wandering son amazon

Wandering Son

Created by: Shimura Takako

Published by:

ISBN: 1606994166 ( Amazon )

I was in elementary school in 1980 and in high school in 1990. I predated by a few years the rather briskly paced evolution of alt sexualities from something horrifying to kids to something that kids could dabble in without too much fear of ostracizing. I grew up in a town whose homosexuals-per-capita population was second in the state behind San Francisco. We were all pretty well aware of how common open homosexual lifestyles were in the town. We knew about the Little Shrimp. We knew about Sneaky Pete’s. We knew about the Different Drummer bookshop. And yet, for all that, “homo” and “fag” were still slurs, and when a rumour spread in junior high that this one guy was playing pocket pinball in class, the whole school took it upon themselves to brand him as gay and therefore worthy of a derision that remained probably all the way through high school for the poor guy. We were all little bastards and didn’t really have the cultural wherewithal to learn any differently. There certainly wasn’t an internet out there to help us empathize with different people’s stories about being different. Even when some of us turned out to be different in the ways we previously derided.

I’m not sure that having a book like Wandering Son would have helped when I was a kid, but it wouldn’t have hurt, I don’t think. At worst I would have written it off as gross—but even so, I would have seen another perspective. One I wouldn’t see for nearly a decade more.

Story time. In a gathering of high school kids for some event or other, there was a game in which people would have to perform some stunt of the leader’s choosing. One of them was to speak in a gay lisp. Five-sixths of the guys involved wouldn’t participate—not because it was insensitive and othering—but because it was too gross. A friend of mine took a trip to Africa and this tribe’s chief took his hand, wanting to show him the village. My friend shook off that man’s hand. Fifteen years later he is still proud of that decision. In high school, at a school in the center of the second gayest town in California, there was a boy who tried out for the cheerleading squad. He was immediately deemed gay. I don’t even know if he ever wore a cheer skirt or if he wanted to. Of course that wouldn’t have had anything to do with his sexual preferences—we wouldn’t have known that—but at least within the scope of our warped cultural pericope, that would have been slim justification for our prejudice. As it was, the mere hint of peculiarity in terms of sex or gender presumptions was enough to send us all into a whirlwind of confusion and antipathy.

Again, I’m not sure that having read Wandering Son would have helped, but it very well may have. Anything that humanizes the targets of othering is worthwhile because empathizing with those who are Not You and Not Like You is essential to loving them as you do yourself. And above everything else that it does so well, Wandering Son humanizes its characters—regardless of how much they deviate from the cultural norms their societies dictate. 1 1 Which should be easy, right? Because these characters are human. Really, we shouldn’t even need a book to make the effort, but even my own very narrow personal history demonstrates with force that we do need books to make the effort. When I first approached Wandering Son I was concerned that, like so many works that have lessons to impart, it would come off as didactic and proselytizing. Instead, we have this warm-hearted, gentle story about a collection of kids growing up. Wandering Son doesn’t lay out any argument for the humanity of its characters who diverge from social expectation. It doesn’t need to.

Takako’s book allows you to grow comfortable with these kids as you would members of your own family. You see them happy; you see them hurt. You see their dreams; you see their fears. You see them reaching for lives that make sense to them, struggling even as we all do to find comfort and value in the things that attract our affections—all while trying desperately not to have our spirits crushed along the way.

