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- [00:00]
A
I wrote a little song to remind you. Choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria Hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar. Have a ball. Cocktails up here feel just right. It's Cambria. Amazing. All right, bring a date, your teen, or even your mom. Book direct@ChoiceHotels.com See you on the roof. You know, I was strapped to the back bed of the motorhome and I woke up to the sound of these alien. This alien voice, you know, high pitched, staccato, monotone female companion. It was just. That's how it sounded.
- [00:52]
B
My guest today is Jan Broberg. Jan's story is almost impossible to believe. At 12 years old, Jan was kidnapped by a trusted family friend who convinced her she'd been chosen by aliens and that her mission was to save an entire extraterrestrial race. She was groomed, abused, and kidnapped a second time at 14, and the system failed her at every turn. Today, Jan is an actress, a producer, and the founder of the Jan Broberg foundation on a mission to protect children and expose the tactics predators use to get close to them. Jan Broberg, I'm so happy to have you here on the hinge third today.
- [01:28]
A
Thank you, Mariana. I'm really happy to be here, truly.
- [01:31]
B
So tell me, you grew up in Utah, right?
- [01:33]
A
I grew up in Idaho.
- [01:34]
B
In Idaho, sorry. But a Mormon community, right?
- [01:36]
A
Yeah, about half.
- [01:38]
B
And what was your childhood like before
- [01:41]
A
my childhood came into the picture? My childhood was wonderful. I had loving parents who were at every school function or playing duets on the piano with my dad as we started piano lessons. My mother was always a homemaker at home. She also was very involved in the community, in civic things. She helped direct the Miss Pocatello pageant, and she was really involved in a lot of service organizations and things like that. And my dad was a florist and owned a flower shop. And we all felt so safe. We knew, like, so many of our neighbors and friends, and we met people at church and we shared all of those things. And I think when you meet somebody in a place of trust where you feel like everybody who's here obviously has the same values and core beliefs or whatever, and that's where we met him. Predator.
- [02:38]
B
And tell me how Robert came into your life.
- [02:40]
A
We met him and his wife and five children at our church. And I remember him being in the lobby of the church and just saying, oh, my word, you have such beautiful daughters. I remember him saying that. Well, it was my mom. He said it to my mother. My dad hadn't met him yet. Cause he was, I don't know, in some other part of the building at that moment. And she said, well, thank you. You know, and you have a rambunctious group of kids because they had four boys and then a little baby girl. And the first three boys matched me and my sisters in age. And from that point on, he was basically grooming the whole family. But it just looked like being nice, you know.
- [03:19]
B
And so he became very close friends with the family immediately. Him and his family too. Right. His wife became a good friend of your mom's and the whole family.
- [03:27]
A
We were, we did hundreds of activities with that family. I mean, we would do picnics on the living room floor. We would go. He had the boat, he had the snowmobiles, he had the trampoline, the things we didn't have. And we would go and spend hours, you know, at their house on the trampoline. She was a wonderful cook. I still use the recipe card that has her writing for several of my famous cookies or whatever because she was such a great cook. And she did ceramics. We painted ceramics at her house. And their three oldest boys, as they matched us in age, we all became really close friends, especially my middle sister with his second oldest son, Jimmy.
- [04:05]
B
And they. He. He spent a lot of time at your home also, right? He would come even without his family sometimes.
- [04:11]
A
He would, well, would always pick us up for school because my dad as a florist left early. He would usually fix us mush and toast. We loved our mush and toast. Dad would do that and then he'd run out the door to have the store open by like 8 o' clock in the morning or something. And so when he realized we all went to the same, you know, school, same school, he was like, oh, I'll just pick him up. It's on my way. You know, I'll pick up the kids, I'll take them all to school, and then I'll go to my brand new. It was a brand new furniture store in town. It was like in the paper, you know, new store. His face is there. He just looks like this wonderful new community member. And of course, by this time, you know, we had met him in the summer, so we'd had some, a few interactions. And then by the time he was like knocking on the back door and opening it up, you know, nobody locked their doors, you know, it's going to be a great day. That's what he'd say. He'd yell that into the house and we'd all come running and pile in the car, and he'd take us to school wake.
- [05:06]
B
He'd. He'd come into their house and say that it's going to be a great day. And you guys would. Excited.
- [05:10]
A
Yeah. And dad was gone. Mom was at the kitchen saying, have fun. Here's your lunch, you know, and off we'd go. Yeah.
- [05:16]
B
And then when did you start realizing that he was giving you extra attention? Because you never. It was you and your. Oh, never.
- [05:21]
A
I never realized that any of that.
- [05:23]
B
But you're. You're. I've seen the documentary about your. This about you, about your life, Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix, Right. And in it, your sisters talk and they say they immediately notice that you were the one that he was giving more attention.
- [05:36]
A
You know, I think. I think memory is an interesting thing here, because in the middle of a. What I would call a real professional groomer, these. The stages of grooming start with you pick your target. Then you build trust. And then eventually you not only build the trust, but you start to divide and conquer. You build the trust with each of the family members separately. You know, he'd stop by my dad's work. Let's go to lunch, Bob. Let's. You know, it was always, he's at. He's talking to my mom, my dad's gone, he's already at work, and she's. He's talking to my mom at the kitchen sink while he's waiting for all of us to get. Get our backpacks and get in the car. And he built individual relationships with every member of my family.
- [06:19]
B
Including your sisters?
- [06:20]
A
Including my sisters. But my sister Karen didn't fit his profile at age, let's say nine, you know, so now he moved in when I was nine. He didn't kidnap me until I was 12. Right after my 12th, that fall, after my 12th birthday. So he has almost three years of time to go. Very slow. I know now that he already had another girl, that he was doing his dirty work.
- [06:50]
B
A young minor as well.
- [06:52]
A
A minor as well. I know that now, but none of us knew it then. And it was also a girl in our church community, also from the church community.
- [06:59]
B
How old was she?
- [06:59]
A
She would have been 12. She would have been 11 or 12 when I was 9.
- [07:05]
B
So how did you find out about this other girl?
- [07:08]
A
It was. I mean, this is way years and years later. I found a police report as we were doing discovery of a different girl. And then also she had mentioned this other girl. And I was like, wow. So I know there were at least two before me and I know there were at least five after me, but that's all information that has come doing the two documentaries, A Friend of the Family, True Evil, the Abducted in Plain Sight documentary, and then also the nine part series. So there was a lot of discovery.
- [07:42]
B
So going back to you, you were nine, but Karen. So Karen is the youngest.
- [07:46]
A
No, Karen is the middle sister. And what I'm saying is, with memory is that she remembers feeling left out. That's what she remembers. She doesn't remember necessarily, like, oh, I could tell he was a predator. We don't even have those words. We literally have no idea what a predator would be. I mean, this is 19, you know, 71, 72, 73. First kidnapping happened in 1974. And we're so innocent. We're, we're naive. We're not stupid people. My father ran a business. My mother was so involved in so many things. But we are naive to something being amiss. I mean, you're not even looking now. I go and teach people. Here's the six stages of grooming. That's one of our, our educational component of the foundation. It's called spot six. Can you spot the six stages so that somebody that's trying to get close to you so they can access your kid, you know, you see it because you don't see it. And we still don't see it.
- [08:43]
B
Yeah, you guys didn't even know that existed. That was a thing.
- [08:46]
A
All Karen felt was, I am constantly left out. And she was developing at that age. She was starting to become a young lady at 9 and 10. I was years away from puberty. That didn't happen Till I was 17 years old.
- [09:02]
B
So is that also what he liked about you?
- [09:04]
A
Yes, yes. He was a true pedophile.
- [09:07]
B
Pedophile.
- [09:08]
A
He wanted little bodies, little girls and. Yeah, and I wasn't the only one
- [09:14]
B
he did Say, is there a part where he immediately realized. Right. There are some tapes that exist of him talking and confessing to some of the stuff that he did. And he talks about how he felt when he first saw you, he first met you, and how angelic and beautiful you were and how he realized you were the one he'd been looking for.
- [09:33]
A
Right. Yeah.
- [09:33]
B
Where did these tapes come from?
- [09:35]
A
I think they were tapes that he recorded himself. He recorded them of his thoughts and feelings. The, the, you know, the tape recorder, the cassette tape recorder was a new thing about then and when. And so he just recorded himself saying these things. And then eventually he recorded his own voice and did the little, however they made it sound like A high pitched alien voice. It was all him. He did all of those things. Zootopia 2 has come home to Disney. Let's go get ready for a new case. We're gonna crack this case and prove we're victorious partners of all time. New friends. You are Gary the Snake. And your last name the snake.
- [10:21]
B
Dream team.
- [10:22]
A
New habitats. Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You can watch the record breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly working at Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus. Rated PG.
- [10:36]
B
I can't wait to get to the alien part because it's so strange and yeah different from anything I never heard. But so. But when did you realize that there was. When did he start acting differently around you or.
- [10:50]
A
He never really did until he.
- [10:52]
B
Until the kidnapped. There was nothing.
- [10:53]
A
And I was, you know, I was strapped to the back bed of the motorhome and I woke up to the sound of these alien. This alien voice, you know, high pitched staccato monotone female companion. It was just. That's how it sounded. Which sounds so ridiculous.
- [11:12]
B
So wait, so you woke up that. So you were in bed at night. How did. Tell me go through the whole kidnapping.
- [11:17]
A
So. So life was normal. My father is the first person who had felt like. Not that something's wrong with him, but like we spend too much time with this family. Because my dad's an identical twin who my dad uncle has four boys and a little girl too. And they were just a mile or so farther away. And we did all kinds of things with them as well. So you know, doing so much with families like this, you know, didn't seem odd at all. But my dad started to feel like he's here too much. We're going too often with them. We need our own family time. You know. My dad started to pull away about six months before the first kidnapping. And I think that was what triggered him to say okay, if I'm. If this is. She's the one. And I'm so transfixed on this, this child. I got to take her now. And without his wife knowing, he had sold his furniture store. Part of the. And this isn't even in any documentary. I got to do more. I got to do more stories so you can get all the stories. So he had sold it and taken the money. And part of the deal with the person he sold he his store to was that guy had a motorhome, an orange motorhome. And he said I'll take part of that as the deal. So that day it was my piano lesson I had asked my mom. I had told her, B said. We called him B. B said he'll take me horseback riding today, but I know I have piano. Can. Can I go after piano, horseback riding, and then we'll be home before dinner. And she's like, no, it's a school night. Your dad has already said we're spending too much time. You can't keep taking you guys on special things on a school night. And I was like, please. You know, I really wanted to go. I was really mad at her. And anyway, she called my dad and he's like, absolutely not. We're not doing that. It's a school night. And I begged and begged and begged, and by the time I came home from school, I said, mom, I really want to go, because they have the horse that's there. It's the one I've been learning how to ride on. He said that Jerry could come too, that he had something, but he would. Maybe dad could bring Jerry out to the same ranch where he's going to go measure a wall for some furniture. I have to go out there anywhere today. So that's what he said, and measure the wall because getting some furniture from me. Nobody knows that he sold his furniture store. He has the money and he has an orange motorhome inside of this garage. So anyway, not his wife, not anybody. And my mom is like, okay, look, okay, he can pick you up from piano, but then you have to be home before dad gets home by dinner time. You know, my dad would get home about 6:30, and mom always had dinner ready and. And we ate together as a family every day. If somebody ever asks me, how did you survive? I will tell them because my family sat together and ate dinner around a table without any cell phones. And my parents listened to us, even though I was too scared to tell because they're so good at making kids scared that you think your kids will tell you even if you have this great relationship, but they don't. So you have to be so aware of what grooming looks like. Anyway, that's why. That's really, truly why. Because I had such extraordinary parents and my sisters and friends and neighbors, community from church and from school. I. I was. I was really one of the lucky ones. So many don't have that.
- [14:58]
B
Yeah.
- [14:58]
A
Or it is the parent that's the abuser. So I feel really, really grateful. And so he. After school, you know, I hurried and did my homework and he picked me up. No, my mom took me and dropped me off at piano lessons. And then when it Was over. He picked me up. He was outside. And I was like, oh, I gotta go. I'm gonna go horseback riding. And my sweet little piano teacher, Mrs. Brink. Oh, okay. We'll have fun. You need to practice a little harder. You hardly knew that third piece. I'm like, okay. I just remembered. She was the sweetest lady. And I bound down her little stairs in her tiny little house where she. It was all about the piano. And went and jumped in the car, and he handed me my allergy pillow.
- [15:38]
B
Hmm.
- [15:38]
A
So, like, I don't know, maybe a year earlier, he had said, your girls have such terrible allergies. He said to my parents, I know this specialist in Salt Lake. You know, that was the big city. Pocatello was about two and a half hours from Salt Lake City in the. In the corner of Idaho. And so he took us all there. My mom also was a part of that whole thing. But she. She got our. Our. They did all the scratch tests on our back, and we'd see which bubbled up. And anyway, we got allergy pills, but they came in a capsule. A capsule that you could pull apart. And he gave me the allergy pill. And the next thing I knew, I had fallen asleep.
