'A Friend of the Family': What Happened to Jan Broberg?

A Friend of the Family, Peacock's new true crime drama, explores the real-life events Jan Broberg experienced at the hands of Robert 'B' Berchtold.

Between 1972 and 1976, Berchtold groomed Broberg and kidnapped her twice: once when she was 12 and a second time when she was 14. During this period Berchtold also entered into sexual relationships with both her parents, Mary Ann and Bob Broberg.

Their story is dramatized in A Friend of the Family. Here is everything you need to know about Jan Broberg and where she is now.

What Happened to Jan Broberg?

Since her experiences with Berchtold as a child, Broberg went on to become an actress and appeared in a variety of TV shows and films such as Criminal Minds, Everwood and We Are Your Friends.

In 2009, Broberg and her mother Mary Ann co-wrote the book Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story, where they first went public with the family's experiences with Berchtold.

Berchtold began to attend the mother and daughter's talks during their book tour and Broberg applied for a restraining order against him. Berchtold filed a lawsuit against them in turn and publicly said the book was not true. Broberg was granted the injunction for the remainder of Berchtold's life.

At one of Broberg's book talks, Berchtold encountered a group of bikers, the Bikers Against Child Abuse, with whom he had a physical altercation.

On November 11, 2005, he was charged with aggravated assault and possession of a firearm. Found guilty, he took his own life before he was sentenced.

In 2017, Broberg and her family appeared in Netflix documentary Abduction in Plain Sight which recalled how Berchtold manipulated them in order to target Broberg as a child.

Broberg is an executive producer for A Friend of the Family, and she worked closely with showrunner Nick Antosca to recreate the events that she experienced.

In an interview with Newsweek, Broberg explained that she wanted to be involved with the Peacock drama because she felt there was more to be told following the Netflix documentary, and she appreciated the way in which Antosca wanted to approach her family's story.

Broberg told Newsweek: "When Nick called that first two months —maybe not even two months—after the documentary came out, I could feel literally through the phone that he and Alex Hedlund [the show's executive producer] wanted to further the reason I wanted to tell the story.

"To show the psychology of a master manipulator, of the slow burn, and it's someone close to you that's why you don't see it, and that's the most common kind of abuse, and the least talked about."

She also previously said that she hoped that by making A Friend of the Family she could ensure that the public did not see her parents as "stupid or careless" for the way in which Berchtold manipulated them.

Broberg was on hand to advise the A Friend of the Family cast on their portrayals of her family and Berchtold, with Colin Hanks, Jake Lacy, and Mckenna Grace all previously speaking to Newsweek about the way in which Broberg advised them.

A Friend of the Family airs Thursdays on Peacock.