One thing I appreciated about Wandering Son is how neatly it eviscerates the presumption that transgressing gender distinction also necessarily informs sexual preferences. Growing up, it was the law of my land that transvestitism also meant homosexuality. A man who wore his wife’s clothes in secret also obviously harboured a closeted homosexuality. A woman who dressed in man’s attire 2 2 Granted, “men’s attire” is a rapidly diminishing category of fashion. was giving off strong lesbian cues. Our understanding of the immutability of gender and its ties to sexuality offered us no room for understanding things in any other way. Wandering Son , by beginning its narrative journey in elementary school, removes sexual preference from the initial spectrum of topics—at least for the principal characters, if not for their peripheral antagonists (who engage in all the weak-minded slurs I would have ejaculated when I was their age). Series lead, Shu, a fifth-grade boy who gradually finds himself dressing more and more in girls’ clothing does so wholly apart from any sexual interest. He simply enjoys looking like the archetypical young girl. So too with his opposite number, a girl named Takatsuki, who likes to dress as a male (which is easier for her to get away with, since male clothing is increasingly bi-sexual). In the first volume she begins her period, underscoring her sex despite her objection to normative gender cues, but has so far not had any opportunity to express her sexuality. 3 3 Honestly, when I was their age, I wanted so very badly to “hump” my crush into oblivion, but that was mostly just me going with social expectation. Though I bore affection for a girl, it wasn’t really sexual, I don’t think. For one, I was prepubescent. For another, I really only had the vaguest understanding of what “humping” included. I understood the reproductive aspect and I understood that I should want to do this thing, but I had no real libido and so no visceral understanding of how sexual desire actually worked. I had, instead, a stand-in for that desire that was constructed from expectation more than anything.   4 4 Homosexuality does become topical later in the series.

While pretty clearly a book intending to explore the social issues involved in the gender/sex confluence of spectral anomalies—and one that so far as I can tell does a pretty stellar job at that investigation— Wandering Son is foremost an interesting story. I don’t think it could possibly succeed at drawing out its social questions if it failed to present well-described human characters in largely believable 5 5 Not being Japanese, I don’t really have any sense of how much verisimilitude with which Takako represents the Japanese reaction toward transvestitism and transgenderism and transsexualism. Translator Matt Thorn offers a brief essay on the subject in the backmatter of volume 2, but it’s unsatisfyingly brief. In any case, the protagonists meet much less resistance in Wandering Son 's story than I believe they would in the U.S. narrative circumstances. These characters move and speak in realistic, human ways. They aren’t cartooned caricatures of pedagogical lances meant to joust with our presuppositions. They may actually do some of that jousting, but it’s only because they are realized characters that they have any power to blossom empathy in our hearts.

The art is rather lovely, the lines fine and bold. Takako employs a simple illustration style that provokes the reader to focus on characters, their expressions, and the way they carry themselves. The illustration of the book in every way serves the purpose of the story and its unadorned vitality both keeps the reader from distraction and invests characters with an immediacy that helps sell the illusion of their reality. Fantagraphics’ production on the book gives the art plenty of room in which to luxuriate. The pages are large and the paper thick. For hardbacks, these volumes are surprisingly light. They are beautifully produced and will look handsome on a shelf. The only drawback is that considering their not-insubstantial size and the fact that there are currently fifteen volumes available in Japan, these will easily take up a whole shelf in many bookcases (and of course, for fans with plenty of space to grow, this might not be a bad thing).

Good Ok Bad features reviews of comics, graphic novels, manga, et cetera using a rare and auspicious three-star rating system. Point systems are notoriously fiddly, so here it's been pared down to three simple possibilities:

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Wandering son Twarda oprawa – 27 grudnia 2023

• Długość wersji drukowanej 206 str.
• Język Angielski
• Wydawca Fantagraphics
• Data publikacji 27 grudnia 2023
• Wymiary 17.78 x 3.05 x 24.38 cm
• ISBN-10 1606994166
• ISBN-13 978-1606994160
• Zobacz wszystkie szczegóły

Szczegóły produktu

• Wydawca ‏ : ‎ Fantagraphics; Edycja 1. (27 grudnia 2023)
• Język ‏ : ‎ Angielski
• Twarda oprawa ‏ : ‎ 206 str.
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1606994166
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1606994160
• Wymiary ‏ : ‎ 17.78 x 3.05 x 24.38 cm

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News Wandering Son's Takako Shimura Launches New Manga on April 25

The May issue of Kodansha 's Kiss magazine announced on Monday that Takako Shimura will launch a new manga titled Hatsukoi no Tsugi (What's Next After First Love) in the magazine's next issue on April 25. The manga will have a color opening page and will appear in the issue's front cover.

The manga centers on Akai and Chika, sweethearts who are now married. They should grow even closer and spend days in bliss together, but the shadow of Akai's first love threatens to upend it all.

