Robert Berchtold died by suicide on November 11, 2005, at age 69, ingesting a mixture of heart medication, Kahlua, and milk at his home in Logandale, Nevada. His death came days before he was scheduled to be sentenced in Utah for assault, criminal trespassing, and disorderly conduct arising from a 2004 confrontation at one of Jan Broberg’s public speaking events.
The Sentencing He Was Avoiding
On March 6, 2004, Berchtold showed up at a women’s conference in St. George, Utah, hosted by Jan Broberg and her mother Mary Ann, who were touring to promote their memoir Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story. Anticipating that he might appear, Jan had asked Bikers Against Child Abuse for protection, and eleven members were present.
After the conference, an altercation broke out in the parking area. A BACA member said Berchtold struck him with his minivan; Berchtold said the man had jumped onto the vehicle as he tried to drive away. He was booked into the Purgatory Correctional Facility on charges of simple assault, criminal trespassing, and disorderly conduct, and released on bail. Jan Broberg reported rumors he may have been armed, and one source indicates he was found guilty of firearm possession and aggravated assault, though local reporting at the time listed only the three lesser charges.
Later in 2004, Jan obtained a lifetime restraining order against him. At the hearing, the first time they had been face to face in nearly thirty years, she told him: “My goal, Mr. Berchtold, is to educate the public about predators like you.”
He was convicted on the assault, trespassing, and disorderly conduct charges. In November 2005, he was awaiting sentencing.
“One Day in Prison Is Going to Kill Me”
According to his brother Joe, Berchtold had said, “If it’s one day in prison, it’s going to kill me.” The remark reflected a personal history in which he had repeatedly avoided real incarceration despite serious crimes.
In October 1974, Berchtold kidnapped 12-year-old Jan Broberg and took her to Mexico, where she was missing for roughly five weeks before the FBI recovered her. He had already coerced Bob and Mary Ann Broberg, with whom he had initiated separate sexual relationships, into signing affidavits saying they had given him permission to take Jan. The affidavits gutted the case. He was sentenced to five years of probation and five years in prison with all but 45 days of the prison term suspended, and ultimately served about ten days.
In August 1976, he abducted the same girl a second time, then 14, from her family’s home in Idaho and took her to California, where he enrolled her in a Catholic school while posing as her father and claiming to be a CIA agent. She was missing for about four months. Berchtold successfully argued a “mental defect” defense and was acquitted of first-degree kidnapping. He was sent to a mental health facility for roughly five to six months and served 19 days in jail on the case.
In 1986, in an unrelated Idaho case, Berchtold pleaded guilty to two counts of child rape and served one year in jail. Records indicate he had “tried to victimize at least a half-dozen other young girls” during that era, with an estimated seven victims in total.
By 2005, the arithmetic had changed. He had been convicted at trial rather than through negotiated pleas, the Brobergs were no longer under his control, and the sentencing judge was not bound by the leniency of decades past. His brother’s account suggests Berchtold believed even a nominal jail term would break him.
How and Where He Died
Berchtold was living in Logandale, Nevada, with his wife Deanna at the time of his death. On November 11, 2005, before sentencing could take place, he took his life by drinking a mixture of heart medication combined with Kahlua and milk. He was 69.
His obituary ran in the Las Vegas Review-Journal on November 14, 2005, identifying him as a Logandale resident, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War, and a former truck driver. Funeral services were held on November 15 at the Logandale LDS 2nd Ward Chapel and on November 17 at Gilles Funeral Chapel in Brigham City, Utah.
Who Survived Him
Berchtold was survived by his wife Deanna; his mother, Lucille; and his five children: sons Jerry, James, Joseph, and Jeff, and a daughter, Jill Scott. He was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and, despite the 1986 rape conviction, had at some point been listed as an LDS temple worker. A Mormon stake high council had disciplined him as early as January 1974, before the first Broberg kidnapping, over his conduct with another young girl. He was not excommunicated at that time.
Jan Broberg has continued the advocacy work Berchtold tried to disrupt. She participated in the 2019 Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight and the 2022 Peacock dramatization A Friend of the Family, both of which recount the kidnappings and the failures around them. In her public talks she returns to a single statistic: in roughly 97 percent of child abuse cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim.