“Evil Influencer” Director Says She Would Have Loved To Get Jodi Hildebrandt’s Perspective

Courtesy of Netflix

Thanks to one little brave boy on August 30th, 2023, the entire world would soon find out about all the abuse and manipulation taking place at Jodi Hildebrandt’s house down the block. The twelve year old - with open wounds and in a frail state - fled through a window and rang doorbells. One of the neighbors finally answered and the entire story unraveled soon after . . . how deep his mother Ruby Franke was now intertwined with Hildebradnt’s mentorship program, the type of depraved and abusive methods they constantly used on Ruby’s children and the heavy handed manipulation that Hildebrandt put on other couples. Thanks to the fast actions of the Santa Clara-Ivins Public Safety Department, justice has been served and both are serving time at Utah State Correctional Facility's Dell Facility. Franke’s six children are now fortunately far and away from the evil that once plagued their lives. Two years later, this story is brought to light once more - but this time with a new perspective and never before seen interviews thanks to director Skye Borgman and her documentary Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story. The Movie Nerds had a grand opportunity to speak with Ms. Borgman earlier this week and find out what it was truly like stepping into this very disturbing case.

Salvatore Cento: There are a handful of times in Evil Influencer where the camera swoops over the specific area of Santa Clara-Ivins in Southern Utah where Jodi Hildebrandt’s house (one of her houses, I think?) was located. Watching this isolated locale / community feels eerie enough through a screen. Take me back, if you will - to your very first reaction upon realizing that this is where the Hildebrandt story went down - such a secluded desert like area.

Skye Borgman: Yes, absolutely right. It’s incredibly eerie. It’s secluded but it’s also - very prestigious, this neighborhood. Combined together - I think for me - increased that eerie factor. The first time we went out there, we were actually with the detective that’s featured in the documentary - Jessica Bate. It was really good to be with her, because it’s a place that is a little bit challenging to find. It’s sort of through these twisted roads. The neighborhood itself is very secluded. Just standing outside of that house - after having watched a lot of that bodycam footage that existed and seeing how law enforcement entered the house - it was just all really unsettling.

Cento: How was your relationship with the local police department during the filming of Evil Influencer?

Borgman: I mean, it was great. Jess is such a star. She’s so badass. When I first met her, I was just kind of in awe of her because of the work that she does, the commitment she has to her job and also just how open she was with us. She was very open about herself, her process - took us around, took us to Jodi’s neighborhood and was just a very giving, generous person and was incredibly committed to this case and finding justice.

Cento: The twisted and manipulative story of Jodi Hildebrandt has admittedly been told before - long form investigative videos on YouTube, the Lifetime film as well as the Investigation Discovery series. What was your mindset going into the creation of this documentary in regards to setting it apart from everything else that came before it?

Borgman: I really wanted to focus on Jode Hildebrandt in this documentary. Some of the other documentaries that have been out there have been well done and kind of focused on Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt. The more research I did and the more I came to understand this story in a deeper way, it just seemed very clear to me that Jodi Hildebrandt was really manipulating Ruby. Not to take anything away from what Ruby did to her children - she is absolutely just as guilty as Jodi Hildebrandt - but I feel like some of the stories that came before were focusing more on Ruby Franke. I really wanted to try to unravel a little bit of Jodi Hildebrandt.

Cento: From husbands and wives who participated in Connexions to lawyers and fellow therapists, Evil Influencer does a great job of stepping into the The Jodi Hildebrandt story as much as possible. When finding people to sit down and talk with, what were you looking for the most and also did anybody and everybody want to talk, did you have a lot of pushback when it came to interviews, etc?

Borgman: I think what I really wanted was to sit down with people and interview people who had direct contact with Jodi Hildebrandt, those who had first person experiences - especially the people who she had given therapy to, like Valerie and Ethan. I wanted to get their side of the story. I wanted to understand how - those who are not under Jodi’s spell - how they sort of fell under her spell. That was probably the most important thing to me. With their help, I wanted to create a picture of who Jodi Hildebrandt was.

Cento: The introduction of Evil Influencer - the juxtaposition of Ms. Hildebrandt saying that she loves children combined with Franke’s twelve year old son arriving on a neighbor’s porch - is truly unsettling and very much shows viewers what we are dealing with here. When making the opening for Evil Influencer, what was the thought process and why did you end up settling on the combination of those two clips?

