American Monsters: The Watcher
Sources:
https://www.thecut.com/article/the-haunting-of-657-boulevard-in-westfield-new-jersey.html https://www.thecut.com/2022/10/the-watcher-657-boulevard-update.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/the-watcher-house-owner-true-story-netflix-b2219719.html
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening.
Speaker 2: Now True Crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish,
Speaker 2: the strange in the darkly comic. A podcast that's about
Speaker 2: more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension,
Speaker 2: home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories,
Speaker 2: the unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it
Speaker 2: all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Hey, everybody, welcome.
Speaker 2: I am Zabnodelberg, and this is kind of murdery. Now.
Speaker 2: This is a recent and a pretty famous story. In fact,
Speaker 2: there is a Lifetime original movie based on it, fictionalized
Speaker 2: but based on it. There is also now a Netflix
Speaker 2: movie based on the true account of this story. I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what the story is in a minute. To
Speaker 2: be patient, so I won't be treading new ground here,
Speaker 2: but I gotta tell you. As soon as I encountered
Speaker 2: the story you're about to hear today, I had no
Speaker 2: choice but to tell it. You know, as you know,
Speaker 2: because you listen. I tell a lot of dark, creepy unsettling,
Speaker 2: upsetting stories. This is kind of Murdery after all. But
Speaker 2: in general, discovering and then reading about a new story
Speaker 2: for the first time doesn't personally give me the hebe gebis.
Speaker 2: I generally don't get upset when I read stuff, at
Speaker 2: least not in a visceral, physical pit of the stomach
Speaker 2: sort of way. Today's story is an exception to that.
Speaker 2: As I read it, I found myself feeling progressively more
Speaker 2: and more frightened. This is the story of a young
Speaker 2: family who bought their dream home in an upscale suburb
Speaker 2: of New Jersey, only to discover they had a mysterious, unexpected,
Speaker 2: undesired and absolutely sinus neighbor. And now I suggest that
Speaker 2: you put your personal items underneath the seat in front
Speaker 2: of you, stow your carry on in the overhead compartment,
Speaker 2: let go of the worries of the day, but be
Speaker 2: sure your seat belt is fastened. There's turbulence expected a
Speaker 2: head Part one of Kind of Murdery's telling of the
Speaker 2: Watcher six point fifty seven Boulevard starts now. On a
Speaker 2: warm night in June of twenty fourteen, Derek Broadus had
Speaker 2: just finished an evening of painting at his new home
Speaker 2: in Westfield, New Jersey, when he went outside to check
Speaker 2: the mail. Derek and his wife Maria had closed on
Speaker 2: the six bedroom house at six five seven Boulevard three
Speaker 2: days earlier and were doing some renovations before they moved in,
Speaker 2: so there wasn't much in the mail except a few
Speaker 2: bills and a white card shaped envelope. It was addressed
Speaker 2: in thick, clunky handwriting, too quote the new owner unquote,
Speaker 2: and the typed note inside began warmly, dearest new neighbor
Speaker 2: at six five seven Boulevard, It read, allow me to
Speaker 2: welcome you to the neighborhood. For the Brodesses, buying sixty
Speaker 2: five seven Boulevard had fulfilled a dream. Maria was raised
Speaker 2: in Westfield and the house was a few blocks from
Speaker 2: her childhood home. Derek grew up working class in Maine
Speaker 2: and then moved his way up the ladder at the
Speaker 2: insurance company in Manhattan to become a senior vice president
Speaker 2: with a salary large enough to afford the one point
Speaker 2: three million dollar house the Brondesses had bought six five
Speaker 2: seven Boulevard just after Derek celebrated his fortieth birthday, and
Speaker 2: their three kids were already debating which of the houses
Speaker 2: fireplaces Santa Claus would use. But as Derek kept reading
Speaker 2: the letter from his new neighbor, it took a turn.
Speaker 2: How did you end up here, the writer asked, Did
Speaker 2: six five seven Boulevard call to you with its force? Within?
Speaker 2: Six five seven Boulevard has been the subject of my
Speaker 2: family for decades now. My grandfather watched this house in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, and my father watched it in the
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties. It is now my time. Do you know
Speaker 2: the history of the house? Do you know what lies
Speaker 2: within the walls of six five seven Boulevard? Why are
Speaker 2: you here? I will find out? The author's reconnaissance had
Speaker 2: apparently already begun. The letter identified the Broddess's Honda minivan
Speaker 2: as well as the workers renovating the home. It read quote,
Speaker 2: I see already that you have flooded six five seven
Speaker 2: Boulevard with contractors so you can destroy the house as
Speaker 2: it was supposed to be. Tisk tisk, tisk, bad move.
Speaker 2: You don't want to make sixty five seven Boulevard unhappy.
Speaker 2: Earlier in the week, Derek and Maria had gone to
Speaker 2: the house and chatted with their new neighbors while their children,
Speaker 2: who were five, eight, and ten years old ran around
Speaker 2: the backyard with several kids from the neighborhood. The letter
Speaker 2: writers seem to have noticed you have children. I have
Speaker 2: seen them so far. I think there are three that
Speaker 2: I've counted, the anonymous correspondent wrote, before asking if there
Speaker 2: were quote more on the way. Do you need to
Speaker 2: fill the house with the young blood? I requested? The
Speaker 2: letter queried better for me. Was your old house too
Speaker 2: small for the growing family? Or was it greed to
Speaker 2: bring me your children? Once I know their names, I
Speaker 2: will call them and draw them to me. The envelope
Speaker 2: had no return address. Who am I, the person wrote?
Speaker 2: There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by
Speaker 2: six five seven Boulevard each day. Maybe I am in one.
Speaker 2: Look at all the windows you can see from six
Speaker 2: five to seven Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look
Speaker 2: out any of the many windows in six five seven Boulevard,
Speaker 2: at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe
Speaker 2: I am one. The letter concluded with the suggestion that
Speaker 2: this message would not be the last. Welcome my friends. Welcome,
Speaker 2: it said, let the party begin, followed by a signature
Speaker 2: type and a cursive font that read the watcher. Okay, pause,
Speaker 2: just a moment. I got to say that I got
Speaker 2: completely freaked out the first time I read this story,
Speaker 2: and now I'm reading it again, recording it for you guys,
Speaker 2: and I've got the hebgbis all over again. I like
Speaker 2: glancing over my shoulder and holding my breath. It's absolutely
Speaker 2: bone chilling. Let's get back to it. It was after
Speaker 2: ten PM and Derek Broadus was alone. He raced around
Speaker 2: the house, turning off lights so no one could see inside.
Speaker 2: Then he called the Westfield Police Department. An officer came
Speaker 2: to the house, read the letter and said, what the
Speaker 2: fuck is this? He asked Derek if he had enemies,
Speaker 2: and recommended moving a piece of construction equipment from the
Speaker 2: back porch in case the watcher tried to toss it
Speaker 2: through a window. Derek rushed back to his wife and kids,
Speaker 2: who were living in their old home elsewhere in Westfield.
Speaker 2: That night, Derek and Maria wrote an email to John
Speaker 2: and Andrea Woods, the couple who sold them six five
Speaker 2: seven Boulevard, to ask if they had any idea who
Speaker 2: the watcher might be or why he or she had
Speaker 2: written quote. I asked the Woods to bring me young blood,
Speaker 2: and it looks like they listened, Andrea Woods replied the
Speaker 2: next morning. A few days before moving out, the Woods
Speaker 2: had also received a letter from the Watcher. The note
Speaker 2: had been odd, she said, and made similar mention of
Speaker 2: the Watcher's family observing the house over time. But Andrea
Speaker 2: said she and her husband had never received anything like
Speaker 2: it in their twenty three years in the house, and
Speaker 2: had thrown the letter away without much thought. That day,
Speaker 2: the woods As went with Maria to the police station,
Speaker 2: where Detective Leonard Lugo told her not to tell anyone
Speaker 2: about the letters, including her new neighbors, most of whom
Speaker 2: she'd never met and all of whom were now suspects.
Speaker 2: The Brodess has spent the coming weeks on high alert.
