The children in the clan considered Berchtold a second father, so much so that when he fled to Mexico with a 12-year-old Jan by his side in August 1974, the family was initially unwilling to. After Broberg took what she thought were allergy pills before heading to the stables, she passed out in the car, and remembers nothing of the car ride. She traveled to meet him, and he begged her to leave her husband and live with him. I got to have meetings with the art department, the costume departmentI went to the location of the home they found. The new Peacock drama miniseries, A Friend Of The Family, tells the true story of how kidnapper Robert Berchtold ruined Jan Brobergs childhood. That friend, Robert Berchtold, calls Jans mother, Mary Ann, and falsely tells her that Jan is prostituting herself and selling drugs. That doesnt stop me anymore. The encounter quickly became sexual. Im not in contact with them. And before she and Berchtold were separated, he informed her that the aliens had contacted him with instructions for Jan not to speak of the mission or to have contact with any other men. I wonder if he abused her at all? Next: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Can Solve 1 True Crime Show Problem. The recording was a message from two aliens named Zeta and Zethra, telling Jan that she was half alien and needed to complete a mission to have a baby with Berchtold before her 16th birthday. Jannow Jan Broberg Felt, an actor whos appeared in Criminal Minds and Everwoodhas subsequently defended her mother and father. He anesthetized her with sleeping pills and raped the girl up to maybe 200 times. He wanted to talk on the phone and to go out, and Bob didn't like it. It is a lifelong process. The details that follow spiral quickly from strange to appalling. Heidi Brewer with her son and two daughters. After Jan threatened to find her own way there, Mary Ann bought her a plane ticket and sent her to Berchtold. Which is how those next four years, as you see in the series, unfold, because I really did think [the aliens] would take [my sister] if I didnt do the mission. In 'A Friend of the Family,' the Berchtold's had three boys plus a girl Jasper, Joel, Jacob, and Jenny but in real life, they had four boys as well as a girl: Jerry, James, Joseph, Jeff, and Jill. Its very close in every way to how it truthfully unfolded. How involved were you with the making of the show? Rian Johnson, Halle Berry, and More Share Their Inspiration, From the Archive:Who Stole the Oscars? Thats not in the documentary, Broberg said. In a new book, Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story, Felt's mother reveals the details of the actress's childhood memories. Jan has this very colorful story of what happened to her, and none of that happened to me. Robert Ersol "Bob" Berchtold . I kept it all to myself and kept going. These Romantic Movies Are Guaranteed To Make You Cry, The Greatest Romantic Comedies That Youll Watch On Repeat, 26 Movies Every Woman Should See At Least Once. I met my ex-husband and we had kids. We didn't meet in person until we filmed the documentary, A Friend of the Family: True Evil. I could do that too, but I didnt have to wear it all the time. That was heartbreaking. So that's why Im stepping into advocacy with the Jan Broberg Foundation. What was it like seeing the scenes between Jake Lacy and your character during the kidnapping? Following the incident, he convinced the Brobergs that part of his therapy required him to sleep in the same bed as their 12-year-old daughter Jan while listening to tapes provided by his therapist. Thats like looking at my brainwashed self again. When I woke up and that voice was therepeople often say, How long did it take for you to be brainwashed to believe that [aliens had kidnapped you]. I said, 10 secondswhen I [first] heard the voice [in the RV]. The planting of the seeds is where all of that nefarious grooming and manipulation happened, before that moment. Her saga was admittedly complicated: When she was 12 and living in Idaho in the 1970s, a close family friend and neighbor who was decades older, Bob Berchtold, drove off with her one day, having. The film implies that the Broberg parents were both brainwashed and manipulated by Berchtold, which accounts for some of their actions, but not nearly all. That forever changed my DNA. She worked as an actress and went on to star in several television shows and movies, such as the canceled show Everwood. He began flirting with Mary Ann, inviting her on a Church retreat in Logan, Utah. BRIGHAM CITY - Robert Ersol Berchtold, age 69, died Frida, November 11, 2005, in Bunkerville, Nevada. More than 50 years ago, Jan was kidnapped and abused by a family friend, Berchtold, who had affairs with both her parents in order to cover up his actions. He turned sideways and you could almost see him reaching back to start a tape recorder. Berchtold made them believe his therapist had advised him to work through his pedophilia by sharing a bed with Jan. In a candid conversation, Broberg tells VF about the surreal experience of seeing her abuser brought to life again. Abducted in Plain Sight viewers learned B kidnapped Broberg a second time from her parents home in Idaho in 1976 when she was 14. Kidnap victim Jan Broberg, the subject of Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, said she was groomed by her kidnapper to believe UFOs and extra-terrestrial life were a plausible possibility. That was terrifying and surreal because I was finishing a speech for a thousand women and their daughters. The reality, though, is that the extraordinary nature of the revelations in the film, and their insufficient excavation, end up overshadowing the much more urgent subject at hand. Robert Ersol Berchtold, 69, of Logandale, died Nov. 11, 2005. That is the only reason we told our story. 