Shimura will also launch a new manga in the 70th issue of Shodensha 's OnBLUE boys-love magazine on April 25.

Shimura is best known for her Wandering Son and Sweet Blue Flowers manga, both of which have inspired television anime series adaptations in 2011 and 2009 respectively. She also drew the original character designs for the Aldnoah.Zero anime, Battery the Animation , and the Overtake! racing anime. She drew a short-run manga adaptation for the Battery novels. Fantagraphics Books is releasing her Wandering Son manga in North America, and Viz Media is releasing Sweet Blue Flowers . Seven Seas is releasing Shimura's Even Though We're Adults ( Otona ni Nattemo ) manga digitally and in print.

Shimura's Happy-Go-Lucky Days ( Dōnika Naru Hibi ) manga inspired an anime film that opened in Japan in October 2020.

Source: Kiss May issue

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Wandering Son (2011)

Original title: 放浪息子.

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S1 e13 - "confession ~each season~", s1 e12 - they only laughed at me ~black sheep~, s1 e11 - forever a wandering son ~wandering son's progress~.

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Access to the most powerful Anthropic AI models begins today on Amazon Bedrock

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March 13, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect the general availability of Claude 3 Haiku on Amazon Bedrock. Amazon Bedrock is the first and currently only managed service to offer Claude 3 models—Sonnet and Haiku—as generally available.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced that AI safety and research company Anthropic’s Claude 3 family of state-of-the-art models (industry-leading accuracy, performance, speed, and cost) will be available on Amazon Bedrock—enhancing the ability of customers of all sizes to rapidly test, build, and deploy generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications across their organizations. Amazon Bedrock offers customers secure, easy access to the widest choice of high-performing, fully managed large language models (LLMs) and other foundation models (FMs). When combined with the broad and comprehensive set of capabilities customers need to take these models and safely customize them (including best-in-class retrieval augmented generation, guardrails, model evaluation, and AI-powered agents), Amazon Bedrock is the easiest way for customers to get started building and scaling generative AI applications, with responsible AI built in.

Customers will be able to access the Claude 3 family of vision-enabled models—Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Haiku—on Amazon Bedrock, with Sonnet and Haiku available today. Amazon Bedrock is the first and only managed service that currently offers Claude 3 models—Sonnet and Haiku—as generally available. The record-breaking Opus model will be available in the coming weeks. Customers looking for more information should visit the Generative AI on AWS webpage.

The new, cutting-edge additions from Anthropic broaden Amazon Bedrock’s range of generative AI models (which already includes those from AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI, and Amazon), further empowering customers with model choice to develop generative AI applications to drive innovation and reinvent end-user experiences.

Claude 3 models demonstrate advanced intelligence, near-human levels of responsiveness, improved steerability and accuracy, and new vision capabilities

Data from Anthropic shows that Claude 3 Opus, the most intelligent of the model family, has set a new standard, outperforming other models available today—including OpenAI’s GPT-4—in the areas of reasoning, math, and coding. Claude 3 Sonnet offers the best combination of skills and speed, with twice the speed 1 of earlier Claude models (for the vast majority of workloads) but higher levels of intelligence. While Claude 3 Haiku, designed to be the fastest, most compact model on the market, is one of the most affordable options available today for its intelligence category, with near-instant responsiveness that mimics human interactions.

According to Anthropic, Claude 3 offers significant improvements over other models available today across tasks such as coding, and being able to understand non-English languages (including Spanish, Japanese, and French), as well as lower levels of hallucinations than the most popular models from other providers, and higher levels of accuracy than earlier models. The Claude 3 models are better than earlier generations at following complex, multi-step instructions and adhering to brand voice guidelines for customer-facing experiences. Further, Claude 3 models can produce outputs in formats that make it easier for customers to develop applications for use cases like natural language classification and sentiment analysis.

All three new models have advanced vision capabilities, enabling them to process diverse data formats and analyze image data to meet customers’ growing demand for models that better understand charts, graphs, technical diagrams, photos, and other visual assets.

