RedHanded - Confessions LIVE in NYC | #413

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Recorded LIVE in New York’s Town Hall in front of a sold-out crowd, RedHanded’s Confessions Tour show takes in everything from Mormon sex scandals to intergalactic baby-making missions to save the planet. Plus: more than we ever wanted to know about our lovely audience…For the full experience, watch the slideshow on our YouTube channel:Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Accidents happen daily, but there's nothing routine about the damage they cause. The right personal injury lawyer understands the physical and emotional challenges you face following an injury. While we can't take away your pain, learners experience trial lawyers can help you navigate the complex legal issues on your recovery journey. When you suffer an accident, get the care. and compensation you deserve with a learner's lawyer. Visit learnerspersonalinjury.ca today.

That's learnerspersonaljury.ca. What if I told you that the crime of the century is the one being waged on our planet? Introducing Lawless Planet, Wondry's new podcast exploring the dark side of the climate crisis. Uncover shocking tales of crime and corruption threatening our world's future. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app

or wherever you get your podcasts. Travis fell in love with the perfect woman. Beautiful, understanding, available 24-7. There was just one catch. She wasn't human. Binge all episodes of Flesh and Code early and ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. I don't have to turn your phone. Just don't be a dick.

Now please welcome to the stage. Hannah McGuire and Sir Rudy Ballard. New York! Hi! Hi! Hi, guys. Hi! Hello, hello.

Thank you so much for being here. This is... We can't hear anything. This is the last night of our first North American. First North American tour, so this is probably the biggest night of our lives. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. For being here.

We're absolutely devastated that it's over, but we're still going to have a great time. We're going to have a best time. We are so excited to be finishing the tour in New York. We love this city. Did you enjoy our skydiving video? It was categorically the worst day of my life, and I have a dead parent. dead parent. And what you can't see in the footage is that my jumping guy, Tim, Chris, whatever,

had the worst breath. And like, because it's so loud in the plane, when he was talking to me, it was like, right, just right here. So that not only am I traumatized because of jumping out of a plane, but that is the smell I have with the memory. All around trauma day, all around big trauma day. Trauma, low self-esteem, all around good fun. Good fun.

Everybody sufficiently warmed up? Good. Well, now to do the bit that we were supposed to do before, but I forgot. I was like, she's forgotten, but I'm just going to go with it. All right, who listens to the show every week? Make some noise. Who is a beloved patron? Who is a beloved patron? been dragged here by a significant other and has absolutely no idea what's going on.

That's either the loudest or the most we've ever had. Okay. Don't panic. We have seen your kind before and most of them survived. So you'll probably be fine. Okay, the next one, I'm loving the energy in the room, New York. It is our finale. We want big energy. We're here for it. Whatever the day of the week it is, we know you are too. But the next one, We need to be a little bit silent because they are notoriously a very shy demographic. Are there any single straight men here? There's like almost a thousand of you in here. Okay, fine.

Don't message us later be like I was in there. It's two, you've missed your chance now. Oh, right. No, no. We're from London, we don't do that. Where am I lesbians? As always, much more reliable than men. Okay.

Oh, I know. She knows. She knows. She knows. She knows. Okay. I might later if you're lucky. Okay, okay, lesbians.

Calm down. Calm down. She's here all night. You can have her later. Okay, but now we need to get on with some things, some serious business. Because as we've been traveling from city to city on this US tour, of which, again, need I remind you, New York,

you are the grand finale. Thank you. we have realized one very significant thing that you guys know quite a lot about me and Hannah including some of the worst things we've ever done because for some reason we told you all but we also realized that we don't know nearly enough about all of you so tonight we are going to rectify that situation

so if you are a patron then you will already know what empty-handed refers to in the name of this tour. Exactly. You know that the end of some under the duvet episodes over on Patreon, we like to listen to some listener confessions. Yes, yes, we do. And we thought, wouldn't it be fun to do that?

But like, in real life? And then we decided, yes, it would. It would be very fun to do that, especially given that the case that we have chosen for this tour contains a lot of people making a lot of incredibly bad-shick confessions. So, New York, I hope you're ready. Because tonight, we do audience participation. All right!

I am pleasantly surprised by that response. I thought I was going to have to tell you, well, Boston loved her. But I'm impressed. All right. I can't hear what you guys are saying. But I love it. But yes, we're going to do audience participants.

Now, don't worry, we're not going to like come out there into the darkness and touch anybody, even though I can see a frightening number of you with these stage lights. No, we are going to use the power of technology. So, Slido is the name of the game today. What we would love you to do, please, New York, is insert into Slido, your very best slash very worst, confessions. But you've got to keep them short, sweet and spicy. If you write a paragraph in there, we're just not going to read it. because it will be too overwhelming. If you do accidentally use your real name,

which has definitely happened, we will read it out. And I'm sorry about that, because we don't know. Now, I'll give you an example of one that we particularly enjoyed from Dallas, I believe. Somebody wrote in and said, my friend and I bought a bag of weed from our dealer. And then we found out that the weed was laced with crack. But we didn't have any money to buy any more weed,

so that week we smoked crack. Excellent stuff. You can also ask us any questions that you might have. The best one we've ever had, and no American or Canadian has ever topped it, and if you do you will go down in podcast history. We had a Would You Rather at a London show, which was, would you rather watch your dad have sex, or have your dad watch you have sex? to which I said, well, my dad's dead.

So Siru said... So he's kind of always watching. So it's totally up to you guys. My mom loves that one. It's my favourite one. And I love that she was there that night. But it's good, because I knew where she was sat, so I just never looked into that corner of the room again.

But it's going to be fun, guys. Do whatever you want. Do your worst. Do your best. And then periodically throughout the show, we're going to stop, go to Slido, and read some of them out. Should we get on with things? Let's start tonight with a poem written by the man at the heart of tonight's case.

There he is. And here's his poem. I turned to her, put my arm around and pulled her close to me and said, Dolly, you brought a special lighting of my life. I love you more than you. words can tell. She looked up at me. I've been over with yes. No man could love anyone with more. Oh, it's nice, charming, romantic. All right, fine, fine, have it your way. You're right not to R because Dolly, the person at the center of that man's

poem, was of course 12 years old. And as he saw from the picture of him, he was definitely not 12 years old. Now, some of you might already know this case, but let me give you another clue. If you have watched the Netflix documentary, abducted in plain sight, or the brand new now TV hit drama, a friend of the family, then you might be sat there thinking,

shut up, Surruti, I know this case. Well, you don't know shit. There is so much more to this story that we have spent months uncovering and being traumatized. There are so many questions that need answers. So, New York, I hope you've all got a big old drink ready, because over the next couple of hours,

we are going to be talking broad daylight kidnappings, extramarital scandalous affairs galore, and an intergalactic baby having mission to save a dying planet. Good. And I'm glad no one got up and left, because at our last show, a woman wrote in on Slido when you said over the next couple of hours, my husband almost got up and left.

But we've locked the doors, so you lot are fucked. All right, the story we have for you this evening, New York City, is about two families who lived in Pocatello, Idaho, which looks like that, we've been led to believe. We haven't been, not an enormous red-handed listenership in Idaho. Surprisingly, and both of these families were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Lassaday Saints. Who are also called the. Woman.

Exactly. Any Mormons in? No. That is the opposite of what happens at every show where one person is like, yeah! Just here, no. We had to think long and hard before bringing the show to the North America's because you have quite a lot more Mormons than we do at home.

And we were worried that it would be so much. some kind of PR disaster. I reckon there are some in here because the Mormons aren't making the noises to say they're here. Yeah. We had one in Helsinki. That was a curveball. She had a bad night. Well, someone just left.

I think we had two walk out in Houston, actually. So we're just Mormon exterminated. And we thought that we, as far as the tour when, we thought we were in the clear until we got to D.C. and there was a Book of Mormon in our bedside tables. I know. We almost were out of it.

