The Watcher: Is Based On A Terrifying True Story! Here is What We Know About Real Incident
The Netflix miniseries The Watcher by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan with Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale has a particularly disturbing plot: a bad neighbor, and a stalker who keeps writing threatening letters. A story that would seem too crazy to be true if it were not inspired by a fact of real news. Murphy, the former creator of American Horror Story, works on different genres, but what he always seems to come back to is horror. The Watcher is a television adaptation of The Haunting of a Dream House or a story written by Reeves Wiedeman and published in 2018 on The Cut. Shortly after the story was published, Netflix had already bought the rights to the story.
In the summer of 2014, Derek and Maria Broaddus bought a six-bedroom home at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey. They were ready for renovations or at most annoying neighbors. Instead, they were thrown into a horror movie-worthy nightmare. Already in the first trailer of The Watcher, there are many scenes of what the Broaddus family had to go through: after three days of buying the property, the couple receives their first letter from The Watcher, an unknown person who claims to be “in charge of guarding” their new home. Subsequent letters become even more disturbing: The Watcher claims that there is something hidden within the walls and that the house craves “young blood”, referring to the three sons of the Broaddus.
This mysterious person also scolded the spouses for the renovation, entering details about the family and telling them to pay attention to the cars along the road as he could be hiding in one. The Watcher sent four letters to the Broaddus. The real events we are about to tell you inspired Murphy for the series. Therefore, in case you do not want any kind of anticipation – even if the show may have many invented parts – we advise you to postpone the reading of this article until after the vision.
The Watcher: The Start of The Investigation
The family discovered that this figure, The Watcher, had also sent letters to the previous owners, the Woods and another man before them. Built-in 1905, 657 Boulevard was one of the largest houses on the block, and when the Woods put it on the market they received various offers, even above the asking price. This led the Broaddus to suspect that The Watcher could be someone enraged for losing their home. But the Woods reported that one interested buyer had retired after a major medical diagnosis, while another found a different home. Both the Woods and the owner before them stated that they had received and thrown away the letters from The Watcher without giving them any weight.
The Broaddus instead investigated, first on their own, then unsuccessfully with the police. They hired a private investigator. Finally, the spouses turned to lawyers. At the family’s request, attorney Lee Levitt interviewed Michael Langford, one of the neighbors diagnosed with schizophrenia, and his family. The most disturbing part of this royal story lies in the fact that no one has ever been arrested for these letters and no suspects have been publicly identified.
The Broaddus Leave Home
At the end of 2014, the investigation had stalled. Six months after the letters arrived, the Broaddus decided to sell. However, partly due to the publication of The Watcher, they found no buyers. So they proposed to demolish it and divide the property into two houses, but the idea was rejected by the district planning council. The ensuing quarrel led the family to discover that some of the neighbors thought they were forging the letters themselves.
Eventually, the Broaddus at least managed to rent the house. It was then that they received the last letter, which indicated that revenge would come in many forms. In the letter published entirely by The Cut you can read:
Wondering who The Watcher is? Turn around you idiots. Maybe you even talked to me, one of the so-called neighbors who have no idea who The Watcher might be.
Car accident, fire, illness, and death of a pet are just some of the threats contained in the text:
Maybe a car accident. Maybe a fire. Maybe something as simple as a mild illness that never seems to go away but makes you sick day after day after day after day after day. Perhaps the mysterious death of a pet. Loved ones suddenly die. Planes, cars, and bicycles crash. Bones break.
The Sale Of The House
Although no one has ever been arrested for these disturbing letters, the Broaddus has managed to leave this story behind. According to US real estate firm Zillow, they sold 657 Boulevard for about $ 959,000 in 2019, after buying it for $1,355,657 and spending about $ 100,000 on the renovations. The cover image of this article “Murphy’s The Watcher is based on a terrifying real case” is taken from The Watcher by Ryan Murphy Productions and Netflix.
