When Netflix released the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight in 2017, viewers found themselves completely baffled by the unfortunate events that took place in Jan Broberg’s childhood. It’s not every day that you hear of a story about a young girl being kidnapped twice by the same person.
So when Peacock announced the limited series A Friend of the Family, starring Jake Lacy and Colin Hanks, would be based on the events surrounding Jan’s kidnappings, many true crime buffs were ready to watch the drama series in the hopes of getting one main question answered.
How could this happen?
With episodes of A Friend of the Family releasing weekly, we’re taking the liberty to go on a bit of a fact-finding mission to see what actually occurred in the case of Jan Broberg and her victimizer Robert Berchtold. As episodes become available, we’ll continue providing the facts behind some of viewers’ biggest inquiries, as Peacock has placed a disclaimer on each episode that states "certain parts have been fictionalized solely for dramatic purposes and are not intended to reflect on any actual person or entity."
So with that said, here’s what actually happened in the story that inspired A Friend of the Family.
What happened to Jan Broberg?
In the summer of 1972, Robert Berchtold moved a few blocks away from the Brogberg family in Pocatello, Idaho. 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 with ABC News.
Once Berchtold got close to the family, he made sure to give Jan special attention, often giving her gifts and taking her to movie theaters. His outings with her to the cinema actually became quite significant as he took her to see movies about UFOs and space travel, concepts that would later be used to manipulate Broberg during her kidnapping.
Then on October 17, 1974, when Jan was 12, her parents agreed to let her go on a day trip horseback riding with Robert. Unfortunately, she later found herself strapped to a bed in a motor home in Mexico (although at the time she wasn’t sure where she was). While she lay there, he played an audio recording that alleged she had been kidnapped by a UFO.
Further described in People, for five weeks she was drugged and sexually assaulted repeatedly. Additionally, she was forced to marry Robert. Throughout this ordeal, she was constantly manipulated into being obedient as the recording told her that if she was uncooperative, she and her father would be killed, her sister Karen would go blind and her sister Susan would be kidnapped, among other things.
When the authorities finally arrested Robert and Jan was returned to her parents, Robert shockingly only received a 45-day prison sentence. Even more surprising, he only served 10 of those days behind bars.
Once released, Robert continued to abuse and manipulate Jan for two years until abducting her again at the age of 14. During this time, she was considered missing for four months. After being caught kidnapping Jan a second time, he astoundingly escaped prison altogether and was sent to a psychiatric facility for five months.
Did Robert Berchtold have a family?
What A Friend of the Family does better at showcasing than the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, is the fact that at the time of the kidnappings, Robert Berchtold had a family of his own. In fact, he had a wife named Gail and five children.
Placing particular attention on Gail, in the limited series there is a point during Jan’s first abduction where her parents want to call the police but opted not to do so at Gail’s request. This happened in real life as reported by The Atlantic. The Brobergs waited seven days after Jan was taken to Mexico before reaching out to the FBI to report their daughter missing, in part due to Gail’s plea.
Did Robert Berchtold have an affair with Robert Broberg?
Skye Borgman, the director and producer of Abducted in Plain Sight, told Vanity Fair that Jan’s father Robert Broberg confessed to having sexual "indiscretions" with Jan’s abuser, Robert Berchtold.
Furthermore as discussed in Newsweek, Robert Berchtold used these encounters to manipulate Jan’s father after the first abduction not to press kidnapping charges against him. As bad as her dad wanted the man to pay for his crimes, it appears he didn’t want news of what the two had done to get out at that time.
What was Robert Berchtold convicted of?
In spite of all the allegations of grooming, kidnapping and sex crimes against Berchtold after Jan’s first abduction, he was ultimately only convicted of kidnapping in June 1976. As reported in The Atlantic, Jan’s parents feeling “duress” withdrew most of the serious charges and Berchtold was willing to agree to a plea deal for kidnapping. While he was originally sentenced to five years in prison, as previously mentioned, the judge presiding over the case suspended the sentence to 45 days, with Berchtold only serving 10 of those.
After Berchtold’s second abduction of a then 14-year-old Jan, he again faced a kidnapping charge. However, he was never found legally liable for this subsequent charge, but rather acquitted by “reason of mental defect.”
According to Utah’s Deseret News, in an incident unrelated to the Broberg family, Berchtold was convicted in 1986 of one count of “rape of a child.” Shockingly he only served one year behind bars for the crime.
Did Mary Ann Broberg have an affair with Robert Berchtold?
Once more referring to the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, Mary Ann Broberg herself admitted to having an affair with Berchtold starting in the spring of 1975. This is months after the first kidnapping of Jan.
Mary Ann recalls it all started when she agreed to meet Berchtold at his motor home. She claims to have gone there under the guise that he would share with her face-to-face why he married Jan in Mexico. However, once the wife and mother sat next to him, Berchtold allegedly told Mary Ann he loved her repeatedly and suggested she leave her husband for him. It wasn’t long before the two became sexually involved.
Now unlike in A Friend of the Family, Mary Ann’s husband didn’t hear about the incident via a confession from her. Instead, five days after the encounter between Mary Ann and Berchtold, Berchtold actually called Bob to explain they had been together. Remarkably, even after the first instance of betrayal and Berchtold's subsequent confession, Mary Ann stated that she continued on in the affair for eight months.