Speaker 2: Derek canceled a work trip, and whenever Maria took the
Speaker 2: kids to their new house, she would yell their names
Speaker 2: if they wandered into a corner of the yard. When
Speaker 2: Derek gave a tour of the renovation to a couple
Speaker 2: on the block, he froze when the wife said, it'll
Speaker 2: be nice to have some young blood in the neighborhood.
Speaker 2: The Brodess's general contractor arrived one morning to find that
Speaker 2: a heavy sign he'd ham into the front yard had
Speaker 2: been ripped out overnight. Two weeks after the letter arrived,
Speaker 2: Maria stopped by the house to look at some paint
Speaker 2: samples and check the mail. She recognized the thick black
Speaker 2: lettering on the card shaped envelope and called the police.
Speaker 2: Welcome again to your new home at six five seven Boulevard,
Speaker 2: the watcher wrote, The workers have been busy, and I
Speaker 2: have been watching you unload carfuls of your personal belongings.
Speaker 2: The dumpster is a nice touch. Have they found what's
Speaker 2: in the walls? Yet? In time they will. In this letter,
Speaker 2: the watcher had addressed Derek and Maria directly misspelling their
Speaker 2: names as mister and missus. Brattis Brddus instead of Broaddus.
Speaker 2: Had the watcher been close enough to hear one of
Speaker 2: the Broddess's contractors addressing them. The watcher had boasted of
Speaker 2: having learned a lot about the family in the preceding weeks,
Speaker 2: especially about their children. The letter identified the Broddess's three
Speaker 2: kids by birth order and by their nicknames, the ones
Speaker 2: Maria had been yelling, I am pleased to know your
Speaker 2: name now, and the name of the young blood you
Speaker 2: have brought to me, it said, you certainly say their
Speaker 2: names often. The letter asked about one child in particular,
Speaker 2: whom the writer had seen using an easel inside an
Speaker 2: enclosed porch. Six five seven Boulevard is anxious for you
Speaker 2: to move in. It has been years and years since
Speaker 2: the young Blood ruled the hallways of the house. Have
Speaker 2: you found all the secrets it holds? Yet? Will the
Speaker 2: young Blood play in the basement or are they too
Speaker 2: afraid to go down there alone? I would be very
Speaker 2: afraid if I were them. It is far away from
Speaker 2: the rest of the house. If you were upstairs, you
Speaker 2: would never hear them scream. Will they sleep in the
Speaker 2: attic or will you all sleep on the second floor?
Speaker 2: Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I'll know as
Speaker 2: soon as you move in. It will help me to
Speaker 2: know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better.
Speaker 2: All of the windows and doors and six five seven
Speaker 2: Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as
Speaker 2: you move through the house. Who am I? I am
Speaker 2: the watcher who's been in control of sixty five seven
Speaker 2: Boulevard for the better part of two decades now. The
Speaker 2: Woods family turned it over to you. It was their
Speaker 2: time to move on, and they kindly sold it when
Speaker 2: I asked them to. I passed by many times a day.
Speaker 2: Six five seven Boulevard is my job. It's my life,
Speaker 2: my obsession, and now you, too, are my obsession. Braddis family,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the product of your greed. Greed is what
Speaker 2: brought the past three families to six five seven Boulevard,
Speaker 2: and now it has brought you to me. Have a
Speaker 2: happy moving Indy. You know I will be watching. Derek
Speaker 2: and Maria stopped bringing their kids to the house. They
Speaker 2: were no longer sure when or if they would move in.
Speaker 2: Several weeks later, a third letter arrived, Where have you
Speaker 2: gone to? The watcher wrote, six five seven Boulevard is
Speaker 2: missing you. Many Westfield residents compare their town to Mayberry,
Speaker 2: the idyllic setting for the Andy griffth Show, the kind
Speaker 2: of place where a new neighbor might greet you with
Speaker 2: a welcoming note. Westfield is forty five minutes from New
Speaker 2: York and a bit too slow for singles, meaning that
Speaker 2: the town's thirty thousand residents are largely well to do families.
Speaker 2: In twenty eighteen, Bloomberg ranked Westfield the ninety ninth richest
Speaker 2: city in America, but only the eighteenth wealthiest in New Jersey,
Speaker 2: and in twenty fourteen, when the Watcher struck the website,
Speaker 2: Neighborhood Scout named it the country's thirtieth safest town. The
Speaker 2: most pressing local issues of late, according to residents, have
Speaker 2: been the temporary closure of a Trader Joe's over a
Speaker 2: roof collapse, and the rampant scourge of unconstitutional policing, by
Speaker 2: which they mean aggressive parking enforcement. Westfield is eighty six
Speaker 2: percent white. One activity all locals recognized as treacherous, though,
Speaker 2: is trying to buy a house. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: money and a lot of ego. One residence said, I've
Speaker 2: seen bidding wars where friends lost by three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: The Broadness's house was on the Boulevard, a wide, tree
Speaker 2: line street with some of the more desirable homes in town.
Speaker 2: As the Watcher had noted, the Boulevard used to be
Speaker 2: the street to live on. You'd made it if you
Speaker 2: lived on the Boulevard. Built in nineteen oh five, six,
Speaker 2: five seven, Boulevard was perhaps the grandest home on the block,
Speaker 2: and when the woods Is put it on the market,
Speaker 2: they had received multiple offers above their asking price. That
Speaker 2: led the Broadesses to initially suspect that the watcher might
Speaker 2: be someone upset over losing out on the house, but
Speaker 2: the Woods has said one interested buyer had backed out
Speaker 2: after a bad medical diagnosis, while another had already found
Speaker 2: a different home. In an email to the brodesss Andrea
Speaker 2: Woods proposed another theory. Would the mention of the contractor
Speaker 2: trucks and your children suggest that it was someone in
Speaker 2: the neighborhood. The letters did indicate proximity. They had been
Speaker 2: processed in Kernie, the US Postal Services distribution center in
Speaker 2: northern New Jersey. The first was postmarked on June fourth,
Speaker 2: before the sale was public. The Woods had never put
Speaker 2: up a for sale sign, and June four was only
Speaker 2: one day after the contractors had arrived. The renovations were
Speaker 2: mostly interior, and people who lived nearby say they didn't
Speaker 2: notice an unusual commotion, even from the jackhammering in the basement.
Speaker 2: When Derek and Maria walked detective Logo around the house,
Speaker 2: they showed him that the easel on the porch was
Speaker 2: hidden from the street by vegetation, making it difficult to
Speaker 2: see unless someone was behind the house or right next door.
Speaker 2: A few days after the first letter, Maria and Derek
Speaker 2: went to a barbecue across the street, welcoming them and
Speaker 2: another new homeowner to the block. The Brondesses hadn't told
Speaker 2: anyone about the watcher, as the police had instructed, and
Speaker 2: found themselves scanning the party for clues while keeping tabs
Speaker 2: on their kids, who ran guilelessly through a crowd that
Speaker 2: made up much of the suspect pool. We kept screaming
Speaker 2: at them to stay close, Maria said. People must have
Speaker 2: thought we were crazy. At one point, Derek was chatting
Speaker 2: with John Schmidt, who lived two doors down, when Schmidt
Speaker 2: told him about the Langfords who lived in between them.
Speaker 2: Peggy Langford was in her nineties and several of her
Speaker 2: adult children, all in their sixties, lived with her. The
Speaker 2: family was a bit odd, Schmidt said, but harmless. He
Speaker 2: described one of the younger Langford's, Michael, who didn't work
Speaker 2: and had a beard like Ernest Hemingway, as a kind
Speaker 2: of quote Boo Radley character unquote Boo Radley being the
Speaker 2: mysterious and apparently at least to children, terrifying recluse from
Speaker 2: Harper Lee's seminal work to kill a mocking word, Derek
Speaker 2: thought the case was solved. The Langford house was right
Speaker 2: next to the easel on the porch. The family had
Speaker 2: lived there since the nineteen sixties, when the watcher's father,
Speaker 2: the letters said, had begun observing six five seven Boulevard
Speaker 2: Richard Langford, the family patriarch, had died twelve years earlier,
Speaker 2: and the current watcher claimed to have been on the
Speaker 2: job for the better part of two decades. When the
Speaker 2: brodesss told Lugo about the family, he said he already knew,
Speaker 2: and a week after the first letter arrived, he brought
Speaker 2: Michael Langford into the police headquarters for an interview. Michael
Speaker 2: Langford denied knowing anything about the letters, but the brodesses
Speaker 2: say that Lugo told them that the narrative of what
Speaker 2: Michael said matched things in the letters. This isn't CSI.