All right, so we do have a good old fashioned mormstorm for you this evening. But before we get to that, we have to welcome you to the ass covering section of the show because we were worried about bringing this show, but then we were like, fuck it. Book of Mormon's been running for like 20 years. But we needed you to understand that we really, really sincerely know that there are lots of different kinds of Mormons and not all of them are completely fucking nuts. And to illustrate how firmly we know that, we took the time to create the Mormon spectrum. So, over here we have the sister-wife situation.

And then in the middle we have the Osmans. And then over here we have the acceptable face of Mormonism, Mitt Romney. Who got some whoops in Texas, let me tell you. He got loads in... He got loads in Boston. But then somebody put in Slido, he used to be Senator of Massachusetts. Did I say it right, Massachusetts? Yeah, yeah, crunched it, well.

All right, I'm very interested to see how this next one lands, because I will be honest, it has gone down like a sack of shit literally everywhere else. Do you know who that is? Thank God! Every other city I've been like, it's Donny Osmonders, Joseph, you Philistines! We're in the city of culture, Hannah. They know who Donny Osmond is.

He's like 46 here. Fucking bangin. And when we first left it, we kicked off this tour in Dublin because you can clear US immigration there. And I had to wake... I woke up at like 5 in the morning because I couldn't sleep because I was too excited.

And I watched all of Joseph, and I paid £6.99 for the Brisbane. And we learnt all of the words, but none of the cities knew who this was, so now we're not going to sing it. So, nope, no singing for you. No. Right.

It's been too long. We've forgotten the words. It's been too long. Ah! All right. So the Mormons we have for you this evening are firmly in the Osmond camp of Mormonism, which means they think that everything Brigham Young said was true,

but they don't have, like, a uniform. So let's meet the first set of Mormons, the Brobergs. Here they are. We have Mary Ann, we have Bob, and we have their three children, Jan, Karen, and Susan. And according to the Broberg family, life in Pocatello was a picket fence paradise. No one locked their doors, nobody committed any crimes, and nobody had even the slightest of a malintention.

By the early 70s, where our story this evening begins, sky had been running the local florist for 40 years. And the Broberg girls remember their early childhood with classic true crime Misty Eyedness. But if nothing happened to them, this would be quite a short show. So luckily for you, New York, but very unluckly for the Brobergs, it's time to meet the Birchtolds. Just to warn you, we are now a jumps scare podcast. There's lots more of that.

So Robert and Gail Birchtold moved to Pocatello in June 1972. And the documentary and the drama, if you guys have seen them, you will know. They were very kind and particular to Robert Birchtold. This is the actor who plays him in the documentary. And I know you're laughing, but like standard issue, attractive man, right? Ryan Murphy. Who's Ryan Murphy? I don't know.

Is that a famous person? Oh, I don't know. So anyway. For reasons that will become very clear very soon, we are going to be less kind. My question here, why is he wearing a belt? Where are they going? I don't know. But my favourite thing, though, is still that one city, only one city we did a show and had like an LED screen?

Yeah, LED screen, LCD, whatever. LED screen. And our laser pointers didn't work only on his chest because it's so white. It was just like, it would disappear. So, yeah, get used to that because you're going to see a lot of that tonight.

So, yes, this is Robert Birchtold. Now, Mary Ann Broberg, the matriarch of the Broberg family, well, she was a chorister at her local church in Pocatello. And one Sunday, she noticed a new family in the congregation. They were, of course, the birch tolls. And she was particularly taken immediately with the husband, Robert, because he complimented Marianne on her particularly stirring rendition of onward Christian soldiers.

Which, in LDS Town, where you're hearing it all the fucking time, is high praise indeed. So I'll give her that one. So the birch tolls, they were charming, they were charismatic. And Marianne couldn't wait to run home and tell her own family the Broberg's all about them. And the Birchtolds clearly felt the same way, because they even sent the Brobergs a fruit basket. With the well-meaning, if in hindsight, slightly off-putting message of,

we sure enjoy your family. Which is how I imagine he sounds, but it's also funnier when I don't have a block nose and kind of sound like that too. So there you go. I think you sound lovely. Thank you. You're welcome. Before anyone knew it, the Brobergs and the Birchtolds were basically inseparable.

The Birchtolds had five children and the Brobergs had three that we've already met. Bob and Bob were both reasonably successful businessmen, they had a lot in common. And Gail and Mary Ann were both quiet, Mormon wives. Gunny and Knifey don't bother me. Clothmouth. It's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah.

But this is some sort of, like, we didn't stage this. This is some sort of like Mormon wife cosplay situation. And my most important question to you, Hannah, is when we have a bachelorette party. For the two of us. Yeah, when I finally become a lesbian, yeah. Which one are you going to dress up us? Definitely cloth man. Yes.

That's the correct answer. Excellent. Oh, it's still, is it me? No, it's me, don't worry. Don't back you. This is what happens when you Google Mormon wife, by the way. It's not something that we have staged ourselves. As the families got closer and closer still,

all of the Broberg started to refer to refer to Bob Birchtold as either Brotherby or just be. When we're in Houston, someone shouted. someone shouted, they were like, she's from here and she never comes back. Which I very much enjoyed. And I know it might feel a little bit gross, but for the rest of the show, we are going to continue to refer to Bob Birchtold as B for multiple reasons. Firstly, one Bob is too many bobs, and there are loads of bobs.

And also Broberg and Birchtold, we are going to mix those up. So if you do see us do that, no, you didn't. And if you're really lucky, I might do a whole section of the show in the wrong order because I've done that four times. She will do it. She will do it. So there you go. So Jan, Karen and Susan the Broberg girls loved Bea.

And they begged him to tell them all about his opinions on aliens and UFO and stuff. And they started to see him and Gail as a second set of parents. And B... said that he loved the Broberg girls just as much as his own. I know. And soon he started getting a bit too close to the Broberg kids, especially with the eldest, Jan. I know.

He'd shower Jan with attention and take absolutely loads of photos of her that he'd never show anyone else. Now, the Brobergs, they didn't like this strange older man's fixation, older man's fixation with their 12-year-old daughter. So they told him to piss off. And they went on to lead a long, happy, non-free Mormon life far, far away.

He always gets a better reception the second time we bring him out. So that's nice for him. Like most of the Osmond. So yes, just kidding. the Broberg stayed incredibly quiet and passed all of B's weird, incredibly troubling behaviour off as just being a bit quirky,

but well-intentioned. So left unchecked, obviously his behaviour escalated. For example, at the time, Jan was sharing a room with her sister. And just once, in passing, the girls had mentioned in front of B that maybe one day they'd like to have rooms of their own.

So B, a man who is not their father, who has a business of his own to run, who has five kids of his own, took it upon himself to build a wall down the middle of the girl's bedrooms. Usually I berate people for knowing who Bob the Builder is and not knowing Doddy Osmead as Joseph. But I'm so proud of you that I'm not even.

I'm going to do it. I was like, has she seen the Bob the Builder's side? Okay, fine. But I am glad you all know who he is, because otherwise this would be the worst slide in existence for us to have made. So, yes, maybe you're thinking, well, maybe he's just being neighborly. It's just a nice thing to do to build that wall down the middle of the girl's room. Well, obviously. He built the wall so he could start saying goodnight to Jan alone. Yes.

In June 1973, Jan, completely independent from the rest of her family, went on holiday with the Birchthold. and they went to see ya I love her someone I was like it's you guys like we just pulled this horrible stock image off some website this is us yeah this was a drive-by crime we parked in a bus lane yeah we haven't had a long time in every city we've been to and this one definitely made us look like the worst people on the planet. Like Hannah said, parked in the bus lane, car door open, two seconds to take the photo, and then back in the car and drive away. But we've been to Seattle. Have you seen the gum wall that they have there? It's fucking disgusting. It's where COVID started. I'm convinced.