- [16:17]
B
This is crazy to me. I remember reading about this part of the story. So he basically had been planning this for many years?
- [16:23]
A
Oh, yes.
- [16:24]
B
He started giving you guys pills that had maybe nothing there, or maybe they were actually allergy pills. But the whole point is that he wanted to get to this moment where he would give you something. It was mellowed, like an allergy pill, but was actually a sleeping pill.
- [16:37]
A
Right, Exactly. He had.
- [16:39]
B
Insane.
- [16:40]
A
Yeah, it's real. Premeditated. It's real. He was a real premeditated criminal. And I woke up. I mean, groggy. I mean, it took me totally out. I don't remember how he crashed the car. And I'm doing that in air quotes because he wanted it to look like we'd had an accident.
- [17:00]
B
So when the police found his car, it looked like it had been an accident, right?
- [17:03]
A
Yeah. And. But he made a mistake because instead of smashing the driver's side window from the outside in, he smashed it from the inside out. And that was the first clue. Like, did they crash? And he was trying to get out of the car because you can open this door. I mean, it was. It was suspect, but still, you know, everybody still knew him and trusted him. Totally trusted him. I mean, he was really trusted by the whole community. I mean, that's what is so interesting about most narcissistic sociopathic, you know, predators, who are they, they have the ability to basically get everybody on their team. It's why when a child or somebody comes forward, a woman and, or a man and tries to tell their story, they're often not believed. That's right, yeah.
- [17:55]
B
I mean, they're often very charismatic, right?
- [17:57]
A
Very. And he was very charismatic. All the women were kind of like, oh, he's so handsome and he's so nice and he'll do anything for anybody. Which he would, you know. He divided our bedroom downstairs with walls. He was a handyman. My dad was not.
- [18:10]
B
You know, and his divining your bedroom with walls was actually also a plan that he had. Right. Because you slept with your sister in a big room for many years. And he offered to build a wall between you and your. So you'd have separate bedrooms so he could start spending more time with just you. Right?
- [18:25]
A
Yeah. And what, what's interesting is that that room, the very end of the, the hallway at the basement, there's a bathroom and then there's where my bedroom ended up and there's two windows there. And so it was like he knew that that was the perfect place for me to be. And whether he wired it. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself again. But the, the same voices and the little look like an inner combox was in my bedroom at one point between
- [18:56]
B
kidnapping one, Kidnapping one and kidnapping two.
- [18:58]
A
Kidnapping two.
- [18:59]
B
So kidnapping one. So you wake up and what's the situation? What do you see when you open your eyes?
- [19:03]
A
So I open my eyes, there's a partition. I can't see the front part of the motorhome. I've got leather straps around my wrists and my ankles, so I can only kind of push myself up a little ways. And I see these curtains and it's dark. I'm trying to see out the curtain, but it's just all dark, you know, Trying to move it with my head and I hear this. What woke me up was the sound of this high pitched monotone voice calling me, female companion, it is time for your mission to begin. That's exactly the first words that, that are seared in my memory. And I was so scared because I grew up with I Dream of Jeannie on tv. This was the lineup. We watched I Dream of Jeannie. Then we watched Bewitched. Then we'd watch, I don't know, we'd watch Lost in Space or something like that. I mean, and then everything was about the race to space. Everything. Even our favorite hamburger joint. It was called Tasty treat. The home of the space Burger.
- [20:10]
B
Wow.
- [20:11]
A
You know, little Martians painted on the wall.
- [20:13]
B
And he knew all that too. And he knew that you would probably be very gullible and believe in all of this.
- [20:17]
A
Oh, sure. Especially after he had told so many stories with everybody there. I mean, my mom, my dad, my sisters, all of his kids and family. His wife. Oh, tell him about the time that that big circle was in the field, Gail, his wife that your dad told us about. And Gail was like, yeah, One time at our farm, there was this big, you know, circular thing in the field and my dad had come upon this white, this really bright light and the truck he was driving went crazy and it would never work again the right way.
- [20:51]
B
And you think this was part of his plan as well?
- [20:54]
A
Oh, totally. Because he's not just telling me, he's telling the whole family.
- [20:58]
B
He's like, but you're listening as well, so you're also starting to believe.
- [21:02]
A
And then he would bring newspaper, black and white, newspaper clippings. They often had little. There would be a little picture with a little disc looking thing in the sky. Another, another UFO sighting, you know, and we don't know what this is, but it would be in the paper. But he's not talking to me. He's showing it to my mom and then throwing the newspaper on the kitchen table so that where I'm doing my homework, I can see the picture.
- [21:25]
B
He's not talking to you, but he. The message is for you.
- [21:28]
A
All of it was for you. Yeah, yeah.
- [21:30]
B
And so it was totally plausible when you started hearing what sounded like an alien voice. You said it was a high pitched voice coming from sort of an intercom looking machine.
- [21:37]
A
Yeah, it was like intercom. It didn't look like a tape recorder. It looked like the, an intercom was smaller. And it did have a button. I remember this. The one thing I remember is it did have a button that said speak. Like if you pushed it, you could speak. But I never too scared. I was too scared. But people ask me all the time, well, how long did it take for him to brainwash you? I said, well, two and a half years to groom me and 10 seconds to brainwash you.
- [22:01]
B
You believed it immediately. You thought immediately, where we've, there's aliens communicating.
- [22:05]
A
I was isolated, I was strapped down. It was absolutely the scariest voice I'd ever heard in my life. And I immediately was like, I'll do whatever they say.
- [22:16]
B
It sounds so incredibly scary. I cannot even begin to imagine what it was like for you in that moment.
- [22:22]
A
It was incredibly scary. I was scared for so many years, even after I knew it wasn't real. Into my 20s, I would check my back seat. I'd look under my car. I was always in the state of, you know, looking over my shoulder. Yeah, sure. Even though I knew it wasn't real eventually. I mean, not for years, but.
- [22:42]
B
Yeah. And so he then shows up. Right. You're hearing the voice, and then you're. You're stuck to that. You can't move, really.
- [22:50]
A
Right. And what happened is the. The straps came off at some point, and the voice woke me up again and said, now you can go to the bathroom. Now you can get something to eat out of the cooler. We've been watching you your whole life. We have your favorite food. You know, tuna fish sandwiches and. Was it called squirt or quench or whatever that grapefruit one was back in the 70s. The juice.
- [23:15]
B
A juice?
- [23:15]
A
Yeah. Like a soda? Yeah. Really? You know, that's the one that was in there that I loved. And an Almond Joy bar, which was my favorite. Still is my favorite.
- [23:24]
B
It's my favorite at Halloween, too. When you find them.
- [23:27]
A
Yeah. You're like, oh, yay. Something with an almond in it and chocolate. Yum. So all the things that, you know, I don't know how he knew how to do all these things, but all of it added up to the sorts of things that when people talk about being, you know, manipulated or brainwashed, it all adds up. Isolation is the first one. And then controlling a person's every move, where you control their food if they get any or they don't, or you control if they can use the facilities, go to the bathroom. You know, it's all those things.
- [23:59]
B
I mean, he's. It's like almost like he read a handbook on how to be the perfect predator and how to really twist things around and brainwash you.
- [24:07]
A
I remember somebody said when they listened to my story that the Butterfly Effect was a book that was. Came out or something like that. It was called the Butterfly Effect, or that's what it talked about. And that's what it was about. And it was in the 70s. They're like. It's like he followed that book. And I'm like, I guess so.
- [24:26]
B
And then what happened next? So he eventually shows up.
- [24:29]
A
Yeah. So obviously, while the motorhome is moving, he was obviously driving, but I can't see because I would fall in and out. Of course, the food was drugged as well, so I would fall back into a deep sleep, and then I'd be restrained Again. And then I would not be. And then they'd tell me to get up. So after about. I'd say somewhere between a day and a half to two days. I don't think that we were even in Mexico yet, because what I remember was the box. The voice told me to go to the front of the motorhome and there I would meet the male companion. So I'm scared to death. I don't know. I just know they call me female companion. I don't know what it means to meet the male companion. But I do what I'm told. And I get up and the partition is gone. I walk to the front of the. Towards the front of the motorhome. And there on the little couch of the motorhome, there's Bea. And he's cut up and he's covered in blood and he looks dead. And I'm just. Bee, Bee, Bee. I'm trying to, you know, wake up, wake up, you know. And as I wake him up, he's like, oh, Dolly, you know, because he called me Dolly. And I was like, we're somewhere and we have to do what they say. And he's like, what are you talking about? I saw this light. I saw this light when we were going out to the horses. And all of a sudden the car went crazy and out of control and I must have hit my head. Oh, my gosh, are you okay? You know, it's all that acting that he was just, you know, best actor I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a lot of really good ones.
- [26:05]
B
Yeah, it's another level of deceit, another huge manipulation.
- [26:10]
A
And of course he's like my favorite uncle. I mean, I love him. Like, I mean, I was as worried about him as he pretended to be about me. And tell me more. What did they say and what did you hear? And so here we are sitting at the little table. I'm patching up his little. Here's a washcloth. And I found this. And maybe you can put something on it or a bandit, I don't know where. And you know, I'm. I'm so traumatized just seeing him this way. And then he's like taking advantage of all of that. Well, tell me more to see how deep it's already gotten. And I just cried and cried at that little table and told him. And if you watch a friend of the family on Peacock, the nine part series with real actors playing us, little Hendrix, Hendrix Yancy plays me, the young Jan, and she is so, so good in that scene. It makes me cry every time I watch it. Because you feel so bad for that innocent little girl and then to realize
- [27:11]
B
that it's actually you.
- [27:12]
A
Yeah. Anyway, it's one of those scenes in. In A Friend of the Family. And that whole show was created to really give context to my story so people could see. Oh, my gosh, I could see how this could happen to me or my child. You know, they look like your best friend. You don't look scary. Stranger.
- [27:29]
B
There was a time that people wouldn't understand why. Why it lasted so long. How could he kidnap you a second time? And we're going to get there, too. But there was a lot of misunderstanding and a lot of blaming.
- [27:39]
A
Right.
- [27:40]
B
Victim shaming, too. Right. For you, your family. And. And we will get there. But then. So how that. Then it evolved. So then you were. You were told. The story you were told is that you were the female companion. Here was this male companion. And there was a mission. Right. An alien mission.
- [27:55]
A
And the mission had been introduced early on. Like, well, I didn't understand what it all meant. It just was. You are. You are part of us. You know, you're you. You were. You were your mother. My mother's name is Mary. You know, your mother was overshadowed by a godlike being from our planet. And that's. Your dad is like Joseph. He takes care of you, but he's not really your father. You were fathered by this alien being. And your mission in this world is to have a child, the child who will save our dying planet. So as good brainwashing goes, you take something that is so familiar to a child and you just change one little degree. And that's what he did. I mean, I'd acted out the Mary, Joseph and Jesus story, you know, however many times. At least 12 times. By the time I was 12, you know, either I was the baby or I was Mary or it was the sheep. But I'd acted it out with my sisters or at church or whatever, you know, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh, I'm. I'm special.
- [29:07]
B
Sort of your relief, your religion and your beliefs and taking advantage of it, essentially, to get what he wanted.
- [29:14]
A
Absolutely.
- [29:15]
B
And the idea was that you had to have a child to save the planet, that planet, that alien planet that where you came from.
- [29:22]
A
Like, basically, I was going to have the Jesus that would save their planet. I mean, they never said that word, but it was easy for me to fill in the blanks. Yeah. And that's really common. Even though my story feels so crazy and extraordinary. It's really common to make your subject feel like they're somehow special. I've heard it over and over again. People that I've interviewed on my podcast that are survivors, they all said, but it was my grandpa, and he was the only one that paid attention to me. And. And he loved me, but he was the abuser because I was so special to him. And they can't. When they, at 13, find out in health class, like, that's not okay. And they knew that it didn't feel good, but it also was somebody I was close to when mom and dad weren't paying attention at all. Right, go. Go take a nap with grandpa. Right? Yeah.
- [30:15]
B
It is very common. Yeah. It's interesting because it is a little similar to. You know, I've done a lot of stories on romance scams, and it's similar that way, too, where they make their victims feel very, very special, like there's no one else on earth but them.
- [30:29]
A
Yeah.
- [30:29]
B
So then what happened to you? So he's. At this point, you believed every single story he told you.
- [30:36]
A
So we're driving deeper now. We cross the border.
- [30:40]
B
Did you realize you were in Mexico?
