Is Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix true story of what really happened?

As tough as it is to believe, Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix is a true story. But did the documentary give us all the details?

Abducted in Plain Sight is the strangest, most bizarre crime documentary on Netflix. Scratch that, it’s the most insane documentary, movie, show, anything EVER. Viewers are still having difficulty wrapping my mind around it and digesting all the facts. We also have so many questions! The biggest one is, how?! How did these parents allow any of it to happen? Before we get too carried away, though, let’s start from the beginning.

Please note: Spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix.

The trailer for Abducted in Plain Sight is captivating. The viewer wonders how the parents, Mary Ann and Bob Broberg, were fooled into allowing their young daughter, Jan Broberg, to hang out, go on vacation, and sleep with family friend, Robert “B” Berchtold, a grown man.

Surely, the parents were blindsided, right? There’s no way this “just happened” with them standing idly by. Unfortunately, and just plain shockingly, that’s exactly what happened.

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Abducted in Plain Sight premiered in May 2017, but we must’ve missed it because it wasn’t until this past week that the documentary got any attention. It has blown up on social media thanks to Netflix.

The streaming service recently picked up the doc and it’s all anyone can talk about. If you’ve been on social media for even a minute, you already know the world is in shock and disbelief over the documentary.

Abducted in Plain Sight makes watching The Ted Bundy Tapes seem like a walk in the park. Why? Aliens, relief between friends, and crazy betrayal. Assuming you’ve seen the movie, though, we’re skipping the story and diving into why and how any of it happened…

This documentary is so disturbing and infuriating, I’m running out of synonyms to describe it. There has to be more to the story, right? The Broberg’s can’t be the most naive, innocent people on the planet.

Watching Abducted in Plain Sight gave me Making a Murderer vibes, in the sense that Mary Ann and Bob Broberg are simply ignorant and foolish, much like the victims in Making a Murderer. But, towards the end of the film (and in present time), Jan and Mary Ann both appear very sharp. And okay, I’ll be fair. Jan was a child and could’ve easily been brainwashed. But Mary Ann even wrote a book about the entire ordeal and when Jan had to face B in court, she seems strong and bright. They certainly don’t appear to be the type that would fall for B’s nonsense.

According to filmmaker Skye Borgman in an interview with Variety, the answer to why the Broberg’s allowed things to go so far (that’s an understatement), is denial.

"“I think it’s just absolute denial. I really do. The shame they [the Broberg’s] feel [about] the affairs they had threw them into such denial. Between the time Jan was 16 and 21 — when they weren’t really talking about this stuff at all, when they hadn’t realized any of the sexual abuse — I think they literally were able to convince themselves that if Jan’s not telling us about this, it didn’t happen.When Jan started becoming sexually active, started liking boys, started figuring all of this stuff out, that’s when the ramifications of what had happened with Berchtold really started to surface and she needed to tell her parents about this secret that she had been holding in. It is hard to understand, but I think it really was that they could not believe it."

Next. What to watch on Netflix this weekend Feb. 8. dark

Mmhmm, sure. Hard to understand indeed!

What are your thoughts? Do you think Abducted in Plain Sight is sharing the whole story or could there be more?

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Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix: Is there more to the story?

By Sandy C. | Feb 8, 2019

As tough as it is to believe, Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix is a true story. But did the documentary give us all the details?