We were in a car, and Bob pulled into a random neighborhood. According to Newsweek, Jan Broberg grew up to become an actress and an advocate for victims of childhood sexual abuse. Today there are specialists and programs designed specifically to deprogram people who have been brainwashed. I did what I was supposed to do. Looking back as an adult, Jan Broberg has called Berchtold a master manipulator. No one in her family could see it at the time, but Robert Berchtold had started grooming the family the moment they met. 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. But what kind of sexual abuse did he go through? I think people get [now how] we were so close to the [Berchtold] family.. Shes the one who identified [her mother] in the audience, who she hadnt seen for seven years and wouldnt call mother. Shes like, Shes here, so he must be nearby.. He found me when I lived in Florida, working for Disney World. My mother worked two jobs, so there was a lot of time for that. So I felt like I was protecting her from being hurt, by allowing the abuse to happen. I kept it all to myself and kept going. Then, on Christmas Eve, Gail Berchtold stopped by the Brobergs house and asked them to drop any charges against her husband, presenting them with affidavits to sign. Thats why, she says, they didnt probe more when they knew something had happened. "When people ask me about the brainwashing, I'm like, 'It took 10 seconds.' He frequently called Mary Ann, confessing his love to her and asking her to meet him in Utah to talk about everything. 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. Berchtold vanished from their lives, but managed to avoid going to prison. 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. That doesnt stop me anymore. I would hang out with her, and her four siblings, most weekends. "Everybody loved him.". Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? They didnt have to do that, but they did. It was really when I was 30 years old that I had that aha moment. She strongly continues to spread awareness of Berchtolds crimes through the new drama series. B took a particular interest in 12-year-old Jan as well, often showering her with gifts and inviting her on trips. I was interviewed for two days for the documentaryI spoke with Jan for hours and then the following day I spent hours being interviewed by the journalist. Which he adds, emphatically, They. That companion was B, and the mission was to have a child with him before Broberg turned 16 years old. In the doc, Brobergs recount the emotional & sexual manipulation, insidious schemes & depraved actions that allowed church-going Idaho family to fall under the spell of a sociopathic neighbor, who would stop at nothing to be with their daughter. Ive been doing, Hello, doctor with a couple of my friends for about 20 years. I about passed out. Bob kidnapped Jan twice, whereas he never kidnapped me. The day after the series premiered, Broberg says she feels huge relief that a more complete version of the story is available. But I know the abuse impacted my relationships. You have to have this baby by your 16th birthday. All of that brainwashingI knew that wasnt real when I [later interacted with boys] and had that moment of going, Okay, I havent been vaporized. The Broberg family met the Berchtold family through their church in a small town in Idaho in 1972, according to the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight., "He was the kind of guy that was just helpful," Broberg said of her initial impressions of B. Jan has this very colorful story of what happened to her, and none of that happened to me. At one point, she planned on buying a gun and explaining to her sister Susan what was going to happen. She recently graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles with a BA in journalism and a minor in film studies. Broberg, now. And the sad thing is, unfortunately, you're getting attention from somebody. The new Peacock drama miniseries, A Friend Of The Family, tells the true story of how kidnapper Robert Berchtold ruined Jan Brobergs childhood. Berchtold eventually moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he bought a family fun center. I kept it all to myself and kept going," she writes. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. 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. [There] was the brainwashing that was groomed into me before I was kidnapped[like being led to believe] that there were aliens. That is the only reason we told our story. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Ad Choices, Broberg, who first shared the true story of her kidnapping in the documentary, Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Fragile Snowflake Donald Trump for Allegedly Trying to Censor Him. "But I knew they had been groomed and manipulated too.". When Jan Broberg shared the story of her stranger-than-fiction kidnapping in the 2017 documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, she did not anticipate the charged response it would elicit. I was 9 years old when I first met Bob in 1978. And this 10% experience, you cant let it ruin the rest of your life. I looked it up and her name was Moanna and is now deceased. She was drugged on numerous occasions; I was only drugged once. But when we got to his apartment, his kids weren't there. I'd been led up to that moment," Broberg said. Peacock. As Mary Ann described, they got a little too cozy and the first seeds of what would eventually grow into an affair were planted. Mary Ann Broberg described Berchtold as having a charisma that Bob didnt possess., Jan Broberg works as an actress, known for roles in. You can live in the 90%, which is the rest of your life, and be in charge. Robert Ersol Berchtold, 69, of Logandale, died Nov. 11, 2005. But now this man she didn't really know could let himself in at any time. He brought her to California and enrolled her in a Catholic school, posing as her father and a CIA agent, according to the documentary. Although Bob and Mary Ann Broberg refused, Berchtold returned home with Jan and things somehow went