- [30:42]
A
I did, because he had me dress up. He had his son Jerry's birth certificate, and he had me dress up like a boy. He had the ball cap in the right clothes, and all of it was there, and I dressed up. Some of these things really haven't been told that often. So these are little details that I'm so glad that we're sitting here talking about it, because I remember sitting there and just kind of hold, you know, putting my head sort of down, but being in the passenger seat, you know, of the motorhome and trying to. You know, I was already an actress. I'd started at age six at playing, you know, Gretel in the Sound of Music. So I. I acted the part of, you know, the boy and my body language, and I just, you know, but I kind of kept my head down, and I remember the person kind of looking. That's your son? Yeah. Here's the birth certificate. Yeah. And you're going. You'll just. Yeah, we're just going on a visit. You know, we'll be back through, you know, in a couple weeks. Oh, okay. You know, and just there was a hesitation, like, am I not doing the acting really good? Like, I was scared, like, they'd find out, and somehow that was going to be terrible because now I have a mission, and I'm supposed to do these things. And really, he didn't start any of the sexual assault and abuse until we were in Mexico. And I just think it's interesting how he was. So. He planned this out so well.
- [32:07]
B
I mean, it's like every single detail was thought of.
- [32:09]
A
Yeah. Like, one of the things. The aliens. When the voice would come on, he'd go into, like, a trance. He'd, like, freeze. I mean, I look back at it, and I can even laugh at it. And I've had a lot of people laugh at me, like, you're so stupid. But, okay, I was 12. I was innocent, whatever. And I was a young 12. I didn't have an older sibling teaching me the ropes. I was the oldest. So. And he would. He would freeze, like, in a trance. And then the voice, the box would come on and there. And. And they would say to me things like, you need to. You need to. There's some books in the cupboard. You know, and we need you to get those books out, and we need you to study them. You know, this is part of the mission. And I go and find these books, like, 101 positions or something. I mean, I'd never seen any kind of. I mean, I had a best friend, and she and I had talked about, you know, the birds and the bees a little bit, and my mom had talked to me a little bit, you know, but still, I was so innocent and young in my body. And just in the developing years of my childhood, we were. We were innocent. You know, we really were. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have. You know, we had what we had right in our little, you know, our little home neighborhood. That was what we knew.
- [33:23]
B
So the books were meant to teach you sort of sexual education.
- [33:26]
A
Yes. And I had. I was, you know, stunned and not very smart with all of that, but I. I looked at him, and then pretty soon he'd come back. Goes, well, let's see what they. What one. Oh, let's look at this together. And. Oh. Hmm. You know, it was all very. I mean, literally, there are so many details that I could tell you that I don't think have even been shared that show you the level of planning, manipulation, and manipulation and what. What a predator like this is capable of. Because, you know, my story. Yeah. Crazy, but still common in so many ways, because that's how they encompass and surround their victims. So that even when I was found, you know, in Mazatlan, Mexico, by the federales working with the FBI, at that point, I didn't tell anything. I mean. Yeah, nothing.
- [34:25]
B
And I want to get there. You. He basically then Started essentially raping you every single day.
- [34:30]
A
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [34:31]
B
And eventually your parents are desperate back home looking for you.
- [34:35]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [34:36]
B
At one point, they believed that they didn't contact the police for a few days because they thought it'd been that maybe he had taken you somewhere or they thought. They never suspected him, right?
- [34:46]
A
No, they never suspected him that way. But it was more because Gail, after her. We didn't come home.
- [34:52]
B
Gail is his wife.
- [34:53]
A
Robin is his wife. My mom, I think, called her on the phone and said, have you heard from Bob? I mean, where's. Where's B. You know, and he's got Jan. They went horseback riding. Do you know who we can call? And then they. She was like, well, I'm sure you know how he is. He'll just go off. And then all of a sudden he comes back laughing his head off. Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to scare you all, you know, kind of thing. She goes, so don't, Don't. Don't call the police or anything. They're like, well, we're just gonna call. My mom's sister's husband's brother was a sheriff, and down in that area in the American Falls area, which is where we were going horseback riding. It's not very far from Pocatello, maybe 20, 30, 20 miles maybe. Anyway, and so she. They called him and they said, have you. Have you heard any car accidents or, you know, can you check and. And see? Because we don't know where they are, thinking maybe we've been in a car accident. And he checked and. Well, no, there isn't anything here, but I'll put. I'll put some police officers on it, and we'll kind of. Kind of go down. Up and down the corridor of the freeway and. Okay, so then they do. No, we. We don't see anything. We haven't found anything. And now it's really late, and they're. They're like, okay, well, we'll call somebody in the morning, you know. And then Gail came over the next morning, and she's like, okay, he has to be somewhere with a family member. He. Maybe he went the other way. You know, maybe he went to Salt Lake or, you know, down there. You know, she has a doc, you know, the. The allergist doctor. And. And we. My parents knew that he was seeing a. Some kind of a psychiatrist, but not in Pocatello. There was no such thing. But he was going to somewhere in California, like in Beverly Hills, and he was seeing a psychiatrist. Because one of the things that makes people Crazy mad, like at my parents, but again, different times, and they had no idea. He brought back these tapes on cassette, had on the big headphones. And he would come and say, can I. I'm supposed to lay by a child that is the same age and the same sex as when I started to. My aunt abused me. My aunt.
- [37:06]
B
He would tell people that his aunt had abused me. Is that true, by the way? Do we know? I don't know. Okay?
- [37:11]
A
I don't know. And so that was. He said, and because it's trying to re. You know, because I have depression. It was all about his depression. And he was manic and then depressed. And I don't even know if bipolar was something people ever talked about. I don't remember that being the word, but just his. His. His bouts of depression. And that's why Gail would say, he's either way up here, he's down here, you know, depressed. And he was seeing this doctor. So he would come in my bedroom. I was asleep in bed, and he would lay by me on top of the covers by, you know, have the headphones on. He'd listen to this little tape for 20 minutes. I mean, my parents never knew exactly what was on it. And he would listen to it, and then the door was open. My mom was putting laundry away or whatever. It wasn't like, why?
- [37:56]
B
Why. The part that I don't understand about that is, why wouldn't he do it with his own kids? I mean, I know why he didn't want to, but why? What was the excuse he gave to not do it?
- [38:03]
A
Because they weren't female and they weren't the right age.
- [38:05]
B
Oh, it had to be a female.
- [38:06]
A
Had to be the. Because it was his aunt. So his story was, this is what the doctor told me. I need to. I. In order to fix my depression, I have to lay by a female at this age, 10, 11 years old, whatever it was, because that's when it started.
- [38:23]
B
So that he can have.
- [38:24]
A
So that he could reprogram his depression. I mean, nothing to do with. Other than he had said to my parents at some point, you know, my. My. My aunt abused me, or. I don't even think he said abused. I think he said my aunt started having sex with me when I was, like, neat, you know, or something like that. And my father was like, so. Oh, how horrible. I mean, and he's. Oh, no, it wasn't a big deal. And he would say all these, you know, titillating things that, you know, things my. My parents had never heard before, you know, and so that went on I don't know how many times. Six or seven times, maybe eight times.
- [39:02]
B
And do you think anything happened when he was there?
- [39:04]
A
I really don't because I don't remember. I don't think so. I don't think I was drug or anything. I think I was just asleep.
- [39:12]
B
So this is before the first kidnapping?
- [39:14]
A
Yes. I don't remember any of it and I never remember. I have one experience that I remember before the first kidnapping at his house on the trampoline. And all of us works, us, all of us kids, you know, his boys and me, Karen and Susan, we were all there. We were having a sleepover on the trampoline. And I remember waking up and we all had a sleeping bag. We all had an individual sleeping bag. And I remember waking up and my sleeping bag was kind of twisted and sort of unzipped a little bit on the side and my panties were kind of down around my knees and I was like, it scared me. And I got up and Burch told B was there. He wasn't. I don't think he was even on the trampoline at that point. Or maybe he got up and got off of it really fast. I don't remember that part. All I know is I was upset. And he says, well, I'll take you inside, you know. And so I remember going inside of their house and I remember Gail and I went right to her and hugged her and you know, put my explain what had happened. Did you say like I just said, I don't know. I woke up and I'm all twisted up and I don't know if I said panties. I don't know what I said exactly. But I remember her looking at him with this look. I just remember it was not her. She was the sweetest person kind of giving him a look. And she said, you'll come and sleep with me. You tell yourself no one wants your college era band tees. But on Depop people are searching for exactly what you've got. You once paid a small fortune for them at merch stands. Now a teenager who calls them vintage will offer that same small fortune back. Sell them easily on Depop just snap a few photos and we'll take care of the rest. Who knew your questionable music taste will be a money making machine. Your style can make you cash start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste in. In my. In our bed. And you stay away. I mean, I just remember she took me into the master bedroom and I slept the rest of the night with her.
- [41:22]
B
So you think she suspected or she knew?
- [41:24]
A
I think she suspected because they had moved a couple of times before they ended up in Pocatello. And I think at least one of the times. I can't remember if I read this in a police report, but something happened in Star Valley because they suddenly moved. And I think that was maybe when she first. Something had happened and they. And they moved to Pocatello.
- [41:50]
B
And you were saying how your parents were desperately at one point realized, okay, we have to actually actively start looking for them.
- [41:56]
A
Yeah.
- [41:57]
B
And then there was something with the tapes.
- [41:58]
A
Yeah. So the FBI, they called the FBI number, but it was a Friday after. So I think I went missing on Thursday. And this is now Friday afternoon. So it's just one day, you know, about 24 hours, maybe later. And they tried calling around 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and the office was closed. And it was in, like, Montana. You know, we didn't have our own FBI office in Pocatello. So it said if it's, you know, if it's an emergency, you can call this number. Otherwise, we'll be back on Monday. Leave a message. So my parents left a message. You know, Gail said, our house every day. You know, this is just. So that would be, you know, Thursday night, we didn't come home. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And by Monday, the message had been heard and somebody came to our house from the FBI that. That Monday. And Gail was so upset and nothing. Something has happened. There's no way, you know, and pretty much my parents felt the same way. They're like, he would never hurt her. I mean, we've known him now for almost three years.
- [43:00]
B
Yeah. To reminding people here that this was way. Pre cell phone. So there wasn't also a way of locating or contacting.
- [43:07]
A
No.
- [43:07]
B
So the thought I think you mentioned on that, that your parents and his wife Gail had. Was that something must have happened. Right. That this wasn't deliberate, that he hadn't just disappeared with you willingly. That something must have happened to you guys. Right.
- [43:22]
A
And then they ended up finding the car, which was down sort of in a ditch.
- [43:27]
B
And it had blood. He had put blood on it to make it seem like you guys were. That you had an accident.
- [43:31]
A
And whether he did that when he broke the window, because he had broken the driver's side window from the inside to the outside, and there was blood on it.
- [43:40]
B
And he.
- [43:40]
A
And I do remember, at least in my little brain, that he did have some cuts and that's what. And whatever else he had done to make himself look so bloody and so hurt and.
- [43:51]
B
But you. So then you were in Mexico with him for how long?
- [43:53]
A
For 45, almost 46 days.
- [43:57]
B
Were you able to leave the motorhome?
- [43:59]
A
We did, yeah. We went and did all kinds of activities. We'd go, you know, I remember going to this cantina where there was a band and dancing, you know, and then the floor looked like it was coming up. It was a black and white tiled floor. And I remember it looked like it was just coming up. And now I know that he had spiked my. My Shirley Temple or whatever, you know, and on the.
- [44:22]
B
In the outside world, people would think that he was your dad. You were playing. You were pretending you were his daughter.
- [44:27]
A
Yep.
- [44:28]
B
And then inside the trailer or the motor home, he was abusing you, essentially.
- [44:33]
A
Yeah.
- [44:34]
B
And then 45. But it all felt for you at the time. How did. Did it feel? It felt that. I mean, part of it was probably fun, too. It was a vacation. You were doing all these fun things.
- [44:43]
A
Yeah. He made sure there was enough of that. And we also, in one of the places where we were for quite a long time, there was a motorhome right next to us, and it was an older couple. And I remember. I don't know her name. I wish I could thank her, but she gave me these moments of just normalcy. She taught me how to play canasta, and I'd go into her motorhome, and she taught me games like that.
- [45:05]
B
I love canasta. My grandmother used to play it.
- [45:07]
A
Yeah. And I. I didn't know how to play it. And it was so. It was just those moments of feeling like, okay, I know, I. This is my mission. I have to do it. I never told anybody anything about, you know, about the aliens, about the mission. This was my dad. We were on our. On a trip. We were exploring, you know, Mexico, and. And I just. You know, the few people along the way that helped me have those normal moments, I just think that was so important. And they don't even know who they
- [45:42]
B
are, you know, or how to tell them that.
- [45:44]
A
Yeah.
- [45:45]
B
And then eventually the police found you guys, right?