Speaker 2: Westfield Officer Lugo later told the brodesss when the wife
Speaker 2: is dead, it's the husband. But there wasn't much hard evidence,
Speaker 2: and after a few weeks the police chief told the
Speaker 2: brodesses that short of an admission, there wasn't much the
Speaker 2: department could do. This is someone who threatened my kids,
Speaker 2: and the police are saying, probably nothing's gonna happen, said
Speaker 2: Derek Broddis, Probably isn't good enough for me. After the
Speaker 2: second letter, Derek told the cops that if they didn't
Speaker 2: take care of this situation, they would have a different
Speaker 2: kind of case on their hands. This person attacked my
Speaker 2: family and where I'm from. If you do that, you
Speaker 2: get your ass beat. Frustrated, the Broadestes began their own investigation.
Speaker 2: Derek became especially obsessed. He set up webcams and sixty
Speaker 2: five seven Boulevard and spent nights crouched in the dark
Speaker 2: watching to see if anyone was watching the house at
Speaker 2: close range. Maria thought I was crazy, he said. Derek
Speaker 2: had maps showing when each of six five seven's neighbors
Speaker 2: had moved in, and the Langfords were the only ones
Speaker 2: there since the nineteen sixties. The maps had overlays marking
Speaker 2: possible sight lines for the easel and a circle for
Speaker 2: a proximate range of earshot. To estimate who might have
Speaker 2: heard Maria yelling their kids' names. Only a few homes
Speaker 2: fit both criteria. The Brodises also turned to several experts.
Speaker 2: They employed a private investigator who staked out the neighborhood
Speaker 2: and ran background checks on the Langfords, but didn't find
Speaker 2: anything noteworthy. Derek reached out to a former FBI agent
Speaker 2: who served as the inspiration for Clarice Starling in the
Speaker 2: Silence of the Lambs. They were high school board of
Speaker 2: trustees together, and they also hired Robert Lenahan, another former
Speaker 2: FBI agent, to conduct a threat assessment. Lenahan recognized several
Speaker 2: old fashioned ticks in the letters that pointed to an
Speaker 2: older writer. The envelope was addressed to m slash m Bradis.
Speaker 2: The salutations included the day's weather warm and human, sunny
Speaker 2: and cool for a summer day, and the sentences had
Speaker 2: double spaces between them. The letters had a certain literary panache,
Speaker 2: which suggested a voracious reader and a surprising lack of
Speaker 2: profanity given the lay of anger, which Lenahan thought meant
Speaker 2: a less macho writer. Maybe, he wondered the Watcher had
Speaker 2: seen The Watcher, a movie starring Keanu Reeves as a
Speaker 2: serial killer who stalks the detective trying to catch him.
Speaker 2: Lenahan didn't think the Watcher was likely to act on
Speaker 2: the threats, but the letters had enough typos and errors
Speaker 2: to imply a certain erraticism. The first letter was dated Tuesday,
Speaker 2: June fourth, but the day was actually a Wednesday. There
Speaker 2: was also a seething anger directed at the wealthy. In particular,
Speaker 2: the Watcher was upset by new money moving into town
Speaker 2: quote are you one of those Hoboken transplants who are
Speaker 2: ruining Westfield? Unquote? And by the Broddess's relatively modest renovations, writing,
Speaker 2: the house is crying from all the pain it's going through.
Speaker 2: You have changed it and made it so fancy. You
Speaker 2: are stealing its history. It cries for the past and
Speaker 2: what it used to be in the time when I
Speaker 2: roamed its halls. The sixties were a good time for
Speaker 2: sixty five seven Boulevard, when I ran from one room
Speaker 2: to another, imagining the life with the rich occupyvents there.
Speaker 2: The house was full of life and young blood. Then
Speaker 2: it got old, and so did my father. But he
Speaker 2: kept watching until the day he died. And now I
Speaker 2: watch and I wait for the day when the young
Speaker 2: blood will be mine again. Lenihan recommended looking into former
Speaker 2: housekeepers or their descendants. Perhaps the Watcher was jealous that
Speaker 2: the Brodesses had bought a home that the writer could
Speaker 2: not afford, but the focus remained on the Langfords. In
Speaker 2: cooperation with the Westfield Police, the Broddesses sent a letter
Speaker 2: to the Langfords announcing plans to tear down the house,
Speaker 2: hoping to prompt a response. Detective Logo brought Michael Langford
Speaker 2: in for a second interview, but got nowhere, and his
Speaker 2: sister Abbey accused the police of harassing their family. Eventually,
Speaker 2: the Brodesses hired Lee Levitt, a lawyer, who met with
Speaker 2: several members of the Langford family as well as their attorney,
Speaker 2: to show the letters along with photos explaining how their
Speaker 2: home was one of the few van points from which
Speaker 2: the easel could be seen. The meeting grew tense, and
Speaker 2: the Langfords insisted Michael was innocent. One night, Derek had
Speaker 2: a dream in which he confronted Peggy, the eldest Langford,
Speaker 2: and demanded she build an eight foot fence around the properties.
Speaker 2: Maria was having other kinds of dreams. One night she
Speaker 2: woke up to an especially vivid one about a man
Speaker 2: who lived nearby. He was wearing these boots and carrying
Speaker 2: a pitchfork and calling to the kids, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: get to them In time, Maria said she thought almost
Speaker 2: anyone could be the watcher, which made daily life feel
Speaker 2: like navigating a labyrinth of threats. She probed the faces
Speaker 2: of shoppers a Trader Joe's to see if they looked
Speaker 2: strangely at her kids, and spent hours googling anyone who
Speaker 2: seemed suspicious. There were reasons to consider other suspects. For
Speaker 2: one thing, the police spoke to Michael before the second
Speaker 2: letter was sent, which would have made sending two more
Speaker 2: especially reckless. The Broadesses say that Lugo told them they
Speaker 2: wouldn't receive any more letters after he spoke to Michael.
Speaker 2: Then there was the rest of the neighborhoo to consider.
Speaker 2: The private investigator found two child sex offenders within a
Speaker 2: few blocks. Bill Woodward, the Broughdess's house painter, had also
Speaker 2: noticed something strange. The couple behind six five seven Boulevard
Speaker 2: kept a pair of lawn chairs strangely close to the
Speaker 2: Broadest's property. One day, I was looking out the window
Speaker 2: and I saw this older guy sitting in one of
Speaker 2: the chairs. Woodward said he was facing the Broadesses. But
Speaker 2: by the end of twenty fourteen, the investigation installed, the
Speaker 2: watcher had left no digital trail, no fingerprints, and no
Speaker 2: way to place someone at the scene of a crime
Speaker 2: that could have been hatched from pretty much any mailbox
Speaker 2: in northern New Jersey. The letters could be read closely
Speaker 2: for possible clues or dismissed as the nonsensical ramblings of
Speaker 2: a sociopath. It was like trying to find a needle
Speaker 2: in a haystack, said Scott Kraus, who helped investigate the
Speaker 2: case for the Union County Prosecutor's office. In December, the
Speaker 2: Westfield Police told the Broadesses they had run out of options.
Speaker 2: Derek showed the letters to his priest, who agreed to
Speaker 2: bless the house. The renovations to six seven boks, including
Speaker 2: a new alarm system, were finished within a few months,
Speaker 2: but the idea of moving in filled the Broadesses with
Speaker 2: overwhelming anxiety. Could they let their kids play outside or
Speaker 2: have friends over? Would they get a new letter every week?
