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. If you can [watch] and go, That would never happen to me. She has been writing about entertainment news since she started writing journalistically in high school. All he ever got was a slap on the wrist, and then he was able to continue as before. I was on set. He was a truck driver and served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. They were just extraordinary. Berchtold vanished from their lives, but managed to avoid going to prison. As it turned out, Berchtold had helped Jan escape out of her bedroom window that night. And if youre not happy and you need medication or you need more talk therapyyou should get what you need so you can heal. Bob noticed that Berchtold had become sexually aroused. Taylor Swifts opening act on her debut album, Trumps Relationship With Jared and Ivanka. But Jan became even more withdrawn, and all the while, she was still thinking about what would happen to her family when she failed to complete the mission.. 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. He called me before it came on the news. The new Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight is a bewildering account of one girls kidnapping by a family friend. Without the Brobergs as witnesses, the court had no way of proving Berchtold was guilty of anything. Be the creator of your life. By Nicky Idika. Oh. Jan Broberg is now the executive producer on the Peacock miniseries based on her life, A Friend Of The Family. The film tells the story of Jan Broberg, who, as a child in the 1970s, was kidnapped twice and sexually abused by Robert "B." Berchtold, a family friend who grew close with her parents. "It's the smokescreen that a master manipulator creates," Broberg warned. I was shy, so I didn't really speak to him a whole lot. I didn't know the abuse was wrong until I was 12 or 13. Posted: 21 August 2021. 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. But I didnt know what was missing in the conversation. As she headed home, Berchtold called Bob and told him of their affair. When I first met [Hendrix]. Set in the 1970s, Robert and Mary Ann Broberg and their three young daughters, Jan, . Jan Broberg: I was very involved. Jake Lacy is a well-known American actor who has appeared on The Office, Girls, The White Lotus, Better with You, and I'm Dying Up Here. Between 1972 and 1976, he eventually kidnapped and wed her. After years of intense grooming, Jan started to gain romantic feelings towards Berchtold. "But I knew they had been groomed and manipulated too.". Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember Robert Berchtold. Heidi Brewer, 52, is a bookkeeper for a construction company in Oklahoma. If you can see yourself in this story, then we succeeded. "Many harmed by child sexual assault. It's hard to say what impact the abuse had on my life. The master manipulator from Utha has a lengthy history of having a particular lust for young females. Much of the outrage targets Jans parents, who participated fully in the documentary, and whose behavior in response to Berchtolds prolonged abuse of their daughter strikes many viewers as shockingly inadequate at best. 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. As Mary Ann described, they got a little too cozy and the first seeds of what would eventually grow into an affair were planted. So it looks . He brainwashed her with false narratives in order to sexually abuse her. Broberg said he managed to justify it to her parents (and convince them he hadnt abused her) by saying they werent allowed to cross the border to come back to the U.S. together without being married. By the time I was 14 or 15, it got to the point where Bob would just take what he wantedit didn't matter whether you were willing or not. After all, as profiled in both Netflix's 'Abducted in Plain Sight' as well as Peacock's 'A . That forever changed my DNA. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. Every episode of ABC's award-winning talk show "The View" is now available as a podcast! She also reveals how she managed to shake Bs grooming, what happened to B in later years, and whether her family has heard from any of the other Berchtolds since. I never go anywhere [for a speaking engagement] where it didnt happen to somebody in that room or to somebody close to them in that room. Jake Lacy Biography. A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid covering topics on mental health, sexual health, history, and sociology. It was sad that I didnt know some of the things that I know now. Robert Ersol Berchtold, 69, of Logandale, died Nov. 11, 2005. It chronicles the peculiar kidnapping case of Jan Broberg, an Idaho. As Jans 16th birthday approached, Berchtolds contact became less frequent. "That's a story I heard at Christmas time.". Jan begged her parents to let her work with Berchtold for the summer. After the first kidnapping, her parents were completely unaware of the sexual abuse. Robert, his wife Gail Toyn Berchtold, and their children moved to Pocatello, Idaho, perhaps in the early 1970s, only to live next door to the equally religious Broberg family. 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. If Jan wasnt pregnant and Susan refused to take Jans place, she was going to shoot Susan and then herself. Mckenna Grace, 16, plays teenaged Jan Broberg opposite pedophile Robert Berchtold (Jake Lacy) in "A Friend of the Family" -- and said she wanted to "vomit from how gross it is." Jan Broberg whose story about being kidnapped by her neighbor Bob Berchtold inspired Peacock's "A Friend of the Family" has written a new book about the experience, with her mother MaryAnn. He took us to science-fiction movies. I would hang out with her, and her four siblings, most weekends. Congratulations on the seriesI definitely understand so much more about your experience. My feelings get hurt easily and I have a hard time expressing myself without crying; I'd rather just shut down and stay out of the way. My dad isnt dead. The series stars McKenna Grace as Jan, along with Jake Lacy as Robert "B" Berchtold, . 