- [45:47]
A
Yeah. The federales, working with the FBI, they found us in the. Where we were at that point was in Mazatlan, Mexico, at a. At a motor home. You know, like. What do you call that? Like, campground or whatever. And at a really early in the morning, still asleep in bed, they kicked the door open and came in and grabbed us both and put us in a car. And I remember I was in the middle, kind of sitting between two federales, and I could See the. The mirror. And he was in the back. And I could see his eyes looking in the rear view mirror, rear view mirror at me and just. Just knowing. I could just see in his eyes, like, don't say a word. Yeah. And I didn't. And we got to this place and they took him to a different part of the. It was really a jail. It was like big courtyard and the prison was all the way around. It took him to another part. And then they put me in a little room and I sat on a chair. That's the only thing in the room. And I just remember being hungry, being thirsty, not speaking Spanish at the time. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know where he was. I was scared to death. And I just. There was a little. A little hole in the wall, a little tiny crack almost. And I just watched these couple of mice. They'd come out and they'd run around the perimeter of the room and then back into their little wall. And that was my only entertainment. And then. Then the first people that got to me were two LDS missionaries. So when they. My parents had been contacted that I had been found, the first thing that they did was they called somebody that would know where the missionaries are in the church. You know, there's a lot of LDS missionaries. We have the whole Book of Mormon show. You can, you know, see all that stuff.
- [47:41]
B
I've watched it.
- [47:42]
A
I have, too, and it was hilarious. Anyway, so I'm not sure how you felt about it.
- [47:47]
B
I thought it was so funny.
- [47:48]
A
Oh, I laughed my head off. Yes. They got to me first and they brought me a little sack of food from McDonald's. There were McDonald's. You know, we'd had the first McDonald's in Pocatello, like, during that period of time. Like it. We finally had a McDonald's, you know, and so they had brought a little thing of McDonald's.
- [48:07]
B
And you were so excited.
- [48:08]
A
I was so hungry, and it was so good, and I was so grateful. And they spoke English and, you know, so it was just one of those times where I was, you know, for whatever. You know, whatever people want to say about being a Mormon, the one thing that they're really good at is they're very organized so they can get help to you. It's fast. Faster than anybody. So I've always appreciated that about, you know.
- [48:30]
B
And he also. Is it true that he was able. That Robert was able to pay the police? He gave his ring to one of the police officers in order to be able to go and Talk to you for a little bit before your parents even arrived, right?
- [48:43]
A
Yep.
- [48:44]
B
And what did he say to you?
- [48:45]
A
He just said, they've been. You know, they had names. Their names were Zeta and Zethra.
- [48:49]
B
Those were the aliens that were supposedly communicating with you.
- [48:52]
A
Exactly. And he said, they've. They've come to me and they've told me that we have to be really careful. We can't talk about these three things. We can't talk about the mission, which meant, you know, trying to have a baby to save a dying planet. We can't talk about them, that they exist at all. And then we can't talk about any of the, you know, he called them relaxing pills because he would give. Often give me something that would almost put me to sleep, but not quite so he could rape me. And we can't talk about those. And if we do, then, you know, Susan's next. That was my little sister who was still tiny, you know, she's also half alien and half human. And they'll vaporize you and maybe me if we don't complete the mission, which I didn't know what being vaporized was, except it scared me to death. That was probably, for me, probably the biggest threat was thinking that they had the power to destroy just my body and my soul, because that's what being vaporized was. And I thought, is that boiling from the inside out? How do they. How do they get rid of my spirit? But that's what. Because I didn't play by the rules of, you know, this planet or my belief system on this planet. I played by the rules from that planet. And that was the scariest threat of all, is for me to cease to exist. Because that I had been brought up with totally believing, you know, there's life after death. We see our family members again, all of that. And that scared me so much.
- [50:19]
B
Yeah. So even there, he was, like, playing with your beliefs and knowing that this was the worst of the worst thing that could happen.
- [50:26]
A
That would be awful for me to think that I. And awful for me to think that they would. That my little sister would then have to do what I've just had to go through. And so it kept me right in line. I never, never said a word.
- [50:41]
B
And so your parents show up and they pick you up, and I'm sure. Are you. Were you happy at this point, or were you.
- [50:45]
A
Well, I was happy to see them. I was. I was homesick for. For real. I mean, you know, I was close to my sisters and my. My best friend Caroline, and my parents and family. I mean, we just had a really close family. And I was so homesick, but I didn't tell them anything. I hugged my mom. Oh. And that was one of the rules, the new rules that they had. Also, besides not talking about those three things, the new rule was that you can have no relationship with any other male, whether it's your dad or a boy at school or any. You can't have any relationship with any other male. So you make sure that you, you know, stay away and. And don't engage in any kind of. And that was really hard because I was so close to my dad and he tried to hug me and I was like, you know, I recoiled and he was so shocked. I remember that hurt look on his face. But to his credit, I mean, I barely ever let him hug me or. I mean, we scratched each other's backs. We were that family that was like, okay, write your name on my back. Okay, roll my sleeves up or. And he and dad would do the same thing. Okay, I'm writing this. Can you. Can you guess what the word is? We were just a very touchy feely family. We were really close. And for me to just completely retreat from my dad and that relationship, I don't know how he did it because he just continued to say, I don't know what's wrong, Jenny, but.
- [52:15]
B
But I still love you.
- [52:16]
A
I love you. I'd step in front of a moving train for you. If you ever want to talk to me. I. I just want you to know you could never do anything that would change how I feel, you know? And he did that for, gosh, the next. Till I was 16 and finally figured out that maybe it wasn't true. But that took another kidnapping. And he just never, ever. His love was completely unconditional, as was my mother's. Yeah.
- [52:49]
B
That was a really beautiful part of your story, how close you remained even
- [52:54]
A
throughout all of that. Yeah.
- [52:55]
B
Even though he tried so hard, so much to destroy your relationship with them even, right?
- [53:02]
A
Oh, totally. And he tried to destroy them. You know, my parents were good, faithful people. They both felt like they made such mistakes, you know, but he was slowly manipulating both of them into the sexual relationship that my dad had with him. Which was Masturbation.
- [53:19]
B
Yeah. So that's what I was going to ask, if you're okay. Comfortable talking about this.
- [53:24]
A
Yeah, I am.
- [53:25]
B
He developed this relationship with you. This was even before the kidnapping, right? The first kidnapping.
- [53:29]
A
Yeah. We all have this great relationship with
- [53:31]
B
him and then he starts actually having sexual relations with both your dad and your mom separately.
- [53:36]
A
So what happened was my dad was, you know, it's hard to call it a sexual relationship because it all went one way, basically. You know, he. He manipulated my dad into, you know, masturbating with him. You know, whether it was. It was each other or they did together, you know, and that happened, I think, about three times, according to my dad. And he said. And then by the. And I believe that's why he started to say, we spend too much time with this family. I think something had already happened and that. And he felt so guilty about it, and he went and told the church, you know, leadership. You know, your dad did.
- [54:16]
B
He did that this had happened. And he even told your mother that this.
- [54:19]
A
And told my mom.
- [54:20]
B
And at this point, just.
- [54:22]
A
He told my mom something had happened. He didn't tell her exactly what had happened, but he just said he's not. He's not good. He's just not good for me to be around. He basically said, he's not good for me to be around. And I don't know what that means to the rest of the family. And I just think we spend too much time with him.
- [54:43]
B
Right. Because at this point, he thought. Your pro. Your dad is probably thinking, he's just trying to do this stuff to me. He doesn't know. He's been. He's actually actively doing this in your family as well.
- [54:52]
A
He'd also say to my dad, he would say, you know, man, Bob, I wish we could just go and get our own place and have our own pad, you know, whole 70s language. Have our own pad and stuff. And just. I'm so tired of this whole, you know, marriage thing and all these kids and all that stuff. And my dad would look at him and he's like, what are you talking about? You know, he. It. Those are the things that started to happen. And then those. Those maybe three experiences. According to my dad, it was about three times. And.
- [55:23]
B
And because I remember he. He says something. When he first did it with your dad, it was. He said that he wasn't able to have sex with his wife, so he needed some relief. And.
- [55:35]
A
Do you. That's exactly right.
- [55:37]
B
Would you help me or something like that.
- [55:38]
A
Basically. Oh, just help me. Just kid stuff, you know, because I'm sure, you know, they had plenty of those experiences with, you know, kids.
- [55:47]
B
Yeah.
- [55:47]
A
Cousins and all the, you know, you just. Guys do. And he could make you feel like you were 16 years old. That's how my dad described. He said you just had a way of making you feel like you were, you know, this free 16. You know, he just knew how to just slowly, like, turn up the juice in every sexual way. And did the same thing with my mom.
- [56:10]
B
Right. And then he also started courting your mom and telling her she was beautiful and actually hitting on her. And then they eventually did have sexual encounters, right?
- [56:19]
A
They did.
- [56:20]
B
And your mom at the time did tell your dad, right? She came clean with your dad?
- [56:24]
A
Yeah, she did. And I remember when this is, like in between the two kidnappings, they don't think he's done anything to me. I'm not talking. I'm like, oh, gross. No, I mean, you know, even with the court and everything, I. I mean, you.
- [56:39]
B
So you, you just lied to everyone Because I.
- [56:41]
A
To everyone? Oh, yeah, because I hadn't completed the mission. I wasn't pregnant having the baby, you know, and my body worked different. I. I mean, I knew I was not a developed young lady in the human sense of the word, but according to the aliens, I was perfectly developed and I could have a baby. And so, you know, those little things that they plant, you know, a really good perpetrator plants in that little mind, they can use that for years. I mean, they really have control over you. It really is not like you can see it.
- [57:15]
B
And you. So even when you were back home with your family, you still believed it? You fully?
- [57:19]
A
Absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely did. And I absolutely did everything that I was told. For example, I would get little notes from kids at school that I didn't know them, but they knew who I was. Everybody knew who I was. They had big assemblies before I came back to school, you know, don't bother the Broberg girl, and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so I felt like an alien even more. I really did because everybody stayed away from me. It was like, you know, I had some kind of curse or something. And so when I get these notes, it would say something like, hey, at 4:00 today, you need to ride your bike down to, you know, this particular street where there's a phone booth back in the days of the phone booth. Sit on the floor and at 4 o' clock, the phone will ring.
- [58:07]
B
And this was Robert. Yeah, These messages.
- [58:09]
A
So he could communicate through somehow whoever he was in. In jail with had kids. I don't know how he got him to meet him.
- [58:17]
B
So he came back and he didn't immediately go to jail, right? Or prison?
- [58:22]
A
No, just like every, every case, people think, oh, they caught the bad guy and now they're locked up. And I'm like, wasn't the case. This takes years for some of these things to happen. No, he, he. He was processed, you know, blah, blah, blah. He bail was posted and he's out on bail, waiting a trial, you know,
- [58:42]
B
and the trial takes years. It wasn't until when, like two years later. Right. That he actually ended up doing some time. And how much time did he do?
- [58:50]
A
Oh, he was okay. He did 15 days. Oh, my God, that's crazy. And because they counted all the time that he was in Mexico as part of it in the jail there. And so he ended up in jail for 15 days.
- [59:02]
B
And this was just for the kidnapping, Right. Because he's not even the sex. They didn't know about the sexual.
- [59:06]
A
No, they didn't know about anything else. They even had me checked out by a doctor. But he was so careful. And this is a time period when there is no, you know, we have a coposcope now that can tell, like any kind of just very minimal damage, you know, in. They didn't have things like that. They just took a look. And I don't want him to look at anything. And I'm just this 12 year old going, no. And. And they said, well, we can't tell. It doesn't look like anything's happened. You know, the hymen's intact or whatever. And that was it. And that was, you know, and plus I was denied. Deny, deny. And when I finally had to do a little, you know, I. They don't do this anymore. I don't think in most. In most places, I think they take the child and they take their testimony and they play a video. They don't make the child sit there and look at the perpetrator. I mean, I'm in the courtroom looking at Birch told. And he's given me the eye, you know, oh, I miss you. And, oh, don't tell anybody anything. Oh, the aliens are here. I mean, you know, it's just. They're watching us. You know, it's really hard to explain all of it. You have to watch the series, a Friend of the Family to even start to get it.
- [60:22]
B
The idea of putting you as the victim in the same room as him after everything he had done to you is ludicrous. Ludicrous.
- [60:30]
A
Yeah. Right.
- [60:31]
B
Not a good idea.
- [60:31]
A
Let's just put it that way.
- [60:32]
B
And he. So then he did a few days in jail. He wasn't allowed to come over to your family anymore.
- [60:38]
A
Right.
- [60:38]
B
It's not as if he stayed. Continued.