Speaker 2: Derek priced out trained German shepherds and posted a job
Speaker 2: on a website for military veterans. The posting said all
Speaker 2: you have to do is work out in the backyard
Speaker 2: every day. But the Brodesses hadn't bought six five seven
Speaker 2: to feel bunkered in a fortress. At the end of
Speaker 2: the day, it came down to what are you willing
Speaker 2: to risk? Maria said, we weren't going to put our
Speaker 2: kids in harm's way. Derek had been responding to occasional
Speaker 2: alarms at the house, sometimes in the middle of the night,
Speaker 2: bringing a knife with him just in case. They were
Speaker 2: so joyous about their new home, and then within days
Speaker 2: they were all petrified. Bill Woodward, the painter, said, I'm
Speaker 2: a stranger, and Maria was crying and shaking in my arms.
Speaker 2: It didn't help that the watchers seemed to be getting
Speaker 2: more and more unhinged. Six five seven Boulevard is churning
Speaker 2: on me. It is coming after me. I don't understand why.
Speaker 2: What spell did you cast on it? It used to
Speaker 2: be my friend, and now it is my enemy. I
Speaker 2: am in charge of six five seven Boulevard. It is
Speaker 2: not in charge of me. I will fend off its
Speaker 2: bad things and wait for it to become good again.
Speaker 2: It will not punish me. I will rise again. I
Speaker 2: will be patient and wait for this to pass and
Speaker 2: for you to bring the young blood back to me.
Speaker 2: Six five seven Boulevard needs young blood. It needs you
Speaker 2: come back. Let the young bloods play again like I
Speaker 2: once did. Let the young blood sleep in six five
Speaker 2: seven Boulevard. Stop changing it and let it alone. The
Speaker 2: Broadesses had sold their old home, so they moved in
Speaker 2: with Maria's parents while continuing to pay the mortgage in
Speaker 2: property taxes on sixty five seven Boulevard. I had to
Speaker 2: do things like shovel the driveway, Derek Broadus said. Just
Speaker 2: picture that little indignity. I'd go at five in the morning,
Speaker 2: then come back and do it again at my in laws.
Speaker 2: They totally a handful of friends about the letters, which
Speaker 2: left others to ask why they weren't moving in legal issues.
Speaker 2: They said the friends would wonder if the Broadesses were
Speaker 2: getting divorced. They fought constantly and started taking medication to
Speaker 2: fall asleep. I was a depressed wreck, Derek said. Maria
Speaker 2: decided to see a therapist after a routine doctor's visit
Speaker 2: that began with the question how are you caused her
Speaker 2: to burst into tears. The therapists said she was suffering
Speaker 2: from post traumatic stress that wouldn't go away until they
Speaker 2: got rid of the house. Speaking of post traumatic stress,
Speaker 2: depression and other mental health issues, this seems like an
Speaker 2: appropriate spot to remind you about the free three digit
Speaker 2: lifeline number nine eight eight that you can call twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a day, seven days a week to receive
Speaker 2: immediate counseling for substance use, mental health or suicidal thoughts.
Speaker 2: So if you find yourself in crisis, please do call
Speaker 2: nine eight eight, program it into your phone right now,
Speaker 2: and please always do remember that the world is a
Speaker 2: better place with you in it. You can also reach
Speaker 2: out to me. I would love to connect with you
Speaker 2: Kindamurdery at gmail dot com or Atmurdery on all social media. Again,
Speaker 2: please don't reach out to me if you're in acute crisis.
Speaker 2: I'm not qualified for that. But if you just want
Speaker 2: to connect with someone, share your story, share your feelings,
Speaker 2: then I would love to connect with you. Also another reminder,
Speaker 2: please do call eighty eight Murdery and tell me your
Speaker 2: kind of murdery story so that you can inspire an
Speaker 2: episode of the show. All right back to the Watcher.
Speaker 2: Six months after the letters arrived, the Broadest has decided
Speaker 2: to sell six five seven Boulevard. They initially listed it
Speaker 2: for more than they paid to reflect the renovations they'd done,
Speaker 2: but few worlds are more gossipyed than suburban New Jersey
Speaker 2: real estate, and rumors had already begun to swirl about
Speaker 2: the house that sat empty. One broker emailed to say
Speaker 2: that her client loved it, but that there were too
Speaker 2: many unsubstantiated rumors flying around, ranging from a sexual predator
Speaker 2: to a stalker, and that they needed to know more.
Speaker 2: The Broadest has sent a partial disclosure mentioning the letters
Speaker 2: to interested buyers, and told Coldwell Banker their realtor, that
Speaker 2: they intended to show the full letters to anyone whose
Speaker 2: offer was accepted. Several preliminary bids came in well below
Speaker 2: the asking price, but the brodesses weren't ready to take
Speaker 2: such a financial hit and only wanted to share the
Speaker 2: letters with likely buyers. No one got that far, even
Speaker 2: after they lowered the price. A cold Well agent who
Speaker 2: hadn't read the letters told them in an email that
Speaker 2: they were being unnecessarily forthcoming. My friend got horrible threatening
Speaker 2: letters about her dog barking, and she didn't think to disclose,
Speaker 2: the realtor said, But the Broadesses insisted, I don't know
Speaker 2: how you live through what we did and think you
Speaker 2: could do it to somebody else. Derek said, Derek and
Speaker 2: Maria thought about what they would have done had the
Speaker 2: previous owners told them about their letter from the Watcher.
Speaker 2: The woods Is, both retired scientists, told the Broadesses that
Speaker 2: they remembered the letter they received as more strange than threatening,
Speaker 2: thanking them for taking care of the house. They say
Speaker 2: they never had any issues, and they certainly never felt watched.
Speaker 2: They rarely even locked their doors, but the Broadesses felt
Speaker 2: the name alone was ominous enough to merit mentioning to
Speaker 2: a new family moving in, and on June second, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: a year after buying sixty five seven Boulevard, they filed
Speaker 2: a legal complaint against the Woodses, arguing that the Woodses
Speaker 2: should have disclosed the letter, just as they had the
Speaker 2: fact that water sometimes got in the basement. The Broadest
Speaker 2: has said they hoped to reach a quiet settlement. Their
Speaker 2: kids still didn't know about the Watcher, and their lawyer
Speaker 2: assured them that at most a small legal newswire might
Speaker 2: pick up the story. We do some creepy stories, tammeron
Speaker 2: Hall said on The Today Show a few weeks later,
Speaker 2: this might be top ten creepy. A local reporter had
Speaker 2: found the complaint, which included snippets of the Watcher's menacing threats,
Speaker 2: and after a belated attempt by The Broadestes to seal it,
Speaker 2: the story went viral. News trucks camped out at sixty
Speaker 2: five to seven Boulevard, and one local reporter set up
Speaker 2: a lawn chair to conduct his own watch. The Broadest
Speaker 2: has got more than three hundred media or quests, but
Speaker 2: with advice from a crisis management consultant preferred by one
Speaker 2: of Derek's colleagues, they decided not to speak publicly. To
Speaker 2: spare their kids even more attention. They vacated Westfield and
Speaker 2: went to a friend's beach house. They didn't find much peace.
Speaker 2: Maria's grandfather had a heart attack and the friend they
Speaker 2: were staying with had a seizure. Eventually, Derek and Maria
Speaker 2: sat down with their children to explain the real reason
Speaker 2: they hadn't moved into their home. The kids had plenty
Speaker 2: of questions, who is the watcher? Where does this person live?
Speaker 2: Why is this person angry with us, to which Derek
Speaker 2: and Maria had few answers. Can you imagine having that
Speaker 2: conversation with a five year old? Derek asked, your town
Speaker 2: isn't as safe as you think it is, and there's
Speaker 2: a boogeyman obsessed with you from a safer distance. The
Speaker 2: watcher was a real life mystery. To solve. A commentator
Speaker 2: on NJ dot com suggested ground penetrating radar to find
Speaker 2: whatever the watcher claimed was in the walls. The home
Speaker 2: inspector had already looked and told Derek the only issue
Speaker 2: was the aging homes lack of insulation. A group of
Speaker 2: Reddit users obsessed over Google mapp street view, which showed
Speaker 2: a car parked in front of six five seven that
Speaker 2: one user thought had a man holding a camera in
Speaker 2: the driver's seat. Others more rationally saw pixelated glare. The
Speaker 2: range of proposed subjects included a jilted mistress, a spurned realtor,
Speaker 2: a local high schooler's creative writing project, guerrilla marketing for
Speaker 2: a horror movie, and quote mal goths having fun, unquote
Speaker 2: mal goths having fun. Geez, that's a stretch. Some people
Speaker 2: just thought the Broadesses were whimps for not moving in.
