A chilling new documentary is set to reveal how disgraced therapist Jodi Hilderbrandt would operate before she was put behind bars, with male contributors claiming that she would turn their wives against them and help lay out disgusting traps.
Convicted child abuser Hilderbrandt, 55, was sentenced to serve between four and 30 years in prison on February 20, 2024, alongside fellow convicted child abuser Ruby Franke.
But before she formed an alliance with mommy vlogger Franke, she served as the director of LifeStar Utah County, a franchisee of a national company based in Utah, specializing in the psychiatric and psychological treatment of pornography and sex addiction.
Investigation Discovery’s new documentary The Curious Case Of… Jodi Hildebrandt unpacks how she would weaponize Mormon teachings against her clients to ultimately drive a wedge between couples.
More often than not, she would lean into the idea that all sexual acts are sinful and akin to murder.
According to her former clients, Hildebrandt would separate her couples by gender and have Zoom meetings once a week for the women and the men.
Her sessions mainly related to sex and masturbation.
Adam Steed was a former client of Hildebrandt and, along with his ex-wife, sought her services after receiving a settlement having been subjected to sexual abuse as a child.
Jailed Mormon therapist Jodi Hilderbrandt went out of her way to split up married couples
Hilderbrandt was locked up last year alongside child abuser mommy blogger Ruby Franke
He was a whistleblower and had previously spoken up about being a victim of child abuse at the Mormon church’s Idaho Boy Scout program.
Adam’s life was turned upside down when his wife became obsessed with Hildebrandt’s teachings and ended up seeking her approval ‘for everything she did.’
‘She lost the ability to know for herself if something was right, it was like a drug for her,’ he claimed.
Then one night, his wife set up a sickening trap.
Recalling the incident, he said: ‘My wife asked me to bathe our daughter, and this was at a point where Jodi had taken away from us the ability to kiss, the ability to be physical, the ability to have sex, the ability to talk to each other, and she was very disciplined on this.
‘You can imagine my shock when I’m in the bathtub with our little baby and she comes into the bathroom in lingerie and acted really sexy and it started to give me an erection, so I was laughing with her, and I asked her to take the baby out of the tub.’
He continued: ‘So she took the baby out, presumably to come back in and hop in the tub and have sex with me, and I was thinking she was becoming her old funny self again, and then she looked at my private parts disgusted and just walked off.’
Following the incident, Adam’s wife filed for divorce and served him with an order of protection, and he lost custody of his children.
Investigation Discovery’s new documentary The Curious Case Of… Jodi Hildebrandt unpacks how she would weaponize Mormon teachings against her clients
Adam Steed was a former client of Hildebrandt and shortly after using her services, his wife accused him of being a sexual abuser
‘She took the kids and disappeared, and I had no idea where they were.
‘When the protective order came out, she said “my husband is a victim of sexual abuse and so he doesn’t understand healthy boundaries. He had to call me to get the baby out of the tub because he was having an erection.”
‘My biggest fear being a victim of sexual abuse was to be accused of being a sexual abuser.’
Upon reflection, Adam believes the entire bathroom incident was a trap orchestrated by his ex wife and Hilderbrandt to make him look like an unfit father.
Adam believes he was a victim of Hildebrandt – and he’s not alone in feeling that way. Daniel Choate was also a former client and was introduced to the disgraced therapist in 2018.
He and his then wife sought out her help after he confessed that he would occasionally look at pornography, which his partner believed was akin to having an affair.
Shortly into their therapy sessions, however, Daniel’s wife banned him from sleeping in their marital bed and even set times that he could enter her room in the morning and evening.
Daniel Choate was also a former client, and his marriage ended in divorce two years after seeking Hilderbrandt’s help
Hilderbrandt was sentenced to serve between four and 30 years in prison in 2024
‘If I didn’t abide by these rules, she let me know that she was going to take the kids and leave,’ he said.
‘After a week of appeasing her, I rebelled and I went to go and sleep in the bed one night, so she said you have to get out of the house or I’m leaving.
‘I reasoned with her and said, “ok I’ll go to the guest house,” and she accepted that at the time.’
Then one day, Daniel’s world came crashing down.
‘My ex-wife texted my sister-in-law and she claimed that I had done something like rape to her, which as far as I’m concerned is an allegation of rape.
‘She claimed that I had cheated on her in the marriage, which was not true. She also claimed that I made some sort of sexual comments about our daughter.’
In tears, he added: ‘I would never hurt my daughter.’
Although unrelated to her therapy, on August 30, 2023, Hildebrandt was arrested in Washington County, Utah, and charged with six counts of aggravated child abuse of two of Franke’s children.
She plead guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse and was later sentenced to four terms of one to 15 years consecutively, the maximum for each count under Utah law.
In February 2024, Franke was sentenced to serve between four and 60 years in prison. The exact term is to be decided by the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
She had formed an alliance with fellow convicted child abuser Ruby Franke
Franke was sentenced to serve between four and 60 years in prison
Crime scene photos, doorbell videos, and interrogation tapes showed her children with gruesome injuries after being tied up, beaten and starved.
Franke’s estranged husband, Kevin, had not seen the children for more than a year and was not charged with any crime.
During Franke’s trial, prosecutors played dramatic doorbell camera footage that showed the disturbing moment her son arrived at a neighbor’s house in shackles asking for help and directions to the police.
In the video, the emaciated and badly bruised 12-year-old boy tentatively approached his neighbors on their porch after managing to escape the torture of his mom via a window.
The child had just escaped from Hildebrandt’s home, investigators said.
The Curious Case Of… Jodi Hildebrandt is one of six episodes of ID’s THE CURIOUS CASE OF series which airs Mondays at 10/9c on ID