Amazon Bedrock customers are already building generative AI applications with Claude

Global organizations of all sizes, across virtually every industry, are already using Amazon Bedrock to build their generative AI applications with Anthropic’s Claude technology. They include ADP, Amdocs, Bridgewater Associates, Broadridge, CelcomDigi, Clariant, Cloudera, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Degas Ltd., Delta Air Lines, Druva, Enverus, Genesys, Genomics England, GoDaddy, Happy Fox, Intuit, KT, LivTech, Lonely Planet, LexisNexis Legal & Professional, M1 Finance, Netsmart, Nexxiot, Parsyl, Perplexity AI, Pfizer, the PGA TOUR, Proto Hologram, Ricoh USA, Rocket Companies, and Siemens .

Customers can use the new Claude models to automate tasks, create new user-facing applications, and accelerate research and development across a diverse range of sectors. They are suited for a wide array of use cases, from complex reasoning and nuanced content creation, to scientific queries, math, and coding.

For more details on Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Haiku, visit the AWS Machine Learning blog and Anthropic news blog.

3 key takeaways from today’s announcement

1. aws and anthropic continue to grow their strategic collaboration.

The addition of Anthropic’s Claude 3 models to Amazon Bedrock follows last year’s announcement of Anthropic’s long-term commitment to provide AWS customers around the world with access to future generations of its foundation models via Amazon Bedrock. As part of the news, Anthropic said it will use AWS Trainium and Inferentia chips to build, train, and deploy its future foundation models—benefitting from the price, performance, scale, and security of AWS, with the two companies collaborating on the development of future Trainium and Inferentia technology. It was also announced that AWS will become Anthropic’s primary cloud provider for mission critical workloads, including safety research and future foundation model development, and that Amazon would invest up to $4 billion in Anthropic.

“We’ve been working with Anthropic to bring the most advanced generative AI technologies to customers worldwide, including building on top of our best-in-class infrastructure such as AWS Tranium. We’re thrilled to continue that history with the addition of Claude 3 models on Amazon Bedrock,” said Dr. Swami Sivasubramanian, Vice President of Data and AI at AWS . “Our customers and partners continue to be excited by the advanced applications they can build with Claude on Amazon Bedrock, and the unmatched ability they have to quickly, securely, and responsibly deploy generative AI applications, using differentiated capabilities like knowledge bases, guardrails, and model evaluation, into production to provide new experiences for their end users. The easy access to Claude on Amazon Bedrock has led many of the world’s hottest startups, leading enterprise businesses, and government organizations to choose the managed service for deploying their generative AI applications, and we look forward to this accelerating following today’s news.”

2. More than 10,000 organizations worldwide are already using Amazon Bedrock to build their generative AI applications

Amazon Bedrock makes it easy to test, build, and scale game-changing applications, which is why more than 10,000 organizations worldwide are currently using Amazon Bedrock to experiment with generative AI before moving applications into production. Many are already using Anthropic’s Claude on Amazon Bedrock, and they will soon have access to the Claude 3 models to further drive rapid innovation.

