THE WATCHER

Opening

On 2 June 2014 Derek and Maria Broaddus closed on their dream house: a six-bedroom Dutch colonial at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, a wealthy commuter town, for about $1.36 million. Three days later a typed letter arrived at the house, addressed to its new owners. Its writer welcomed them to the neighbourhood, said their family had been watching the house for generations, asked whether they had brought the "young blood" it needed, and signed off as "The Watcher".

At least three more letters followed over the next year and a half. The family never moved in. Police and the county prosecutor investigated, private investigators and former FBI agents were hired, and no one was ever charged. The Broadduses sold the house in 2019 at a loss of about $400,000, and the writer has never been identified.

Timeline

About 1990 to 2014The Woods family own the house for 23 years. Shortly before they sell, they receive a letter from someone calling themselves the Watcher. They think little of it.

2 June 2014The Broadduses close on the house and begin renovating it before moving in with their three young children.

5 June 2014The first letter. The writer says their grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and their father in the 1960s, and that they have now been put in charge of "watching and waiting for its second coming".

About two weeks laterA second letter says the windows and doors let the writer track the family's movements, and that they have controlled the house for the better part of two decades. Another asks which children will have the bedrooms facing the street, and says the writer will know once they move in. One asks: "Why are you here? I will find out."

Mid 2014 onwardLater letters use the couple's names, misspelling the surname as "Braddus", name the three children, and mention renovation work that could not be seen from the street. One says "657 Boulevard is anxious for you to move in", describes the house as crying over the renovations, and warns about the basement. The family move in with Maria's mother instead. Westfield police and the Union County Prosecutor's Office investigate.

June 2015The Broadduses sue the Woods family in Union County civil court for fraud and breach of contract, for not telling them about the earlier letter. The story goes public and spreads worldwide. The suit is later dismissed.

2016The town planning board rejects a plan to knock the house down and build two houses on the lot.

LaterThe family rent the house out. A letter arrives for them there, insulting them and hinting that they may already have met the writer as a neighbour.

2018New York magazine publishes Reeves Wiedeman's long investigation, "The Watcher". Netflix buys the rights that December.

July 2019The house finally sells for about $959,000. The new owners say they have not been contacted by the Watcher.

October 2022Netflix releases The Watcher, a dramatised series by Ryan Murphy starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale.

Key figures

Derek and Maria Broaddus and their three children are the family who received the letters. The Woods family were the previous owners. Westfield police, under Chief David Wayman, and the Union County Prosecutor's Office led the investigation.

The Watcher is unknown. Police looked first at a neighbouring family and found no evidence linking them to the letters. No one has ever been charged or publicly named by the authorities as responsible, and bot313 does not name private people as suspects.

Physical and documentary trail

The record: the letters themselves, which the family kept and gave to police and which have been quoted at length in the press; the court record of the 2015 lawsuit; the planning application; the property sales; and the 2018 magazine investigation. DNA taken from an envelope reportedly suggested the sender might be a woman, but it matched no one. The police and prosecutor's files have not been made public. The prosecutor's office has said the case is not active but remains open.

What is missing: any identified suspect, any public forensic report, and any official account of why the trail went cold.

Things you might not know

• The family never lived there. They renovated, received the letters, and never moved their children in.
• The previous owners had one too. The Woods family received a Watcher letter shortly before selling, after 23 years in the house.
• The Watcher couldn't spell their name. The letters called them the "Braddus" family.
• The renters got one. Even after the family rented the house out, a letter for them arrived there.
• Netflix changed the family. At the Broadduses' request, the series renamed them the Brannocks and changed their ages and number of children.
• Police keep coming back. According to a 2022 report, Westfield police had been called to the property 58 times since it was sold in 2019, many visits linked to sightseers.

Competing explanations

A neighbour or someone local. The letters showed close knowledge of the street, the family's movements and even work inside the house. The final letter to the renters itself hinted at a neighbour. This is the obvious theory, and nobody has been charged.

Someone connected to the house's history. The writer claimed a family link going back to the 1920s. That could be true, or a story told to frighten.

A hoax by the owners. Online speculation, and the Woods family's response to the lawsuit, raised the idea that the Broadduses wrote the letters to escape a bad purchase. The earlier letter to the Woods family argues against it, police did not charge the Broadduses, and no evidence for it has been made public.

Later life of the case

The Watcher became a byword for suburban fear. An Australian horror film, 3rd Night (2017), was inspired by it, and the Netflix series brought a new wave of attention to the house, much of it unwelcome to its current owners.

Finding

The letters are real, the investigation was real, and the family's loss was real. Whoever wrote them knew the street and the house and wanted the new owners gone, and they have never been identified.

What still will not resolve: who the Watcher is, since the police file is closed to the public and the one forensic lead matched no one.