![]() I think that comes out a lot with Joe, that he loves his brother, even though his brother was a pedophile, and I think those two things really are conflicts in him. “It’s something I think about a lot-that sibling love and how strong that is. “I don’t know that he trusted us completely, but he wanted to give his brother a voice,” said Borgman. Maybe this is what Jan has had to tell herself to cope with the situation and get through it.’”Įven though Berchtold’s brother Joe was aware of his brother’s inappropriate behavior, he felt the need to participate in the documentary on Berchtold’s behalf.īorgman interviewed multiple members of Jan’s family, but when it came time to reach out to Berchtold’s immediate family members-who lived next door to Jan’s family growing up-“nobody really wanted to do an interview.” Explained the filmmaker, “They weren’t interested in dredging up the past.”īecause Berchtold committed suicide in 2005-after coming face-to-face with Jan in a courtroom, a bizarre meeting included in the documentary-and is not able to defend himself, Berchtold’s brother Joe felt the need to participate in Borgman’s film. ![]() I got to one point where I was like, ‘Well, maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s real. “If this little box was next to Jan and if these alien voices were really playing through. “I constantly questioned if this had really happened,” said Borgman. During Vanity Fair’s conversation with Borgman, the filmmaker confessed that she initially had a hard time believing this element to Jan’s story. ![]() One jaw-dropping twist in Abducted in Plain Sight occurs during the first kidnapping, when Jan says that Berchtold used a cassette player to trick her-just 12 years old at the time-into believing that she had been kidnapped by aliens and that she could save her family only if she accepted a secret mission to procreate with Berchtold. Borgman explained that both Bob and Mary Ann were “so consumed with their own actions and their own trauma that they just didn’t pay attention the way that they were supposed to.”īerchtold allegedly used his convoluted “alien-abduction” grooming narrative on multiple victims. The “indiscretions” will be detailed in a new edition of the Brobergs’ memoir now that, according to Borgman, the family “really understand the importance of how those two instances led to denial” of Berchtold’s relationship with Jan. “I think Bob realized that it was a critical element to the story, and how was able to get into their family this way so seamlessly,” said Borgman. “When we were going into the interview, I really wasn’t sure if I was going to ask him about it,” said Borgman, explaining that Bob volunteered details about the sexual act he performed on Berchtold. But the filmmaker didn’t know about Bob’s own “indiscretion” until she got ahold of F.B.I. But the first edition of the book left out several very pertinent details, such as the affairs both Jan’s mother and father had with Berchtold.ĭuring the preliminary discussions the filmmaker had with Jan, Jan was “pretty forthcoming” about the affair her mother had with Berchtold. This documentary was the first time Jan’s father, Bob, publicly confessed to having his own romantic entanglement with his daughter’s kidnapper.īorgman first learned of Jan’s kidnapping through Stolen Innocence, a memoir Jan wrote with her mother, Mary Ann. “It was the best thing that we could’ve done, because we were able to come back and feel everything we were supposed to feel,” she said. “There were times when the family was just so frustrating to me.” At one point, Borgman and her editor hit pause on the project for a solid six weeks. “We spent so much time with them on the computer, going through what they had said, and things together,” Borgman continued. “It is incredibly challenging to understand why and how these people went through this, but that’s part of the story,”explained Borgman to Vanity Fair, before admitting that even she became so incensed that she eventually had to take a break during the editing process. ![]() But Berchtold-known as “B”-did not just kidnap Broberg once he entrapped Jan’s religious parents in such a web of trust, shame, and complicity that he managed to convince the family to drop the most serious kidnapping charges against him, continue letting him spend disturbing amounts of time with their young daughter, and-in the most shocking twist of all-he eventually kidnapped her a second time. It chronicles the peculiar kidnapping case of Jan Broberg, an Idaho teenager who was abducted by her decades-older neighbor Robert Berchtold in the 1970s. The 91-minute film, originally released in 2017, has captivated an entirely new audience since premiering on Netflix this month. Abducted in Plain Sight filmmaker Skye Borgman understands why audiences might want to scream at their televisions while streaming her true-crime documentary.
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