back to normal without any charges pressed. She brought him to the house for dinner and he seemed nice enough. Next: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Can Solve 1 True Crime Show Problem. Through therapy, she learned to forgive them for not stopping the years of abuse she endured from B. I made statements and, because I was a minor, I didn't have to testify in court. I was working on myself. The documentary only slightly went into "B's" past. Pete Welsh, the lead FBI agent investigating Jans disappearance, had to drill that into our minds, Mary Ann explains in an interview. She divorced him and took her kids and moved., Gail was not featured in the documentary. The Berchtold family also had a baby girl when they met in the Peacock dramatization. Youve revisited this chapter of your life before in your books, documentary, and speaking engagements. The kids played together; the parents enjoyed each others company. The Skye Borgmandirected documentary condensed this tale into 91 minutes. I immediately started to sob and then [had] this elation feeling. When the two saw each other again in court, she told him, My goal, Mr. Berchtold, is to educate the public about predators like you. Berchtold went from seducing both Bob and Mary Ann, driving them apart while learning their weakness simultaneously. [The older sister] came to the conference when he showed up with the gun. I met my ex-husband and we had kids. 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. Its very close in every way to how it truthfully unfolded. What happened to the Berchtold children? Thats not in the documentary, Broberg said. 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. That brainwashing, for me, was something that [lasted] a short period of time. In actuality, though, Jan explained that Berchtold had just been careful. 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. After a career of playing affable characters, the Emmy-nominated actor discusses his darkest turn yetand what made him feel okay playing a real-life bad guy. In October 1974, Berchtold. The affidavits that they signed, they retracted four days later. [My sister] Karen isnt blind. Robert Berchtold Wikipedia Bio. But I could see Bob playing the tape, so I didn't believe him. 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. The story is dramatized. At the same time, Berchtold had contrived a story about taking Jan on vacation but getting stuck in Mexico, unable to return unless they got married. But whatever happened to Robert? Ive met her and talked to her. I remember there was another girl that he was "seeing" at the time. She traveled to meet him, and he begged her to leave her husband and live with him. Who would know? You can change your choices at any time by visiting your privacy controls. Susan called him and said, Your father said that youre his attorney. He said, I would never represent my father. 2 . Or, see how Michaela Garechts kidnapping was finally solved 30 years after her death. After becoming fast friends with a new family called the Berchtolds, the Brobergs noticed that the charismatic fun dad Robert Berchtold (known as B) seemed overly interested in Jan. He was like a second father to me, Jan explains, before detailing her memories of how he drugged and molested her. They settled in Utah, where . 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. "You have to think again how the grooming happens," Broberg explained. He was a truck driver and served in the U.S. Army . Berchtold didnt stop tracking you over the years. The 1967 film Guess Whos Coming to Dinner starred Sidney Poitier and Katharine Houghton as a ne, As the open-hearted matriarch Hattie Mae in Tyler Perrys 2022 film A Jazzmans Blues, Amirah Vann demonstrates a great tenderness and fierce love to b, This story includes spoilers for Saint Omer. Berchtold was sentenced to five years in prison anyway but served only 10 days. Taylor Swifts opening act on her debut album, Trumps Relationship With Jared and Ivanka. Berchtold, played by Jake Lacy, did not just target Jan (Hendrix Yancey and Mckenna Grace), the series makes clear. 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. October 5, 2022. Listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Stitcher or the ABC News app. Everybody gets hurt. The result is a documentary that exposes them for public scrutiny without pausing to really interrogate their actions. I feel that he cheated death, as he was never really held accountable for what he did. Manipulation and grooming are not understood by so many. I had never taken a vitamin before and honestly, I just couldn't swallow pills. Broberg was missing for roughly a month during the first kidnapping, during which she was sexually assaulted by B. For viewers watching at home, though, judging the Brobergs is easier, even if its hard to ever feel fully informed, or to believe that the family knew what they were getting into by airing everything so publicly. Oh dear. Truth is, you don't really want to know what happens to Robert Berchtold after the events of the series. I remember the first time I really understood what love was or at least what a nine-year-old could understand as romantic love. I could dig into the pockets. So that I get to be the doctor. 18 months later, while out on bail & awaiting trial for kidnapping, Robert Berchtold abducted Jan for the 2nd time, triggering FBI manhunt. 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. Berchtold allegedly raped Broberg hundreds of times. After Jan threatened to find her own way there, Mary Ann bought her a plane ticket and sent her to Berchtold. Set in the 1970s, Robert and Mary Ann Broberg and their three young daughters, Jan, . It really was amazing. Either it happened to you, Julie, or it happened to somebody close to you. He began flirting with Mary Ann, inviting her on a Church retreat in Logan, Utah. Meanwhile, her parents blamed themselves for these events. All but 45 days of his prison sentence were suspended, and B ended up only serving 10 days in prison. Having not wanted to spend an extended period of time in prison, Robert Berchtold died by suicide during November of that year. It wasnt until 30 years later, after Mary Ann had published her book Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story, that they heard from him again. I really see those things as being almost separate. He anesthetized her with sleeping pills and raped the girl up to maybe 200 times. He didn't have to: my mother let him take me. I remember waking up in the morning and not feeling well at all. 