• Pfizer , one of the world's premier biopharmaceutical companies, is using Claude on Amazon Bedrock in the discovery of potential treatments for cancer to get breakthroughs to patients faster. With generative AI, Pfizer can gather relevant data and scientific content in a fraction of the time, and then use it to assess trends and generate and validate oncology targets, improving the probability of success.
• KT , a telecommunications company and wireless carrier in South Korea, developed a service called AI Call Report that uses Claude on Amazon Bedrock to record (on consent), summarize, and translate calls between teachers, students, and parents in real-time, improving teachers’ ability to focus on their interactions with students and families and minimizing a previously manual and laborious process. The service will be available in schools at the start of the new Korean school year this March.
• The PGA TOUR , the world’s premier membership organization for touring professional golfers, is using Amazon Bedrock to create an AI platform to facilitate access to data and content from across the organization in order to aid staff in the production of content for fans. This allows them to unlock more value from their data while providing a secure environment to protect their intellectual property.
• Perplexity AI , a conversational artificial intelligence company, uses Anthropic’s Claude 2 on Bedrock to quickly test and deploy improvements to its general question answering capabilities, provide more natural sounding answers, and build new features.
• Genomics England , a leader in human genome research, is developing a solution using Claude on Amazon Bedrock to help researchers identify associations between genetic variants and medical conditions. Using peer-reviewed articles, this research has the potential to inform future genetic tests and improve human health, with an initial focus on intellectual disability. The solution can quickly process millions of pages of literature to surface highest likelihood gene associations for further investigation, faster than manual review alone, with 20 potential clinically-relevant associations already identified.
• Clariant , one of the world's leading specialty chemical companies, built a generative AI platform to assist employees and connect them to on-the-job resources, and it now boasts more than 2,000 active users, accounting for more than 15% of the global workforce. They have identified several generative AI use cases to transform and accelerate business processes in R&D, sales, customer service, and production.
• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute , a world leader in cancer treatment and research, built a new research solution using Claude on Amazon Bedrock to help clinicians in the interpretation of certain lab results that can be particularly complicated to understand. The solution aims to provide fast and accurate analyses to aid clinicians in diagnosis of medical conditions, assessment of treatment efficacy, and determination of next steps in clinical care.
• Parsyl , a data-powered insurer and fast-growing start-up, has deployed Claude on Amazon Bedrock to take unwieldy information from its customers—such as multiple email attachments in different formats—and turn it into usable data. This allows Parsyl to quickly identify patterns of risk for businesses transporting sensitive and ambient goods (e.g., food and vaccines) around the world—from a door left ajar on a truck full of fresh fish, to a shipping lane prone to delays. This solution empowers them to incentivize risk management among their customers and ultimately help reduce food waste across the supply chain.

3. AWS continues to invest across all three layers of the generative AI stack

Today’s news is the latest AWS generative AI announcement as the company continues to expand its unique offering at all three layers of the generative AI stack—infrastructure, models, and user-facing applications—so customers can use generative AI in a more efficient, extensive, and integrated way across their organizations. The addition of the latest Anthropic Claude models is a continuation of this commitment to provide the latest, most powerful models to help customers accelerate innovation using generative AI.

Learn more about Amazon Bedrock and check out additional info on the AWS News blog about Claude 3 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku .

Discover how AWS purpose-built chips help accelerate generative AI for Anthropic and other customers.

1 Anthropic expects to reach these speeds at or shortly after launch, with significant further improvements to come as they optimize these models for customers.

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New video, photos of Ruby Franke’s son reveal disturbing details that led to her arrest, conviction

A new "20/20" looks at the fall of the mommy vlogger.

Mommy vlogger Ruby Franke holds a camera with one hand and places her other hand around her son. He grins ear-to-ear as she announces the multi-day celebration that she has planned for his 10th birthday.

In the video, posted to her popular "8 Passengers" YouTube channel in 2021, Franke says: "We're just going to be celebrating his birthday all week."

On August 30, 2023, a little more than two years after that video was posted, Franke's son arrives on the doorstep of a house in the picturesque Red Rock valley of Ivins, Utah. He is 250 miles away from his family home in Springville, Utah.

In newly released Ring camera footage, first obtained by ABC News, the boy's appearance is in stark contrast to that shown in the vlog. He is markedly thinner, without shoes, and is described by first responders as "stoic."

MORE: YouTube vlogger Ruby Franke, business partner Jodi Hildebrandt sentenced in child abuse case

That camera video is just one piece of evidence that was released by the Washington County Attorney's office today. This comes 30 days after Franke and her former friend, therapist, and business partner, Jodi Hildebrandt, were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison.

They had previously pleaded guilty to four felony counts of second-degree, aggravated child abuse in December 2023.

The victims are Franke's two youngest children, who ABC News is referring to by their initials: R, the 12-year-old boy who first escaped from Hildebrandt's sprawling 10,000-square-foot home in August, and E, a 9-year-old-girl who was found in the same home later that day.

There was no evidence found in this investigation that the two oldest children -- Shari, 21, and Chad, 19 -- or the middle two teenage daughters, were physically abused. Shari and Chad had already moved out of the family home, while the middle teens were still living in Springville at that family home.

