Curious viewers began flocking to New Jersey on Thursday to drive by 657 Boulevard in Westfield - the house at the centre of Netflix’s new true crime drama The Watcher.
The series, starring Bobby Cannavale, Mia Farrow and Naomi Watts, debuted earlier in the day, telling a highly fictionalized version of a nightmare experienced by the Broaddus family, who bought the house in 2014. Derek and Maria Broaddus and their three young children intended to move into the home, with its $1.35m purchase price.
But just days after closing, Mr Broaddus says the family began receiving a series of eerie letters signed “The Watcher,” who included details such a their children’s names and snippets of conversations that could only be known if someone was within viewing distance and earshot of the house.
The Broaddus family never took up residence in the home.
The creepy case was chronicled in 2018 by The Cut, which included the home’s address, and visitors to the street have not been infrequent ever since - similar to people driving by the Amityville Horror House, another Dutch Colonial with a sinister history just 60 miles east on Long Island.
But there were “way more” on Boulevard on Thursday, a neighbour told The Independent - and that was only the first day of the series release.
The Watcher was the number one show on Netflix on Friday.
The Westfield Police Department and Mayor Shelley Brindle did not immediately return requests for comment from The Independent.
While the Netflix series takes a huge amount of creative license - manufacturing characters, details, storylines and the majority of the plot, really - the truth at the heart of the story is chiling.
The first white envelope discuvered in the family mailbox by Mr Broaddus was addressed to “The New Owner.”
“How did you end up here?” the letter read. “Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within?”
It added that the home had “been the subject of my family for decades now and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out.”
In a total of three letters, the Broadduses say the writer mentioned specifics that presumably could have only been witnessed and heard in close proximity to the home.
“I see already that you have flooded 657 Boulevard with contractors so that you can destroy the house as it was supposed to be,” the person wrote. “Tsk, tsk, tsk … bad move. You don’t want to make 657 Boulevard unhappy.”
The writer added: “You have children. I have seen them. So far I think there are three that I have counted”, then the threatening: “Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed to bring me your children? Once I know their names I will call to them and draw them too [sic] me.”
The writer eventually did refer to the children “by birth order and by their nicknames,” even one child in particular, reported New York Magazine’s The Cut.
Mr Broaddus told the publication that he was “a depressed wreck” as he and his wife attempted to figure out what to do; she said their main goal was to avoid putting the children “in harm’s way.”
That was certainly a difficult decision, given the malevolent tone of the correspondence.
“It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house,” The Watcher wrote. “Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement? Or are they too afraid to go down there alone. I would [be] very afraid if I were them. It is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs you would never hear them scream.
“Will they sleep in the attic? Or will you all sleep on the second floor? Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I’ll know as soon as you move in. It will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better.
“All of the windows and doors in 657 Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house. Who am I? I am the Watcher and have been in control of 657 Boulevard for the better part of two decades now. The Woods family turned it over to you. It was their time to move on and kindly sold it when I asked them to.
“I pass by many times a day. 657 Boulevard is my job, my life, my obsession. And now you are too Broaddus family. Welcome to the product of your greed! Greed is what brought the past three families to 657 Boulevard and now it has brought you to me.”
The Broaddus family asked the previous owners whether they’d been plagued by such letters; the Woodses said they’d received only one in 23 years of occupying the home - and that had come in the mail just before they moved out.
The occupants who preceded the Woods family also said there’d been no issues during their 28 years at the address. Margaret Bakes Davis, who grew up in the house, tells The Independent the whole brouhaha was “a little odd, I think, especially because it was such a wonderful time for me, for our family ... There were no issues.
“It was like Mayberry R.F.D. It was a beautiful place to grow up. I had a wonderful childhood. There was nothing when we lived there. Absolutely nothing.”
All of that had changed years later, however, during the Broadduses’ ownership. The parents-of-three contacted police, and there were multiple suspects; the family hired their own investigator and consultants, too. But the mystery was never solved, and they eventually sold the house at a loss in 2019.
The identity of “The Watcher” remains unknown to this day.
