Netflix’s latest true crime documentary, Abducted in Plain Sight, has continued the streaming platform’s success with the genre.
The film, directed and produced by Skye Borgman, details the story of Jan Broberg who, as a child, was sexually abused and kidnapped by a family friend named Robert Berchtold in the 1970s, right in front of her parents’s eyes.
In 1974, Berchtold told the family he was taking Jan horseback riding but, in fact, held the 12-year-old hostage in his motor home, driving down to Mexico. The Broberg family didn’t call the cops for several days out of fears they would upset Berchtold’s wife.
Consisting almost entirely of talking-head interviews with Broberg, alongside the four other members of the Broberg family, Berchtold’s brother, and an FBI agent assigned to the case, the documentary has picked up attention for the shocking, bizarre details of the case.
Kirsty Puchko of Pajiba called it “one of the most harrowing true-crime documentaries I’ve ever seen”, as well as “a remarkable and unforgettable survivor story”. Den of Geek’s Rosie Fletcher, meanwhile, added that it was “truly bizarre and shocking”.
Production on the documentary took three years, with the filmmakers obtaining court transcripts and original reports in order to put together as comprehensive an account as possible.