- [60:40]
A
No, my, My dad. I mean, obviously the people that are talking about putting a case Together. And we're going to charge him with kidnapping and all of this, you know. And my mom was. My mom was like, this is ridiculous. He didn't hurt her. She told us that he's got a wife and kids and family and blah, blah, blah. And of course, her heart is still, you know, swooning a little over. Birch told. And she just didn't believe it. My dad knew something's wrong with him, and he will never come to our home again. And then they ended up moving from Pocatello to Ogden, which is about 45 minutes from salt Lake. So all these things that have to happen. He's now coming from Ogden to Pocatello to, you know, do all the stuff. His family's there. Well, Jan, Karen, and Susan are best friends with his three boys. And we're begging. And I'm begging for two reasons. Because I want to see my friends, but also because I know I'm supposed to be with Birchtow with B. Finishing the mission. Finishing the mission. Because I'm getting notes about it, you know, put pressure on your. Your mom to bring you to Ogden so that we can. And certainly we went three or four times. Mom would take us. My dad was furious. He's like, you're finally. What happened is he just said, you're putting our daughters in danger. I don't know how, but I know that there is something evil about this man. I can now see it. I wish I'd have seen it, you know, three years ago. And so he told my mom, if you keep. If you keep letting the girls have a relationship with him or the kids or Gail, as much as I don't think there's anything with Gail or the kids, I. But they cannot. They cannot go. And he told her, you know, I'm going to take action. And he did. He got. He got divorce papers drawn up, and he. He said, you're. You. You have to leave, because I can't. I can't put our girls in danger. And my mom, by that time, I think she had almost seen through it. But she left, and she went down to her mom's, which was also just over the Utah border. She lived in this little tiny town called Garland, and she went down and spent a couple weeks with her mom, my grandma Buck. And I just remember. And Karen tells this story beautifully. She said when we saw the divorce papers, she said, we lived in a town where nobody had divorced parents. I didn't have one friend, you know, now it's very different. But she's, like, seeing those papers and Seeing dad saying, we might have to get divorced because I'm going to protect you, and your mom isn't seeing it, and you cannot be friends with them because he destroyed.
- [63:26]
B
At that moment. It was like he was destroying all your lives. It wasn't just yours. It was. Everybody's lives was coming undone at that point.
- [63:31]
A
Absolutely.
- [63:32]
B
And. And what. Can I ask you what. What was the excuse he gave for having taken you. You to. To Mexico? Did he come up with an excuse?
- [63:40]
A
Oh, yes. Yeah. He had a. He had a great excuse. He said, okay, we were heading out to. To ride the horses. He said. And then something. This is what he said to my mother, which I think is so interesting. That's why she couldn't see through him. He goes, there was something about Jan in the car, the way that she was, you know, she was singing along to the radio, and, you know, all. And all of a sudden, it was like I was looking at her, and I. All I could see was you, Marianne. I could just see you. And every feeling that I've ever had for you was, like, so huge. And I just. I just. I had hidden the motorhome, and I just took her because I couldn't have you. And then as we went farther down the road, all of a sudden I'm in California, and all of a sudden I'm headed towards Mexico. And it's like I was in this weird state of mind and my depression because I couldn't have you. I was just like. She was like. That's what I was looking at when she'd be. Yeah. Cooking at the. At the. You know, this. The. The stove and the sink and doing the dishes. I was you. And I was just so depressed that it wasn't you and me. He said, I mean, she drove me crazy. I mean, I got to the point where I was like, oh, please. But then. Then you guys called the police, and now all of a sudden, the FBI's involved. I couldn't come back. I couldn't come back. I was going to spend the rest of my life in jail. That's crazy.
- [65:07]
B
And then also interesting that not only your mom believed him, but the whole community sort of stood by him at that time, too. They believed him. They thought that he. Because there was no claim of sexual abuse, they just thought. They believed anything he'd said.
- [65:21]
A
Yeah.
- [65:21]
B
He was seen almost like a victim. Oh, yeah, you guys were. Your dad, particularly, your dad had the thing against him and that he was almost the victim of this whole thing.
- [65:31]
A
Yeah. It was like. And people don't Also put together the fact that he's only in jail for a couple days, like you said. And then guess where he is? Back in church with his wife and his five kids, sitting two rows behind us or to the side of us or whatever. And that is like, people are like, what? I'm like, well, yeah.
- [65:47]
B
And then, so then you were 14. Two years later, everything was sort of almost back to normal in a bad way. But you, you had left at that point, he came and kidnapped you back. How did that happen?
- [65:59]
A
So basically throughout those almost two years, he, the notes go to the phone booth. He had shown up in my bedroom two times. The voice box first, that woke me up with the same high pitched alien voice. And then there he was. And the only thing I can really remember that sticks in my mind is he's standing in my doorway and he has no shoes on. He just has his socks on. That's what lodges in my mind. I don't remember. I know that he raped me. I don't remember it in detail. I just know it was like going back into that trance state where you, you dissociate and you go somewhere else and, and again, reiterating the mission, reiterating what we had to do, all of that was still, that was, that was the, that was the story. I mean, that was it. And that was why he was there, you know, and we're trying to, you know, we got to get this mission so that we can, you know, so
- [66:54]
B
he came at least once, perhaps more times, into your bedroom while you were sleeping with your parents in the house. Your sister's sleeping next door. Everybody, the whole family is there. And he would come in in the middle of the night and rape you. And then one day he decided actually he wanted to take you.
- [67:10]
A
Yeah. So basically the, the story was, I'm going to give you a letter of what you're supposed to say. I want you to copy it exactly as I've written it and. Or the aliens. This is how we're going to do it. Yeah, this is the whole thing. So he gives me a letter at some point through somebody, and I don't remember who. If I got it directly from him, like he left it there. Like, I think he was in my bedroom at least twice because I remember the first time and I was so shocked because I had been downstairs in my bedroom and feeling relatively safe until that moment. And then for the next like year I was trying to figure out, how do I get out of this room? I couldn't. I just was so scared. But I think it was the second time that he had left it inside the COVID of my. Of this hanging chair that he had had made for me. It was this blue velvet, big square chair. And, you know, Karen had a little hanging chair that was round in her room. After he had divided our rooms up. And I had this blue one, and there was zippers on the side, and on the round pillow there was a zipp paper. And he would leave things in there. And then somehow he'd tell me that's where the letter is. So I took the letter and I copied it exactly. I mean, I was a straight A student, but I misspelled words because that's how the letter was written. And I remember Karen saying when they found that letter after he had come to the bedroom window and helped me out of my bedroom the second time. And his black Either a Lincoln Continental, I think it was a Lincoln Continental, had no lights on it. It was the middle of the night. And that's what I remember, is that it was running, but it. You couldn't even see it because it was black and it was dark. And he put me in the car and he let me drive partway. I'd sit on his lap and drive. And then he's like, I think you can do it by yourself. Because there was no cars on the road. He was. Everything he did was to make me feel older, feel special, feel important. And off we went and we got.
- [69:07]
B
And the letter was you saying that you weren't happy at home, you wanted to leave.
- [69:11]
A
That I was sick of my parents and their screwed up morals and all this stuff. I didn't even know what I was talking about. I had no idea that something happened with my dad and my mom. But by this time, my mother had seen through him. We had gone to Ogden one time, and I remember he took us to see this fun center that he was re. Storing or buying or something he wanted to take. Oh, sorry. He wanted to take us there. And. And so me and my mom went to see it. He said, just come with me and the kids are playing and let's just go see it. And I remember at that. That time we saw it. And then he said, just come and see my motorhome. Because he had. I think it was a motorhome. No, his. He had moved out, so he had his own apartment. It was an apartment. He said, we'll just come and see where I live, you know, because, you know, Gail's kind of sick of me. She's kicked me out and we're getting Divorced, which my mom and I didn't know, and the whole thing. So we go over to this apartment, and he gives us both something to drink. And I remember waking up groggy. My mom says, I remember just sitting in that chair with my head down, like I had fallen asleep. And she goes, I don't really remember anything. And I remember waking up at one point and seeing him, and he was only dressed from. You know, he was undressed from the waist down, and he was walking across the room, and I don't remember anything except that. And my mom's like, I think he must have been doing something with you while I was asleep. He drugged both of us, and that was the last time that we ever went to Ogden.
- [70:56]
B
That was when your mom really realized, okay, this is what's been going on.
- [70:59]
A
Yep. And she just knew something was wrong. And. And after she'd spent those couple of weeks at her. At her mom's, because this was. You know, then my dad presented the papers and all of that, and we were also shocked and sad, and it was horrible. And she came back from grandma's, and her sister Eileen had said, you're crazy. Bob is the most kind if you screw this up. Because she had been through a lot in her life and through marriages and stuff. And she said, you're so dumb. And my grandma was like, I love Bob more than I love you. You go home and make it right. I mean, that's literally what my grandma said. She's like, this is ridiculous kind of thing. And something about that, those experiences and just the thing that had happened in Ogden, she. She went, something's wrong. Something is definitely wrong. And she woke up and came back. And they felt. It's not even dramatic enough in the series, but we were all there when she came to the. To the back door. El char del grupo estaburrido mando video tendencias memes tema virales rexiones al instante Conversations in parar manteng la vibra activa the carga TikTok Aurora. And we just kind of didn't know what to do. And dad was home, and she just came through the kitchen. I love you. I love you. To the girls. Test girls. And then she just walked right through the kitchen. And my dad was standing, like, in the living room. And there's a dining room between the kitchen, dining room, and then the living room, living room. And that's where his big easy chair was. And we all standing from the kitchen, watched this scene of my dad just standing up and My mom standing there like I don't know if I should approach you or not. And my dad just came running to her, Marianne, and she's Bob. And they just fell into each other's arms, weeping, both of them. And then they were. They were together. They understood what not. They didn't know really anything. They just knew something was very, very wrong. And then he kidnapped me the second time.
- [73:16]
B
They stayed together, your parents, until he. Your dad passed away a few years ago.
- [73:20]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [73:21]
B
And so. And they. So then he kidnaps you the second time. He takes you down to a school here, not far from where we are right now, in Pasadena.
- [73:29]
A
Right. I've been over there. I've looked at. At Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy a couple times.
- [73:33]
B
Was it at Flintridge? Yes. Oh, I know Flintridge.
- [73:36]
A
Yeah.
- [73:37]
B
So then he enrolled you there. He pretended you again that you were his daughter. Yep. He said he was in the CIA.
- [73:43]
A
Yes, he said he was a CIA agent.
- [73:45]
B
So he traveled a lot.
- [73:46]
A
And he was traveling a lot. And that because of the work that he was doing with Jerry Ford called him. Oh, me and Jerry were doing President Ford, anyway, he'd call him Jerry to the. To the sisters. This is all stuff that. That you can document from what they said. When it finally came back, they said he had papers that he was CIA and that he was. That we needed to protect Jan. Janice Tobler. That was my name. And he said, they'll come looking for my daughter, and if they find her, they will take her and they will torture her in order to get to me because of course, I would never let anything happen to her. And that's how they'll get me out of hiding. And I'm doing this high level undercover CIA stuff. And her mother's been killed in Laos. That was when that all happened. And he said, and so I really just need you to love her and. And really, really keep her safe and keep her hidden.
- [74:41]
B
And was it.
- [74:41]
A
He did.
- [74:42]
B
Was it a boarding school? So you spent. And he went back, right? To Ogden or to.
- [74:48]
A
Yeah, he went back and forth.
- [74:49]
B
And he had this sort of separation from you in a distance from you in a way that he could tell your parents because the first place they went looking, when you disappeared, even though they found the letter, they thought he probably. Robert probably has her, but he didn't because he was living far from him.
- [75:07]
A
I'm right here, you know, I don't know. She's run away, told him a big story. She's mad at the two of you. You won't let her And I be together. You know, whatever he was saying at that point, it was all like. And they're like, are you kidding? We would never let her be with you anyway. How you know where she is. They knew that he was a part of it, but he. And this is what's so interesting. During the first couple of weeks when I was there before school started, I was at a house up in their attic room. And I don't know if he told that couple who had a daughter that went to the same boarding school. She was older than me, two years older than me or three. But I remember being in that little attic room for, I don't know, a week, ten days before school started. And then I was in the school. I was boarded in the school. And so I didn't see him for that whole time. And they actually, he had already met with the school. They already knew I was coming, but they were the ones that took me to the boarding school. And I got in my. My room and all my things and stuff. And now, years later, I've put it all together. Do you know where he was?
- [76:16]
B
No.
- [76:16]
A
Serving his 15 days in jail. Oh, no way. I know. Isn't that weird?
- [76:21]
B
That is insane.
- [76:21]
A
I'm like, oh, that's why I didn't see him for a couple of weeks. Wow.
- [76:25]
B
Because he usually would come visit you all every weekend.
- [76:28]
A
And he would take me out of the school, take me in the motorhome, take me and do his dirty work. And then I would. He come and bring me back and I'd keep going in school.
- [76:38]
B
And you are still fully believing the alien story at this point as well?
- [76:42]
A
Yeah, I'm 14, but I'm still again, way pre puberty. I've been visited by them in my bedroom at home. I'd had notes and all of the. He never really stopped. There was never a pause really, in all of those. That almost two years. Because that kidnapping happened in August. The first one was in October. So it had been almost two years.