18 months later, while out on bail & awaiting trial for kidnapping, Robert Berchtold abducted Jan for the 2nd time, triggering FBI manhunt. Robert Berchtold. They were on their feet clapping when the police came in and said, Okay, were going to get you out of this room and away from this window. Here is where Borgmans unwillingness or lack of space to parse exactly whats going on feels most acute. However, in real life, the Berchtolds had five children, all names beginning with the letter "J," but the. In an interview with VF, Broberg says that she felt afterward as though she had allowed my parents legacy to be soiled or something. If Jan wasnt pregnant and Susan refused to take Jans place, she was going to shoot Susan and then herself. We'll never know. In his February 11 special, the comedian reflects on the loss of his partner, Lynn Shelton, while also tackling hot-button issues like abortion and fascism. On Oct. 17, 1974, Robert Berchtold picked up his young neighbor Jan Broberg from her piano lessons in Pocatello, Idaho, so he could, he claimed, take her horseback riding. 'Abducted in Plain Sight' on Netflix tells the story of Jan Broberg, a girl who is kidnapped by a family friend named Robert "B" Berchtold in the 1970s. When they showed up at the front door, my dad would stick his hand out and go, Hello, doctor. And then they would come in and he would give them the corsage that he had made for me, to give to them, so they could give it to me for free. After years of intense grooming, Jan started to gain romantic feelings towards Berchtold. He escaped jail time and moved to Utah to work for his brother. Thats why Im so grateful to have this series. He brainwashed the little girl to believe that she was half alien and half human, and that her mission in life was to have a child with him. It's hard to say what impact the abuse had on my life. I wanted this for a long timeto tell the story in a way that would affect the most change and the most understanding so that people could avoid this happening in their own life or help any traumatized young person get to a healthy, happy place. He would mention it every once in a whilethat I was specialbut he never mentioned that I needed to have a child to save some race or anything like that. In 1976, he spent 10 days in jail after accepting a plea deal based on the first kidnapping, then was sentenced to a mental facility for 6 months. I reached out to Jan after I came across her book, and we exchanged a few emails. Jake Lacy Biography. I found out from Jan that Bob died by suicide in 2005. Her saga was admittedly complicated: When she was 12 and living in Idaho in the 1970s, a close family friend and neighbor who was decades older, Bob Berchtold, drove off with her one day, having told Brobergs parents he was taking the child horseback riding. I could look at the coat. Bob noticed that Berchtold had become sexually aroused. Jan Broberg's parents and siblings, as well as the law enforcement professionals who worked on the case, recount the unbelievable sequence of events at the heart of this . She had me stay the night with a friend and invited her friends over. So I didn't feel wanted. Michael has been already been convicted and released for time served, but followup episodes happened, along with an HBO dramatization that appears further down in this list. The following two years, B kept in contact with Broberg, who said she felt she loved him. Almost a decade ago, the world was gripped with anxiety as it watched the legal proceedings against a young Se. And did that give you some sort of relief or closure? I wanted to crawl into the backseat and find the tape recorder and Bob got upset with me. In the beginning, he would say, "Do what you're told," and then, when I was 13, he said, "If it's not you, it's going to be somebody else." Taylor Swifts opening act on her debut album, Trumps Relationship With Jared and Ivanka. I moved back to Texas to stay with one of my brothers, and my mother stayed in Utah. March 21, 2004 -- Actress Jan Broberg Felt says her childhood abductor returned when she decided to share her strange and frightening story with the world. I looked further and found that his real Dad died when he was 1, and his mother remarried to his Dad's elder brother (common to Mormon faith). I didn't know it was wrong right away. I was good around adults and I was a people pleaser. How was that? In October 1974, Berchtold. That companion was B, and the mission was to have a child with him before Broberg turned 16 years old. The first time Berchtold kidnapped Broberg, he took her to Mexico and married her. Filmmaker Skye Borgman on the unbelievable twists and turns of the Jan Broberg kidnapping case, and the pieces of the story that didnt make it into her documentary, on Netflix. They settled in Utah, where . My sister Susan, who is an attorney, called his son Jimmy, an attorney. That event would set off a series