Abducted in Plain Sight
By Lishka Klein
Warning: this movie will simultaneously boil your blood and break your heart.
Don’t watch this without having a box of tissues and a punching bag on hand.
Skip the popcorn as it’s a choking hazard. You’ll thank me later for that.
I’m not going to focus so much on the movie as you just need to watch it
yourself and have your own head explode. I honestly have no words for this
atrocity. Rather I’m going to focus on how religion played a huge part in this
epic failure of humanity.
Mormonland USA
This horror show took place in an unexciting town in southeastern Idaho called
Pocatello. Despite being home to a state university, the population is about 90%
Mormon. Mormonism is inescapable. It infiltrates schools, the courthouse, local
businesses, and at just about every public function there is some reference to
Mormon teachings, or at least religious invocations using Mormon verbiage. At
least you can still buy beer on Sundays, unlike other towns in the area.
Despite the obvious theocratic tendencies, there are nice people who live in
Pocatello, just as there are at least some nice people everywhere so don’t get
too giddy. The Broberg family was known and respected in the community as kind
and honest business people. In other words, they were the perfect target for a
psychotic child rapist.
Robert Berchtold and his family went to the same ward¹ as the Brobergs and they
became friends. Long story short, Berchtold (unfortunately a victim of sexual
abuse as a child himself) found them to be an easy target, manipulating the
parents into allowing inappropriate long-term contact with daughter Jan and even
managed to entice both parents into sexual relationships. Yes. BOTH parents. And
he kidnapped Jan. TWICE.
During the first abduction, Berchtold brainwashed Jan into believing that she
had to have his baby to save the planet before she turned 16, quoting some
crackhead alien conspiracy. During the second abduction, he manipulated her into
protecting him, what he was doing and where he was hiding. And abused her the
entire time.
You have to watch the movie to see the nightmare this family lived, and how
brave they are for banding together and telling their story years later and
admitting their mistakes to the world. That takes a lot of courage, especially
when the threats of punishment from the church were so real to them, never mind
the onslaught of criticism from a planet-sized peanut gallery. You may want to
drop your phone or open a tab for Netflix in your browser right now and watch
before finishing this article. Please do. Grab tissues and a punching bag and…
GO!
Welcome back. Hope you have a push broom to clean up the brain bits splattered
all over your house.
Now I’m sure the intent of this documentary was not to expose the Mormon cult
for its miserable teachings and failures, but that’s what we here at the Atheist
Republic do: we air the dirty laundry that religions likes to keep hidden and
claim it doesn’t have in the first place. Just a public service we offer. Happy
to oblige.
Let’s break down the Mormon influences in the situation that facilitated the
depravity of this monster:
1. In typical cult/corporation fashion, sex offenders are never reported.
[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mormon-church-cover-up-culture-sexual-predator_n_5b363f35e4b08c3a8f69aff1]
2. The Mormon Corporation feels it’s above the law.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vigg6yl_bY]
3. Cults always teach blind support of cult leaders and even fellow cultists
without question. Mind control in the extreme.
4. Cultists, regardless of rank, feel they are something special, somehow
untouchable and privileged. That’s one of the classic traits of
narcissistic personality disorder, and it’s taught to everyone in this
cult. That’s pretty toxic.
5. Not allowing questions keeps people naive to the world around them, and
makes them easy prey for predators.
6. Religions prime the brain to believe fantastical bullshit —
[https://www.iflscience.com/brain/religious-children-struggle-separate-fact-fiction/]
despite the fact people who know better say: Snakes don’t talk, feeding
children to bears is not ok, sending friends off on “missions” and marrying
their wives behind their backs is a dirty trick, etc.
7. The concept of “missionaries.” The grand plans they promote for the good of
the world must be spread to the entire world. No exceptions, unless the
missionaries die because their “grand plans” aren’t welcome by the natives
who have their own grand plans.
8. The image of perfection is more important than being human. The facades
Mormons put on to impress and outdo each other is astounding, and couldn’t
be more mentally unhealthy. Some of these families are complete wrecks but
as long as fellow churchgoers don’t know, it doesn’t matter to them.
Financial ruin? No problem as long as we show up to church in expensive
clothes and a nice rig!
9. Naughty bits belong to the church
[https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/religion-and-family-connection-social-science-perspectives/chapter-6-four-c-s-mormon-family]:
no premarital sex, no sex for fun, and above all else don’t be gay. The
mormon church hates gays despite their weak attempts to pretend otherwise.
