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The twisted story of the predator who convinced his friends to let him sleep with their 12 years old daughter
The twisted story of the predator who convinced his friends to let him sleep with their 12 years old daughter
The Disturbing Story Of Robert Berchtold, The Pedophile Who Kidnapped And Assaulted His Neighbors’ Daughter — Twice
Between 1972 and 1976, Robert Berchtold groomed the Broberg family in order to get closer to their 12-year-old daughter Jan — who he eventually abducted and married.
From the outside, the Brobergs and Berchtolds of Pocatello, Idaho looked like the perfect neighbors. Close friends who attended the same church and each had two daughters, the two families lived "pretty much like 'Ozzie and Harriet' or 'Leave it to Beaver,'" daughter Jan Broberg later recalled. But what no one knew was that, behind closed doors, Robert Berchtold was sexually manipulating the Brobergs in order to get close to 12-year-old Jan.
Over the course of several years in the early 1970s, Berchtold slept with both of Jan's parents and then told them that he needed to sleep with her too — and they agreed. In 1974, Berchtold even kidnapped Jan and took her to Mexico, where he repeatedly sexually assaulted her for five weeks straight and married her before they returned to Idaho. But because the Brobergs were so deeply under Berchtold's spell by that point, they continued to let him see Jan — and he abducted her again just a year later. This is the disturbing story of Robert Berchtold, read more in the link in our profile.
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. 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.
Berchtold then fled with Jan to Mexico, where he married her and asked her parents’ permission to return to the United States and be legally wed under U.S. law.
Although Bob and Mary Ann Broberg refused, Berchtold returned home with Jan and things somehow went back to normal without any charges pressed. 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.
This is the story of Robert Berchtold, the predator at the center of Netflix’s Abducted in Plain Sight who groomed and manipulated an entire family.
When the Brobergs met the Berchtolds at a church service, it seemed like a match made in Heaven. The kids played together; the parents enjoyed each other’s company.
As Jan Broberg later described in the documentary Abducted In Plaint Sight, “Everyone had a best friend.”
In time, the Broberg children took to calling Robert Berchtold “B,” and Jan had started to think of him as a second father. B took a particular interest in 12-year-old Jan as well, often showering her with gifts and inviting her on trips.
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.
He began flirting with Mary Ann, inviting her on a Church retreat in Logan, Utah. As Mary Ann described, they “got a little too cozy” and the first seeds of what would eventually grow into an affair were planted.
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 weren’t being met. Bob noticed that Berchtold had become sexually aroused.
That’s when Robert asked Bob to give him some “relief.” Bob acquiesced, thus cementing Berchtold’s hold over them all.
“I entered into a homosexual relationship with her father in order to have access to Jan,” Berchtold later admitted. “I had a fixation for Jan. I don’t know why, but I did.”
Disguising The Abduction Of A Minor As An Alien Encounter
In January 1974, just over a year after Berchtold met the Brobergs, he was reprimanded by the High Council of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints because of his involvement with another young girl.
After being rebuked, he met with a counselor and a clinical psychologist to, he said, help overcome his obsession with Jan. He explained to Bob that he had a traumatic childhood, including having sex with an aunt when he was four.
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. He told the Brobergs he needed to sleep in Jan’s bed.
“Neither one of us were comfortable with him doing it,” Mary Ann said, “but it was part of his therapy.”
Over the course of the next six months, Berchtold slept in Jan’s bed roughly four times a week.
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. The tapes played odd, sexual messages, urging him to imagine being touched and caressed.
This all culminated in Berchtold’s first abduction of Jan Broberg in 1974.
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.
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.
If she failed to do this, the “aliens” warned, her sister Susan would be chosen instead, and harm would come to the rest of her family.
When the Brobergs met the Berchtolds at a church service, it seemed like a match made in Heaven. The kids played together; the parents enjoyed each other’s company.
As Jan Broberg later described in the documentary Abducted In Plaint Sight, “Everyone had a best friend.”
In time, the Broberg children took to calling Robert Berchtold “B,” and Jan had started to think of him as a second father. B took a particular interest in 12-year-old Jan as well, often showering her with gifts and inviting her on trips.
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.
He began flirting with Mary Ann, inviting her on a Church retreat in Logan, Utah. As Mary Ann described, they “got a little too cozy” and the first seeds of what would eventually grow into an affair were planted.
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 weren’t being met. Bob noticed that Berchtold had become sexually aroused.
That’s when Robert asked Bob to give him some “relief.” Bob acquiesced, thus cementing Berchtold’s hold over them all.
“I entered into a homosexual relationship with her father in order to have access to Jan,” Berchtold later admitted. “I had a fixation for Jan. I don’t know why, but I did.”
What Happened To Jan Broberg And Robert Berchtold?
It took Jan years to learn to cope with the damage Robert Berchtold inflicted on her. Meanwhile, her parents blamed themselves for these events.
Berchtold vanished from their lives, but managed to avoid going to prison.
It wasn’t until 30 years later, after Mary Ann had published her book Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story, that they heard from him again.
Berchtold vehemently tried to denounce the book, claiming that they were lying about him and about the truth for a profit. But six other women came forward with their own stories about Berchtold, and Jan Broberg filed a stalking injunction against him after he was arrested at one of her speaking engagements.
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. That is my goal.”
Robert Berchtold was ultimately given a prison sentence, but rather than face life behind bars, he downed a bottle of heart medication with Kahlúa and milk and ended his life.
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