Still, even in 2020, some of the viewers of the “8 Passengers” channel expressed concern for the Franke children’s well-being. Most of the criticism targeting the parenting style that Ruby presented online.

A Change.org petition from May 2020 called for the Utah Division of Child and Family Services to check on the children's wellbeing. It cited punishments that Ruby spoke about in her videos, including taking away bedroom privileges for her eldest son, Chad, and forcing him to sleep on a bean bag chair for months after he pulled a prank on a sibling. That petition garnered more than 18,000 signatures.

But authorities would later discover that Ruby Franke's and Hildebrandt's actions in the summer of 2023 went far beyond the bounds of strict parenting.

The newly released evidence includes never-before-seen body camera footage, interrogation tapes, crime scene photos and jail calls. It paints a picture of, as Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke describes it, "horrific abuse" perpetrated by both Hildebrandt and Ruby Franke.

Clarke said that the abuse resulted in "physical long-term effects" for R and was what one prosecutor called "one of the most severe emotional abuse cases" he had ever worked on.

This evidence explains how Hildebrandt entered the lives of the Franke family and details the abuse. Franke chronicles her and Hildebrandt's actions in a journal – a collection of unlined pages covered in neat handwriting. It's a manicured, day-by-day account detailing how the women isolated E and R from the outside world, stripped them of food, water, and shelter, and physically and emotionally abused them.

Franke describes in her journal a 2023 birthday for R that was very different than the one in her sunny vlog from 2021.

In July 2023, Franke writes, "It's [R's] birthday & he doesn't even know what month it is." She continues on a later page: "I told [R] that he needs God. I invited him to fast & pray."

Deputy Washington County Attorney Zachary Weiland told "20/20" that on R's birthday, the boy woke up and was immediately made to stand on the back patio.

"Now, mind you, this is Ivins, Utah," Weiland said. "It was extremely hot, and he stood on that back porch all day." R's birthday came about two months after Franke brought R and E to Hildebrandt's home, in May of that year. Washington County attorneys believe that this was when the abuse began.

In an all-new "20/20," airing March 22 and streaming the next day on Hulu, ABC News' Juju Chang tells the story of this prolonged emotional and physical abuse, providing the first in-depth coverage of this story since the news first broke.

In Chang's report, first responders and prosecutors explain the evidence and share their first-hand accounts from last summer and the months that followed. The consensus among them: R is the hero of this story, and his and E's path to freedom began when he rang that neighbor's doorbell.

But the neighbor's Ring camera video reveals R did not think he was about to be free. In fact, he expected to be taken to jail.

When the elderly homeowner opens his door, R asks him for a favor: "Can you lead me to the nearest police station?"

Investigators told "20/20" they believe that R asked this not so he could receive help, but rather so he could complete the repentance process that his mother and Hildebrandt told him was required to absolve his sins.

"They told these kids that you have to repent first and then you're going to jail," Weiland said.

Clarke told Chang that both E and R were convinced "that they had done atrocious acts."

In her journal, Franke describes the children as "possessed" and refers to the abuse that she and Hildebrandt inflicted on them as their chance at repentance.

MORE: YouTube mom Ruby Franke pleads guilty in child abuse case

Investigators say that R attempted to escape for the first time in July. Before leaving the property, though, Franke writes in her journal that he took the time to spell out in small pebbles: "Jail. I will call when I get there." Forced to sleep outdoors, he’d left the message next to the spot where he had been sleeping on the concrete.

Weiland said this action shows that R was both convinced he needed to be locked up and that whatever he would experience in jail would be better than the conditions at Hildebrandt's home. Video shows the neighbor who met R after his second escape dialing 911 to get help, as his wife steps in to bring R water and a snack.

This is when he describes R's condition for the first time: "He has duct tape around each ankle, there's sores around them." His voice breaks with emotion as he continues, "This kid has obviously been – I think he's been, he's been detained. He's obviously covered in wounds."

Body camera footage captures the moment EMTs arrive at the scene and make their initial assessment of R.