I kept talking about it. I thought she kept was saying gunwall as in like, and like, pew, pooh, and I was like, that's weird. Why do you want to go? I didn't say anything. I was Okay, and I got there, and I was like, oh. I know. When you told me after, I was very impressed that you just quietly came along with me without questioning why I wanted to go there. In one of the VIPs, someone was asking us about,

like, obviously we don't have guns in the UK, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I saw way more guns in California than I did in Texas, and then was like, yeah, they have concealed carry. So yes. No, it's you. It is me, sorry. So Jan went to Seattle with the Birchschilds,

and she doesn't remember that much about that holiday, apart from feeling quite groggy quite a lot of the time. And she has a very hazy memory of waking up in the middle of the night to see B completely naked in front of her before she went back to sleep. Yep. And obviously all of this was new to Jan. But none of this was new to B. Because, unknown to most, Robert Birch told,

B was a predatory paedophile who had been grooming the children and manipulating the adults of the Pocatello community for years. And as a predatory paedophile, he would do whatever it took to get closer to the child that he was targeting. And in this case, with Jan,

he knew that to get closer to her, he was going to have to go through her parents. Later that year, in the autumn, Mary Ann got a call to her house. It was beat, asking her to make him a sandwich and bring it to his work. She's not his wife,

just in case anyone's concerned. with the names, just to be clear. Not even a little bit, but she did. And she did it again and again for many days afterwards. All Bee had to do was ring her up, asked for a sandwich, and she toddled off to his shop and deliver it to him by hand. And soon, as they often do when sandwiches are involved, it all got a bit sexy.

B would compliment Mary Ann's body, and for a buttoned-up Mormon mum like her, that was some 50-shade shit. I particularly enjoy the nose holes. And this body complementing, et cetera, started to happen more and more, but we don't want to put words in Marianne's mouth. She's very good at doing that herself.

So let's hear from the woman of the hour, Mary Ann Broberg. when it began. And I tried to ignore it, but I remember the way it made me feel. And I thought, oh my, I can't feel this way about him. I think the thing that solidified it was when we went to a church function in Logan, Utah. While we were there, we took a ride up into the mountains before we left. We got a little too cozy, started kissing and hugging,

and he touched my breasts, and things got a little carried away, stayed there longer than we should. But nothing beyond that. Went back home and tried to be calm and enjoy our lives. I thought about it every day, a lot. I thought about that feeling.

touch. I've been married for, what, 12, 13 years by then. And it was an excitement, an excitement to me. Oh, would somebody please think of your children? So as you can see in New York City, Marianne is absolutely fucking gagging for it. And having seduced successfully, more Mum Mary-Anne, there she is with her I Love Bee badge. B had successfully removed one obstacle from his ultimate target, the 12-year-old Jan.

But there was still one more parent to go. What was he going to do about Jan's dad Bob Broberg? Well, B is very much a one-trick pony. And that one trick is seducing morms. So, B now went in for a bit of bob-on-bob. Look, this was funny at the start. I now feel bad about this. about this. But this meme can't do it justice. Can't do what happened justice. I can't do what happened justice. So we are going to hand over to, bless you, the man himself, we're

going to hand over to Bob Broberg to tell us all what really went down. Oh and also, past oh us. Yes. And this is genuinely the first time Hannah or I watched documentary. He says, are you free? Let's go for a ride. He says, I cannot stand my wife. I need to have sex. With you now. And so. That's what happens, I think. I could see it. He was sexually aroused.

He says, oh, can you give me some relief? We were laughing. And he said, oh, Bob, it's just kid stuff. He said, I've got to have to leave. So, I was dumb enough to reach over and relieve in an act of extubation. What? I do the worst thing I've ever done.

Bob. The Spartan's. Mom. What's my mom? No. Poor Bob. Look. At least he feels bad about it.

Mary Ann's just like, and then he touched my breasts. Like, fuckin' up. At least Bob feels bad. Bob feels bad and we now love Bob we love Bob so you lot can leave him the fuck alone exactly exactly but I think we can all agree that that was one hell of an empty-handed confession queen of the Segway right so I think it's time to read some of yours I'm not super clear on how many Catholics you have in New York but This is funny because women can't be priests.

Okay. Okay, so we've got fucking loads. Oh, excellent. Samantha says, I'm here with my ex-girlfriend. You're a lesbian, aren't you? I suppose a lesbian thing I've ever heard. Oh, it gets more lesbian. Right.

I'm here with my ex-girlfriend. I showed her this podcast at the time, and now I'm here with my ex-girlfriend and her now wife. I'm confused. Oh my god We flew to Norway for your last show And we showed up at the Black Cat Which was the venue of Full Day Lane

I'm sorry Array Anonymous says my dad's already seen me have sex No further explanation needed Anonymous Keep it to yourself Oh what I once went on a date with Timothy Charlemais and he told me I looked better the first time we met that's

amazing who is that raise your hand who is hot enough to date Timothy shallame in here they're staying quiet now yes oh my god what anonymous says I smoked crack once and then told everyone at the party that that's what I'd done, forgetting that my dad was there until the crowd parted and he looked me dead in the eyes. Okay, right. There are so many in here. This is so tense.

I'm going to go into the naughty section. Okay, if you use a bad word, because this is corporate software, it gets filtered into a different bit. So, wow. Banana says, banged a guy in a Bangkok bathroom wound up marrying him. There she is. Congratulations. So now when people ask us, where do I meet a nice guy?

Bang up. Oh, yeah. Nice, nice. I, yeah. Congratulations. Every guy I banged in a bathroom has ghosted me. Okay, Hannah, you finish off. And there is more than one.

Finish us off with one last one. Okay. Oh, wow. That's the one I fund anonymous clearly I funded an entire trip to Europe by writing BDSM short stories I respect that that's excellent work

yeah share the link okay right is it me it is in January just as I suspected. Right, in January, 1974, B was found to have been inappropriately involved with another young girl in the Pocatello community, and this situation was brought to the attention

of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So naturally, they passed it on to the police, and B went to prison for 17 years. What actually happened was he was reprimanded by the High Council of the Mormon Church, which I'm pretty sure looked exactly like this. And then the church sent him off to seek some counselling, but not with a licensed psychotherapist.

Oh no. Rather, they sent him to a random Californian counsellor who just gave me a bunch of vague, hokey advice, and then prescribed him some therapeutic tapes. Quite. Now maybe you're thinking, well, what's on these tapes? Maybe it's something helpful. How do you know?

Well, these tapes were just filled with weird 70s style outer space music. Jump scare? Good. So yes, that's all he had. And the therapist just told him to pop his headphones in, lie back, listen to this music, and, you know, just rid himself of all of his evil thoughts about wanting to molest children. Simple.

Nice. In case anyone didn't hear that, someone in the front just shouted vibes. Good. After all of this completely legitimate and definitely not made-up therapy, B returned to the Pocatello fray. And it took me to show 12 to figure out that this temple is on 3,100 Butt Street. And you can tell me it's pronounced Butte all you fucking want. Yeah, no.

There are just so many other words in the English language you could have picked that don't read like butt. Anyway, B's back, and he has a request for the Brobergs. He told them that as an essential part of his therapy, he absolutely had to listen to his weird sci-fi tapes whilst lying down next to a child. Just to confirm the front row have said, Not vibes.

So, of course, the Broberg said absolutely the first. Fuck not, you fucking creep. You already spend way too much time with our daughter. You take pictures of her all the time that you show to no one. And you're already in therapy for being a giant nonce. So no, you can't share a bed with our 12-year-old daughter. Just kidding. Very clever, aren't you?

Just kidding. The Brobergs thought that as this therapy had been sanctioned by the Mormon church, that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with it. And as a result, B slept in Jan's bed four nights a week for six months. But it wasn't enough. On the morning of the 17th of October, 1974, B. called the Broberghouse.

And he told Mary Ann that he wanted to take Jan horseback riding after school that day. Now, Mary Ann said that probably wasn't a good idea, because it was a school night after all. But B, being a man with absolutely no boundaries, turned up anyway. Before he and Jan set off to go horseback riding, he handed her a fistful of pills, told her to take them. He said they were her allergy medication. He then told her that the ranch they were going to

was a really long way away, so she should just, you know, lie back in the car, have a little nap. The next thing Jan knew she was lying in a small, unfamiliar bed feeling groggy. She could hear the hum of an engine, and the room was dark, but she could see that her wrists and her ankles

had both been bound. And then, Jan, heard a voice coming from a small white box on a shelf. Are you ready to see some shit in New York? Is it now on? No. Oh no. Is it not on? How about now? Oh there go. Well done. Okay. This is what the voice coming from the tape machine on the shelf had to say. Ready? Yep. Female companion?