Speaker 2: I would never let this sicko stop me from moving
Speaker 2: into a house. Never backed down from a terrorist, wrote
Speaker 2: one comment or, which irked the Broadesses. None of them
Speaker 2: have read the letters or had their children threatened by
Speaker 2: someone they didn't know. Derek said, to decide whether this
Speaker 2: person's only nuts enough to write these letters and not
Speaker 2: to do something. Well, what if something did happen? In Westfield?
Speaker 2: People were on edge. Lrie Clancy, who teaches piano lessons
Speaker 2: in her house behind nine six seven Boulevards, said that
Speaker 2: one of her students came for a lesson shortly after
Speaker 2: the news of the watcher broke and started bawling. She
Speaker 2: was terrified to walk down the boulevard, Clancy said. At
Speaker 2: the first Westfield Town Council meeting after the letters became public,
Speaker 2: Mayor Andy Skabitski assured the public that the watcher hadn't
Speaker 2: been heard from in a year, and that even though
Speaker 2: the police hadn't solved the case, their investigation had been exhaustive.
Speaker 2: This was news to six five seven neighbors, most of
Speaker 2: whom had never heard from the cops. We are confounded
Speaker 2: as to how a thorough investigation can be conducted without
Speaker 2: talking to all the neighbors with proximity to the home,
Speaker 2: said several of them in a written letter to the
Speaker 2: local paper. I'd like to mention that I am also
Speaker 2: confounded every single one of the neighbors that lived even
Speaker 2: within walking or short driving distance of the Broadess's home
Speaker 2: ought to have been interviewed the same way that the
Speaker 2: Langfords were. I mean, that's just one podcaster's opinion, But
Speaker 2: obviously whoever was doing this lived very close to the Broadesses,
Speaker 2: and there weren't that many people that lived very close
Speaker 2: to the Broadesses. And I also don't believe that any
Speaker 2: old Joe Schmoe is going to really be mentally and
Speaker 2: emotionally strong enough to hold up and continue to lie
Speaker 2: under a police interrogation. I mean, I understand not wanting
Speaker 2: to upset the town, but in this case, this letter
Speaker 2: writer really was threatening the Broadess's children, referring to them
Speaker 2: as young blood over and over can't exactly be ignored,
Speaker 2: and in light of direct threats to the family, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, there was a rather gross dereliction of duty
Speaker 2: that occurred here. It makes you wonder if it was
Speaker 2: maybe even one of the cops or town officials who
Speaker 2: was writing the letters. And after this general outcry from
Speaker 2: the neighbors and the glare of national attention because of
Speaker 2: the Today Show and others, Barons, a veteran detective in
Speaker 2: the Westfield Police was asked to look into the case.
Speaker 2: The Broadnesses are victims, and I don't think they got
Speaker 2: the support they needed. Chambliss, who has since retired, said
Speaker 2: recently Chamblis knew his colleagues had looked closely at Michael Langford.
Speaker 2: According to his brother, Sandy Langford, Michael had been diagnosed
Speaker 2: with schizophrenia as a young man. He sometimes spooked newcomers
Speaker 2: to the neighborhood when he did strange things like walk
Speaker 2: through their backyard or peek into the windows of homes
Speaker 2: that were being renovated, but those who knew him said
Speaker 2: the odd things he did were usually just unusual neighborly kindness.
Speaker 2: He goes out and gets the newspapers for me every morning,
Speaker 2: said John Schmidt, who lives next door. People who had
Speaker 2: known Michael for decades didn't think he was capable of
Speaker 2: writing the letters. It sounds to me like somebody who
Speaker 2: knew Michael and perhaps knew that he peaked in windows
Speaker 2: and was schizophrenic, may have been a sicko and essentially
Speaker 2: framing Michael Langford with the letters, which is soon super
Speaker 2: messed up. But again, that ought to be a pretty
Speaker 2: narrow suspect. Pool As Chambliss looked into the case, he
Speaker 2: discovered something surprising. Investigators had eventually conducted a DNA analysis
Speaker 2: on one of the envelopes and determined that the DNA
Speaker 2: belonged to a woman. Chambliss decided to look more closely
Speaker 2: at Abbey Langford, Michael's sister, who worked as a real
Speaker 2: estate agent. Was she up set about missing a commission
Speaker 2: right next door. She also worked at the local Lord
Speaker 2: and Taylor, and Chamblis coordinated with a security guard there
Speaker 2: to nab her plastic water bottle during a shift, but
Speaker 2: Chambliss says the DNA was not a match. Not long after,
Speaker 2: the prosecutor's office gave Derek and Maria some unexpected news.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't say why or how, but they had ruled
Speaker 2: out the Langfords as suspects. The Prodesses were stunned. They
Speaker 2: had recently told the prosecutors that they planned to file
Speaker 2: civil charges against the Langfords, and they wondered if the
Speaker 2: prosecutors were lying to prevent the story from blowing up again.
Speaker 2: My family moved to the boulevard in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 2: and we never caused a problem for anybody's Andy Langford said,
Speaker 2: this guy gets all these letters, and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden people are pointing figures. Left without a suspect, the
Speaker 2: Broadestes reopened their personal investigation. They were still coy about
Speaker 2: sharing too much with the neighbors who remained in the
Speaker 2: pool of suspects, but spent an afternoon walking the block
Speaker 2: with a picture of the Watcher's handwritten envelope. They hoped
Speaker 2: someone might recognize the writing from a Christmas card, but
Speaker 2: the only notable encounter came when an older man who
Speaker 2: lived behind six five seven said his son joked that
Speaker 2: the Watchers sounded a little bit like him. A neighbor
Speaker 2: across the street was the CEO of Kroll, the security firm,
Speaker 2: and the Broadestes hired the company to look for handwriting matches,
Speaker 2: but they found nothing. They also hired Robert Leonard, a
Speaker 2: renowned forensic linguist and former member of the band Shannah,
Speaker 2: who didn't find any noteworthy overlap when he scoured local
Speaker 2: online forums for similarities to the Watcher's writing, although he
Speaker 2: did think the author might watch Game of Thrones. At
Speaker 2: one point, Derek persuaded a friend in tech to connect
Speaker 2: him to a hacker willing to try to break into
Speaker 2: Wi Fi network in the neighborhood to look for incriminating documents,
Speaker 2: but doing so turned out to be both illegal and
Speaker 2: more difficult than the movies made it seem, so they
Speaker 2: didn't go through with it. Meanwhile, Chambliss and the Westfield
Speaker 2: police were also back at square one. The cops asked
Speaker 2: Andrea Woods for a DNA sample and interviewed her twenty
Speaker 2: one year old son, who was surprised to find that
Speaker 2: he'd suddenly become a suspect. A year after the fact,
Speaker 2: it was hard to find fresh leads, and the initial
Speaker 2: police canvas had been so porous that it had missed
Speaker 2: a significant clue. Around the same time that the Brodesses
Speaker 2: had received their first letter, another family on the boulevard
Speaker 2: got a similar note from the watcher. The parents of
Speaker 2: that family had lived in their house for years and
Speaker 2: their kids were grown, so they just threw the letter away,
Speaker 2: just as the Woodses had. But after the news broke
Speaker 2: one of their children posted about it on Facebook, then
Speaker 2: deleted the post. When investigators spoke to the family, they
Speaker 2: confirmed that the letter had been similar to the Brodesses,
Speaker 2: but its existence made the case more confusing. There wasn't
Speaker 2: a whole lot to go on, one, said Chambliss. One night,
Speaker 2: Chambliss and a partner were sitting in the back of
Speaker 2: a van parked on the boulevard, watching the house through
Speaker 2: a pair of binoculars. Around eleven PM, a car stopped
Speaker 2: in front of the house, long enough for Chambliss to
Speaker 2: grow suspicious. He traced the car to a young woman
Speaker 2: in a nearby town whose boyfriend lived on the same
Speaker 2: block as six five seven. The woman told Chambliss her
Speaker 2: boyfriend was into some quote really dark video games, including
Speaker 2: one in which he played as a specific character called
Speaker 2: the Watcher. As for the female DNA, Chamblis figured the
Speaker 2: girlfriend or someone else could have helped. The boyfriend was
Speaker 2: living elsewhere at the time, but Chambliss said he agreed
Speaker 2: to come in for an interview on two separate occasions.
