Broberg was kidnapped when she was twelve, and again when she was fourteen, both times by Robert Berchtold, a friend of the family, who had sexual encounters with both of her parents. During the first kidnapping, he
groomed her by convincing her that they had been abducted by
aliens, and that she had to have sex with him to conceive a child. When the
FBI found Broberg, she did not disclose the
sexual abuse to anyone, fearing that the aliens would harm her family. Berchtold continued to sexually abuse Broberg between 1972 and 1976, and in 1986 he was convicted for
rape of a child against another child. On October 30, 2003, she and her mother Mary Ann published a book titled
Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story which completely omitted her father's sexual involvement with the perpetrator. Broberg's story was the feature of the true crime documentary
Abducted in Plain Sight. Filmed and produced over a three-year period, it was released in January 2019. Robert Berchtold committed suicide in 2005 following news that another prosecution for his crimes was imminent. She has a son from a previous marriage. ==Recognition==