Jodi just to see, you know, who she was,
and I learned she's not a psychologist
even though she always has claimed to be one.
Just from reviews online, I read that she had destroyed families.
She wasn't even married.
Her kids didn't talk to her.
And I remember being like, "Why are we working with this woman?"
Shari looked her up and found that her license was revoked.
And I think she went to my mom about that and was like,
"Mom, she was-- Her license was revoked for this."
And my mom didn't think anything of it.
[interviewer] What did you think of it?
To me that all seemed like people were just attacking her
because she was so morally correct and so spiritual.
[Kevin] Shari, her radar was beeping from the first moment
and we shut it down so fast,
she didn't have time to get into the details.
Jodi had been forthright about those things.
"If you Google me, you're going to find this, this, and this.
And that was from this former client who was particularly nasty."
And it made us believe that troubled people
are doing everything they can to attack Jodi.
[โช music fades out]
[birds chirping]
But after Jodi came into the picture,
weird things started happening in our house.
[โช ominous music playing]
Jodi would go into these possessed trances.
[breathing heavily]
[Jodi grunting]
And she would start speaking in other voices.
[Jodi grunting]
[Jodi grunting]
[Kevin] And Ruby believed that it was meant to be
and that me and her were meant to help Jodi overcome this.
[interviewer] How did you think you could help Jodi?
Casting the evil spirits out.
Exorcising them out.
[โช mellow music playing]
[Kevin] I would place my hands on her head
and then I would command the demons to depart.
And then I would state every name of Jesus Christ
that I could possibly think of.
And those evil spirits were very reactive to those names.
It became very clear.
[interviewer] How did she react?
She would thrash and hiss and wail and... growl.
It was like she was being hurt every time I said one of those names.
[interviewer] Did you believe it?
Absolutely.
Absolutely, I did.
[birds chirping]
But it stayed like that for weeks and weeks.
My blessings, my prayers, they-- they did nothing.
And then, they wanted to just excuse me out of the room
so they could just keep going.
[dog barking]
Ruby would start to go up and check on her at night.
That's when the possessions, according to Jodi, were the worst.
[โช ominous music playing]
And then one day Ruby said,
"I'm just going to stay up there and stay with her.
"She needs a friend.
And maybe if I'm in there with her, these things will leave her alone."
[swallows hard]
So she started sleeping in the bed with Jodi.
I still had men's group week after week after week.
But it was different.
[Jodi] You don't understand where the deception is
and where your lust is,
and you need to.
[Kevin] Jodi started to call me out in men's groups.
I went in, not now as the alpha, but very much as, you know, the zeta.
[Jodi] You are acting entitled.
If you want to change...
I remember being uncomfortable with how he-- he was--
he was basically the bad guy in just about everything.
- [interviewer] Really? - [Ruel Haymond] Mm-hmm
[Jodi] You, my dear, get to decide
where you're gonna stand for the rest of your life.
Are you going to stand with truth?
Or are you going to stand in this ambiguous spot where you...
We got to the point where we were just listening
and not participating.
And Shari had been coming over and borrowing books and things.
And this one time she came over
and I said, "Hey, we saw your parents on this class that we take."
She's like, "Mm-hmm, I know."
And she said, "Did you know that Jodi is living in my bedroom?
"And did you know that they are filming some of this stuff
from my house and from my room?"
And I was like...
That bothered me so much that we kinda checked out.
[birds chirping]
[interviewer] You mentioned the Christmas when Jodi was moved in.
[Chad] Yeah.
[interviewer] I've got something to show you actually.
[Jodi] [singing on tablet] โช Emmanuel โช
Oh, boy.
[Jodi] โช Emmanuel โช
โช Wonderful, Counselor โช
โช Lord of life, Lord of all โช
โช He is the Prince of Peace Mighty God, Holy One โช
- โช Emmanuel โช - [mouthing] Wow.
โช Emmanuel! โช
- [Chad] Whoa! - [Ruby] Wow! Woo!
Yeah, they were best friends.
[chatter continues on tablet]
[โช ominous music playing]
I remember it being a very fun Christmas.
But that was also the Christmas
that my two youngest siblings didn't get any gifts.