Our people are dying. You must help us. We need a special child. You are chosen to have this child. Very important to the future of our planet. Please save us. You cannot fail. I am Zalda.

Listen to what I say. Or you will cease to exist. There you go. That's not easy. And it's also gross. We know it's gross to what's happening. But we read it to you like that so that you could see just what bad shit what Jan was hearing

would have sounded like to her. It's also what we call in the business production value. And I'm glad it was worth it for the round of applause you got Hannah because getting that through customs in the US multiple times is not the easiest thing in the world. And I also enjoy all the people that turn up to the venue early

sit in the front rotate pictures of it and put it on Instagram asking us what it is. Now you know. Now you know. So the message that you just heard read to you flawlessly by a genius was repeated over and over again and Jan's mission became abundantly clear the alien siru is wearing a child's one hey they don't make them in petite we've got to work with what we've got but what I would say is I'm glad you all found it funny because

because explaining why you what a child inflatable green alien costume to our accountant is awkward. You know what? Maybe. What did she say? She said isn't buying an adult one weirder. Do you know what? If a tree falls in the woods, you're right. Okay, right. These aliens told Jan, this. But she wasn't a normal human girl. She was actually half alien princess.

And before she was 16, she absolutely had to have a baby. And that baby would be the savior of these aliens' dying planet. And if Jan said no, well, then the aliens would just go after her sister instead. And Jan believed every word. Why? Well, for a start, she's just 12. Secondly, it's the 70s. Sci-Fi was absolutely everywhere.

Stories about alien abductions and UFO sightings were in the mainstream press all the time. And thirdly, she's a preteen. Preteen, bodily awkwardness is enough to make anyone feel like they might not be totally human. We've all been there. Okay, I can see the whispering and the pointing. Let's talk about this one.

So when Hannah first saw this one, she was like, is that a string of pearls around your neck? I was like, no. It's a pen to get signatures from this guy. And would you like to tell the children how old you are in that photo? A 16. Can I? Can I?

No, that's what somebody said. That's not the right age. I was probably 14 in a wholesome time to be a teenager. So, too old is the answer to that question. I think I'm 14 here as well. This was also taken at some sort of Disney establishment. And I use this as evidence that I've always had a weak chin, and this is not my fault. Oh, do you.

And I was wondering, New York, if you could clear something up for us, did the aggressive side fringe happen here as well. Yes. Yeah. Because as you can see, it affected both of us quite savagery. Yes. I mean, I wonder how many of you had it for practical reasons like me to just hide all of the acne? Yes.

That's what I thought. Okay. Well, for the last time on this tour, we're going to not look at these anymore because they make us feel depressed. Right. Instead, we're going to think about. we're going to think about the Christmas story. Which I'm sure you will all be shocked in appalled to hear that this is the first and only time I've been cast as the Virgin Mary.

I was always shepherd number three. But here I am making my debut as the well smuggest baby Jesus. And maybe I am looking so smug and wearing that much lipstick because as someone correctly shouted out from the crowd, at least I'm the right color tone. So why have we done this to you and ourselves? Oh, sorry.

Oh, no, no, no, carry on. Well, there is a method in the madness. Jan herself has compared the story that the aliens told her to the Christmas story, which actually makes sense when you think about it. Because what is the Christmas story? It's a celestial father and an earthly mother having a baby that saves an entire race of beings. So it's not that far off. And as we've seen time and again, if you're raised to believe in supernatural forces beyond your control, you're much more susceptible to further

random extensions in belief, especially if the foundations of the doctrine in which you were raised already includes aliens. Which Mormonism, here are some Mormons, absolutely does. So we thought it would be fun to do a little shorthand on the Book of Mormon. Not the musical, the Protestant revival that took place in the U.S. in the early 19th century. Just one fun. Yes, Wondery. It's on Wondering now. Wondery. Thank you, thank you. There you go. You can listen to our shorthand on the Book of Mormon on Wondery. So it was during this time, which was known as the Second Great Awakening, that a 17-year-old farmhand named Joseph Smith

was innocently hanging out saying his prayers. And my script says, and my script says he was hanging out in his bedroom, but, yeah, he's clearly in a shed. Yeah, so the hat does indeed say eat sleep, farm repeat, and she wears it outside. and expect me to accompany her for like chicken salads and stuff. Yes, soon. Watch this face, probably. But I would say it is my new motto in life, so I'm going to keep the buck

and make the merch and sell the merch. So yes, innocently, thank you, innocently saying his prayers in his bedroom, when suddenly a robed figure emanating. a brilliant light appeared in the room. In my defense, we thought the dress came with a beard. And when we realized it didn't, I just had to go into my memory palace because I went to convent school, and this is what we would do on the playground when we were pretending to be Israelites.

And so I just pulled it out of the bag. So this magnificent creature told Joseph that it was there to tell him where he could find a set of sacred texts. Now luckily for Joseph, these texts just so happened to be in the mountains in upstate New York. Easy, exactly, easy.

So we just went and got them. Then the angel came back and made it even easier because it gave Joseph a translating device that he could use to translate the texts. So then, Joseph, put Joseph, was that his name, yeah, Joseph, took two magic stones, put them in a hat, presumably that hat, that's what it will say on the merch website, and then put his face in the hat, and then recited the entire book of Mormon. Simple. Everyone will seems lost. We don't even, is anyone in here actually a Mormon? X, is that accurate?

X Mormons? More or less. Okay, that's great. I'll take it. That's great. That's good. That's good enough. Okay, so this is what we believe, a lot of Mormons believe. But if you cast your mind back to the Mormon spectrum, you will know that some closer towards that end. They believe some other things. Let's have a look at what they believe. Mormonism teaches that trillions of planets scattered throughout the cosmos are ruled by countless gods who once were human like us. They say that long ago on one of these planets to an unidentified God and one of his goddess wives, a spirit child named Elohim was conceived. Mormons believe that Elohim is their heavenly father and that he lives with his many goddess

wives on a planet near a mysterious star called Kola. Here, the god of Mormonism and his wives through endless celestial sex produced billions of spirit children. A plan was presented to build planet Earth, where the spirit children would be sent to take on mortal bodies. Elohim, in human form once again, journey to Earth from the star base Kola. This time to have sex with the Virgin Mary. Look at his eyes. with a physical body. According to the book of Mormon,

after his resurrection, Jesus came to the Americas to preach to the Indians, who the Mormons believe are really Israelans. Thus, the Jesus of Mormonism established his church in the Americas as he had in Palestine. The Mormons teach that everyone must stand

at the final judgment before Joseph Smith, the Mormon Jesus, and Elohim. Those Mormons who were sealed in the eternal marriage ceremony expect to become polygamous gods in the celestial kingdom, rule over other planets, and spawn new families throughout eternity. Make sense?

We didn't make that. They saw what we made. They know we didn't make that. The point we're trying to make is that there are people with jobs and kids and stuff who think that that is true. So you can see for poor old Jan the news that she was half alien and was the only one who could save a dying planet wasn't really that far-fetched. So while she was listening to those tapes, Jan drifted in and out of consciousness for a few

hours. And when she finally came to, she was lying in the bedroom of the motor home, and her hands and feet had been untied. And then the tape started up again. And it told Jan to go back into the living room area of the motor home. And when she did, guess who was lying there pretending to be asleep? Correct answer. When B pretended to wake up, because he definitely was not asleep, he told Jan that whilst he'd been driving them south, Both the pair of them and the entire motor home had been abducted by aliens, which is quite a feat. And then be suggested that they should consult the tapes one more time to figure out what they should do.

And this time, the tape said, Don't worry, I'm not going to read it. The tape said to Chan, we think it's time for you to ask the male companion to do what makes people happy. I know, I know, I'm sorry, it's the worst bit. Kind of. And what happened next, as far as the extremely groomed Jan was concerned, was the first time that she and B ever had sex.

