Abducted In Plain Sight review: Stranger than fiction, this true-crime doc indicts a wily predator and parental inaction

The following review contains ‘spoilers’ for Abducted In Plain Sight. Jan Broberg was all of 12 when her neighbour — a 40-year-old man named Robert ‘B’ Berchtold — fixated on her as his next victim. Berchtold of course would have framed it differently; he would have said he was drawn to Jan, that he loved her (yes, a 12-year-old), and that he couldn’t bear to be parted from her. In fact, in the true crime documentary — Abducted In Plain Sight (2017) — we hear Berchtold expressing sentiments very similar to these. As for Jan, we hear how she went from thinking of ‘B’ as a “second father” to “marrying” him in Mexico (yes, as a 12-year-old) and believing herself in love with him too. You see, Berchtold had brainwashed Jan so thoroughly that she believed they were meant to marry and have a child who was prophesied to be the saviour of an alien planet. Members of this alien race had “told” Jan that she was to give birth to this child, which Berchtold would father. If she failed in her “mission”, her younger sister would have to take Jan’s place and have the saviour-baby instead. Under the guise of this mission, Berchtold sexually assaulted Jan more than 200 times by the time she had turned 14; kidnapping her from her home on two occasions (disappearances that lasted, the first time, for several weeks, and the next, over months). [caption id=“attachment_6036981” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Robert ‘B’ Berchtold with Jan Broberg. From Abducted In Plain Sight. Image via Netflix[/caption] And that isn’t even the strangest or most unbelievable part of Abducted In Plain Sight (directed by Skye Borgman and recently released on Netflix). Because through this saga, Jan’s parents — Mary Ann and Bob Broberg — had separate sexual affairs of their own with their daughter’s abuser, waited days to report him to the police when he took Jan away, and even withdrew their case against Berchtold when threatened with a leak of the details of Bob’s encounter with him. The Brobergs’ story has been told before: Stolen Innocence, published in 2003, was authored by Mary Ann, with Jan’s help. (Robert Berchtold disputed the book’s narrative; he committed suicide in 2004.) Abducted In Plain Sight revisits these happenings, manly in the form of interviews with the Brobergs — Mary Ann, Bob, Jan of course, and her two younger sisters. Berchtold’s brother is part of this documentary, as is the FBI officer who investigated Jan’s abduction(s). Old family photos, letters, phone recordings and newspaper clippings give a glimpse into the past — especially Jan’s bond with Berchtold. On Firstpost — The Innocent Man review: This true crime docu-series isn't Netflix's best, but compelling nonetheless Skye Borgman’s treatment of Abducted In Plain Sight feels a little too straightforward at certain points during its 90-minute runtime. One understands that the surreal story at the centre of it makes any sort of bells and whistles superfluous, but it might have been interesting to see a slightly less pedestrian chronicling of it. While the events surrounding Berchtold’s grooming of Jan, the way he won the Brobergs’ trust are skillfully and sensitively brought out, Abducted In Plain Sight doesn’t really look at how Jan and her family healed from the trauma, especially since her abuse was made possible by her parents’ inaction. There are allusions to how “this was the 1970s” when people didn’t know much about paedophiles, and that the Broberg and Berchtold families’ closeness was the way of life in their town of Pocatello, Idaho. That the Brobergs were naive and that Berchtold was a master manipulator who abused their trust. [caption id=“attachment_6037001” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  The Broberg family — parents Mary Ann and Bob, and daughters including Jan (second from left). From Abducted In Plain Sight. Image via Netflix[/caption] All of that may well be true, but the Brobergs seemed to have bent over backwards to make Berchtold’s abuse of their daughter possible. (That Skye Borgman presents all this without any judgement is to the filmmaker’s credit.) Mary Ann and Bob allowed Berchtold to sleep in the same bed as Jan on numerous occasions — to help him overcome his attraction to children, as “advised by a therapist”. Mary Ann had a sexual affair with Berchtold *after* he abducted Jan the first time and got them to withdraw the kidnapping charges by blackmailing Bob. The Brobergs are sure to have engaged in a lot of introspection and soul-searching over their neglect of Jan’s safety and wellbeing, but that doesn’t come out sufficiently in the documentary. That said, it is courageous of the Brobergs to admit to their many lapses with such candour on camera. (Bob Broberg has passed away in the time since the making of Abducted In Plain Sight.) Abducted In Plain Sight is presented as a cautionary tale; whether the caution is against the human capacity for evil or naivety (or both) is left to the viewers to gauge. Rating: ★★ and 1/2 Abducted In Plain Sight is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer here: