Warning: This article contains references to child abuse.
As a child in the `70s, Jan Broberg was twice abducted by a close family friend, Bob Berchtold, according to the Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight and the Peacock drama A Friend of the Family. Here’s what you need to know about Jan and other important details from the case.
According to Fox News, Berchtold met the Broberg family in 1972, when Jan was around 10 years old. According to Jan, there was no reason to suspect what Berchtold was capable of early on. At that time, Berchtold was married with children of his own and attended the same Pocatello, Idaho church as the Broberg family.
Eventually, Berchtold began grooming Jan as he grew closer to Jan’s parents, Bob and Mary Ann Broberg. In 1974, when Jan was 12 years old, Berchtold abducted her in an RV. While restrained in the vehicle, a voice through a loudspeaker told Jan that aliens threatened her family and the only way Jan could save them was to have a child with Berchtold by the time she reached the age of 16.
Thankfully, Jan’s first Berchtold abduction lasted only a few weeks, and Berchtold was arrested and convicted of kidnapping.
Jan Broberg was abducted again two years later
Jan Broberg experienced her second abduction by Bob Berchtold just two years later, in 1976, when she was 14 years old. During the initial kidnapping, Jan was eventually located and recovered in Mexico. In the second case, Berchtold took her to California. While there, he even enrolled her in school. Between Jan’s second and first abduction, she continued to believe Berchtold’s story: A relationship with Berchtold was the only way she could save her parents from aliens.
After the first incident, Berchtold was charged with kidnapping, convicted, and sentenced to five years in prison. In the end, he only served 10 days when Jan’s parents dropped most of the charges. It’s difficult to conceive of any parent taking pity on their child’s abductor, but Berchtold not only sexually abused Jan, he initiated a sexual relationship with her father, Bob Broberg, which he — along with his own wife Gail Berchtold — used for blackmail, according to Cosmopolitan. Berchtold somehow also had a sexual relationship with Jan’s mother, Mary Ann Broberg, both before and after her daughter’s kidnappings.
Eventually, Jan was found in California after Berchtold was again charged with kidnapping but acquitted because of insanity and sentenced to six months in a mental healthcare facility. Reportedly, Jan didn’t come to terms with the extent to which she had been brainwashed by Berchtold until 1978, two years after her second abduction.
Broberg has helped tell her story
Since the 1970s, Jan Broberg and her mother, Mary Ann Broberg, have collaborated on the book Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story. Mary Ann wrote the book, and Jan made book appearances. At that time, Bob Berchtold was still alive, a free man, and continued to harass the Broberg family as he denied details of Jan’s story. Since then, Jan, who got into acting, has also contributed to both the Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight and the Peacock scripted drama, A Friend of the Family.
On the trauma she endured as a child and as a young teen, Jan told Vanity Fair in 2022 that she lives with what happened every day. “I’ve been married and divorced a number of times. I’m certain it’s because each of those relationships helped me on my path to healing, but they weren’t permanent. I’m still human. I’m still in the struggle. Not as much as I have been in past years. Generally, I am pretty happy and pretty great about 90 percent of the time,” Jan said.
“It was sad that I didn’t know some of the things I know now,” Jan continued. “Because maybe if I had known what I know now, what I’m trying to tell the whole world now [with the series] — that these predators don’t stop [on their own] — maybe the girls [Berchtold abused] after me wouldn’t have [been abused].”
Jan’s parents, Mary Ann and Bob Broberg, divorced in 1976. Bob died in 2018 at the age of 80. Mary Ann continued to be involved with productions related to the Berchtold story. Berchtold, who abused other girls after Jan, died by suicide in 2005.
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.