However, she's 12, she can't consent, it's not sex, it's rape, no further questions. And over the next few weeks, they continue to drive south, and the abuse continued. And once they crossed the border into Mexico, into Mexico, they got married, which is really fucking horrible. So let's make ourselves feel better by hearing about what pieces of shit you lot are. Okay, I've got one that I would like to segue into a story told by you that makes me look better. I know what you're going to do. Yeah, I deserve it. It's fine. Okay, so this one is from oopsies 97. And it says, my mum sitting next to me,

you've really narrowed it down for yourself. Well, still doesn't know. I was once kidnapped in Germany for five hours. No, she does now. She knows it's you. She knows it's you. Also, I don't know, anyway. So Hannah, so I know this isn't directly a hitchhiking story,

unless you were kidnapped because you weren't hitchhiking in Germany. Is that the case? No, she doesn't want to know. Okay, so whenever we do VIP sessions, everyone's like, ha, that's the room, have you hitchhiked recently? Guess who has? I know, I know, I literally have to eat shit for the rest of my life. Do you everyone?

No, it was even worse. I... So there you go, everyone. Yeah, so... There you go. There you go. Okay. I made it.

I love this one. Anonymous says, can you pronounce paedophile the American way just once so we can all feel uncomfortable? Pedophile? Katie, hi, married lesbian here. In my 20s, I pretended to be asleep because the guy I was hooking up with had the biggest scariest penis on earth. Is that what turned you on? to the veg. Because I think they look like sea monsters.

Sam says, are you mixing Red Bull with Prosecco? Yes. It's turbo wine. Get into it. Turbo wine. There you go. You can all have it. It's a gift from us.

No, no, no, no, no. Not red wine, you animal. No. Look, the OG, which was discovered during my time at the University of Birmingham back in the UK, would you go into a convenience store and you buy the cheapest white wine they have, have. Preferably, Echo Falls in Fandale. That was the original. And you don't buy Red Bull. We're

fancy now. You buy something like red, red ant or whatever. And you chuck it in and you drink it and you have yourself a great night. So there you go. Oh, okay. This also makes me look terrible. Oh, great. This is from Ollie. I know who you are. What? Ollie says, last time I met you both in the back of a cab in London, we learned that Hannah and I have given blow jobs in many of the same pub toilets in Soho. Brilliant. You just broke a million lesbian hearts in here. Right. We could keep doing this forever and we've completely lost track of time.

Okay, my dress is from ASOS, I think. I don't know where yours is from. Oh, mine's also from ASAS. There we go. No, guys, we're so late. We'll do it when we leave. Yeah, they fully fine us if we ever run. Let's get her back to it. It's you, I think. Is it me? I don't think it is. No, it's not.

I forgot to turn the page. It's me. Okay, so meanwhile, while we were all reading about those horrible things, back at Casabroberg, it was getting late. And Jan still hadn't come home from her horseback riding trip. So Bob and Marianne were starting to get nervous. Then, at 9 p.m., Gail's wife, no, B's wife, Gail Bercht told, turned up at their daughter.

Now, we've tried very hard to find a picture of Gail. It doesn't seem to exist. So when we did this tour around Europe back in November, we were using a screen grab of the actor who plays her in the documentary. As you can see, dramatization, not really Gail Birchtold. But since then, Chan has written a book in which she gives a very detailed description of what Gail looked like. There you go, you can read it in your own time.

Since November, another thing has happened. has come quite a bit further. So we thought, wouldn't it be fun to put this very detailed description into an AI art generator? Okay, New York. There's Gail Birchtold. I think she looks quite sex dolly.

It's like the eyes that can see everything and nothing, you know? She does, she does. And if you want to learn more about sex dolls, I would highly recommend the YouTube doctor. that is out there on it, particularly just the five minutes that the woman who works in the Returns Department is on screen. She shows you a lot of torn-up dolls that they get back, which is horrifying. So, yes, this is Gail Birchthold. Imagine her turning up at your door at 9pm when your daughter's missing.

And she's there because she tells the Brobeck's that she's worried. And she's worried because she said her husband B had been acting quite suspiciously. One, she had seen him flushing what she knew to be Jan's real pills down the toilet. Secondly, she said, he had sold his furniture business the day before Jan disappeared. And, she said, for the past few weeks, every single night after dinner, B, had been disappearing without saying a single word to her. So one night, Gail followed him. And she followed him all the way to a storage unit,

where she found him working on an unfamiliar orange motor home. So now, Gail and the Brobergs jump in a car, and drive to this storage, you know. But when they get there, shocker, the motorhome's gone. And now, Gail, she changes her tune. She now says, oh, there's nothing to worry about. We definitely shouldn't phone the police. Everything is probably fine.

B and Jan, I probably, I don't know, just had a little breakdown somewhere, and they probably just can't get to her phone. But Jan is fine. So for some reason, listening to Gail, the Brobergs didn't call the police to report their 12-year-old daughter missing for 10 days. And when they finally conceded and phoned the FBI, FBI Agent Pete Welsh, well, he was horrified.

Even after the Brobergs themselves had been the one to call the FBI, Agent Welsh and the rest of his emoji friends had to really work to get the Brobergs to understand that their daughter had been kidnapped. And here is why. I never had an inkling, but he had sexual designs on Jan. We weren't really sure even then what a child molester was, you know. And I tell you, I don't know how we could have been so gullible when there were so many red flags. He's just too pure. Leave him alone.

I will happily catch you outside. But I understand, I am an empath, I can painfully feel what you are all feeling, and I get it. Sure, it's the 70, Stranger Danger is a reasonably new idea. However, B is 38 and Jan is 12. If you need a crash course in what a pedophile is, this is it. However, the Netflix series and half of Twitter have already dragged this poor man through the enough. So we're all going to be bigger, better people and rise above it, and I won't hear

a word against him. What we need to know for the story this evening is that for whatever reason, whatever incredibly flawed reason, Bob and Mary Ann Broberg really thought that everything was completely fine. And so the search for Bea and Jan was conducted nationwide, and for 35 days after Jan went missing, it turned up nothing, until B called the Broberg. and he called them because he had a request. He wanted them to give him written permission to marry Jan back in the US. In Mexico, he wants to get married in the US,

and he says that without that permission, he wouldn't be bringing her home. Now, luckily, the FBI tapped the phone. So Mexican police officers, tracked down the motorhome, kicked down the door, and arrested B. And they threw in, in Mexican jail.

And while he was sat in his dark, dank basement cell, he somehow managed to bribe a guard into being allowed to speak to Jan. And he told her that he had been visited by Zeta and Zethra, the aliens. And they had a message for Jan. And the message was this. When she went home, she wasn't to tell anyone about the sex, which is of course right, the relaxing pills. and most importantly, about the mission to have a baby.

And if she did, well then, her sister Karen would go blind, and she, Jan, would be vaporised. And I think we can all agree, New York. That is some pretty imaginative non-sing. I'll explain to you in Act 2 what nonce means, but for now we have to push on. The Brobergs went down to Mexico to fly Jan back to Pocatello and she was quiet, withdrawn,

she wouldn't speak to her own father on the plane at all. But at least she was home, and they could put the whole thing behind them. Bob and Mary Ann sent the marriage certificate back to Mexico with instructions to have annulled immediately. B was flown back to the US, and a grand jury indicted him on kidnapping charges. The FBI advised the Brobergs

to stay very far the fuck away from the birchtolds for the rest of their lives. And did they? Did they fuck? All right, guys, we're going to take. a very quick break, mainly because I need a wee. And we'll be back in about 15, 20 minutes. We'll see a bit.

Navigating family matters can be tough. At learners, we understand the challenges you face, whether you need help drafting a pre-up, filing for divorce, or making support arrangements. At learners, our team of experienced family lawyers are here to guide you

every step of the way. These are life altering events that come with many questions and concerns. Trust learners, to help you move forward. Visit learnersfamlylaw.ca. That's l-E-R-N-E-R-S-Family law.ca. The town of Agda in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex. But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption. His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful. clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.

I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos. As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all. Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson and journalist Leo Schick for the mystic and the mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption and magic. Binge all episodes of the Mystic and the Mayor exclusively and add free right now on Wondry Plus. Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondry app. Oh, so you just put the curtain in my face. Oh, sorry.

