In the 1970s, Robert Berchtold not only abducted Jan Broberg but also married the 12-year-old. A Friend of the Family by Peacock mentions Jan and Robert's union. Learn the reasoning behind the young girl's decision to wed her much older, already-married family friend and neighbour.
Jan thought she and Robert had to defend a planet from aliens.
In October 1974, Berchtold first kidnapped Broberg. The day Jan (Hendrix Yancey) vanished, Bob (Jake Lacy) picked her up from her piano lessons, according to Peacock's A Friend of the Family. Jan believed "B" was taking her horseback riding, but in actuality, Bob had drugged her and taken her to an unspecified location where an RV was waiting.
Jan awoke in the RV to repeated announcements on the radio referring to her as "female companion." She would be assisted in completing her task to save their distant world by a "male partner," the voices told her.
At A Friend of the Family, Bob is injured and bewildered when Jan discovers him in the front of the RV. He tells Jan about his experience with the aliens and their request, and she fills him in on what she knows. Jan reveals to Bob, "They spoke to me." They claimed to be known as Zeta and Zethra. Jan is convinced that she must have children with Bob, "the male partner," in order to preserve their planet, or else her soul will be destroyed forever.
Jan Broberg believed that by marrying Robert Berchtold, they would be able to enter Mexico.
Broberg was required to wed Berchtold as part of the mission she was led to believe she was a part of. According to the Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight, Jan was first taken by Berchtold to Mazatlan, Mexico, because there had been a second kidnapping. Broberg consented to marry Berchtold because the legal age of consent was 12, allowing them to return home. According to Broberg in the documentary, "He claimed because we wanted to return home, "they would not let me come back across the border if I did not have her wedded to me; I didn't want to marry her."
The marriage is mentioned in "A Friend of the Family."
As shown in "The Mission," the second episode of A Friend of the Family, Bob speaks with his brother Joe Berchtold about his union with Jan. Mary Ann and Robert Broberg reject his request for the family's blessing. After tapping Joe's phone, the FBI was able to track Bob's call. Bob and Jan are then detained by Mexican authorities.
Bob makes sure she is aware of the guidelines for their assignment before he returns her to her family. This involves keeping certain information from her parents.
Episode 2 of A Friend of the Family doesn't discuss Jan's sexual assault since the Broberg family refused to accept that Robert Berchtold had harmed their daughter. Perhaps because the Broberg family strongly disputed that it ever took place.
They convinced themselves of that, despite the fact that so many people [and] the FBI said that this is something that actually occurred, according to Skye Borgman, the director of Abducted in Plain Sight, who gave this explanation to Vulture. They put a lot of trust in professionals, in doctors who declared, "There hasn't been any sexual assault since her hymen hasn't been broken," which, in my opinion, is the true cause.
Borgman thinks the Broberg had a very limited awareness of sexual abuse. According to Borgman, "[They believed] that sexual assault was]... simply penetration." The Brobergs reasoned that since Jan's hymen remained undamaged, she was alright. She is okay. That's part of the denial, too, Borgman said.