Gays can’t breed more Mormons anyway.
10. Raping children is totally ok though. Joseph Smith “married” underage girls
[http://exmormon.org.uk/tol_arch/atozelph/facefacts.htm], so in the minds
of fundamentalist believers, they can too. The non-fundies just wave the
underage issue away as if people who criticized the policy of child rape
were delusional.
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/here-there-and-everywhere/201701/11-warning-signs-gaslighting]
11. Mormonism is very much a theocracy, at least it would be if it hadn’t been
invented in a secular country that threatens its tax-exempt status unless
it steps into line,
[https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-mormon-church-officially-renounces-polygamy]
with changes usually involving a “new revelation” by the prophet at the
time.
12. Families are forever [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66Cw8fjgVQ]
(15:00-16:58). If one person leaves, it ruins the whole possibility for the
family to get into heaven, the highest level being reserved for married
people only. One person leaving the church threatens the entire family’s
“salvation.”
13. Apostasy nullifies marriage [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66Cw8fjgVQ]
as far as the Cult is concerned (25:00-26:05).
14. The practice of “bishops” questioning children about sexuality is another
setup for children to be exploited. They train children that pornographic
conversations with adults is totally ok. They train adults to be
pedophiles.
15. The shameless victim blaming
[https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/08/05/her-mormon-college-upheld/], as if
anyone really asks to be abused. Siding with abusers and claiming that it’s
the victims’ fault that they LET the abuser abuse them is complete
bullshit.
16. The utter rejection of secular psychological help, educational materials,
and resources outside the church (at 13:00). It’s all “of the devil!”
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66Cw8fjgVQ]
17. “Truth is anti-mormon [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66Cw8fjgVQ]”
(17:02). Cults actively DENY reality and truth. The fact that they are so
open about it is astounding. Even more astounding — the fact that people
believe it. It’s so sad.
18. “Doubt your doubts, or you’re a defective idiot
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66Cw8fjgVQ]” (19:15).
How these shortcomings of morality apply to the movie (numbers don’t necessarily
correspond to the numbers in the list above):
1. Berchtold was already known to the church/cult/corporation as a child
molester, and no one reported him. Not even average churchgoers would speak
up.
2. Church/cult/corporation policy is to not report its sex offenders, so no
help from them.
3. Berchtold certainly thought laws were for chumps.
4. Neither the Mormon or Catholic corporations respect secular law and only
answer to their imaginary friend. Cowards.
5. The Brobergs were very trusting and forgiving people, quite naive really.
They even begged the court to let Berchtold off easy, astoundingly enough.
6. The Broberg parents were so obedient to the vile cult that they didn’t even
allow themselves to follow their own good judgment.
7. They went to church. The mind control works.
8. Jan believed the pervy POS’s claims to “save the world” for a very long
time, and wanted to protect him from legal action. Classic Stockholm
Syndrome, and clearly a victim of religious brainwashing: encouraged to
believe complete nonsense.
9. The Broberg parents were terrified of the humiliation that would
undoubtedly come when Berchtold exposed their affairs with him to the
church, much to the detriment of daughter Jan.
10. See Shortcoming #6, and put extra emphasis on the gay encounter
[http://exmormon.org.uk/tol_arch/atozelph/gay.htm] Dad Broberg had with
Berchtold.
11. See Shortcoming #6 again, this time with extra emphasis on Mom Broberg and
the months-long affair she had with Berchtold, AFTER HE RAPED HER DAUGHTER.
12. Fear of being salaciously grilled about every dirty detail of the affairs
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W66Cw8fjgVQ] by, not just one bishop, but
a snarling pack of 12 perverts (28:00-29:00), only to be shamed for
stepping outside of cult-approved vanilla sex.
13. Christianity and its bastard child Mormonism both support the sexual abuse
of at least girls, and Joseph Smith himself was a child rapist
[http://www.mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm]. Berchtold was a
victim himself (or so he claimed, narcissists love to fabricate stories
like this where they are the victims in all situations, even situations
they create), and he went on to hurt children himself.
14. The courts and psychiatric facility let him off easy.
15. Berchtold’s wife bullied the Brobergs into not pressing charges. Mrs.
Berchtold was quite the flying monkey.
[https://narcissistabusesupport.com/red-flags/use-flying-monkeys/] She was
his victim too but she’s an adult and I have an impossible time feeling
sorry for her. And she’s a victim of cult mind control, terrified of not
going to heaven because she wouldn’t have a husband anymore.