Speaker 2: He didn't show up either time. Chambliss didn't have enough
Speaker 2: evidence to compel him to appear, and with the media
Speaker 2: attention dying down, he dropped the case and moved on
Speaker 2: while the Broadesses continued to be consumed by stress and fear.
Speaker 2: For the rest of Westfield. The story began little more
Speaker 2: than a creepy urban legend. A house to walk by
Speaker 2: on Halloween if you were brave enough. No one who
Speaker 2: had lived in the house before the Woodses could recall
Speaker 2: anything unusual, and it was hard for people to imagine
Speaker 2: that their idyllic neighborhood could be host to something so sinister.
Speaker 2: A woman who'd lived nearby said that after the news broke,
Speaker 2: she in ten or so of her neighbors had gathered
Speaker 2: in the street to puzzle out who might have sent
Speaker 2: the letters. Eventually, they said, she came to a consensus.
Speaker 2: Maybe the Broadesses had sent the letters to themselves. Okay,
Speaker 2: interjecting here, People do love a good conspiracy theory because
Speaker 2: our brains want to make connections, and conspiracy theories tend
Speaker 2: to tie everything together and make everything make sense quote
Speaker 2: unquote sense, that is. But often, and I'm not saying
Speaker 2: I believe in zero conspiracy theories. No one please be
Speaker 2: offended by this, But often conspiracy theories are really just
Speaker 2: easy or comforting answers for simple minds. This entire group
Speaker 2: of neighborhod women, they all decided that the Brodesses must
Speaker 2: have sent the letters to themselves, probably because it made
Speaker 2: them feel safer. But if you stop to consider for
Speaker 2: a moment, what it implies if the Brodess has had
Speaker 2: in fact sent the letters to themselves, it's really quite preposterous.
Speaker 2: Set aside for a moment, that that means they would
Speaker 2: have also had to send a letter to the Woodses
Speaker 2: and the other neighbor that the poorest police canvas missed
Speaker 2: the first time around. It also means that they were
Speaker 2: such incredible oscar worthy or better actors that they were
Speaker 2: able to convince all kinds of professionals that they were
Speaker 2: absolutely abjectly terrified, from their medical doctors, to their therapists,
Speaker 2: to security firm owners to the painter they hired whose
Speaker 2: arms Missus Broddess sobbed in. Not one of these people
Speaker 2: suspected for a moment that the terror, grief anger and
Speaker 2: general mental dess stress that the Broadesses were experiencing were fake.
Speaker 2: I mean they hired Clarice from Silence of the Lambs
Speaker 2: and another ex FBI agent for Pete's sakes. Neither of
Speaker 2: those people thought they were faking it. And on top
Speaker 2: of that, concocting all this evidence of felonious psychological torture
Speaker 2: and then lying about it to the police and spurring
Speaker 2: an ongoing police investigation, well, that's a felony that ultimately
Speaker 2: would result in them going to prison and perhaps leaving
Speaker 2: their children as wards of the state. So with all
Speaker 2: that stacked against the idea that they were faking it,
Speaker 2: combined with the fact that no law enforcement or safety
Speaker 2: professionals from the police to the FBI to the owner
Speaker 2: of a security firm, and no mental health professionals from
Speaker 2: medical doctors to psychiatrists, thought they were faking it. The
Speaker 2: emotional distress they were going through, I mean, the terror,
Speaker 2: the fear for their own safety, for their children's lives,
Speaker 2: it makes it pretty ridiculous, pretty darn ridiculous to think
Speaker 2: that they were actually faking it. You have to put
Speaker 2: all that evidence on one side of the scales, all
Speaker 2: that evidence that they weren't faking it, and balance it
Speaker 2: against a group of suburban mothers wanting to make themselves
Speaker 2: feel better who decided they must be faking it because
Speaker 2: they couldn't afford their mortgage. It's absurd, really, and one
Speaker 2: more form of harassment that the broadesses certainly hadn't earned
Speaker 2: and didn't deserve. If you can't afford a house, you
Speaker 2: sell it, or God forbid, maybe you declare bankruptcy. But
Speaker 2: concoct an elaborate scheme that involves terrorizing yourselves and your
Speaker 2: children and committing numerous felonies that will land you in prison.
Speaker 2: That's that's not what you do, not if you've got
Speaker 2: half a brain. Anyway, and I think it's pretty clear
Speaker 2: that the Broadesses have more than half a brain. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get back to the story. So a group of
Speaker 2: neighbors decided that the Brodesses had sent the letters to themselves.
Speaker 2: The theory, as far as it went, was that the
Speaker 2: broad This had suffered buyer's remorse, or realized they couldn't
Speaker 2: afford the home and concocted an elaborate scheme to get
Speaker 2: out of the sale, or Derek was cooking up some
Speaker 2: kind of insurance fraud, or they were angling for a
Speaker 2: movie deal. The Broadestes received several offers, but turned them down.
Speaker 2: Lifetime eventually released a movie called The Watcher, despite cease
Speaker 2: and desist letters from the Broadesses. Lifetime argued that the
Speaker 2: couple in its movie was biracial, and the letters were
Speaker 2: signed the Raven. Some locals found it noteworthy that over
Speaker 2: the course of the decade, the Broadestes had upgraded from
Speaker 2: a three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars house to a
Speaker 2: seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars house to a one
Speaker 2: point three million dollar one, and refinanced their mortgages. A
Speaker 2: few weeks after the letters became public, the Westfield Leader
Speaker 2: published an article in which anonymous neighbors were quoted asking
Speaker 2: why the Broadestes kept renovating a home they weren't moving into,
Speaker 2: or questioning whether they had really done that much renovating
Speaker 2: at all. The Leader even cast doubt on Maria's commitment
Speaker 2: to her family safety, citing his evidence the fact that
Speaker 2: she had a public Facebook page with a photo of
Speaker 2: her kids. The paper did note that the police had
Speaker 2: tested Maria's DNA and it didn't match. As we've just discussed,
Speaker 2: none of the theories made much logical sense. The Broadest
Speaker 2: has had answers to every question, how does someone go
Speaker 2: from a three hundred thousand dollars house to a one
Speaker 2: point three million dollar house in ten years? Derek's answer,
Speaker 2: It's America. But the Broadestes weren't speaking publicly, and the
Speaker 2: rumors persisted. One Boulevard resident wrote a letter to the
Speaker 2: editor arguing that quote an elaborate scheme is underway to
Speaker 2: defraud the Woods family for millions of dollars unquote. Shambalass
Speaker 2: told me some Westfield cops even bought into the theory.