- [77:10]
B
And then how did your parents find you?
- [77:12]
A
They worked with a private investigator and along with our FBI agent who could never not work the case, even though he was told we're not working this case. He would come over and make sure. Okay, what are we doing today? I've got people looking at Burch, still watching his. His place. And my mom went down there and with my sisters, and that's a funny story that hasn't ever been told. And they're staking out where his apartment is and. And Karen. And I think it was Karen My mom and Karen and Susan was just behind them, standing in the hallway of this apartment building. They knew which one was his apartment. And they. And Karen would go up to the door and listen. She's like, I swear it's Gilligan's Island. Jan has to be in there. You know, it was like this funny story because my mother had on a wig. All of them were dressed, you know, and. And they were very active in trying to find me the second time, whereas the first time, it was just. They didn't know what was going on. They didn't know what to do. But that time, they were looking at airplane records and pictures, and they were. My mom was really active, and my dad, too, still working, but. But very active, trying to figure it out. And when they left, because they thought they could hear him coming to the door, and they ran out of the apartment building, and they ran past the tree. The wig my mother had on got caught three, and it came off her head, and she's, like, grabbing the wig. So it. I mean, we have to laugh about these things, but it was so serious then, and it was serious. You know, they. They really were so brave trying to figure out, like, where is she?
- [78:47]
B
And the FBI agent that you mentioned, he was. From the beginning, he knew it had to be Robert, right?
- [78:51]
A
Yeah.
- [78:52]
B
Even though Robert seemingly was living alone, and there were no tra. There was no trace of you living or being with him. He truly knew. He knew was Robert. So he was on his case. And then they started following him, right?
- [79:02]
A
Yeah. But he was the master of disguise, too. And he would use a different car, and he would have. It wouldn't look like him, and they often would lose him. And then they're like, wait, is that.
- [79:12]
B
Who's.
- [79:13]
A
Is that him coming back?
- [79:14]
B
We.
- [79:14]
A
Where did he go? How did he get out of here? He was really something. And he would. Yeah. He would either bring the motorhome. I think he had the motorhome parked somewhere in California, because I think he would fly there, get the motor home, and then get the motorhome, come and get me.
- [79:29]
B
And then. And so. But then they were able to trace it back to the school. They figure out you got. You were in that school.
- [79:34]
A
Yes. They had been there several times, and the nuns had denied it because they were afraid these are the bad guys, because, you know, Bert Strobe set them up.
- [79:41]
B
They'd been brainwashed, too.
- [79:42]
A
He said they'll look like detectives. They might look like, you know, police officers, but they're just.
- [79:46]
B
He covered his tracks on every. He Talked about everything, right?
- [79:49]
A
He did, yeah. Isn't that funny how smart. It makes me mad to say he
- [79:53]
B
was smart, but, yeah, it's maniacal.
- [79:55]
A
Then at what point did.
- [79:57]
B
So then you were. Came back home at that. Were you happy to be back with your parents after that second kidnapping?
- [80:03]
A
No, it was more like I still hadn't had the child. Save the Dying planet. I knew all the threats. Karen will go blind if I don't finish this mission. Dad will be dead if I don't finish this mission. If I talk to him, if I'm nice to him, you know, that will happen. Susan will be taken. You know, she's still this little tiny thing, and. And she's half alien and half human like I am. And I have to finish this mission. And they're just getting in the way, and I'm. I'm. I'm so far gone. My mother talks about this being the saddest day of the whole experience. So I'm brought back. They have to process me as a runaway because that's how they kept this time out of the news. They said, we're going to list her as a runaway because that's what Birch told. Said, but not because of that. But this is how we'll do it. And that way we can have all the resources for, you know, trying to find her. If you have a private investigator. But because it's not kidnapping, we can't get the federal government, you know, the FBI involved. But Pete Walsh was still involved. He was wonderful. And they had this private investigator that did all these things to help us find that. It has to be right here. And my mother would call the schools. They're like. Because I made one phone call home, and he was with me at the time, but I was so homesick that he let me make a call. And they had it. You know, they had the. The thing set up.
- [81:28]
B
The recording.
- [81:28]
A
The recording set up at our house.
- [81:30]
B
The point is. Yeah. Recording every conversation, every incoming call.
- [81:33]
A
Right.
- [81:33]
B
So that they can see if it's him or you calling.
- [81:35]
A
Right. And because of the. And then also at his brother's car dealership. Dealership. And so they had those two things set up. And between the two of them, I don't know which one gave them the exact location, but because of the amount of coins that he put in, they could tell how much it was. Is that a dime, a nickel, quarter, you know, whatever. However much he put in. They're like, okay. That call had to come from this region of Southern California.
- [82:01]
B
Interesting.
- [82:02]
A
And so my mother started Calling schools. And she called several schools. They even. I found the little. The little typewritten, you know, back in the. In the. You know, you put it on the Xerox machine. Not a Xerox machine.
- [82:16]
B
The typewriter.
- [82:17]
A
The typewriter. And then you can carbon copy it.
- [82:19]
B
Okay.
- [82:20]
A
That's what they were written on. So it's really light writing. But it had a little school picture of mine included. And they sent them to so many.
- [82:27]
B
To school to try to find you.
- [82:29]
A
Try to find me. And she said, we heard back from some of them that would call our phone number and tell us, we don't have her. We haven't seen her. She said, but one. The one that I saw had written back and said, we're so sorry that this has happened to you. And. And we haven't seen her. And we thought we'd return the picture so you can maybe send it to somebody else. And it was a real sweet note that the school had sent back, you know. But my mom started calling them, you know, and she said, I remember when the one school that must be there in Pasadena, too, it was somewhere really close. And she said. And they answered the phone and said, mary Mount. And she's like. I got this feeling in my chest like she's in. She's in a. She's in a boarding school because it was a boarding school. And. And she had a little conversation. I wasn't there, but. But she said that's when I was like, she has to be in a boarding school because he's going back and forth. He's put her somewhere. And that's how they zeroed in and finally came.
- [83:26]
B
There's a recording of you calling home. And you said you were homesick. And you can hear your voice, and you say it's so sad because you can see that you're trying to sound happy, but that it is so fake in a way. You're saying, I just wanted to let you know that I love you and that I miss you. Right.
- [83:45]
A
Yeah.
- [83:46]
B
So that. That is the. That's the moment that you were so homesick that he allowed you to call.
- [83:50]
A
Yep.
- [83:50]
B
But you weren't able to say that.
- [83:53]
A
No, he was standing right there. Yeah. That I was fine and that I was doing what I needed to do and still pretending like I had run away, you know, And. And Birch told it, told my parents, oh, she's. She's prostituting herself, and she's on drugs. And my mother literally laughed out loud. She's like, jan would no more stick a needle in her. I mean, Because I hated needles. I was so scared. She's like, he's such a liar. I. She just knew, you know, at that point, they. They all knew. But it was amazing how he kept that up for such a long time. Because even after I was found and brought home that time, saddest day for my mom, she said, after you've been processed down at the. At the jail at Pocatello Jail. I had to spend the night in jail because I was a runaway. And Pete Welsh came with a basket of food and magazines for me to read and blankets. And he was so mortified that I had to spend the night in jail. And I just remember how it was very traumatizing because I was put in jail in California. When they picked me up, they had to process me through that jail. And there were adult women. We were all in the same holding cell. And they were tough ladies. And I remember sitting on the floor kind of behind the. Where the bench was and just trying to disappear. I was so scared.
- [85:12]
B
The saddest day for your mom was when you were walking where you had to spend.
- [85:16]
A
Well, when I walked through the house after they processed me and I had done my night in jail, then the police brought me home and I walked through the back door. The same door where he had opened a hundred, you know, hundreds of times. Hey, brobergs, it's going to be a great day. I opened that back door. She's seen me from the front window. Cause that's where the kitchen sink is. You could see. She saw me walk up and I opened the door and I looked at her for about two seconds. And I walked straight down the stairs and back into my bedroom. So after not gone for four months.
- [85:46]
B
Right, that's what I was gonna say. So several months without seeing your family and you didn't even wanna say hi to them?
- [85:50]
A
No. And closed the door to my bedroom. I was in that state of complete shut down. And my mom said it was like I was looking at a robot. And it was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Because my Janney, my vibrant, you know, little actress, singer person that was always happy and putting on the shows with all the neighborhood kids and. And doing all the things. Was completely gone. Said you were completely gone. And it was the saddest day of my entire life.
- [86:23]
B
Yeah, even your sisters talk about this. How they. You came back a different person. And what was going through your mind at this point.
- [86:32]
A
How am I going to finish the mission now? What am I going to do? Can't let Susan. They can't take her, you know, I don't want to be vaporized. I don't want Karen to go blind. And then there was the fire that happened just within a couple of months after I was home, maybe in February. I was brought home in late November. And the day that the phone rang that night and it was one of my dad's employees at the flower shop who said, bob, you come. The flower shop's on fire. And he went down. And then mom gathered all of us up and took us in the car down there. It was really late at night, but we all went down and the whole building was in flames. 12 other businesses in the building were also burned to the ground. But it started in the basement of the flower shop. And Burch told had been in jail with two people that were in for arson, and he hired them to go and set fire.
- [87:42]
B
Because he was mad at your dad for not letting him be with you, right?
- [87:45]
A
Yep. And I remember my dad as we were all outside and it was like February. I mean, it was. There was icicles on the buildings next to us, and there's this building, it is engulfed in flames. It was one of the biggest fires that had ever happened in Pocatello, and it was front page news for sure. And as we stood there on the street, mom and Karen, Susan and I, I remember my dad coming up kind of behind us and then kind of separated us and put his arms around all four of us. And he just will. None of us will ever forget it. He just said, let it burn, let it burn, let it burn. Everything that matters to me is right here in my arms and it's fat, seared on all of our memories. We knew. And I knew that no matter what, and I'd hardly touched him or talked to him for two years, going on three now. And I knew that it was unconditional, the love that I had for my mom and my dad and somehow getting through those next. That next year of again, notes from hoods at school. I don't know how he got all these messages to me, but there was still constant communication with him. And it was. It just never really stopped. And, you know, there were times, again, he's not in jail. I mean, they know it's him. They. They put it all together. But the trial for that doesn't happen again for, you know, couple of years.
- [89:27]
B
And you still have not told anyone
- [89:29]
A
at this point about the sexual abuse, Nothing. It took almost two years. I mean, it wasn't until my 16th birthday and I was away at a drama Camp. My mom and dad let me go to a five week drama camp. I had to call them every night at the same time. And it was in between the, you know, our break from all the workshops or whatever into our rehearsal for the show we were doing. And I would call them every day. And the real key, I was turning 16 while I was at the camp. My birthday's in late July, so I was turning 16. I was panicked because Burch told. Had said, oh, yeah, you should go to the drama camp. And then we'll. We'll figure out how to get together. I mean, he's still contacting me. I haven't seen him for a while at this point. I know now it's because he already had gone to service time. He was going to be serving his time in the mental hospital. And there was another little girl that I know was between me and the. And the next girl who came out of his mental hospital conviction, he was convicted. It was called mental defect. It was a new conviction. And he pled mental defect. That's what he got. He was sent to a mental hospital. Everybody thought he would be there for years and years and years. He was there for less than a year.
- [90:44]
B
That is insane to me.
- [90:45]
A
Yeah.
- [90:46]
B
I mean, after he kidnapped you twice, there were other accusations from other women, from other girls, and that's all he got. And. Yeah, until he died. Right, That's.