16. Berchtold’s wife stayed with him even though she had to have known he was
out raping children and having affairs with men and other women. “Families
are forever”
[https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1976/10/families-are-forever?lang=eng]
and all…
17. Perverted adults have no business grilling and shaming young children about
sex. Their agenda is a far cry from a clinical and secular sex education
class taught to teenagers.
18. Victims are blamed for how they dress or act, and are always female. See
“Porn Shoulders
[https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/6m6wqd/what_exactly_are_pornshoulders/].”
Odd how male victims get to be victims
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWEfD1YDxgU], even if they are ignored for
several years, male victims are never told they are “whores” or “deserved
it because [they] were drunk.”
19. The overwhelming denialism. Hiding crimes and putting on a shiny happy face
for the world is the MO of the cult.
To expound on a few of these points:
Mom and Dad Broberg were too concerned about being exposed for their mutual
liaisons with toxic narcissist Berchtold than they were about protecting their
kids. The FBI agent pointed this out, and I’m sure by now the parents realize
that a little bit of embarrassment would have been worth it to save their
daughter.
Threatening the Broberg parents with ratting them out to the church was a pretty
big gamble for the child rapist, but narcissists do that. He risked exposing his
own church-disapproved activities but as it turned out that outrageous stunt
worked well for him. The church is so superficially squeamish when it comes to
sex in general that I would have been surprised if this filthy rat would have
had the hubris to expose his part in the extramarital affairs, especially the
homosexual encounter. The church would have frowned on that, seriously. But
then, Berchtold would have put some outrageous spin on it accusing the Brobergs
of seducing him or whatever, because narcissists ALWAYS manage to be the
victims.
Dad Broberg stated that the most horrendous thing he had ever done was cheat on
his wife. Sure he feels horrible about what happened to his daughter but to
claim that the worst mistake of his life was giving a guy a hand job? Did he
really mean it that way? If so, how could that possibly be worse than letting
his child get repeatedly raped and kidnapped?
Oh. Mormon scripture, and “prophet” Ezra Taft Benson trying to equate “sexual
sin” with MURDER. Did it not occur to him that the degenerate raping his
daughter was committing a crime that he equates — because of cult programming —
to murder? Or does he not think that rape is a “sexual sin”? Well, considering
the LDS cult has taken a page from the Catholic Rapist Guide to Escaping Secular
Justice [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FvPFYsntOk] manual, it’s no surprise
that the victims are considered the real sinners and shamed into silence and
rapists are just poor defenseless little things led astray by nasty sinner women
and girls. The Corporation isn’t very good about drawing the critical line
between consensual sex and rape, and doesn’t want to understand the motivation
of rapists to better protect their children and women.
And why in the world is rape not a crime? Do they not even see rape as a sin by
their definition of the word? Or is sexual assault only a crime when the victims
are boys?
From Benson’s speech in 1987:
[https://www.atheistrepublic.com/sites/default/files/styles/xlarge/public/unnamed%20%281%29_0.png?itok=0o8XlOxD]
If Dad Broberg’s cheating on his wife weren’t “sin equal to murder” enough, that
he cheated on his wife with a man is even more of a no-no-no-no-NO. These mental
gymnastics excusing away their bigotry by trying to draw lines between
attraction and behavior are over the top
[https://www.lds.org/topics/same-sex-attraction?lang=eng]. But again, how is
this worse than letting a predator “commit [repeated] sexual sin” by abusing his
own minor child? Why is there no specific and rightful demonization of rape? Oh
yeah, the supposedly godly books say it’s ok to rape children…
Jan was at an age where she was likely already being harangued about sex by her
bishop
[https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/religion-and-family-connection-social-science-perspectives/chapter-6-four-c-s-mormon-family].
This can be quite the uncomfortable topic for most people, even in secular
societies. Considering we have age of consent laws, it means that sexual
behavior is not an activity for children, nor should it be up for discussion in
a pornographic manner.
[https://www.atheistrepublic.com/sites/default/files/styles/xlarge/public/pasted%20image%200%20%282%29.png?itok=mG8v0cCR]
Fathers bully their daughters about dressing “modestly” and all over town you’ll
see dress shops advertising “modest dresses” for prom. Wear those shoulder
hijabs with pride, ladies! Especially horrendous is that girls and women get
blamed for drinking alcohol but rapists do not. BYU has a real problem with
this. The entirety of Mormonland is all about slut-shaming, even when the girls
aren’t sluts. Boys are never shamed for sex or rape, just for masturbation
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueuz0-Rnd5c] and watching porn. This cult even
had the unmitigated gall to try to equate boys struggling not to masturbate or
watch porn to men fighting for their lives in an actual war zone. This is
absolute batshittery.