Speaker 2: There were even more skeptics online. I live in a
Speaker 2: neighboring town. If these letters have been happening for a while,
Speaker 2: there is no doubt, all caps in my mind that
Speaker 2: it would have been public way before this, Lord Fluffernutter
Speaker 2: said on Reddit this scream scam. The Broadestes hadn't known
Speaker 2: how their neighbors would react to news about the word,
Speaker 2: but they lived in the area for a decade, and
Speaker 2: Maria's family had been part of the community for much longer,
Speaker 2: so it was shocking to find themselves being accused of
Speaker 2: being con artists. To Derek, it seen that some in
Speaker 2: Westfield preferred the conspiracy theory to considering whether their town
Speaker 2: might be home to a menace. There's a natural tendency
Speaker 2: to say, I've lived here for thirty five years and
Speaker 2: nothing's happened to me, Derek said. But what happened to
Speaker 2: my family is an affront to their contention that they're
Speaker 2: safe and there's no such thing as mental illness in
Speaker 2: their community. People don't want to believe that this could
Speaker 2: happen in Westfield. While Maria looks back fondly on her childhood,
Speaker 2: she was born a few years after Westfield resident John
Speaker 2: List infamously murdered his wife, mother, and their three children
Speaker 2: in their home, and she remembers a period when she
Speaker 2: and other kids were warned to look out for a
Speaker 2: strange band driving around town. My mother always told me,
Speaker 2: don't have a false sense of security. She said, it
Speaker 2: wasn't that bad things were going on all the time.
Speaker 2: It was that bad things happen everywhere. She didn't want
Speaker 2: me to think that this was Mayberry. Many locals seemed
Speaker 2: more concerned that the national press might ruin Westfield's good name.
Speaker 2: Some were primarily worried about arson or vandalism, or whether
Speaker 2: the Brodesses would maintain the lawn they did. Mark Legrippo,
Speaker 2: the neighborhood's representative on the Westfield Town Council, said that
Speaker 2: the primary concern that he heard from residents was that
Speaker 2: they were worried about their property value and the stigma
Speaker 2: on the neighborhood. The Brodesses were suddenly outcasts, not only
Speaker 2: from their own home but also their town. Derek wanted
Speaker 2: to leave Westfield, but Maria insisted on not uprooting the kids.
Speaker 2: This person took so much from us, she said, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't let them take more. Two years after the Watcher's
Speaker 2: letters arrived, the Brondesses borrowed money from family members to
Speaker 2: buy a second home in Westfield, using an LLC to
Speaker 2: keep the location private, but staying in the town was stressful.
Speaker 2: The first time Maria let her daughter go to the
Speaker 2: pool with friends, she stared at the tracker on her
Speaker 2: daughter's iPhone the whole time. One of their kids was
Speaker 2: in Language Arts Colo, and when the teacher led a
Speaker 2: debate about whether the family in a book they were
Speaker 2: reading should move to Westfield, the class thought they should,
Speaker 2: in part because of how safe it was. Afterward, one
Speaker 2: of the kids told the broadest child, my parents told
Speaker 2: me that no matter what your family says, Westfield is safe. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the broadest is still had to figure out what to
Speaker 2: do with six y five seven Boulevard. Their lawsuit was
Speaker 2: pending but seemed unlikely to succeed. Some states require sellers
Speaker 2: to disclose quote transient social conditions unquote, like murders or
Speaker 2: possible hauntings. In a nineteen ninety one case, involving an
Speaker 2: allegedly ghost field house. A New York court ruled that
Speaker 2: quote as a matter of law, the house is haunted unquote,
Speaker 2: but New Jersey had no such regulation. A judge later
Speaker 2: dismissed the lawsuit, and the woods Is, through their attorney,
Speaker 2: declined to comment. Derek looked into renting the house to
Speaker 2: the Department of Veterans Affairs and to a company that
Speaker 2: runs halfway homes. In the spring of twenty sixteen, they
Speaker 2: put six five seven back on the market, hoping it
Speaker 2: might garner more interest given how many people had reacted
Speaker 2: to the letter by saying they would have ignored them
Speaker 2: and just moved in. The Broadess has held a well
Speaker 2: attended open house, after which Derek and Maria spent hours
Speaker 2: researching every person who signed in and comparing their handwriting
Speaker 2: to the watchers. But each time a potential buyer expressed
Speaker 2: interest and met with the Brodesses, the lawyer read them
Speaker 2: the letters and they backed out. Some cocky guy from
Speaker 2: Staten Island said, fuck it, I'm going to get the
Speaker 2: house at a discount, Derek recalled, then he reads the
Speaker 2: letters and we never hear from him again. Feeling as
Speaker 2: if they were out of options, The Brodess's real estate
Speaker 2: lawyer proposed an idea sell the house to a developer
Speaker 2: who could tear it down and split the property into
Speaker 2: two sellable homes. They thought they could get a million
Speaker 2: dollars for the lot. Subdivisions like this had become common
Speaker 2: in Westfield, much to the chagrin of many locals, and
Speaker 2: sixty five seven was one of the neighborhood's largest lots.
Speaker 2: Even so, dividing it would require the Westfield Planning Board
Speaker 2: to grant an exception. The two smaller lots would be
Speaker 2: sixty seven point four and sixty seven point six feet wide,
Speaker 2: just shy of the mandated seventy feet. When the proposal
Speaker 2: was publicly announced, Westfield's Facebook groups lit up. Some expressed
Speaker 2: sympathy for the Broadesses, while others pointed out that real
Speaker 2: estate is always a gamble. Another faction was convinced this
Speaker 2: was the culmination of a long con out of this
Speaker 2: whole scam artist story, there ends up being nothing more
Speaker 2: disturbing than this move, a local woman said. A man
Speaker 2: who coached the Broadess's son in football said they were
Speaker 2: over their head from day one. The application was jarring
Speaker 2: for the neighbors. Who had learned about the Watcher from
Speaker 2: a lawsuit and had always found it strange that the
Speaker 2: Broadesses didn't share more information, not seeming to understand that
Speaker 2: they were following the orders from the police and trying
Speaker 2: to protect their kids. A typical Facebook conversation went like this,
Speaker 2: sounds like this whole Watcher thing was a ploy. The
Speaker 2: owners are good people, not a ploy. Well, okay, I
Speaker 2: know nothing about them. Kristen Kemp, a friend of the broadesss,
Speaker 2: had tried to defend them on one Facebook forum, but
Speaker 2: people started attacking her. Somebody asked, how do we know
Speaker 2: you're not writing the letters, Kemp said. When the planning
Speaker 2: board meant to decide the application in January twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: it had already devoted a three hour hearing to the issue.
Speaker 2: More than one hundred residents showed up. One of them,
Speaker 2: who lived across the street and had a daughter in
Speaker 2: the same grade as one of the Broness's kids, had
Speaker 2: retained a lawyer to fight the proposal. Suddenly here was
Speaker 2: a new suspect who but the Watcher would go so
Speaker 2: far as to hire an attorney to preserve the house.
Speaker 2: After a quick discussion about a wells Fargo branch that
Speaker 2: wanted to use brighter light bulbs than the town allowed.
Speaker 2: The room grew as tense as a suburban planning board
Speaker 2: meeting could get. James Force that brought us His attorney
Speaker 2: explained that the three foot exemption was as narrow as
Speaker 2: the easel he was using to display a map of
Speaker 2: the neighborhood, a map that showed several lots on the
Speaker 2: block that were also too small. The neighbors expressed concerned
Speaker 2: that the plan might require knocking down trees and that
Speaker 2: the new homes would have esthetically unpleasing front facing garages.
Speaker 2: Forced repeatedly threatened the Halfway House as a possible alternative.
Speaker 2: After the lawyers, a parade of neighbors stood to speak.
Speaker 2: Glen DeMott from across the street said the proposal would
Speaker 2: quote spell the end of the six hundred block of
Speaker 2: Boulevard as we know it. A woman whose kids had
Speaker 2: been to the Broughdess's old home for a birthday party,
Speaker 2: spoke on behalf of nine neighbors and presented six five
Speaker 2: seven Boulevard as Westfield's alamo. Our neighbors are constantly under
Speaker 2: attack from turf lights, parking decks, you name it. She said,
Speaker 2: if we can't make a stand on boulevard, where can we?
Speaker 2: At one point, Abby Langford stood up to say that
Speaker 2: she'd spent almost sixty years looking at a magnificent, beautiful
Speaker 2: house and didn't want to be looking out at a driveway.