- [90:54]
A
That's, yeah, really my journey in that 16th year where I was turning the age that I was supposed to have the child by the age of 16, otherwise I was going to, for whatever reason. The aliens only had this short time, amount of time that you could get pregnant and have a child, and then I'd be too old. I mean, that's what I had been told. And so therefore, my little sister was going to have to go. You know, she'd have to. To leave, and then he'd take her. And at that drama camp to tie it all together, I had gone down to the. There was an ice cream parlor and a bowling alley on campus, and we all went down there after a rehearsal or something. And the boy who I had a scene with in the play, who I knew liked me, who I avoided like the plague, he was in front of me and he paid for my ice cream. And I was so scared that I was going to be vaporized, that Susan would be gone. I mean, it was. It was like I sat and pretended I was normal while we ate the ice cream. And then I ran back to my dorm room, threw myself on the bed. I'M bawling hysterically. And it's time for me to call my mom and dad. And then I have to go to rehearsal after that. And I did. I called them from the down. You know, the phone's on the wall. It's downstairs in the lobby area. You're talking to people. It's very different than it is today. And when I talked to my mom, she always answered first. And I talked to her and then my dad. And she told me that our dogs were sick, that something had happened and she'd taken them both to the vet. And one of them had to stay there overnight. And I just disintegrated. Oh, it's my fault. Oh, no, they're gonna die. You know, I just. It was just like, my mom is like, I don't think they're going to die. And it's not your fault. You're not even here. And I think maybe I fed them something bad or somebody somehow. But the dogs were in trouble. I knew it was my fault. I hung up. After talking to mom and dad. I was so upset, I could barely go to rehearsal. Of course I did, because I'm very dedicated to my. My craft. And we. The show is coming up the next week. The next week is the show. Everybody's coming down to Provo, to BYU to see the show that all of these kids from all over the country have come to this drama camp to do. And then they're taking me home. And in that. In that time, I'm turning 16, so I'm just beside myself. My mom calls the next morning, which was not usual. So, you know, the person that's over your dorm came and got me. Your mom's on the phone. She wants to talk to you before you go for your day. And so I came down and talked to her and she was like, jenny, I don't know what was happening last night and why you were so upset, but the dogs are fine. Tiffy's home, or she's coming home. We're all here. Everybody's fine. I just want you to know that. That everything's fine. I don't know what you know. And I didn't tell her anything. Oh, I'm going to be vaporized. You know, Susan's going to be missing and Karen's going to be blind. I didn't say any of those things. I just said, okay. Okay, thanks. Oh, I'm so glad. Okay. And at that moment, as I was hanging up the phone, I had a 5 second thought. Are you real? It was brief and I was looking up, like, into the sky, like, are those aliens? Are they real? It was the first time in almost what, four years, four years that you questioned it, that I had even one ounce of doubt, a question. And I call that your gut thought, and I call the next thought your secondary thought. That takes you down the wrong path. Because most of us, we have a feeling, we have a thought, something's not right. Oh, that's ridiculous. The second thought, oh, that's ridiculous. That person is my priest. That person is the coach. That person is the favorite school teacher. That person is my husband, my wife, my grandfather, my brother, my sister. Yeah. So that five second thought, I call it the ice cream miracle of the boy buying me the ice cream. And nothing happened. My dogs did not die. And that thought came to me. And then for the next, from that point forward, my birthday happened that week. It was really fun. Family came, watched the show for those three or four performances, and then took me home. And everything in my world looked the same, but I looked at everything differently. Like, that's not real. What about this? I don't know. Because I knew that they could read my mind. And so I was always like, well, I'm just kidding. I mean, I know you're real, but I would just have these thoughts. Everything happened after I Finally, at age 16, back home, two months, almost three months of testing the waters. I accepted to go to that dance. And I remember coming home after and just panicked. Well, if it's real, Susan's going to be gone. Karen's going to be blind. And then my. My sister Susan. I had known that my dad had bought a gun and I was ready to go home from the drama camp, tell her about the mission. And if she didn't want to do it because I didn't want her to do it, then I would take the gun, I would kill her, and then I would kill myself. That was all planned in my mind, like, if I make it through, because I was turning 16 and then I still had to do the performances in the show. I didn't know if I was even going to be alive. I thought I was going to be vaporized, but I wasn't. And the interesting thing was he had lost interest in me enough that I never did see him at the. During that five weeks, even though he had said, yeah, go to that, and then we'll be able to meet up and we can keep going on the mission. And now I know he was with another girl. He had another little girl. And so I think back on all of Those things that had to happen to bring me to that five second moment. And two then three months of testing the waters and going to a dance and now going to a dance with a boy and a group of friends. And, you know, I'm. I'm 16 now, you know, I came home and there was my dad in his Lazy Boy chair kind of asleep when I came through the front door. And I looked at him, I thought, okay, he's here. And I asked him, I said, are Karen and Susan here? Oh, yeah, they're asleep. They both decided to sleep. I don't know, they slept in the same room that night or something. But he said something about where they were sleeping. It was a weekend. And then I kind of looked because the master bedroom, Mom. I could see the door was open and my mom was in bed. I said, mom's asleep. Yeah. How was it? He said, how, how, how was the dance? I said, oh, it was really fun. And I sat on the arm of his chair for the first time in all these years, and I sat there right by him and I told him about the dance and about the dinner and about, you know, the scavenger hunt and about the. Everything that we had done, you know, and I had fun and. And I don't really know the boy, but it was, you know, a cousin of somebody's that was here visiting and just talk to him, you know, just talk to my dad. And he was like, oh, Jenny, I'm so glad. It was so fun. And I mean, my Gunne sack dress and my platform shoes sitting on the edge of the. Of the La Z Boy chair. And. And I just remember just looking at my dad and he never tried to hug me or anything, but I leaned over and I kissed his forehead and I said, well, I guess I'm going to go to bed. And I had been sleeping upstairs in the guest room. It was like a little office, but there was a bed there and I had been sleeping there. I didn't sleep downstairs anymore. And while I was at the theater camp, my best friend Caroline, Karen and my cousin David, they had all said, well, maybe if we redecorate Jan's room while she's gone at the theater camp, you know, maybe she'll sleep down here. Because Karen was really lonely downstairs. She wanted me to come back to my bedroom. And I just. I couldn't do it. So they had worked on redoing and putting new posters.
- [99:50]
B
And you did all that because that's where he had come in, right? Robert had come in before. That's where he kidnapped you from. So you were not. You didn't want to be there.
- [99:56]
A
I didn't want to be there. I couldn't sleep down there. And it's so interesting because while they were redecorating the room, they opened the zipper and found a letter, and found the letters. Many, many, many things, you know, that were in there, that were hidden in there. But they didn't approach me at that moment. Anyway, Caroline and Karen had taken them and they're like, we ought to read these. And then they said, we don't understand them, whatever. But they. But they had them and they had redone my room. And, you know, it looked really nice, but I was still sleeping upstairs. So as I left, my dad kissed him on the forehead, walked down. I just remember laying on top of the bed, looking up at the ceiling, you know, with my platform shoes because I was so short, and my gunny sack cream colored dress. I have pictures of that dress with the lace and it was so cute. And I just laid there and I looked at the ceiling and I was like, dogs are here. Everybody's safe. Dad's alive. Everything seems good. I don't think this is real. And then I'm thinking to myself, what do I do now? Who am I? Why would. Why would he do this to me? I mean, it was. There were so many different emotions that I was feeling. Relief, Deep, deep grief, anguish. I lost four years of my childhood. I've never been on a date until tonight. It's October. I'm like, it was almost four years to the very day. And it was so interesting. The loss that I felt, the loss of him, the loss of my story and my importance and my mission, the loss of my childhood, the loss of my body, the loss of so many things.
- [102:06]
B
Loss of identity, too, right?
- [102:08]
A
Yes.
- [102:08]
B
Because this is who you had become.
- [102:10]
A
Right? And it was so interesting. It took me and I didn't say anything to anybody. I just, you know, finally turned over and somehow I went to sleep and my shoes came off. I was still in my dress the next morning. But I just remember that it. It wasn't like I ran to my parents and told them. It wasn't until Karen and Caroline and they pulled out these letters and they said it was really a lot of Caroline because Karen was two years younger than me and Caroline and she was like, who's Zeta and Zethra? I'm like, what? I mean? And started grilling me on these letters. And I was like, you can't read those. You might get hurt. You can't have them. And she was like, I'm. I'm reading the whole thing. I want to know what he did to you. I'm like, he didn't do anything. And it went on for hours, and she would not stop. And Karen was like, you have to tell us. You have to tell mom and dad this. What does this mean? And I was trying to tell them, and I don't. I really. In my physical mind and body, it feels like I blacked out, but I didn't, because you have to hear the rest of the story from Karen, my sister. She's like, you know those horror movies, you know, where somebody's possessed and they start clawing the carpet? That's what you were doing. It was like. When it started to come out, it was like this sound and these words and this. You were clawing at the green carpet, and you were. You were shaking, and you were. It was like you were verbally throwing up, and it was so scary. It's one of the scariest moments of my life to this day. My sister Karen will tell you. And she said it was something like I had never expected or seen before. And by the time the sun was coming up, it had basically been all night. And we both just said, you have to go tell mom and dad, and if you don't, we will. And I said, no, I. I will. I'll tell him. I'll tell them. And. But then I think I fell asleep. I think they said I fell asleep for several hours. I was just, like, limp, so asleep. And then I woke up, and dad was out on the porch on the patio in the backyard, like he did a lot. And it was a beautiful fall day. And I just remember going up the stairs and telling Mom, I want to talk to you, and dad. And I sat out there on the patio, and I just told them not everything. I definitely didn't go into detail. I said there was icky stuff that he did to me, and I don't want to talk about it. And they were like, okay, when you're ready, we're here. We love you. It doesn't matter. And that's how it started. My recovery was telling them and having them believe me. That's so important. You have to believe survivors first. You don't raise an eyebrow. You don't question. You just listen with empathy and believe them. Right. And that's what they did.
- [105:07]
B
Because that's not always the case, right?
- [105:09]
A
No. So often it's not, which is really unfortunate and really sad. And I'm trying to. I'm trying to educate more people about it. That's, that's really in these later years of my life. That's really where I'm putting my time and energy with my foundation and trying to educate people. On grooming. We have a program called Spot 6 to spot the six stages of grooming. Trying to help people recover from trauma. Any, any kind of childhood trauma has a long lasting effect on your life, your quality of life. And how can we come together as survivors, believe one another, help each other heal. We have a whole program, a 12 phase program. It's really fantastic. And then we have an online community with our survivor community as well. Plus we're working on a children's Civil Rights act in our justice pillar.
- [105:58]
B
I mean it's so important. I've had a couple of guests already on the podcast talking about being sexually abused as children and going to their parents and their parents not believing them. I mean, that is such an important point you make. And I was just reading on some of the numbers, it's that I didn't know about before but like 93% of groomers know their victim.
- [106:19]
A
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [106:20]
B
It's crazy.
- [106:22]
A
Yeah. It is not a scary stranger. You know, it is really, truly. They not only know them, but usually they know them well. It's somebody in your inner circle.
- [106:33]
B
Right. It says that 34% of known groomers are actually family members, which is also. I don't think most people know.
- [106:39]
A
And there's also a statistic that I that is even higher than that because it says in that, in this FBI statistic that I read not that long ago, it said that out of the 34% or whatever it is that are family members, 70 over 70% are the father is the father. You know, and I look at my father and how amazing he was and how I can't even imagine that that's true.
- [107:06]
B
Yeah.
- [107:07]
A
I mean, yeah, but it is. I have people that I've talked to in. It's their over seven, I think it was 71 or 72%. It's a father, then it's the mother, then it's a grandparent, then it's a stepparent, then it's a sibling or a cousin. Right. Aunt or uncle.
- [107:26]
B
It's another fact is that it's a lot of the predators themselves are, have been sexually abused as children as well.
- [107:35]
A
Yeah.
- [107:36]
B
It's sort of a cycle of violence. Right. That perpetuates itself.
- [107:40]
A
Yep. And that's why I think it's so important because most survivors don't become Predators. But most predators were abused and had violent, sexual, you know, physical. They had, they had something that broke, that broke that natural development, which by
- [108:02]
B
the way, doesn't excuse it. No, but it explains it or it makes you understand and it helps you perhaps prevent it from the future.
- [108:09]
A
And that's really what we're after, is prevention ultimately. And the only way that that can happen is if we quit looking away and we actually talk about this pandemic that is worldwide, that is bigger than any of the top five things that kill people every day put together. It's just insane. The numbers, if you go globally and if you go.
- [108:31]
B
We're talking about child abuse.
- [108:33]
A
Right. About.
- [108:33]
B
It's one in four people, right? One in four kids are abusing their child.
- [108:37]
A
Yeah. And that's a little higher for girl. It's almost two in four for girls and it's about one in four for boys. So you put those two numbers together, if you have, you know, you're talking almost half, you're talking four out of 10.
- [108:49]
B
Yeah, yeah. I don't think most people know how high these numbers are. And so you, what you are trying to do is have honest conversations about this, let people know what the signs of grooming are and try to prevent this.
- [109:03]
A
Yeah, try to prevent it by teaching the adults. I think people a lot of times they think, well, we can teach the children and the tweens and the teenagers. I'm like, they're developmentally only able to see and process a certain degree of that. Who you really need to teach are the adults and the parents and the teachers and the social workers and the detectives and the, the people the, that are around young people to notice and to see the signs and to not be afraid. Somehow we have to make it so that they can tell someone and actually something will happen. But right now the way the laws are is, well, until they do something, I'm like, well, grooming is doing something right, but they don't.
- [109:57]
B
Right. It was the same. We had a guy here, a father whose 12 year old daughter was being groomed and was forced to have sex with strangers. And it was an awful situation. And he was able to get that predator he caught. He caught him in a park. He tricked him and went to a park and found him and did sort of a citizen's arrest. And he ended up taking, I think it was over a year to even have the trial happen. And then when it happened, he ended up doing like two years probation or something. He didn't. It's crazy.
- [110:24]
A
Yeah.
