Fans of true crime it’s time to buckle in as Peacock confirmed it gave the green light to a limited series A Friend of the Family a show with an eerie true story behind it.
It was confirmed back in February, this year, Peacock has placed a straight-to-series order for the true crime limited series to go ahead based on the kidnapping case of Jan Jan Broberg.
A Friend of the Family Peacock Limited series
According to Deadline, A Friend of the Family, the Peacock limited series, is being made by Nick Antosca and will star Anna Paquin, Jake Lacy, Colin Hanks, Joe Chrest and Lio Tipton.
Chrest is the most recent addition to the cast and is most likely known as Ted Wheeler in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things.
The 56-year-old will play Bishop Matthew Paulsen, a local bishop in Pocatello, ID and an important authority figure in the Brobergs family’s life who plays a powerful role in the community.
His character bio reads: ‘He believes in protecting members of his congregation and will make choices that he believes are righteous but later regrets.’
Paquin will play Mary Ann Broberg – the mother of the kidnapped Jan and her two sisters – and Hanks will play her husband Bob. The antagonist in the story Robert “B” Berchtold, Jan’s kidnapper, will be played by Lacy.
‘Nick Antosca has created a compelling series in A Friend of the Family that explores one family’s unimaginable experience with great insight and sensitivity,’ said Lisa Katz, president of scripted content, NBCUniversal Television and Streaming
A Friend of the Family true story
If these names sound familiar it’s because they’re all the real names of real people this terrifying ordeal happened to. Jan Broberg really was kidnapped by her family friend Robert “B” Berchtold, on several different occasions.
Berchtold was a family man, of the Mormon faith, a family friend and neighbour of the Broberg family who became obsessed with Jan. In the 1970s he abducted the teenager and even managed to get her parents to drop the incredibly serious charges against him.
Even after the first kidnapping, Jan’s parents would let “B” spend a disturbing amount of time alone with their daughter which led to a huge twist in the story – a second kidnapping.
If this all sounds familiar still it’s likely because the story was made into a Netflix true crime documentary, Abducted in Plain Sight, during which Jan revealed the ‘alien-abduction grooming technique’ he used on her and the effects the kidnapping had on her and impacted her life into adulthood.