"That first look at him," Maddee Ickes, an EMT with Santa Clara-Ivins Fire and Rescue, said, "it just hit that there was something wrong."

R is taken to the ambulance for treatment, and body camera footage shows him on a gurney. He's wearing a blue button-down shirt that hangs off his body and a baggie of pretzels sits at his side.

MORE: Controversial parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke formally charged with felony child abuse

Evidence photos taken by officers that day show the severe open wounds on R's wrists and ankles that were underneath the duct tape. Clarke said the wounds had been dressed in a honey, cayenne pepper mixture.

Santa Clara-Ivins Police Officer Simon Pikyavit said that, upon questioning, R told him that his mom and Hildebrandt had "bound his arms and his feet to weights on the ground" that restricted his movement.

Officers later learned that R also had been handcuffed at his wrists and ankles before the duct-tape had been applied.

While R is being treated, he tells officers that two of his siblings are still in Hildebrandt's home. A group of officers, including Pikyavit and Sgt. Nick Tobler, quickly drive down the block to Hildebrandt's home.

Body camera footage captures the moment that Hildebrandt finally swings open her large, wooden front door. She is dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt and holding a phone up to her ear. Her first words to police are, "I have my attorney on the phone."

Hildebrandt's demeanor in that video is vastly different than her calm, polished online persona. She is the founder of the defunct online life coaching business ConneXions. The company posted publicly accessible videos to social media and offered other resources like mental health workbooks behind a paywall.

Hildebrandt and Franke are seen together in dozens of ConneXions videos, most notably in a series called "Moms of Truth with Jodi & Ruby."

In these videos, Hildebrandt and Franke sit side by side on a couch discussing topics like parenting and offering self-help tips.

The women continued posting content up until August 16, 2023. Two weeks later, on the day of R's escape, Hildebrandt is physically removed from that home.

Officers enter without a warrant, citing exigent circumstances based on the tip from R that his siblings were still inside the home. They quickly make their way through a maze of multiple bedrooms, bathrooms and hallways.

Minutes later, they discover a child with a buzzcut sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor of an empty closet.

"We at first thought it might've been a little boy sitting there," Tobler told Juju Chang, "just staring up at us."

The child would not say who they were or how they ended up in Hildebrandt's closet. Hoping R could help identify the child, Tobler called his colleague, Detective Jessica Bate, who was still with R.

"I began asking R, 'Hey, do you have a little brother?'" Bate told Juju Chang. "He said, 'No, I have a younger sister there."

That was when officers realized: the child in the closet was R's sister E – the spunky, youngest Franke child who was known by fans for speaking her mind in the “8 Passengers” videos. But the child that is seen on body camera footage is quiet and reserved. Officers told ABC News that she seemed scared and was initially unwilling to leave her spot on the floor.

Body camera footage shows first responders taking turns, each one trying to entice her to get up. Only these words from Tobler catch her attention: "I bet you like pizza." E nods her head.

E is timid to eat at first, but eventually she eats an entire personal pizza and half of a large one. Finally, after 4 hours, she leaves the closet with the EMTs.

"The abuse that E had received, a lot of it was emotional, and it was very hard to even talk with E at first," Weiland told ABC News.

While E is being taken to the hospital, Ruby Franke finally arrives at the home. For hours, Hildebrandt and Franke sit, waiting in separate rooms as officers finish their search. Detectives find handcuffs, ropes, and Franke's journal in the home, but they do not find Franke's other two minor children – who at this point are still unaccounted for.

Police eventually located the two girls, unharmed, four hours from Ivins, in American Fork, Utah. They're found with Pam Bodtcher, the president of ConneXions.

Bodtcher has not been charged with any crimes connected to this case and Springville Police say she fully cooperated with their investigation.

While Hildebrandt and Franke wait for officers to finish their search back in Ivins, officers told ABC News that neither woman asked about the safety of the children. Bate eventually determines her team has collected enough evidence; she places both Franke and Hildebrandt under arrest and they are driven to the police station.

But hours earlier, someone else had arrived at that station, asking about the children.

