Jan Broberg, the woman at the heart of one of Netflix's most shocking true-crime documentaries, has spoken publicly about the recent death of her mother, Mary Ann Broberg. The 63-year-old survivor also addressed the enduring public scrutiny of her parents' role in her childhood ordeal.
A Mother's Legacy and a Daughter's Defence
Mary Ann Broberg passed away peacefully on 31 December in Santa Clara, Utah, aged 87, after suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Her daughter, Jan, had lived with her until the end. In an interview, Jan Broberg fiercely defended her late mother and father, Robert, against accusations of complicity in the abuse she suffered from family friend Robert Berchtold in the 1970s.
"My mom faced so much criticism that was so misplaced... my parents did not know," Jan stated. "My mother was manipulated by a master predator, and so was my father. They made mistakes like humans do, but it's not the same thing. They did not know he was a monster."
The Chilling Story of Manipulation and Abuse
The Broberg family's harrowing experience was detailed in the 2017 Netflix documentary 'Abducted in Plain Sight'. Robert 'B' Berchtold, a married father-of-five, met the family through their Mormon church in Pocatello, Idaho, and became their neighbour. He systematically groomed the entire family, gaining their trust before beginning his abuse of Jan.
In 1974, when Jan was just 12, Berchtold first kidnapped her, smuggling her to Mexico. He drugged her, held her in a motorhome, and used an elaborate ruse involving alien voices from a speaker to convince her she was on a mission to save their species, which required her to become pregnant before turning 16. After being found, Jan was kidnapped again two years later, disappearing for 100 days before being located at a Catholic girls' school in Pasadena, California.
Shockingly, Berchtold's manipulation extended to Jan's parents. Mary Ann had an eight-month affair with him after the first kidnapping, while Robert admitted to a sexual encounter with the predator. Berchtold had convinced them to let him sleep in Jan's room and take her out regularly, claiming it was therapy for his own childhood trauma.
Healing, Advocacy, and Moving Forward
Jan Broberg told the Daily Mail she is tired of being asked how she forgave her parents, insisting there was "nothing to forgive." She described confronting her trauma in college and her parents' heartfelt responses to her difficult questions. She credits their later openness—including Mary Ann's book 'Stolen Innocence', which inspired the documentary and a Peacock series—with raising vital awareness.
"She was such a force," Jan said of her mother, who retrained as a social worker, helped foster children, and advocated for state funding to link Idaho and Utah to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Jan herself now runs The Jan Broberg Foundation to support child sex abuse survivors and hosts a podcast on trauma healing. She plans to continue this work while navigating her grief. Robert Berchtold largely avoided significant prison time and died by suicide in November 2005 at age 69. Jan's father, Robert Broberg, died in November 2018.