The two youngest are showing long patterns of selfishness.
I was really hoping that, like, keeping them home from school
and wiping the floorboards would, like, really bring pain.
And it didn't-- It wasn't painful for them,
because they're so numb.
And we told them that, this year, they are not going to be visited by Santa.
[Sydney Condie] My daughter's the same age as their youngest daughter
and she loves giving gifts to her friends.
Ruby answered the door and my daughter said,
"Merry Christmas. Can you give this gift?"
And she took it and then she closed the door.
My daughter happened to see their youngest later
and she was so excited, she was like, "Did you get it?
I picked that one just for you."
And the-- her face was just drawn and she was like, "I didn't get it.
My mom made me throw it away."
[Ruby] Oh, my goodness.
[Sydney] They got to watch their siblings open presents
and they didn't.
I mean, that's stuff that's gonna stay with you forever.
It was heartbreaking.
[โช ominous music continues]
- [Shari] Oh! [muted] - [Kevin] Oh, my goodness.
[Ruby] Goodness. Oh, my goodness.
[Shari] At this point, I was in college,
so when Christmas came, I went home.
Like, it was so tangible that just something was off.
And I can't describe it,
but it just-- it was like a physical heaviness.
I remember, I ended up sleeping with my sisters
because Jodi was still in my room.
Um, there was one time that I did go into my room to get something
and there were like candles on the desk and massage oils
and I just-- It felt really dark.
So I, like, at that moment, I kind of figured something was going on.
[interviewer] Were they lovers?
I mean, I have my opinions, but...
- [interviewer] What's your opinion? - I do think that they were.
[Kevin] I don't know the extent
to which their interactions went.
[indistinct chatter]
It was much more than a friendship...
- Yes. - [Jodi] Okay.
- What was that? - I'll probably-- You wanna get thrown off?
- [chuckles] Yes. - I'll probably get thrown off with her.
[Kevin] ...much more than a sisterhood.
[squealing, laughing]
It was uncomfortably intimate.
[both laughing]
- [jet ski revving] - [Ruby squealing]
She immediately started putting her fingers
into every aspect of our lives.
And I think she wanted Ruby to herself.
But in order to do that, she needed me out of the picture.
[Brannon] Jodi would isolate people from their families.
And for Jodi, separation was a means of control.
[Jodi] I wanna talk about a topic,
and the topic is separation.
Separation is a principle of truth.
And because it's a principle of truth...
[Brannon] At that time, I started to get some clients
who were damaged by the therapy that they were getting from Jodi.
And I could see what was going on and it made me sick.
Um, it-- I thought it was evil.
[Jodi] Separation is a tool.
It's necessary for growth and development.
And this is really common for couples. So this is-- this is a very...
[Brannon] She was divorced at that point,
and I don't know exactly what's happened with her children,
but I know that the relationships haven't been great.
She was pretty isolated in terms of friends and family connections,
and she was helping her clients become her, in many ways.
Which, by the way, seems very cultish.
[interviewer] How does Jodi's practice fit with the definition of a cult?
I think a cult isolates.
You can't question the leader.
The leader has all the power.
All of those things were happening in Jodi's practice.
[interviewer] How did it come about that you were kicked out?
[โช dark music playing]
[Chad] I knew how much I loved Jodi at this point.
I knew how much I respected her and loved her.
I always felt like I had to confess to Jodi
when it came to anything like pornography
or making out with a girl.
That, to me, like, weighed very heavy
because that was something that was taught to me the most by her.
Jodi thought it would be a good idea for me,
as part of my repentance process, to tell my mom.
So, I-- I pretty much confessed to her
that, you know, "While Jodi was in the home,
"I was viewing pornography.
I was making out with girls at nighttime behind your back."
And I have never seen my mom more distraught.
And I have never seen her more red in the face.
But it wasn't anger, it was a sadness.
She was bawling.
She, like, couldn't breathe.
And as she was crying,
she kinda got surprised 'cause it clicked,
"Oh, my gosh, everything that happened to Jodi,
"all the possession, all the attacks,
"all the satanic attacks that were happening to Jodi,
it was all because of you and what you were doing behind our back."
She wiped away the tears and then she was back to serious.
