‘Abducted in Plain Sight’ Director Gives Insight into the Shocking Documentary

Abducted in Plain Sight is one of those documentaries you just can’t help but feel gross afterward.  For those that have yet to see it, it is the story of a young girl that was abducted by a family friend, twice. What’s even more, the girl’s parents both had a sexual relationship with the abductor. It’s hard not to watch this doc without screaming at your screen. Some have even paused throughout to simply yell “WTF” aloud to outlet anger. While it does not seem to make anyone feel better that the incidents took place in the 70s, we can only learn from it. The documentary seemed to leave viewers with a lot more questions. In a recent Vulture article Director Skye Borgman gave a little more detail on the family and how the doc came about.

“The producer, Stephanie Tobey, was talking to this other producer about how crazy this story was. Stephanie read it, and then made the introduction to Jan, and then got me onboard. I read the book and just didn’t understand how something like this could happen… and I wanted to figure that out”

The book doesn’t mention the affairs the parents had with Jan’s abductor, Robert Berchtold. This was something that was later revealed when first speaking to Jan.

“They had left both of the sexual affairs out of the book. Jan had told us about her mom, but she hadn’t mentioned her dad. That was the most confusing part about it.”

When asked about how she came to find out about the father’s relationship, Borgman had this to say:

“There had been kind of a manifesto that Berchtold himself had written. We had a few pages of it, and it mentioned something about a relationship with the dad. And then, when we got these transcripts from the two hearings that they had gone through, they had talked this masturbatory event in the car. The pieces started to fall together, in terms of what he did to these two parents to blackmail them.

The Car

We all had a moment of confusion when the details of the relationship between Berchtold and Jan’s father were revealed. Leaving many online commenters believing that they had more of a relation than just the one time. When asked about if she thought there was more to it Borgman had this to say:

“We tried to find that out, and the answer is we could never really figure it out for sure. [The car] is the only time that he remembered it happening, but this is a story that happened 45 years ago. There are always memories that you can alter by just believing that they were different, so I don’t have a good sense of if it continued. But I think it may have happened more than once. I really don’t know for certain if it did, and I don’t know that it really would have made all that much difference. I think that Bob Broberg would have felt as much guilt if it happened once or if it happened twice.”

The Mother

Not only were we shocked to learn of the relationship between the father and the abductor. But as the documentary continued on we discovered that Jan’s mother also entered into a full affair with Berchtold, after the kidnapping. The filmmaker addressed how, she thinks, Mary Ann was able to enter into this relationship.

“Compartmentalization, I think that’s exactly what she did. And I think she continues to do that to this day. But I really think that Mary Ann was in love with Berchtold. It had started before the first kidnapping, and he had made her feel beautiful and made her feel attractive. They were 13, 14 years into a marriage, and so it’s that time where probably Mary Ann and her husband aren’t having all that much sex anymore. And Berchtold comes along and makes her feel sexy again.

That the Brobergs didn’t really think of it as him kidnapping [Jan], even though he took her without their knowledge, this is where I think the depth of the brainwashing really comes in, Mary Ann loved him, or thought that she loved him, and just couldn’t see what had really happened. He came back and was still saying, “I love you, Mary Ann. I think you’re great. You’re beautiful.” It didn’t really dawn on her that he could also be attracted to a 12-year-old little girl. And again, doctors had said nothing happened. So I think they thought he had just had a little mental breakdown. But again, it’s that denial. Even though I think somewhere deep inside they knew something was wrong, they just couldn’t see it.”

Difficult Questions

When asked about what kinds of difficult questions she has faced since the documentary has aired, Borgman had this to say:
“A lot of people are curious if Bob and Mary Ann had essentially trafficked Jan, if they were part of it in exchange for Berchtold’s affections. I don’t for a second believe that to be the case. I think they were completely in denial and forgot about their kids for a very long period of time, because they were too interested in themselves. Absolutely, I believe that to be true. But I just don’t think they had any motivation to exchange their daughter for sexual relations with Berchtold.”

More to the story

We learned a lot about the case from the documentary and about the 1970s understanding of crimes like these. But was anything left out or unexplored by the film? Borgman wishes she could have dived a little deeper into a few things.

“The two things that you wished had been expanded upon — the FBI and the nature of the FBI during the time, and the LDS religion — I couldn’t agree with you more. I wish we’d been able to go into that. There were so many times when we were editing it that I said, “All right, let’s dive into this. Let’s go there.” And then it was just this rabbit hole, and we started veering away from this story about the family and what their experience was. If it were ever expanded upon, I certainly would be going into that realm a little bit, talking about faith, talking about the FBI. Who knows? We might be able to expand it into something like that, but there’s part of me that feels like this lives in a 90-minute movie.”

Abducted in Plain Sight is currently streaming on Netflix. You can read the entire article here. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for more!

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