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. I was shy, so I didn't really speak to him a whole lot. Hes so funny and kind and warm. 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. He abducts her again in 1976, after she has . Without spoiling the most shocking ones, they involve multiple confessions of extramarital sexual relationships, as well as an elaborate plot involving aliens that Berchtold used to prey on Jan. Berchtold was arrested for kidnapping, but the Brobergs, under duress, withdrew their most serious charges. She never expressed any remorse for what happened, never apologized. Where are you in the healing process now? Born in 23 Oct 1924 and died in 7 Dec 1980 Erie, Pennsylvania Robert F Berchtold 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. Their childhood was . Robert Berchtold and Jan Broberg. She was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by her neighbor and family friend Robert "B." Berchtold when she was 12 and again when she was 14. But . Robert Berchtold began taking the Broberg kids to school every day and took Jan on activities including horseriding and family vacations. The movie includes pictures Berchtold took of Jan as a 12-year-old girl, all straw-colored hair, wide eyes, and freckles. Do.. The tapes played odd, sexual messages, urging him to imagine being touched and caressed. When I first met [Hendrix]. The affidavits compromised the FBIs case against B. It's hard to say what impact the abuse had on my life. Over the past week, viral tweets and Reddit threads and various expressions of incomprehension have batted around the internet, as viewers try to make sense of what exactly theyve just watched. Between 1972 and 1976 he groomed Broberg and abducted her twice: once at the age of 12 and the second time when she was 14. Robert Berchtold is an abuser who groomed the Broberg family in order to become close to their 12-year-old daughter Jan. He explained to Bob that he had a traumatic childhood, including having sex with an aunt when he was four. He said he would abuse his daughter, Jill, if I didn't comply. Broberg continued to believe the make-believe alien story up until her 16th birthday. 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. She had that same kind of brightness. 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. The fascination with potential alien life intersecting with life on Earth was popular in the early 1970s. Your family was so close to the Berchtolds for years. I was hurt and angry that, after all of that, nothing had really happened to him. They didnt forgive him. He wouldn't talk directly to young Broberg, but she would curiously listen to conversations about UFOs that B and her parents had in the kitchen. Robert Berchtold, a close friend of the Broberg family who has turned serial child abductor, kidnaps Jan Broberg, age twelve, in 1974. The Brobergs were going to call the police until Gail Berchtold, Roberts wife, asked them not to. Idaho, who quickly become close pals with their new neighbor, Robert Berchtold, and his wife and kids. How did you find out about his suicide? She and her family went on to be manipulated by him for years, even after she was returned home from the kidnapping. The following article contains discussions of sexual violence and suicide. My dad isnt dead. In one, her underwear is clearly visible. After earning the Broberg family's trust with his charismatic personality, Berchtold began grooming daughter Jan (Mckenna Grace and Hendrix Yancey in different time periods) in 1972, and. Gail Berchtold Career . He found me at college. 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. As she headed home, Berchtold called Bob and told him of their affair. He is survived by his wife, Deanna; sons, Jerry, James, Joseph, 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. "I met my ex-husband and we had kids. The Brobergs seemingly knew. They didnt want to know. He was raised with half siblings, one of which looked very much like Jan, the "little girl" he said he took care of when his Mother left home when she was sick. Cookie Notice So it looks . He took her inside the motor home and abused her, while I waited outside. 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. She had me stay the night with a friend and invited her friends over. At least I can keep telling my story without feeling like hes going to show up or hes stalking me. Because hed showed up [occasionally]. It was Jan.. Ive watched it several times nowThat has consistently been the one [that bothered me]. We'll never know. That friend, Robert Berchtold, calls Jans mother, Mary Ann, and falsely tells her that Jan is prostituting herself and selling drugs. No word and many, many years have gone by and, you know, can you imagine how awful it would be to discover that this was your dad? Its something that happened to them or someone close to themthey had been groomed or conned or manipulated, and could relate. As we have discussed above Gail was the ex-wife of Robert Berchtold, who abducted his neighbour, Jan Broberg Felt. Berchtold said he was listening to a series of tapes meant to help curb his desire, but also claimed that he would need to spend more time with Jan to help him get over his obsession. 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. The district attorneywho had basically prosecuted his showing up at that conference with a gun as a registered sex offendercalled me. Robert Berchtold was born on November 6, 1920, and died at age 50 years old in August 1971. We, Yahoo, are part of the Yahoo family of brands. 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