- [110:25]
B
So exactly. That's what you're saying. Like, one of the most important things is accountability. Right. It's one of the most important preventative of absolutely way. Ways of preventing this from happening is accountability.
- [110:35]
A
And what we're doing right now, talking about it and making sure people will listen enough that they get it. Because so often we want to turn away from something that seems too sad or too ugly or too awful or, oh, there's nothing we can do about it. That's not true. If we didn't look at cancer over and over and over again and we didn't have people that were studying it and going, let's do some more research. This is what we're talking about. We're talking about a cancer for all these young people that we could do a lot more to prevent it from happening. A lot more. So it's first. First and foremost, you have to help the survivors so that they're not passing on the trauma, maybe in a different way. Like even I feel like I did that with my own son. I was married and divorced multiple times. I couldn't get it right. I could. Couldn't understand it. I couldn't have a full relationship. I didn't mitigate my own trauma until I was in my 40s.
- [111:31]
B
There's so much shame around this, Right? Yes. People, like you said, if you compare it to having cancer, for example, it's something that you talk about. But if you were sexually abused, that's not something that you easily. People easily talk about or that families want even, you know, their loved ones to talk about.
- [111:47]
A
Right. Because often it's somebody in the family. And what'll happen is half of the family might believe you and the other half doesn't believe you. And then you're still at the family reunion over the potato salad with your
- [111:59]
B
predator, and you're like, this is happening. Yeah.
- [112:01]
A
And that's the worst thing that can happen. Because when you don't. When you don't mitigate trauma, our program in our Survivor circle, we have a online survivor circle community. And. And there's a program that they can go through, which is trauma recovery is called time Trauma interrupted, mitigated and expressed. And whether it's just expressing it to another person that believes you or you end up telling your story publicly, it doesn't really matter. But getting it out here, where you can look at it like you're the doctor in your own life is huge. It's a huge step forward. And then mitigating trauma means I may need a therapist, I may need ketamine. I may need emdr. I may need, you know, dbt. There's so many different things that we know help to re pattern the brain and the central nervous system. We know it works. It's scientifically proven. And now we have all these things and so many people are like, well, I'm okay. I'm fine. Well, how many times have you been married? How often do you drink till you black out? You know?
- [113:09]
B
Right.
- [113:09]
A
Using drugs, a little bit anorexic, you know, growing up every day. What are the things that you can point to that are obvious? They're not because you have a character flaw. They're because you're mitigating pain from trauma.
- [113:25]
B
And then the last one is expression. And that's talking about it.
- [113:28]
A
Yes.
- [113:29]
B
Having these conversations openly and honestly.
- [113:31]
A
Yes.
- [113:31]
B
When did you decide to start sharing your story? Wasn't your mom a big part of that?
- [113:35]
A
Right.
- [113:35]
B
She decided to write a book about what you had gone through.
- [113:38]
A
Yeah.
- [113:38]
B
Which is incredibly brave too, considering this was in the 90s. 90s. When did you write the book?
- [113:42]
A
Yeah, it was in. It was really the. We didn't self publish the book until 2003, but she started writing it in the 90s. She started writing it in the 90s. And actually the first time that she talked to me about it, I was still in, in school, I was still at university and I had to write an English paper. And it was supposed to be on the period of time in your life. It had to be at least 20 pages long. Anyway, it was a big project and I called my mom and I said, I'm going to write about, you know, what happened, the kidnapping, but I want to know some of the things that were going on at home. Could you put together a timeline and just help me so that I can kind of do this story on both, you know, kind of from both points of view.
- [114:21]
B
And that's how the idea of the
- [114:23]
A
book came about, and that's how the idea of. And it wasn't even the idea of a book. It was the idea of my mom saying we should write a family history. And that's really what it was intended to be. It was 800 pages long. I mean, the book's only, what, 250 pages, 300 pages? I don't know how, how big the Jan Broberg story is actually.
- [114:42]
B
It talked about everything. Right. You exposed everything that had happened to you, to your mom, to your dad,
- [114:47]
A
the whole, all of it. And that's when we all found out the truth.
- [114:51]
B
When you come and talk in these podcasts, and you tell your story and you go out and these conferences and tell your story. Does it. I know that it has an enormous impact on people listening, and particularly victims of abuse themselves. I mean, listening to you tell their story, I think really, probably really resonates and it helps them deal with their own trauma. What does it do to you?
- [115:16]
A
You know, it's interesting because, I mean, I still. There are certain things that are so tender that I still. Obviously, you know, there's emotion there that, you know, I still have feelings, but so much of what I. Because I've told the story many times, I really just feel more and more free. For one thing, that's something that certainly freedom is there. A lot more of the things that I felt like got robbed are back. Confidence, fearlessness, the things that I was when I was free on the bike and doing the plays and having all that as a young girl. I feel like her, only with some wisdom and some experience. But I have those good, those, Those good feelings about myself. I love myself. I see all of those things now that I didn't for a long, long time. It was hard to get those things back and to have good, healthy relationships and to have a good relationship with myself. And so I feel. I feel very protective of that little girl, you know, who was just so taken advantage of and innocent. But I also know that she is strong. My dad was the first one that said when he saw the first documentary. The first time we saw it was with all of his grandchildren and all of us in this dark theater at a film festival. And I knew that this part was in there. It was my dad's own words, but I knew that it hadn't been taken out. And I had called him and said, dad, this part is in there. Why did you tell the filmmakers so much detail about this part of your story? And he's like, well, I. I'm. I'm okay. He goes, I. I know. I. I feel like I took care of the, you know, the mistakes that I made. I'm good with God. I. I'm. I've done the best I could. I. I was dumb. I didn't know what grooming was. I didn't know what master manipulators looked like. I didn't know that he. He was my best friend. I didn't know. And I feel, okay, I. That if I tell the story and I'm honest and I tell everything he said, then maybe somebody else is being groomed by their best friend and he can impact or save them. It'll help him yeah.
- [117:33]
B
That's what's so incredible about your story is again, it just. There's generally so much shame and secrecy surrounding these sexual abuse stories. And your family, every single one of you guys seem to reach a point where you, you realize that by sharing your story and not. Not being afraid to do so that you would be able to help other people. Because again, the secrecy and the shame really just perpetuates the crime.
- [117:56]
A
It does. Because anything that you hold in secret that, that the secret part of it is exactly what the predator wants. And so it keeps you as the victim and they win as soon as you are no longer in secret and you're out in the light and you're sharing whether it's. You don't have to do it publicly like I did. But then the predator is going to
- [118:23]
B
be able to be stopped.
- [118:23]
A
Perhaps, hopefully will be stopped.
- [118:26]
B
There's a bigger chance that he will.
- [118:28]
A
And really that was the reason that we told the story in the first place. And we waited for everybody to be ready and then they were. And we did the book in 2003 and then it took, I mean it wasn't until 2019 that the documentary came out. We were working on it from 2014 to them, but 2003-14 to 19, that's another 15, 16 years.
- [118:51]
B
Yeah.
- [118:52]
A
Before.
- [118:52]
B
Very happy the story is out now because it's a very important one. And though although it includes aliens and some crazy parts of your story, this is unfortunately a story that repeats itself again and again all across this country.
- [119:06]
A
Yeah. Every day it does. And we're not doing enough to literally empower survivors by funding healing programs. I mean my stuff is all free. Come join our online community, be a part of our time program which is literally a 12 step program for. For trauma survivors. Any. Doesn't even have to be sexual assault trauma in childhood has long lasting effects. And you're not having the relationships, the money, the, the many kinds of good feelings about yourself and joy because it gets robbed and you have to mitigate it by actually doing something to. And it's, you know, come be a part of our group. An hour a week for yourself. You know, something, do something.
- [119:50]
B
Yeah, it's such a good point. Because they don't just. When predators do this to you, to their victims, they're not just stealing your. Your present, they're stealing your future as well.
- [119:59]
A
Right, Exactly.
- [120:00]
B
Traumatizing you for the rest of your life.
- [120:02]
A
Absolutely.
- [120:02]
B
What's the name of your group and how can people find you?
- [120:05]
A
So Jambro Foundation. Yeah. Know the just janbrobergfoundation.org okay. Yeah. Because it's a 501C3. You know, if you donate, all of it is going to go to our programs and survivors and.
- [120:17]
B
Yeah, it's incredible work. I'm. Yeah, you have an incredible story. And the work that you're doing in prevention right now and in helping people get the therapy they need is really amazing.
- [120:28]
A
Thank you.
- [120:29]
B
And before I let you go, I just have one more question because I think our listeners and viewers will have this question as well. Robert Birchtold committed suicide right when he found out he was actually going to get in trouble.
- [120:40]
A
Right.
- [120:41]
B
That he was gonna spend time in prison.
- [120:42]
A
Right.
- [120:43]
B
He committed suicide.
- [120:44]
A
So he showed up at a conference that my mother and I were speaking at. I was the keynote. We were doing a Q and A. It was for mothers and daughters, about a thousand women in the conference. And he saw my picture on a poster. He was only living an hour from where we were giving this conference.
- [121:03]
B
And that's why he came to see you.
- [121:05]
A
Yeah. And he showed up and he had a van and he had a stack of flyers that he was trying to hand out, and he also had a gun and he had made threats to that university, like, you can't have this woman speak. You know, she's. She's an actress. She's looking for her 15 minutes of fame. It's all a lie. I'm going to sue you. Wasn't the first time I'd been threatened by him. I mean, he'd shown up in my life all along the way. We didn't talk about any of that, and that's okay. But he was there. He knew where I was, he knew how to find me. And all through my life. And so by the time that this conference was coming, we had our book self published and it was the first time that we were going to have the book available. You know, we were going to sign them and, and do the whole thing, me and my mom. And he knew that. And anyway, he shows up the conference, the university police were there. Some of the city police were there around the thing because he'd made all these threats, but they decided to have me anyway. And then also the baca, the Bikers Against Child Abuse, they were there, motorcycles,
- [122:13]
B
sort of acting as your security, right?
- [122:14]
A
Yeah, they were. They showed up at my house and they escorted me clear to the university, to the conference. And then they also stood around the university and two of them were. One of them, he ran. He basically ran over. He had to have surgery. One of the Bikers. He really hurt him. Yeah, but the other. The other one that he brandished his firearm at, knew exactly what the firearm was, was able to describe it to the police and the whole thing. And that's how they found the gun in a garbage can, I think, at McDonald's or something. They found where he had ditched the gun, and they. They got to him and he was arrested. Of course, he was out. And it didn't happen until about a year later that it also got, you know, was in a little trial. And when he left the courtroom, he had been charged with two felonies and three misdemeanors. Nothing to do with raping little girls, but all these other things because he was a registered sex offender and he had a firearm, which. That was illegal. And there were several things. And he left the courtroom and was going to be sentenced a month later, but he was found guilty on all the charges. And he left the courtroom and was escorted to his truck and escorted by a police car to the border of Nevada where he was living. And then they were picking him up to escort him to his home, and then he'd be sentenced a month later. And at the border where the trade off was supposed to happen, he took his truck and went, you know, way out into a campground, and he just took a bottle of pills and a. And drank a whole liter of Kahlua or something like that.
- [124:01]
B
And he died.
- [124:01]
A
And he died and he had written these very short little suicide notes because the district attorney, who had represented, you know, not my side, but the. The state side of. Or the. Whatever it is, the state county side of the whole thing, bringing the charges against him. He called me and he said, before this comes on the news, I want you to know what happened. And we found suicide notes to his kids. They were really short. He said, I think that he thought he would do this and that he would be rescued. And then he could say how sad, you know, that the world is against me and has made up this terrible story. He said, but he wasn't rescued in time. He died. And he told me, you know, kind of the situation, and, you know, I got a hold of, you know, his funeral program from somebody that knew our story, that had one of our books where he lived and had told other people in the community. It was a very small community. Do you know that this guy and both of his stepdaughters had run away. He had married another woman. They both run away from home years earlier. And the older daughter was at that conference, and she's the One that identified. That's the woman who gave me life. She wouldn't call her her mother. That's her. She came, his new wife came to that conference and she said, that's her with the sunglasses. And she identified her. So they knew that he was probably close by. And that was kind of the last big story of him trying to interrupt my life. Yeah. And the first little book that mom and I self published, which was called Stolen Innocence, now we have the Jan Berberg story that has all the extra details and, and all of that in it. So, yeah, I look back and I think, wow, that is some kind of twisted, twisted assassination. Yeah, it's crazy.
- [126:05]
B
Well, Jan, thank you so much for coming on the Hidden Third. And it was so good to talk to you. I really appreciate your honesty in telling your story always.
- [126:12]
A
Thank you so much. It was really an honor to be here and a pleasure to get that message out one more time. So thank you for having me.
- [126:20]
B
Thank you for what you do.
- [126:22]
A
Thank you. Thank you. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying. No judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try. @mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full terms@mintmobile.com.