Ruby Franke's neighbor says they were concerned when they saw her kids 'pulling weeds' outside in 100-degree heat

• One of Ruby Franke's neighbors said they saw her kids "pulling weeds" outside in sweltering heat.
• Franke was living at Jodi Hildebrandt's residence at the time in Ivins, Utah.

A neighbor of the YouTuber mom who was arrested and charged with child abuse has spoken out, saying they once saw her kids "pulling weeds" in the sweltering Utah heat.

Ruby Franke and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt were arrested at Hildebrandt's home last week, where they were both living with some of Franke's children, after one child, described as emaciated and wounded by officials, escaped from a window and sought help from a neighbor.

Franke previously rose to fame as the mother of a family vlogging channel 8 Passengers, which grew to 2.5 million subscribers at its peak. It followed the lives of Franke, her husband Kevin Franke, and their six children: Shari, Chad, Abby, Julie, Russell, and Eve.

8 Passengers closed down earlier this year following controversies and allegations of the children's mistreatment, which saw the channel and the family enter a downward spiral.

Around the time the family's channel stopped posting, Franke was getting heavily involved in Hildebrandt's family counseling business and YouTube channel ConneXions, which faced its own allegations of being overly authoritarian, and a "cult." (ConneXions has now been taken down, YouTube confirmed to Insider on Friday.)

Franke and Hildebrandt are listed on the Washington County Sheriff's Office's website as "in custody" after being arrested at 9:33 p.m. on August 30 in Ivins, Utah. Her business partner was also arrested at the same time. On Friday, the county's attorney announced that the two were each charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse.

One neighbor of Hildebrandt and Franke's spoke to MailOnline, saying they had been concerned about the children for some time. They said around 6 to 8 weeks ago, they had seen children working outside in the summer heat.

"One thing we noticed and we told the police the same thing, six to eight weeks ago when it was really hot I was outside in the late morning, afternoon pulling weeds and over at Jodi's home several kids were also outside her home pulling weeds," they said.

"Over the course of the day the temperature was over 100 degrees and I gave up after a while because it was so hot but I noticed that the kids stayed out there."

They told MailOnline they never heard sounds of children playing, though they regularly saw the family's 8 Passengers branded van parked outside the residence.

They added that the child who escaped probably chose one particular neighbor to help them because this neighbor had been kind and given them cookies at Christmas, and so believed them to be "safe enough to go to them for help."

Neighbors had been trying to alert authorities for some time, according to further reports. One neighbor, speaking with Rolling Stone, said they called police multiple times. Sometimes they would show up, knock on the door, but nobody appeared to be home, they said.

"In early 2022, it started getting weird," the neighbor told Rolling Stone. "People were concerned because Ruby completely stopped her YouTube stuff. And then it just kind of turned dark. She taped up paper over all of her windows. She would disappear for weeks at a time and there's all these little kids just left alone in this house."

Two neighbors of Franke's home in Springville also spoke to NBC News, saying they had previously reported Franke and Hildebrandt to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services.

"Everyone is just breathing a collective sigh of relief, because we thought they were going to come out of that house with body bags," one neighbor told the outlet.

"I'm really angry, because I spoke up. Other people spoke up," another neighbor told NBC. "And nothing happened."

One neighbor also told NBC News that Franke had kicked out her husband Kevin out of their home last year.

Kevin, a former professor at Brigham Young University, has remained mostly out of the public eye since 8 Passengers shut down. He appeared in ConneXions videos for a while, but has been absent since last year.

Kevin's "urgent focus is simply to keep his children together under his fatherly care," his attorney, Randy S. Kester, told Page Six Thursday.

Kevin was spotted at the home he once shared with Ruby in Springville, MailOnline reported,

Kester told Insider in an email that Kevin and Ruby are currently still married, and he could not "speak to her plans for divorce, if any."

He also confirmed Kevin was at a hearing to determine the placement of the children on the morning of September 1. Part of that hearing, he said, was agreement to keep the proceedings confidential to protect the privacy of the children.