Spoiler Alert: The following contains extensive spoilers for the aforementioned documentary. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

              I like to call myself an avid Netflix connoisseur…kind of. I like to peruse new and original series every once in a while, be it something I happen to come across, or something recommended by friends/the internet. I first noticed the documentary in the banner every time I opened the app but ignored it. I kept hearing about this documentary, and I honestly thought, this isn’t something I’d watch. With everything that’s happening right now; 45’s daily shenanigans, high fashion designers glorifying the Jim Crow era and proving not to value the Black dollar, or another celebrity being cancelled because they can’t keep their mouth shut, I absolutely didn’t think that I would voluntarily watch something that would viscerally upset me. Coming off of ‘Surviving R. Kelly’; watching a true crime documentary about child abduction and molestation seemed so HEAVY! Here’s where social media comes in. I kept catching Instagram posts mentioning this doc, and the captions would always mention her parents. As I was completing my 2019 vision board, I decided to watch. And I have questions, like a lot of questions, like ALL the questions! But here are my top 21 (50 Cent Voice):

1.       What parent in their right mind lets their girl child go anywhere with a male neighbor (that has children of his own) alone?

2.       Why didn’t Berchtold’s infatuation with ONE of their daughters not raise any red flags?

3.       HOW did Berchtold get to the point of abducting Jan when her mother (Mary Ann) admitted to kissing and almost having an affair with him YEARS before.

4.       Sometime before the abduction, Bob (Jan’s father) admits that while they were in a car together, Berchtold told him that he hated his wife and needed to have sex. For WHATEVER reason, he reached over and gave him a hand job. WHY???? 

5.       Are Jan’s parents first cousins???

6.       Berchtold sees a therapist and tells Bob that he’s being treated for abuse he suffered as a child, and part of his therapy involved spending time alone with HIS daughters! Why would Berchtold’s therapy involve his daughters specifically??? And why did this idiot oblige?

7.       What parent allows an adult that admits to being sexually abused lie next to their sleeping daughter several times a week?

8.       How were Jan’s parents not charged with child endangerment and neglect at any point?

9.       Why weren’t their other daughters taken away from them after the SECOND abduction and lying about the first?

10.   Was the “fake” therapist ever found and charged with anything?

11.   Is it white privilege that the Broberg’s  were able to call the FBI directly about their missing child and not their local police department?

12.   Why did these fools wait an entire 5 days to report this child missing?

13.   What is wrong with the Broberg’s that they didn’t listen to the FBI when they instructed them to have no contact with the Berchtold’s whatsoever?

14.   Did the Broberg’s ever get Jan any kind of psychological treatment?

15.   Why do they keep talking to this man?

16.   How did Mary Ann Broberg have an affair with Berchtold that lasted 8 Months?!?!? The man that her husband gave a hand job to, the man that kidnapped, mentally manipulated, sexually molested, and “married her 12-year-old daughter in Mexico”, the man that used he and her husbands’ sexual dalliances against them to be acquitted of pending kidnapping charges. The man that ultimately ruined her family. How Sway?!?!?

17.   Why did Berchtold’s brother; (who sounds a lot like R. Kelly’s incarcerated brother); who knew he had a predilection for young girls, allow him to lay low and sell cars for him?

18.   Why did Berchtold’s wife stay and how were their children affected?

19.   Did he molest his own children?

20.   How was he allowed to live long enough to commit suicide?

21.   Is this story real?!?!?

I majored in Psychology in college. This documentary brought many of those lectures and lessons back to mind. I considered this more of a psychological thriller than a true-crime documentary because I really can’t fathom people let alone parents being this obliviously naïve to allow this to happen, not once but TWICE with the same child. I understand that this occurred in the 1970’s, but that doesn’t excuse the piss poor parenting and mistakes the Broberg’s made. The situations described, and the admission of her parents to doing and allowing them is truly baffling! I won’t even get into the methodical mental manipulation Berchtold exercised when he kidnapped Jan. The thought he put in to keeping Jan separated from reality by continuously feeding her sleeping pills and instilling an alien proponent to her make her believe she was on a mission that she had to fulfill; or risk her sisters safety. The fact that in his molestation of this child, he did so in such a manner that if/when she was examined by doctors, would show no such invasion.

There are so many other questions, and things that I would like to say but this would turn into a thesis if I continued. The constant retort I had while watching this shitshow was “This can’t be real”.  In the days following the ‘Surviving R. Kelly’ docuseries; many misguided people demanded to know where the parents were. In this documentary, the parents were fully involved and completely engulfed with the predator that would stop at nothing to be with their daughter. Is that question still relevant, or is it ignored because the victim was a young “innocent” white girl from Idaho? Apparently, some people have sympathy for the Broberg parents, I don’t. If you haven’t already watched; Abducted In Plain Sight; please do so and let me know your thoughts. I really need your help comprehending this.

T.Nicole