of events for a series of tragic events in the life of Jan Broberg, which she discussed in the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight as well as . But a lot of people just didnt.. It was the thing that kept me obedient.. Due to the violence at her book tour, Jan Broberg filed a restraining order against Berchtold, which she was granted for life. Theres a lot more to the story. We will do a better job. I made statements and, because I was a minor, I didn't have to testify in court. We think hes in the parking lot. Im like, What? Berchtold didnt stop tracking you over the years. Where are you in the healing process now? To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. I felt she was unaffectionate as a parent: there were no hugs or "I love you"s when I was growing up. He called me before it came on the news. I didn't learn to swim because she was afraid I would drown. I never saw a psychiatrist or a therapist. Although Bob and Mary Ann Broberg refused, Berchtold returned home with Jan and things somehow went back to normal without any charges pressed. Faith leaders knew. his) demands if she wanted her family to stay safe. With her mother, she wrote a book, "Stolen Innocence," about her experiences. But when we got to his apartment, his kids weren't there. If you can see yourself in this story, then we succeeded. Photo: Courtesy Jan Broberg. The kids played together; the parents enjoyed each others company. So it looks . I can't imagine how many girls there were before Jan, between Jan and I, and how many came after me. The 31-year-old Belgian filmmaker tackles the crisis of connection among teen boys in his second film, now an international feature Oscar nominee. It was so shockingly hard for me. I get to be the examiner. They didnt want to know. Berchtold killed himself in 2005, before being sentenced for simple assault, criminal trespassing, and disorderly conductcharges stemming from that conference where he showed up with the gun. Jan Broberg, her sister Susan Broberg, and her mother Mary Ann Broberg in the documentary, "A Friend of the Family: True Evil." Some people know him as Robert or "B," but he was Bob or Dad to me. Afterward, Berchtold maintained his grasp on their lives by ensnaring both of the Brobergs in a sexual relationship before kidnapping their daughter for a second time two years later. By 2003, Jan Broberg had tried her best to move on. Hows your family?. "But I knew they had been groomed and manipulated too.". Her dad owned Atkin Florist, while her mother was a homemaker. I never felt like I needed to be validated. I was making great strides in my life and my career and my familyall the things that I am so grateful for. Their childhood was . Have you been in touch with them? There must have been a lot of girls. Monday on "The View," Broberg discussed her childhood and the steps taken by family friend Robert Berchtold, who went by the nickname "B," to manipulate the family and kidnap Broberg twice. Every episode of ABC's award-winning talk show "The View" is now available as a podcast! The drama series, A Friend of the Family, was released on Peacock, and many fans are talking about its true story. Both parents claimed in the documentary that if they didnt do this, B would expose a sex act that Bob and B engaged in prior to the kidnapping. According to Broberg, this is because she eventually filed for divorce from Berchtold at some point before the second kidnapping. That was a really crazy little period of time. It was really when I was 30 years old that I had that aha moment. The abuse went on for seven-and-a-half years. He talked incessantly about UFO sightings. Vanity Fair: Your story is so complicated, but the show does a great job at laying out this elaborate abduction plan beat by beat to show how Berchtold targeted your whole family. The older sister reached out and found my mother when they saw my book with pictures of him in it. My mother had four biological sons and she wanted a girl, so she adopted me. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. [My sister] Karen isnt blind. That womans two daughters had been raped and molested [by him], and they ran away from home. Thank you for taking the time to have this conversation. [It was] something that my dad did to every boy I ever dated. The only contact we had was one time when Berchtold was trying to defame my mom for writing our storyafter our first published book. If she did, he said, her dad would be killed, her sister Karen made blind, and Susan taken in her stead. As it turned out, Berchtold had helped Jan escape out of her bedroom window that night. She had slowly begun to question whether the aliens were real, but a small part of her still believed in them. Firstly Bob and Mary Ann let Berchtold share a bed with their daughter multiple times, knowing that he was being counselled for being attracted to children. In truth, Berchtold drugged the 12-year-old and staged the scene to make it seem as if the two of them had been captured and taken away against their will. He explained to Bob that he had a traumatic childhood, including having sex with an aunt when he was four. Gail Berchtold Career . Was that after the documentary came out? The movie includes pictures Berchtold took of Jan as a 12-year-old girl, all straw-colored hair, wide eyes, and freckles. But Berchtold did not just kidnap Broberg oncehe