Hello. Oh, hello. Welcome back. Sorry, some curtain-related hydrants. I saw somebody grabbed my arm, but it was the curtain. Oh, there we go. Did you enjoy the lovely little driving video? Which in Surrey's defence, how many of you fuckers can drive stick?

No, no, I'm not having any of this, right? Laya, lie, lie, lie, lie. I don't believe it for a second. Absolutely not. Like in England, it's not impressive, it's like everyone speaking English and the Netherlands, like everyone can do it so it's not like... It's not a big deal, but I don't believe any American can drive a stick car. can drive a stick car. So I think she did very well.

Okay, who enjoyed the alien dancing? Okay, good. And the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that it wasn't a loop. It was a 20-minute, one-shot situation. So we danced around in those alien costumes for at least like 22 minutes in what was essentially a shipping container

in East London during the hotter summer on record. record I know I was saying I'm glad we've risked our lives twice to bring them those two small bits of content yeah absolutely someone just asked what music we were listening to I can't remember the whole thing but I do know at the end where it gets speeded up and I'm doing a lot of this is because I was rapping to lose yourself yeah she was she was indeed so yeah that's it so that's yep I hope as everyone had a wee everyone got a drink who's got work in the morning

Sounds like a you problem, buddy. And this usually goes in the first half of the show, but I'll tell you very quickly. Do you know what nonce means? Yes! Okay. Prince Andrew, exactly. But for the silent majority, who don't know,

nonce is a very English way of saying pedophile, and it comes from, sorry, pedophile. And it comes from Wakefield Prison, which we also called the Monster Mansion, because there's so many dangerous people in there. And nonce stands for not on normal courtyard exercise. so they would keep all the paedophiles separately from the other prisoners so they wouldn't get beaten up.

So they would get yard time at a different hour than general population because they would fuck them up. So that's why. And we explain that on the North American talk because everyone at home knows what it means. But because there's no hard sounds in the word, sometimes Americans think it's a nice word. Yeah.

We get a lot of messages from people being like, when we're talking about sweaty non to Prince Andrew, don't call him that it's so cute and we're like you're not from the UK if you think nonce is cute nonce is like the word you'd hear screamed in your face before a big giant man beats you to death in prison yeah I'm not saying it's okay I'm just saying that's what will happen so now we know okay posh is a myth I used to think that yes I know it was very embarrassing I used to think that posh was stood for poor out starboard home so posh like rich people would stay on different sides of the ship

so they wouldn't catch a tan because that makes you look like you work in a field. But it's not true and I said it on Harmontown and I was absolutely embarrassed by the BBC, by the way, who, yeah, what a knock. That's me. Tweeted Harman Tapping like, well, actually.

You should just reply, Jimmy Saville. Okay, right. Right, okay, we have to push on. We're under strict instructions. We've got to get back on it. We were so late. Otherwise, tour manager Ben is going to beat us to death. Right, when we left you before the interval,

which I believe you call an intermission, this guy, Beltman, is back. He'd been indicted for kidnapping. Jan had been saved from Mexico, and the FBI considered the case a slam dunk. Cut and dried, no problem. But shortly after Jan returned from Mexico, on Christmas Eve, no less, 1974,

there was a knock at the Broberg's door. It was Gale. again and this time she had a proposition for the Brobergs her pitch was this the brobergs were to sign an affidavit dropping all charges against B and the affidavit went a little something but also exactly like this my daughter was not taken by force or against her will nor was she held her confined against her will at any time while in the company of the defendant. I honestly believe there is a strong possibility that the defendant was under the impression. He had my husband's and my consent to take my daughter with him when he left

in October. I had the right under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to keep these matters within my family. I feel that the interests of justice and society would not be served by continuing to prosecute this matter. So of course, Bob and Marianne were utterly appalled. They threw the affidavit back in Gayle's stupid AI face, and they told her never to darken their door again. They signed it. And they signed it because Gail had also passed on a threat.

And the threat was this, that unless the Brobergs sign the affidavit and completely exonerated her husband B, then she and B would expose them to the entire Mormon community. They would tell everybody all about the post-sandwich fondling and about the cheeky car park Bob-on-Bob Handjob. Which is very difficult to say, and to be honest, I don't think you gave her enough credit. Thank you, thank you. We also discovered when we got here to the US that it's not a car park.

It's also not a car hole, as we've discussed before, when I've tried to say garage, but you all say garage, which is what I used to say. I'm confused, that it is, what is it, parking lot. So it's even harder because then it's the cheeky parking lot, Bob-on-Bob, Handjob. Crushed it, though. It only took me 16 shows. So there you go. You're welcome, New York.

Or should I say, mm-hmm? You know. We've gotten used to it now, actually. We don't find it that weird. So, anyway, during this time that, Gail was blackmailing the Brobergs. B was also ramping up his quote-unquote relationship with Jan. The two were exchanging love letters,

and B was even passing notes to Jan through her school friends. And before long, the tape machine was back. And it was at this point, age 13 years old, Jan told her family that she was in love with B. that the two wanted to get married, and that she wanted to have his baby. And B, at this point, was pushing 40. Now, the brobugs were shocked by this, for some reason.

But perhaps the person most shocked was Mary Ann. Because a few short months after Jan had been rescued from Mexico from the clawing hands of the friendly alien neighborhood pedophile, while, Marianne had started sleeping with Bee. They saw each other regularly and sexily for the next 11 months. Bee told Mary Ann that he loved her and that the two of them could have an amazing life together.

All she had to do was dump her stupid husband, Bob. So what's he doing? We know he's not interested in Mary Ann. and he really wants Jan, but this is yet another ploy to split the family up so it's easier for him to get what he wants. And it almost worked because Bob actually filed for divorce. But Mary Ann, desperate not to lose her family,

told Bob that she never wanted to see Bea again, and the two had a big, teary reunion. However, the affidavits that the Brobergs had signed made it quite difficult for the FBI to do their job. Agent Welsh was furious that Jan's own parents, had seemingly destroyed the case. But the authorities, unlike the Brobergs, were not about to let B get away with it.

And in June, 1976, they charged him. Hooray! Yay! Bee pleaded guilty to kidnapping, and he was sentenced to five years. But that five-year sentence was reduced to just 45 days. Hey, man, it's your justice system, not ours.

So he's charged, he's sentenced, and then he's let out on bail or license or whatever for a few months. And he uses that time to buy a family fund center in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And if you're thinking, I've seen that somewhere before, that looks oddly familiar. Well then you and I are in the same boat because I was watching the last of us the other day. And for the people up on the mezzanine, who might not be able to see, let's have a quick CSI moment. Enhance. Jump Scare podcast.

I am so glad that landed because I was so insistent. So now everyone on the London team can eat my shit. So let's get back to the 70s for now. B has been charged and sentenced. for kidnapping but it's managed to buy a family fund center which means his actual job is to be around children all the time and no one does fuck about it which is absolutely awful so your turn okay oh no where did it go oh I like highlighted it and it's disappeared what have you done oh no I highlighted one

I liked and it's disappeared oh no is it no you just want me to read that Okay, this one's fucking gross. Right. Mandy says, Oh, I got it. I dated a guy on and on for far too long who hoarded his own nail clippings. I found out by accident.

Did you find them? Did you find out why? Thank you to seven, 16. Ah! And now we're married and he's here. Okay, this one, Anonymous says, Had sex with a restaurant owner in the phone booth, didn't get married. Later that night, he murdered the chef, chopped him up,

and dumped pieces of him across Westchester. Fucking hell. Okay, I'm going to do one more. Okay. Anonymous said, I'll do one more and you do one more. Okay, this one, you haven't given us any name, so it makes it quite hard to help you. But this person, Anonymous, says, someone tell my boyfriend to fucking marry me already. Fucking marry her already. Okay, Jenna says, had sex in a Catholic church bathroom in high school during youth group.

You and the rest of us, girl. Like, come on. Unsurprisingly, no longer a practicing athlete. Right, let's get back to it. Now, if you found B's Family Fund Center buying, shocking, this next bit is going to blow your minds and upset you quite a bit. Because Mary Ann put her daughter, Jan, on a plane to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. on her own to go and visit B at his family fund centre.