Eventually, Bob Broberg filed for divorce from Mary Ann citing she was endangering not only Jan but the other children in the home as well. However, the couple reconciled before anything was legally finalized. They stay married until his death in 2018.
Did Jan Broberg run away to Jackson Hole, Wyoming?
Friend of the Family viewers will recall that in the series, Jan hears from Berchtold that he’s moving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She tells her parents that she wants to go to Jackson Hole to work, and they were absolutely against the notion. Knowing she wouldn't get their approval, she runs away from home and catches a flight to be with Berchtold. However, did the real Jan actually run away to Jackson Hole?
Not exactly.
If you go back to the Abducted in Plain Sight documentary, specifically around the 36-minute marker, the real-life Jan Broberg describes that after Berchtold was sentenced following her first kidnapping incident, he moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in 1976. While there, he purchased a family fun center. When Jan Broberg heard mention of this, she begged her parents to allow her to go to Jackson Hole to work at the family center, but her mother and father were vehemently opposed to the idea.
Following the parents’ continual rejection of Jan’s proposal, her mother Mary Ann said that 14-year-old Jan went on to become "a person that she had never become, to pick arguments, to pick on her sisters, to pick on us, to just make life miserable."
It wasn’t long before Berchtold called Mary Ann and told her "Jan’s coming to Jackson Hole. She’s going to go out and get on the highway and start hiking if you don’t let her come."
With those words ringing in her ear and Jan’s troubling behavior at home on her mind, Mary Ann placed her daughter on a plane to Jackson Hole. Bob Brogberg was "livid" when he was made aware. Jan stayed in Wyoming for two weeks.
After Mary Ann demanded Jan return home, Berchtold put her on a plane to go home.
Did Robert Berchtold divorce his wife?
In the limited series, Robert Berchtold is standing in the kitchen of their family home when he informs his wife Gail that he is moving forward with a divorce, much to her dismay.
However, according to an Entertainment Tonight interview, Jan shared, "By the second kidnapping she [Gail Berchtold] had filed for a divorce. She divorced him and took her kids and moved." It sounds like Gail is the one to have actually initiated the divorce.
Did the LDS church in Idaho know about Robert Berchtold and his inappropriate behavior?
An underlying component of A Friend of the Family has been the involvement of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS church. While the limited series has inferred several times that the church was aware of the predatory nature of Berchtold, most recently in episode 7, it became clearer what the religious sect knew and when they found out.
FBI agent Pete Welsh (Austin Stowell) sits down with a bishop in the church, who tells him that before Jan, Berchtold previously made an "inappropriate overture" to another young girl. Unfortunately, this onscreen revelation is reflective of real life.
In both a Forbes article and in the Abducted in Plain Sight documentary, it’s stated the church knew Berchtold had a fascination for underage girls. While the publication claims "Berchtold had tried to victimize at least a half-dozen other young girls," the film states:
"According to the FBI, in January of 1974, Berchtold was reprimanded by the High Counsel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of his involvement with another young girl."
Jan was first kidnapped in October of 1974.
Furthermore, the real Pete Welsh shared on camera:
"The LDS Church decided that they would counsel him, and he went to a counselor in Idaho Falls. That man told our investigators that he [Berchtold] had also gone to California to go to a clinical psychologist who would help him overcome this obsession with Jan."
Did Berchtold enroll Jan Broberg in school?
It wasn’t long into Berchtold’s second abduction of Jan in 1976 that he decided to enroll the then 14-year-old into a Catholic all-girls boarding school in Pasadena, Calif., under the name Janis Tobler. As Jan herself tells it in the Netflix documentary:
"He told the nuns that I was his daughter and that he was a CIA agent, and that we had escaped from Lebanon during, this was during the Lebanon crisis, and that my mother had been killed."
Fact vs Fiction: A Friend of the Family — Did Mary Ann Broberg pull a gun on Robert Berchtold?
In episode 8 of the series titled "Outer Darkness," Mary Ann is seen having a tense moment alone with Berchtold in his car. He tried his best to intimidate Mary Ann into granting permission for him to marry her underage daughter, and she just wanted to know where Jan was. This contentious discussion occurred with each of them secretly holding onto a gun outside of the view of the other. After doing a little research, it looks like this scene is rooted in truth.
Referencing the previously mentioned Vanity Fair article, the director of Abducted in Plain in Sight, Skye Borgman, shared that one of the scenes she left out of the documentary was a meeting between Mary Ann and Berchtold. As it was put in the piece, "To streamline the documentary, Borgman ended up leaving out several story elements — including a meet-up that Mary Ann had with Berchtold in a parking lot, allegedly involving a gun and Mary Ann’s brother."
While it is unclear if Mary Ann was the one with the gun, it is crystal clear that she confronted Berchtold about her daughter, and the mom did so with her brother in tow. She wasn’t by herself as seen on screen.
New episodes of A Friend of the Family are released on Thursdays on Peacock. In the UK, Peacock is available with a Sky TV or NOW subscription.