No wonder Mormons have such a warped view of sex.
Child “marriage” damages children physically and mentally. Religiots of many
brands like to claim that puberty somehow means adulthood, but modern consensus
is that humans aren’t fully developed physically until at least reaching maximum
height (even later for some) and mentally until about age 25. CHILDREN ARE NOT
SPOUSES OR BABY FACTORIES. CHILDREN CANNOT CONSENT
[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164708]. But “holy
books” such as the Talmud, the Bible, the Quran, and the Book of Mormon all
support the sexual abuse of children and forcing young girls to marry older men.
Women and girls are property according to the books, not human beings. Civilized
society does not allow women and girls to be traded for two cows and a goat. Or
even money. We even have a term for this “livestock for livestock that can cook”
exchange: HUMAN TRAFFICKING.
Guess we shouldn’t talk about the child exchanges that take place between
fundamentalist Mormon cult colonies
[http://www.jonkrakauer.com/books/under-the-banner-of-heaven-tr]. And I’m pretty
sure Brigham Young University, named after the second so-called prophet in the
[https://www.hcn.org/issues/44.10/flds-continues-abusive-polygamist-practices-in-utah-and-arizona]cult,
doesn’t want us to know how they further victimize already devastated victims of
sexual assault. How about that, a major university named after Brigham Young, a
notorious child rapist and theocratic psycho. Utah must be oh-so proud…
Rape is a horrendous crime even when adults are victims. Children especially
cannot handle it. I once asked a counselor how child victims of sexual abuse
could possibly grow up to be rapists themselves, since they of all people should
know better, and he said something to the effect of “they think they turned out
just fine and assume their victims will too.” I’m still gobsmacked by this
excuse. Getting abused as a child then going on to abuse children is somehow
“just fine”???
The court system in Mormonland protects the LDS Corporation and rapists. They
want to protect their image, which they arrogantly think is pristine, and will
throw any and all victims under the bus. If for no other reason, they try
desperately to protect their own delusions. It’s quite a racket really, with
literally millions of dollars on the line in addition to their colossal yet
fragile egos. Money and appearances. Even in minor cases, inappropriate
religious bonds are formed between judges and litigants, and the other litigants
get railroaded. It’s so bad that the people getting thrown under the bus aren’t
even protected by their own lawyers. It’s really appalling.
To the Mormon corporation: your twisted teachings lead to the exploitation of
and crimes against women and children; crimes against HUMANITY. So far the vast
majority of perps are men, your “exalted” men. Your “bishops”
[https://kutv.com/news/local/man-arrested-in-human-trafficking-sting-removed-from-position-as-lds-bishop?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=internal]
and “heads of families.” So this is your gold standard? Sex offenders? Is that
the best you can do, offering rapists as “moral and spiritual leaders”? I guess
that explains why Utah has the highest rate of child sexual abuse in the
country. Yes Mormon “church,” I’m calling YOU out. Send out your flying monkeys
and rabid apologists. I’m ready.
[https://kutv.com/news/local/utah-has-high-rates-of-child-abuse-sex-abuse-of-children]
And you know what? The world is listening, even as far away as New Zealand
[https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-radio/110507808/shocking-netflix-documentary-shows-how-sexual-predator-tormented-idaho-girl-family-for-years].
The cat is out of the bag. You can’t hide your crimes anymore. It’s only a
matter of time before tax evasion charges
[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/should-the-mormon-church_b_13656738]kick in as
well… You may think you’re a shining beacon of morality, but you aren’t. You’re
an colossal embarrassment to the human race as a whole.
I still feel horrible for the Broberg family. As if being exploited and set up
for failure by a cult weren’t bad enough, to be targeted for such heinous crimes
and to have their religion, something they truly believed was good, used to
manipulate them into even more traumatic situations is unthinkable. Yes Mom and
Dad Broberg are responsible for themselves and their actions, and inactions; but
I’m pretty sure that no one is more painfully aware of their own mistakes than
they are. I have a hard time condemning them further, though I have no problem
eviscerating the cult and the psychotic teachings that helped facilitate this
tragedy. I would like to commend the Brobergs for bravely exposing this
abomination. I shall also place the ultimate blame on the cult leaders and
congregation members who refused to turn Berchtold into the police which would
have prevented this catastrophe in the first place.