And she said she did it because Jan was just causing such a fuss. She didn't have another choice. So Jan spent weeks with B in Wyoming while he was out on licence. Eventually, you know, when it came time for B to go to prison, Jan was forced to return home. But just a few weeks later, she ran away from home again. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well, this time it can't have been B. He's in prison, so he can't have been the one who abducted her.

Well, you remember that five-year sentence that became a 45-day sentence? B was let out on good behaviour after just ten days. And he slunk back to his motor home in Salt Lake City. So after Jan disappeared this time, Bob and Marianne were beside themselves. But, true to form, they didn't call the police for over two weeks. But during the entire time that Jan was missing, they were in almost constant contact with B. And what we're about to play in you is one of these calls. And this one took place between Marianne and B.

And we've taken it from the Netflix documentary. Hello, Berber. Hi, Mary Ann. This is Bob. Hello, B. How are you? Well, not very good. I just got through talking to Jan.

Oh, you did? Did she tell you at all, where she was? I think Jan's done some things that she doesn't want to tell me about. Hmm. She was stealing for a living, that's prostitution, that's selling them. Oh, my goodness. I asked her, I said, Sonny, how are you getting you money? And she says, hard.

Oh, dear. No, I won't be able to sleep. Okay. Okay, guys, I know, I know, I know, I know. We felt the same way when we first heard this, but let me explain a few things to you. Firstly, everything B says is going on with Jan is not true. Secondly, the people who made the Netflix documentary

are pretty bloody sneaky because they leave out one very important piece of context with that call is that when Marianne took that call, she was already working with the FBI. And she had been told, every time Bee calls, be nice and try and figure out a meetup. In November, 1976, Jan had been missing for the second time for 90 days. But the FBI had been doing some pretty solid detective work. They searched every trailer park in Salt Lake City until they eventually found Bees Orange Motorhome.

And when they had a look inside, they saw that the whole thing was completely covered. Sorry, that's really annoying. was completely covered with huge movie poster-sized photographs of the 12-year-old Jan. And they also found his weird sci-fi tapes. But because his alien manipulation tactic was so rogue, the FBI didn't really know what they were dealing with, so they kind of just left it alone. But more importantly, it didn't matter how long they sat outside that motorhome.

They never saw hide the hair of Jan. But a couple of weeks later, some FBI agents saw Bee, go into a phone box, which I believe you call a payphone, but that sounds wrong in my mouth, so get into it. Yes, it's a phone box. We invented them. B goes into this phone box, and after he leaves, the FBI agents go in after him. And in that phone box, there was a phone book.

And on that phone book, B had written a phone number. And that number was for Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic school for girls in Pasadena, California. Jan had been enrolled there under the name Jan Tobler. And B. had said that he was not only Jan's father, he was a very important super top secret CIA agent. And even though he had very important CIA stuff to do, he could still come and visit Jan every weekend.

And if anyone came around asking questions about him and or Jan, well, then they were the real bad guys. And that story might have been enough to fool some nuns. but it was not enough to fool the actual factual FBI. And B was arrested for federal parole violation. Thank you. Jan was flown home, but this time it was even worse. She locked herself in her room for weeks on end and wouldn't speak to anyone. And we should say before we move on,

that this level of brainwashing, even on a child, doesn't happen overnight. Takes work, meticulous planning, continued imaginative storytelling. And above all, giving zero fucks to a psychopathic degree. So now B's in trouble, he's been caught, he's backed into a corner. So predictably, he ups the ante. And just over a month after Jan returned, Bob's flower shop, the Broberg family business, was burned to the ground.

Now, once again, this is a dramatization. It's quite a post-apocalyptic scene for a florist. It looks a bit cross-burning, doesn't it? It does. It looks a bit more some sort of like Norway church burning than a florist in Idaho. Thank you. Being burned down. But still, arson on this scale was serious business. So it didn't take the FBI long to track B down because everybody knew he had done it. But the investigation into the fire discovered that the two men who had actually started it weren't B.

but they did say that they had served time in the exact same prison at the exact same time as B and they also said that he had promised them each a thousand dollars a month for an entire year

and all they had to do was ban down the local florist so obviously they'd done it so luckily at this point B was charged he was charged for arson he was charged for two counts of kidnapping and for impersonating a CIA officer during Jan's second disappearance But he was acquitted by reason of mental defect and sent to a psychiatric facility in June 1977.

And in that psychiatric facility, he really dug deep on his fixation with Jan. And he claimed that it was all to do with abuse that he had sustained as a child, which might well be true, but loads of people are abusive to children and they don't go on to rape little girls because of it. of it, so we're not giving him that one. So physically, B is miles away from the Brobergs and he's locked away. But for Jan, he was still very much in her head. And in 1978, Jan went to a summer drama camp situation at the most Mormon school there is,

Brigham Young University, which looks like a spaceship. And did you guys know that the Osman's own the halls of residence? Isn't that sick? Anyway, right, she's at Brigham Young, and she meets a boy that she quite likes. And even better, she thinks that this boy likes her back. And then, this boy bought Jan and ice cream. I know, basically married, very serious. But to be honest, at Brigham Young, like, probably.

But for Jan, this was really bad news bears, because accepting affection from anyone that wasn't the male companion, i.e. B, was like Apocalypse. that she became convinced that something awful was going to happen at any minute. Accepting an ice cream was against the alien rulebook. I look so stupid. Look, we were wearing them all day. It was just a little break and then it feared in with the story. So anyway, everyone had a good look. Fine. Right.

So Jan, now worried sick that something was going to happen to her family. phoned home. It took me to show 13 to figure out that she did that. It's hard to land that one, so I just let them do the work. So there we go. So she phones home, and her mum Marianne tells her that the dogs are sick. Jan burst into tears and begs to come home. But when she got there, the dogs had gotten better.

Her sister Karen hadn't gone blind. And she, Jan, had been vaporized. had a been vaporized. Few. It was the first flicker of doubt. But the brainwashing was so deep that Jan dismissed it. So let's now fast forward to the day before Jan's 16th birthday. Jan knew now that the intergalactic mission

to save that alien dying planet was in danger. Because if you remember, she'd been asked to have a baby before she turned 16. And she knew now that her. her time was up. Jan has written a new book and in that book she includes an excerpt from her diary that she wrote on her 16th birthday and this is what she wrote. I'm 16 today and I haven't had the baby. Does that mean I'm going to vaporize and then they'll take Susan? I can't stand to think about it. I need to tell her about the mission. If she doesn't want to do it,

I'll take the gun hidden under dad's bed and kill her. And then I'll kill her. And then I'll And I think what this diary entry tells us is that at 16, just how brainwashed, groomed and manipulated Jan was, that she genuinely believed that killing her sister and killing herself, if they couldn't go through with this mission, was saving them both from a fate worse than death. So Jan woke up on her 16th birthday, very much not pregnant, and realized that the mission had failed.

So she walked through the house, preparing herself for the devastation that was to come. But everything was normal. What are we whispering about? That's what I thought. Everything was normal. Everyone was there, everyone was safe, everyone was alive. And as the day of Jan's 16th birthday passed without incident,

she started to realize the truth. Beard made it up. All of it. She had gone everywhere, he told her to go. She had done everything he told her to do. She was not the half-alien princess of some dying planet. She was just a normal human girl. She hadn't spoken to her own father for years,

and it was all for nothing. Over time, Jan opened up to a friend, and then to her sister, and eventually to her whole family. She describes this experience as a kind of purge, not that far off a mental breakdown. breakdown. But over time, Jan got to a place where she could make peace with and sense of what had happened to her. As a grown-up, Jan started appearing at speaking events, and she

would tell her story of abuse and warn others against the dangers of grooming and manipulation. As for B, well, after Gail left him, he remarried a schoolteacher with two daughters of her own. And one of these daughters ran away from home, claiming that Bee had started abusing her as well. And as Jan's public profile grew, after she and her mother wrote a book called Stolen Innocence, B started turning up at their speaking engagements and heckling.

