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ROBERT E. BERCHTOLD (white shirt and light-colored hair), a 40-yea™id former Pocatello merchant, returns to Pocatello from SaJt Lake City Tuesday afternoon for arraign* mcnt in the Bannock County Courthouse on a charge of first degree kidnaping in connection with the Jan Broberg case. Transporting Berchtold from the county Jail to the courtroom is bailiffGary Rossiter (dark coat) of the Pocatello Police Department. Berchtold is charged in the Aug. 10 disappearance of 14-year*cld Miss Brobcrg who was discovered Nov. 16 at Flint Ridge Academy of the Sacred Heart in Pasadena, Calif. See slory.(Journal Photos by O.K. Johnson)ON FIRST DEGREE KIDNAP CHARGE ...Berchtold Arraigned Here--Will Enter Plea LaterBy DAN FLYNN Journal Staff WriterRobert Ersol Berchtold, the former Pocatello merchant charged with first degree kidnaping in the Aug. 10 disappearance of 14-year-old Jan Broberg, is being held today at the Bannock County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bond.Berchtold, 40, was arraigned on the kidnaping charge Tuesday afternoon in Sixth District Magistrate Court before . Judge Robert Bennett. He will enter a plea later.Berchtold, now of Ogden, Utah, told the court he would obtain his own legal counsel. Wearing a light shirt and dark blue parits, the 'self-employed businessman listened as Bennett read the charge that carries a maximum penalty not to exceed life imprisonment upon conviction.If Berchtold remains in jail, a preliminary hearing must be held within 10 days, according to Bennett. Berchtold indicated his legal counsel would ask for a bondreduction hearing.The complaint filed Nov. 4 states Berchtold did knowlingiy, intentionally, and feloniously lead, take, entice away, or detain Miss Broberg. It further charges the Utah businessman with having an intent to keep the Broberg girl concealed from her parents as he attempted to extort their permission to marry the Pocatello girl.Berchtold, who waived extradition to Idaho in Salt Lake County Monday, was returned to Pocatello by a Bannock County sheriff's deputy Tuesday morning. He was arrested Nov. \2 in Salt Lake City on a federal warrant charging flight to avoid prosecution. When the former Pocatello furniture store owner was served with the first degree kidnaping warrant, the federal flight charge was dropped.Court records indicate Miss Broberg’s Aug. to disappearance was reported toPocatello police on Aug. 25.An LDS Church ward bishop and three high school students returning from a church conference in Salt Lake City Oct. 3 told police they saw Berchtold and a “girl they believed (o be Jan Broberg.”Berchtold was driving a red Lincoln Continental between Salt Lake City and Ogden when they were allegedly spotted.The daughter of Robert ar.d Mary Ann Broberg, 171 S. 16th, Jan was located Nov. lb at Flint Ridge Academy of the Sacred Heart in Pasadena, Calif. Apparently, the missing girl was found by the Federal Bureau of Investigation which traced a telephone call from Berchtold to California. Court records indicate that call was made on Nov. 11 from a Salt Lake County phone booth by Berchtold who was under observation by FBI agents.Court records also indicate that a telephone conversation Oct. 15 between Mary Ann Broberg and Berchtold resulted in theBannock County prosecuting attornc'y filing the first degree kidnaping charge.Mrs. Broberg made a 1 ape recording of that conversation, and Pocatello police gave the court a transcript of the tape.Mrs. Broberg apparently called Berchtold at his Utah business. She called him ”Beu” throughout the conversation. The missing girl's mother told Berchtold that Jan “meekly, two days before she disappeared, told her dad she wanted to marry you.”According to the phone conversation transcript, Berchtold told Mrs. Broberg, “Jan will not come home until 1 marry her.”Berchtold. who was a friend of the Broberg family while living in Pocatello pleaded guilty to a federal kidnaping charge in the 1974 disappearance of Miss Broberg, who was then 12. He was sentenced to five year3 in prison with all but 45 days’ jail time suspended.
Newspaper Details
Idaho State Journal
Pocatello, Idaho, US
Wed, Nov 24, 1976
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
FL, USA 22 Apr 2019
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