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. 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. That was heartbreaking. My mother worked two jobs, so there was a lot of time for that. Thats like looking at my brainwashed self again. 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. Truth is, you don't really want to know what happens to Robert Berchtold after the events of the series. The 31-year-old Belgian filmmaker tackles the crisis of connection among teen boys in his second film, now an international feature Oscar nominee. He said he wanted me to take a vitamin. He found me when I lived in Florida, working for Disney World. He took her inside the motor home and abused her, while I waited outside. Robert Berchtold is an abuser who groomed the Broberg family in order to become close to their 12-year-old daughter Jan. He drugged her and transported her to Mexico in his RV. Robert Berchtold was ultimately given a prison sentence, but rather than face life behind bars, he downed a bottle of heart medication with Kahla and milk and ended his life. Click Manage settings for more information and to manage your choices. There must have been a lot of girls. The scene [in the second episode] when young Jan wakes up [in the RV for the first time] and hears the alien voices, that for me has been the hardest scene. In January 1974, Robert Berchtold was rebuked by the LDS . That is the only reason we told our story. I kept it all to myself and kept going," she writes. One of the scenes in Abducted in Plain Sight that best encapsulates the strangeness of its story comes midway through, after the second time a teenager named Jan Broberg has been kidnapped by a close family friend. Robert Ersol Berchtold, 69, of Logandale, died Nov. 11, 2005. He would pick me up from school and take me to his place, his motor home, our place or just in the car in the middle of nowhere. "You have to think again how the grooming happens," Broberg explained. The altered state of having been abused and how that affects your psyche and your life and your choices and your thinking and your self-worthIm worthless. We will do a better job. He never brought her home. Peacock's A Friend of the Family sent social media into a frenzy because of its shocking depiction of Jan Broberg's life. With the emotional adventure of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever closing out the controversial fourth, Minor spoilers ahead. I hope theyre doing okay, especially his kids. A few people in the movie vaguely assert that it was the 1970s, and no one really understood what pedophiles were, or that intimate friends and family members could also present a real danger to children. He said because we wanted to come home, they would not let me come back across the border if I did not have her married to me. That brainwashing, for me, was something that [lasted] a short period of time. I found out from Jan that Bob died by suicide in 2005. When I moved back to Texas, I got a job and I moved on. What was it like seeing the scenes between Jake Lacy and your character during the kidnapping? 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. Faith leaders knew. Around the same time, Berchtold went on a drive with Bob Broberg where he complained about his sex life with his wife and expressed that his needs werent being met. Robert Berchtold and Jan Broberg. 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. After the chaos of the events, she went on to share her story by speaking at various events and warning people of the dangers of others-even those who seem completely trustworthy. I knew what he was doing, Bob said. . So does a legal system that allowed Berchtold to kidnap, drug, and rape a child and receive a virtual slap on the wrist. Let me inform you that Read More Robert Berchtold Wiki, Wife, Age, Family, Brother . Of course, my insecurities show, and my anger pops out. I really see those things as being almost separate. Born May 17, 1930, in Beaver Falls, he was the son of the late . I sat down. I don't remember much of that evening. He was a salesman and my mother had contacted him about purchasing a traveling franchise. NetflixMary Ann Broberg described Berchtold as having a charisma that Bob didnt possess.. I remember the first time I really understood what love was or at least what a nine-year-old could understand as romantic love. Either it happened to you, Julie, or it happened to somebody close to you. He found my apartment and called my apartment. Robert 'B' Berchtold kidnapped 12-year-old Jan and took her in a camper to Mexico in 1974. Thats not in the documentary, Broberg said. Theyre the bravest people I know, willing to try to help the rest of you see what they didn't. In the doc, he said he was sexually abused by the "help", didn't feel part of the new family (mother had other children to new husband) and slept in a separate bunkhouse. If they didnt, she said, then everyone would know about Bob and Roberts sexual exchange. It unpacks too many bizarre events in a short time frame to allow for much additional analysis. He found me at college. He gave her allergy medication that knocked her out and drove with her to Pasadena, California where he enrolled her in a Catholic school with the alias Janis Tobler, feeding the nuns a fake story about being a CIA agent who needed someone to care for his daughter. I wonder if he abused her at all? He told her she had been abducted by aliens and that if she didn't have his baby, her sister would go blind and her father would be murdered. They consulted with me constantly. When I was 10, Bob tried to use the same alien story on me that he had used on Jan Broberg [an earlier victim who was abused by Robert Berchtold from 1972-1976. Bob recalled saying to her, Dear, youll regret that decision someday., She stayed in Jackson Hole for two weeks, continuing the mission and living with Berchtold. While on the road to Mexico he . Album, Trumps Relationship with Jared and Ivanka, my insecurities show, and her siblings. Abuse had on my life in this story, then everyone would know Bob! 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