So what was he there shouting about? What's his problem? What's his point? Well, B now claimed that he and the Brobergs had a deal all along. And the deal was this. He would be given access to their child, Jan, in exchange for sexual favors for the two of them from him. Yes.

So as you can see, B has absolutely no issue with everybody knowing that he's a child molester. But there is one part of the whole Jan story that he takes serious issue with. And that's the aliens. because he insisted the Brobergs, they had made all that shit up. There wasn't anything to do with him. He was just a plain old pedophile.

And the worst thing is, the worst thing about that is that a lot of people who heard this story believed me. And they used the Broberg seeming lack of urgency every time Jan went missing as proof that he was telling the truth. But we don't believe it for a second. for a second. Why? Well, years later, several other women came forward saying that Bee had used the exact same technique on them when they were children, telling them that they were a half-alien princess from a distant planet. And before he even met Jan, Bee had already

served one year in prison for the rape of another child. That girl had spent 119 days in his apartment, and she claimed the same thing that she had been played a cassette tape with alien voices telling her to have sex with B. And then, years later, six other women also came forward saying the same exact thing. 30 years after Jan was last face-to-face with B, she filed a stalking injunction against him, and he challenged it. And that meant they had to go to court together in the same room. And this is how that went. Mr. Birchold has remained a threat and a danger to meet my family.

It is a constant and continuous concern that has escalated in recent months. I hadn't seen the man for 30 years, and for about the first five minutes, I was shaking like a leaf. You know this is quite a story, and you have sold a lot of books because of the story, right? We've sold a few books, not enough to make back the investment that we made to publish the story. Okay, you told ABC News that you would want to make a movie. correct? I didn't tell anything is that. I told them that there might be offers for that. It could happen, I don't know. Is this your goal? Is this my goal? My goal, Mr. Birch told us, to educate the public about creditors like you.

That is my goal. I hope you do. I cannot believe that you can look me in the eye. You have no soul. First of all, get it, Jan. And don't panic, New York, Jan won. A restraining order was placed on B for the rest of his natural life. But that didn't stop him from showing up at Jan's speaking events. On one particular occasion, he showed up to a women's conference where Jan was speaking in front of 800 people, about this many people. And he sat in the car park, making him.

park making threats. But luckily, Jan had some pretty scary backup from none other than the BACA, which stands for bikers against child abuse. Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught. I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Haggy. And we're the host of scam influencers, a weekly podcast.

podcast from Wondery that takes you along the twists and turns of some of the most infamous scams of all time, the impact on victims and what's left once a facade falls away. We've covered stories like a Shark Tank certified entrepreneur who left the show with an investment, but soon faced mounting bills, an active lawsuit followed by Larry King, and no real product to push. He then began to prey on vulnerable women instead, selling the idea of a future together while stealing from them behind their backs. To the infamous scams of real housewife stars like Teresa Judice, what should have proven to be a major downfall only seemed to solidify her place in the Real Housewives Hall of Fame.

Follow scam influencers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad free right now on Wondry Plus. All right, very quick break, because I know you are gagging to get back to this particular episode. But we have to tell you a little bit about what's going on on Patreon this week. Certainly. Well, this week we have Under the Duvee where I explain

how hypnosis works badly, but it works. It does work and I will tell you how I came off the pill and now the back knee's back. We also have a little chat about Russell Brand and contemplate the composition of the soul and whether it even fucking matters.

And then I do a little review on a throwback dating TV show that I watched on Channel 4 called Perfect Match where I literally couldn't believe, A, that people were smoking in clubs, because it's that old, and then all the horrific things that were coming out of people's mouths. And you can listen to all of that over on Patreon, and you can watch it, too, under the duvet, is every week. We release it every Wednesday morning. And also on Patreon, you can get Red-Handed, totally ad-free, and we also do

monthly bonus episodes. And you can find all of that at patreon.com forward slash red-handed. And one of these big, scary, hairy bikers recognized B. So he got all of his big scary mates, and they encircled B's car. Bee panicked and flawed it and ran over one of the big, scary, hairy bikers. Extremely bad move. Is he okay? I think he's fine. The police were called, and when they searched Bee's car, they found a firearm in his.

his glove box and he is on parole. So even here, that's quite bad. And B was arrested and later found guilty for possession of a firearm, parole violation, and aggravated assault. Even I got swept up in that and clapped. I love this part of the show because I've never felt more powerful.

But, before he was sentenced, knowing exactly what would happen to him if he went to prison, Bob Birch told, downed a whole bottle of heart medication. And a whole bottle of Kaluwa, odd choice. I feel like no one buys Kaluwa. it just shows up in your house at Christmas. For those of you on the mezzanine, someone just said that her grandma buys Klua and I am sure that she is the only person in the world. And then Bob Birchtold died.

No! We do not whoop suicides on this show. No. We can't whoop. whoop suicides, because we'll get cancelled. You can whoop suicides if you fucking want. Fuck that guy. Well, I hope you're all thoroughly ashamed.

Your turn. Okay, we've got some excellent ones. I've been preparing. Kevin says, in high school, I used to stay at my friend's house so I could have sex with his mum after he went to sleep. Oh my God. You're an animal. Anonymous.

In college, I broke my ex-boyfriend's penis during sex and sent him to the ER. Yes, there was a lot of blood, and yes, he was fine. Snap the old banjo, eh? Yeah. Marlin, I was arrested because I tossed a bowl of cereal at my husband during an argument. My husband lived, but my friends now refer to me as a serial kill.

That's cute, but you did get arrested. Okay, one more and then we have to... We have to get on with it. We do. Oh no. Yeah. I don't think I can. No.

I don't think I can and hold onto my career. Okay, this is from Jay. My boyfriend and I had a quickie at the bar before coming here. Good for you. Good feet. And that is it. Thank you, guys. Well done.

Give yourselves a round of applause. Well done. Well done. Well done. The show is not over. That's just the last confessions. We have about five more minutes of the show. The confessions is over.

Thank you very much for the Slydo interaction. It's what makes the show different every night for us. We're very grateful to you for it. So thank you for joining in. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. Good work.

Good work. All right. Enough clapping yourselves. Back to Jan. So Jan is still an active member of the LDS church. No, no, no, no, no. Let her do what she wants to do. She teaches Sunday school classes on the power of love.

And she has also gone on to have a very successful acting career, including I found out in Boston two nights ago, an episode of Criminal Minds. Jan is in an episode of Criminal Minds. And if you check out her IMDB, you will see that she has, 45 credits to her name. I know, exactly. And she's also started a theatre company in Utah

and says that acting has been a form of therapy for her as well. She also says, rather nobly, I think, that she doesn't resent her parents for the part they played for keeping B out of prison. All she says is that she has helped them to forgive themselves. And I get it. We all struggle to understand decisions made by Bob and Mary. Mary Ann Broberg, but we do also know that 93% of children who are victims of sexual abuse

are victimized by someone that they know. It is very, very rare that it is some stranger that comes out of nowhere. So sure, the Broberg showed a pretty amazing level of naivity and they stayed blinkered to what was going on because they didn't want to know. But in reality, oh my God, the worst part of the show you possibly could have done. Lots of parents don't know. And that's exactly what Jan campaigns to let people know. And in 2022, she even started the Jan Broberg Foundation,

which supports children who have been victims of sexual assault. And I know we've done it, but one last round of applause for Jan. And I think the problem here, the problem in this story, is that too many people, too many of the adults surrounding Jan during those really important and vulnerable years in her life, were just too wrapped up in maintaining the status quo, in hiding their own private shame, and holding on to the church in the community that came with it.

And they all just kept insisting for some weird reason that B was just a quirky guy, rather than admitting what he truly was, which was a predator. But we all know, as fans of true crime in this room, that this kind of story of denial in cases like this is not that rare. This one just had aliens. And that is in New York. Thank you so much. We could just have another minute of your time.

We'd like to take a picture with you if that's okay. Thank you. To listen to shorthand every week, start your seven-day free trial with Wondry Plus and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or in the Wondry app. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest,

and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries,

Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now. joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.