entrapped Brobergs religious parents in such an elaborate web of trust and shame that he managed to convince the family to drop the most serious charges against him, continue letting him spend time with their young daughter, andin the most shocking twist of allkidnap her a second time when she was 14. The nine-episode series, which premiered this week, retells the sagathis time making it clear how a family like the Brobergs could have let Berchtold (plus his wife and young children) into their lives and continue to give the neighbor second chances. Now I do. Watch the exclusive trailer for the sharp upcoming series, starring Washington as a single mom whose father (Delroy Lindo) comes to live with her after being released from prison. Does anyone else know anything about his childhood? After picking Jan up from piano lessons and drugging her, Berchtold dragged the unconscious child into his motorhome, bound her wrists and ankles to his bed with straps, and set up a small device to play a recording. His mother was still alive during the whole ordeal, she would have been 60 years old or so when he abducted Jan, Must have been hard for her witnessing this of her son. Everybody gets hurt. With a corresponding friend for every family member, the families quickly grew close to one another, and B became like "a second father" to Broberg. Both parents claimed in the documentary that if they didnt do this, B would expose a sex act that Bob and B engaged in prior to the kidnapping. The "alien" voice, which Bob pretended was coming from the car itself, said that I should be listening to Bob and doing as he told me. A recording began to tell her the story of how she was half-alien, and the extra-terrestrial species' survival depended on her to procreate with the male companion of their choosing. When I would ask Bob about these differences, including why I couldn't have friends over or spend time away from home, he would get angry. How did you find out about his suicide? The fascination with potential alien life intersecting with life on Earth was popular in the early 1970s. What happened to the Berchtold children? So we went out to eat, he took me to a movie,we got some ice cream, then we went back to his empty apartment. But . He said he would abuse his daughter, Jill, if I didn't comply. He took us to science-fiction movies. Robert Berchtold and Jan Broberg. He hoped to give Zachary a glimpse of his father. And then he had her wait outside while he abused me. I was 9 years old when I first met Bob in 1978. Her sons were quite a bit older than methe youngest was seven or eight years older than meand I don't remember them being in the house much. All views expressed in this article are the author's own. These guys were crazy and those stupid people, then we failed. The cautionary tale Broberg tells about kidnapping today, is that "it's somebody you know, love, and trust, and probably somebody your child knows, loves, and trusts.". Although Berchtold feigned ignorance regarding Jans whereabouts, Welsh and investigators knew he was responsible for her disappearance. By Nicky Idika. A Friend of the Family, created by Nick Antosca, is based on the real-life case featured in the 2017 documentary Abducted in Plain Sight . It really was amazing. Abducted in Plain Sight was first released as a documentary in 2017 with the title Forever B, but its gained rather more traction this month after being added to Netflixs true-crime library. Thats why, she says, they didnt probe more when they knew something had happened. The district attorneywho had basically prosecuted his showing up at that conference with a gun as a registered sex offendercalled me. Jake Lacy as Bob Berchtold and Hendrix Yancey as a young Jan Broberg in Peacocks A Friend of the Family. Nonetheless Berchtold, even after his conviction and his briefest of interludes in prison, was able not only to be around children, but also to purchase and run a family-fun center as a business. Berchtold married Jan Broberg in Mazatln, and 35 days after the kidnapping, called his brother, Joe, asking him to contact Bob and Mary Ann to get their blessing to return home with Jan and be wed in the United States. But, as Welsh described, they were duped in a terrible, terrible way. The man Berchtold saw was not a licensed psychologist his license had been revoked. This is happening everywhere right now in 2022. Growing up Mormon, Broberg told "The View" co-hosts she was somewhat familiar with the "Mary, Jesus, and Joseph story," and B told her a similar story through the voice recordings. I never saw a psychiatrist or a therapist. She has been writing about entertainment news since she started writing journalistically in high school. Peacock's A Friend of the Family sent social media into a frenzy because of its shocking depiction of Jan Broberg's life. Jan has since said that meeting me was "validating." Oh my goodness, Mary Ann replies, in a steady, even tone, as if hes just told her that seasonal allergies might be worse than usual this summer, or that two people brought potato salads to the potluck. And I could hang it up. In hindsight, I don't think Bob would ever have done anything to Jill. He found my apartment and called my apartment. I'd been led up to that moment," Broberg said. I'm insecure and don't feel like I deserve better. 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