And she said, "Chad, it's, it's time you leave the home."
[interviewer] How old were you?
[Chad] I was 17 at this time.
[interviewer] Did it make any sense to you at the time, moving out?
Yeah, I really thought I was messing with the house,
messing with the spirit in the house.
But I think that was my mom and Jodi's perfect chance
to find something wrong with me and my dad at the same time
and kick us out together, so...
[indistinct chatter]
[Kevin] When I came in the door, she was intense.
[โช tense, dramatic music playing]
And she just bluntly said,
"Our marriage is in serious jeopardy
"because of you, Kevin, because of your selfishness,
"because of your-- your lustful thoughts and behavior that you've been hiding.
"I'm trying to rise up to the measure that God wants me to be
"and to do the work he wants for me to do,
"and you keep holding me and Jodi back.
"I want you to leave the house.
"I want you to do it immediately.
I don't want you to have any contact with me or the children."
[โช music fades out]
[interviewer] What did you say?
I just said...
"Okay."
"Okay."
[โช ominous music playing]
One by one, I had the kids come in and I sat 'em down and I-- and I told 'em,
"I'm going to go away for a time
"and I'm going to work on myself
"so that I can come back to the family
and be-- and be the dad that-- that you deserve."
[interviewer] How did they react?
[Kevin] Emotionally.
One of my children,
the look-- the look in her eyes, I cannot...
[swallows hard]
It was a pleading.
[interviewer] What was Ruby doing at the time?
Watching.
I remember, as I was holding my youngest,
and-- and just holding her and she was crying.
Ruby was photographing it on her phone.
And she had this smirk or this smile on her face that she just--
I don't know what she was thinking, but it-- it looked like this look of,
"Oh, this is such good content."
[โช ominous music continues]
[sighs]
I just-- I wish that there was--
there was a way to go back in time...
and to stop that madness and to-- to just-- just to stop it.
[sighs deeply]
[โช music fades out]
[birds chirping]
[Shari] I get a call from Kevin,
"Your mother has invited me to leave the house.
And I'm gonna ask that you don't talk to me or to Chad."
At that point, I was like, "This is absolutely crazy."
And I think I responded and said,
you know, "I-I'm confused," and like, "I, I wish you the best."
But, like, I was worried about the kids now that are at home.
And I got a long text from Ruby.
It was full of things just like,
"You've shown that you don't want to be part of this family
"and you're causing chaos for everyone
and you're reaching out to your dad when we asked you not to."
You know, "You're crossing a line."
And so after that is when I got a phone call that basically said,
"You've been removed from the car insurance.
You need to get your own."
Um... I got a call that said, you know, "At the end of the year,
your health insurance is going to be terminated."
I didn't know exactly what was going on.
So I got in the car and drove down.
And I remember feeling, like, really nervous to go over
and I asked Tresa to come with me.
[โช curious music playing]
[interviewer] So, what happened?
[Tresa] When we drove up to the house,
sure enough, Ruby opens the door and steps out onto the porch.
[Shari] She said something like,
"Shari, you're causing a lot of damage to the family,"
and, you know, "You've shown you don't wanna be part of our family,"
and... "You're deceived,"
and, like, "I feel sorry for you and you're in my prayers."
[Tresa] Shari had tears and she was shaking.
I had tears streaming down my face,
and the only person that had no emotion was Ruby.
And she was just stone cold.
Zero emotion.
Only anger and animosity and defense.
And I did not know how a mom who gave birth to someone
could sit there like that and listen to their daughter weep and beg.
It was-- It was horrible.
I just wanted to get-- get Shari out of there after that.
[Shari] It was understood that I wasn't to come home anymore
or talk to the kids,
that I wasn't, like, part of the family.
[Tresa] Shari just melted. Just fell apart.
She was just still shaking and she was looking through her phone,
looking, looking and she said--
she said, "This is my mom."
[โช dramatic music playing]
She's showing me a picture of who she knew her mom to be.
โช
And she said, "That's not my mom."
And it seems that Ruby had literally come to see evil
in everyone around her.
And now the only people left in that house
are those four young children.
[โช music fades out]
[โช mellow music playing]
[โช music stops]
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