Toxic Therapist: How Jodi Hildebrandt Used Coercive Control on Ruby Franke’s Family

In 2009, Jodi Hildebrandt’s niece went to police alleging abuse. Tied up. Duct taped. Forced to sleep outside. The allegations went nowhere.

Fourteen years later, Ruby Franke’s children were found bound and starving in Jodi’s house. By then, Jodi had spent nearly two decades destroying families through a “life coaching” business that former clients describe as cult-like.

Part 2 of “The Good Mother” examines how helpers become captors — and what happens when someone you love falls under influence you can’t reach.

Jodi built ConneXions Classroom for Mormon families seeking guidance. The methodology: daily accountability calls, labeling emotions as “addictions,” shame-based correction, cutting off anyone who questioned the program. Seven former clients told NBC News she “methodically separated spouses” and destroyed marriages.

Ruby met Jodi in 2019. Within two years, Jodi had moved into the Franke home, pushed out Kevin, and established herself as sole authority. Ruby stopped listening to anyone except Jodi. Her family tried to intervene. All were cut off. Labeled “toxic.” Told they were “living in deception.”

Coercive control doesn’t require physical force. It requires isolation, dependency, and a framework that makes the victim believe everyone else is the enemy.

After arrest, separated from Jodi for the first time in years, Ruby reflected in a jail call: “Being gone and not hearing her has cleared a lot of things up for me.”

Jodi showed no such reflection. She reportedly continues recruiting vulnerable people from prison.

This episode examines the psychology of coercive control, the warning signs, and why people who see it can’t always stop it.

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