"The same day that we placed Ruby Franke and Jodi under arrest, Kevin Franke also came to the police department looking for his kids," Bate said.

And at the time, Franke's estranged husband Kevin was considered a suspect. Striking interrogation footage captures the moment officers tell him about R's condition, saying he was emaciated and "skinny, scrawny."

"I'm sorry, what?" Kevin Franke asks, seemingly stunned.

Investigators learn that Kevin Franke had moved out of the family home and had not seen his wife or children in over a year. He says that under Hildebrandt's guidance, Ruby Franke had asked him to move out in July 2022.

MORE: New video reveals how Ruby Franke’s husband was kept in dark about abuse

Investigators quickly determined that Kevin Franke was not a suspect in this case.

"He was off the hook pretty quickly, because there just wasn't any evidence," Clarke said. "We had a journal saying everything that had happened in the [Hildebrandt] home over the summer, and it never said he was in the home."

Nearly seven months later, Kevin Franke is seeking to regain custody of his four minor children, and he’s filed for divorce.

"20/20" has learned that R and E have been placed in foster care together and Bate told Juju Chang that they are doing much better. Bate said, "They've put on weight, they look healthy, they're happy, they're back to their hobbies."

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Police: Thieves wearing Amazon uniforms seen on camera stealing packages

ST. LOUIS PARK (WCCO) – Police in Minnesota are investigating after Amazon delivery drivers, or people posing as Amazon drivers, were caught on camera stealing packages from an apartment complex mailroom at least two times last week.

Video was captured and released by management at the complex in St. Louis Park.

In the video, what looks like two Amazon delivery drivers were caught on camera stealing packages after making a delivery.

Someone in an Amazon uniform can be seen in the video bringing a tote into the apartment’s package room. Later in the video, the individual can be seen placing at least two packages into a tote and walking out of the room.

The management emailed residents about the incident, saying, “We are aware of two residents impacted by this as each has made a police report.”

In another incident just a few days later, management said a driver “scans packages … on his phone” before he takes two packages and “puts them back in the tote and pulls the tote outside.”

The incidents were reported to both police and Amazon, according to management.

Amazon said they are investigating the incident.

Anna Bowles said she had packages stolen from her porch in St. Louis Park in December. She said the thief was also in an Amazon uniform.

St. Louis Park Police said there is an ongoing investigation into the most recent apartment thefts.

Copyright 2024 WCCO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.

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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island's mysteries. Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island's mysteries. Two ancient titans, Godzilla and Kong, clash in an epic battle as humans unravel their intertwined origins and connection to Skull Island's mysteries.

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Michael Jackson’s son Blanket takes grandma Katherine to court over estate funds

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Bigi Jackson is taking his grandmother to court.

Michael Jackson’s 22-year-old son, formerly known as Blanket, filed to block Katherine Jackson from using the late King of Pop’s estate money to fund an ongoing legal battle, according to TMZ .

The outlet reported Wednesday that while Bigi had previously teamed up with Katherine, 93, against the executors of Michael’s estate, he switched gears after a court ruling earlier this month.

At the time, the judge sided with the executors over using the “Thriller” singer’s money for an undisclosed business deal.

Now that Katherine is appealing this decision, her grandson is no longer on board, as he reportedly believes it is unlikely she will win.

Bigi is Michael’s youngest son , arriving via surrogate in 2002 to join older siblings Prince and Paris.

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Want celebrity news as it breaks? Hooked on Housewives?

Although Bigi has primarily remained out of the limelight over the years, he made headlines for a rare outing last week.

Bigi, who sported a “Star Wars” graphic tee, looked all grown up while out and about in Los Angeles on March 14.

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While his sister, 25, has pursued an acting career and his brother, 27, earned a business administration degree from Loyola Marymount University in 2019, Bigi is interested in filmmaking.

His short film “Rochelles” won the Best Drama Award at the 2024 Santa Monica Film Festival.

Prince celebrated his brother’s success in a February Instagram Story post while shouting out Bigi’s 22nd birthday.

“Bro is killing it,” he gushed at the time. “Chasing his dreams and winning awards. HBD yo!”

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