The grooming of the Broberg family – complete with alien tapes and a girl’s double kidnapping – has been told before. But this new Netflix drama digs into how it happened, then happened again
Render it how you will – and so far the Broberg family’s history has been a memoir, a documentary and a podcast – their story remains one of the most jawdroppingly incredible in the history of true-crime tales. Now there is a dramatisation of it – A Friend of the Family (Netflix) written by Nick Antosca and co-produced with two members of the clan: mother Mary Ann and daughter Jan. The latter appears pre-credits to introduce the endeavour, assuring us all of her blessing. It has an odd effect, possibly counter to the one intended, by implicitly acknowledging the voyeurism inherent in watching (another version of) her extraordinary, baffling story and giving us permission to indulge it. Nevertheless, it may well be that she starts a new trend and it will come to be de rigueur for any fictionalised account of a true story to get someone “real” to gloss it and those that don’t will come to look untrustworthy – even though logic would dictate otherwise.
A Friend of the Family unpacks how the entire Broberg family was groomed by neighbour, member of their church and sexual predator Bob Berchtold when he became obsessed with their young daughter Jan (played by Hendrix Yancey in her preteen years, McKenna Grace later). He kidnapped her – twice. The first time was in 1974. Berchtold held her for a month and convinced her through an elaborate setup that they had been abducted by aliens. “They” (a tape recording by Berchtold, played through speakers while a drugged Jan was tied to a bed in his mobile home) told her she was half-alien and had to procreate with a male companion of her choice to save the race and her family. It was a story she would believe for years. When they returned, the Brobergs maintained contact with Bob (the father feared a sex act between him and Berchtold would come to light, the mother had an affair with him) and two years later Berchtold kidnapped Jan again.