Borgman: Watching that video where the little boy walks up to a neighbor’s house, rings the doorbell camera, walks away and then the owners of the home come out, 911 is called, seeing what has been done to this little boy - you really get a sense of how traumatizing it all really is. You see images of the boy’s knees and how little he is. It just really brings you into the moment in such a quick way. You understand the abuse - and I would go as far as to use the word torture - that these young, young kids have endured.

Cento: Did you have a chance to talk with the neighbor?

Borgman: No, we didn’t talk with the neighbor. We reached out to him but they did not want to participate in the documentary.

Cento: Almost everyone personally surrounding this documentary had a journal. It’s almost a core value from within the Latter Day Saints movement to have a personal journal - which turned out to be one of the most crucial tools in the Jodi Hildebrandt case as well as the Evil Influencer documentary. How important was it for you - as a director - to be able to access these first hand written accounts of that time?

Borgman: It’s incredibly important. These help tell so much of the story and who Ruby Franke is. When we use the journal entries in the documentary itself, you can almost hear Ruby’s voice really sort of reading those journal entries and understanding where she was coming from. To me, the journal entries really give insight into the how and the why - according to them - that they felt that these kids were possessed by demons and that they wanted to beat these demons out of them. They are incredibly graphic journal entries and I think they really, really, really give you true insight into Ruby Franke’s soul.

Cento: Did you have personal access to the journals or did you have excerpts to go by?

Borgman: Not the actual, physical, real-life journals but we had photocopies of them.

Cento: There are so many roads to go down and perspectives to look at regarding The Jodi Hildebrandt case - Ruby Franke, her now ex-husband Kevin Franke, ConneXions, the lasting trauma placed on the children, the couples that were once guided by Hildebrandt. You certainly do fit a lot within the documentary. In saying that, is there anything that you left on the cutting room floor that you wished made it to the final cut of the film?

Borgman: I don’t think so. I think we got all of our points across - there were certainly - I mean honestly, I would have certainly loved to sit down with Jodi Hildebrandt and to get her perspective and to get her words answering the questions. I don’t know if it would have been all that different because I feel like she's had her monologues rehearsed for her entire life and she probably would have said the same thing. I don’t know if I necessarily would have used it in the documentary, but to have some insight into why she did some of the things she did . . would have been interesting.

Cento: For a moment, I want to look at the fact that you have been directing and/or producing true crime documentaries for almost ten years now. What is it about this form of real life storytelling that keeps on drawing you back in?

Borgman: I think It’s the people who tell these stories, it’s the people who feel unheard or the people who feel so hurt by something that they want to put a message out there and try to prevent this from happening again. It’s such a unique and rare job that I have to be able to meet all of these people from all of these different walks of life and sit down to talk with them about some of the most traumatizing things that have ever happened. To have them sort of allow me into their lives and into their stories, it’s such an honor and I think these stories have an amazing impact and can really help people. To be doing that type of work is pretty awesome.

Cento: Could you give us any sneak peek into what you are working on next?

Borgman: I can’t, but know that something else is coming.

Cento: After diving into that story as the director and being around so many people that had different types of relationships with Ms. Hildebrandt, in your opinion - how did she create this what seemed to be - for a time anyway - perfect storm of controlling/manipulating so many people? During the making of Evil Influencer, did you ever come to find out how many couples were under quote on quote mentorship?

Borgman: We were never able to come up with a precise number of couples who were under her mentorship. But, we did talk to a number of people - either couples or a spouse that had been under her therapy, if you want to call it that. Their stories were incredibly similar. It was the same type of coming in, using language that they were all very accustomed to because they all participated in a high demand religion - and using that same language and abstracting it a little bit at the beginning and just continuously abstracting it - until it became a message that was very different from how it was initially intended to be. That, to me, was really the way she was able to get control of people. Split them further and further apart, isolate them and keep this messaging going to them that they’re not good enough and that they need to keep seeing her in order to be good enough.

Cento: That is it, Ms. Borgman. Thank you!

Borgman: Thanks so much.

Evil Influencer: The Jodi Hildebrandt Story is now available to stream exclusively on Netflix.