Speaker 2: The hearing lasted four hours, during which there was little
Speaker 2: discussion of the reason that Brodesses had been driven to
Speaker 2: tear down their dream home in the first place. Has
Speaker 2: anybody thought about whether or not this lunatic who did
Speaker 2: this has been apprehended, said Tom Higgins, who lived across
Speaker 2: the street, toward the end of the hearing. Even so,
Speaker 2: Higgins pointed out that there was no guarantee the watcher
Speaker 2: wouldn't send letters to the two houses, and he argued
Speaker 2: that aesthetics should rule the day. Putting up two houses
Speaker 2: there is going to stick out like an old client
Speaker 2: of mine, and Texas told me it's going to stick
Speaker 2: out like a dog's balls. Wow, that's colorful. While some
Speaker 2: of the neighbors expressed compassion, their focus remained on what
Speaker 2: the Brodesses stood to gain finance angely, and what they
Speaker 2: themselves might lose. At eleven thirty pm, the board unanimously
Speaker 2: rejected the proposal. A New Jersey judge later denied the
Speaker 2: brought US's appeal of the decision. Derek and Maria were distraught.
Speaker 2: Even if the plan had gone through, it would only
Speaker 2: have staunched their financial bleeding. On top of the mortgage
Speaker 2: and the renovations, they'd spent around one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 2: in Westfield property taxes the town denied their request for relief.
Speaker 2: They also spent at least that much money investigating the
Speaker 2: watcher and exploring ways to deal with the home, not
Speaker 2: to mention cleaning the gutters that brought us Is recognized
Speaker 2: that six five seven Boulevard was a beautiful house on
Speaker 2: a beautiful street and that it was worth maintaining, but
Speaker 2: they were surprised their neighbors didn't see the uniqueness of
Speaker 2: the situation. This is my town, Maria said, I grew
Speaker 2: up here, I came back, I chose to raise my
Speaker 2: kids here. You know what we've been through. You had
Speaker 2: the ability, two and a half years into the nightmare
Speaker 2: to make it better, and you've decided that this house
Speaker 2: is more important than we are. That's really how it felt.
Speaker 2: On top of all that her dad had recently died
Speaker 2: unexpected father. Michael Saparito, the priest who blessed the house,
Speaker 2: went to one of the planning board meetings and said
Speaker 2: he was taken aback by how many people had come
Speaker 2: up to him and said they thought the whole thing
Speaker 2: was a hoax. I think the human element of this
Speaker 2: story was kind of lost on the neighbors. Saparito said
Speaker 2: the watcher had expressed the desire to protect the boulevard
Speaker 2: from change, but instead it had been torn apart. Not
Speaker 2: long after the planning Board's decision, the Broughdess has got
Speaker 2: some good news. A family with grown children and two
Speaker 2: big dogs had agreed to rent sixty five seven Boulevard.
Speaker 2: The renter said he wasn't worried about the Watcher, although
Speaker 2: there was a clause in the lease that led him
Speaker 2: out in case of another letter. Two weeks later, Derek
Speaker 2: went to six five seven to deal with squirrels who'd
Speaker 2: taken up residence in the roof, and the renter handed
Speaker 2: him an envelope that had just arrived. It was addressed
Speaker 2: to the vile and spiteful Derek and his wench of
Speaker 2: a wife, Maria. This letter, two and a half years
Speaker 2: after the watcher appeared, came out of nowhere. It was
Speaker 2: dated February thirteenth, the day the Brodesses gave depositions in
Speaker 2: their lawsuits against the Woodses, and it ran you wonder
Speaker 2: who the watcher is? Turn around, idiots. Maybe you even
Speaker 2: spoke to me, one of the so called neighbors, who
Speaker 2: has no idea who the watcher could be. Or maybe
Speaker 2: you do know and you're too scared to tell anyone.
Speaker 2: Good move. The letter was less stylish and more wrathful
Speaker 2: than the others, and it seemed the writer had been
Speaker 2: following the story closely. They'd seen the media coverage. I
Speaker 2: walked by the news trucks when they took over my
Speaker 2: neighborhood and mocked me. They also saw Derek's surreptitious investigatory efforts.
Speaker 2: I watched as you watched from the dark house in
Speaker 2: an attempt to find me. Telescopes and binoculars are wonderful inventions.
Speaker 2: And the attempt to tear down the house sixty five
Speaker 2: seven Boulevards survived your attempt at assault and stood strong
Speaker 2: with its army of supporters barricading its gates. The letter read,
Speaker 2: my soldiers of the Boulevard followed my orders to a t.
Speaker 2: They carried out their mission and saved the soul of
Speaker 2: sixty five seven Boulevard with my orders, all hail the Watcher.
Speaker 2: The renter was mentioned. He was spooked, but agreed to
Speaker 2: stay if the Broadus's installed cameras around the house. The
Speaker 2: letter indicated that revenge could come in many forms. Maybe
Speaker 2: a car accident, maybe a fire, Maybe something as simple
Speaker 2: as a mild illness that never seems to go away
Speaker 2: but makes you feel sick day after day after day.
Speaker 2: Maybe the mysterious death of a pet. Loved ones suddenly die,
Speaker 2: planes and cars and bicycles crash, bones break. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is absolutely spine chillingly awful. Whoever this Watcher is,
Speaker 2: they are truly a monster. It was like we were
Speaker 2: back at the beginning, said Maria. But it also meant
Speaker 2: fresh evidence that might help invigorate the investigation. Derek took
Speaker 2: the letter to police headquarters, where a detective looked at
Speaker 2: a neighborhood map and traced a circle around the house
Speaker 2: three hundred yards in diameter, suggesting that the Watcher must
Speaker 2: be somewhere in there. Derek drew one much closer. In
Speaker 2: my view, it's one of ten houses in the world,
Speaker 2: he said. The Broadesses continued to press the case, but
Speaker 2: there still wasn't much for law enforcement to go on,
Speaker 2: and it was possible to look up and down the
Speaker 2: street and see the watcher in practically any one. Residents
Speaker 2: mentioned to me a teenager whose father had grown up
Speaker 2: around the corner, and a man who sometimes walked around
Speaker 2: the neighborhood playing a flute. An elderly couple behind the
Speaker 2: house had been there for forty seven years. The husband
Speaker 2: was the man Bill Woodward had seen sitting in a
Speaker 2: lawn chair looking at the Brodess's house. One of their
Speaker 2: kids had married a man who grew up in, of
Speaker 2: all places, six five seven Boulevard. But these were bits
Speaker 2: of information that could mean everything or nothing, depending on
Speaker 2: how hard you looked at them. The Broadess has sent
Speaker 2: new names to the investigators whenever they found something odd,
Speaker 2: but their greatest fear was that the watcher could be
Speaker 2: someone they'd never suspect. In the spring of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: Derek drove past six five seven Boulevard, which he and
Speaker 2: Maria tried to avoid unless they had to pick up
Speaker 2: a tax bill. It's all beautiful trees and beautiful houses,
Speaker 2: but all I feel is anxious, Derek said. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: wake up in the middle of the night thinking what
Speaker 2: would my life be like if this didn't happen. We
Speaker 2: lost Christmas a couple times, and you don't get that
Speaker 2: back Christmas with a five year old. The Broadestes no
Speaker 2: longer live in ever present fear that the watcher might
Speaker 2: strike at any moment, but they continue to deal with
Speaker 2: the lingering effects of the letters. They have a new
Speaker 2: tenant at sixty five seven, but the rent doesn't cover
Speaker 2: the mortgage. Their kids are occasionally teased at school, and
Speaker 2: the conspiratorial rumors persist. They try to avoid the people
Speaker 2: who spoke out against the planning board application, or accuse
Speaker 2: them of being con artists, but suburban life makes that impossible.
Speaker 2: I see these people on the soccer field at the
Speaker 2: train station and my heart starts going like it did
Speaker 2: when I played hockey and I was about to get
Speaker 2: in a fight, Derek said. When Maria found herself in
Speaker 2: a spin class at the YMCA with the head of
Speaker 2: the Planning Board, she went up afterwards and told him
Speaker 2: you continue to hurt my family every day. Early in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, the Planning Board approved splitting a lot around
Speaker 2: the corner that required an even larger exemption than the Brodesses. Wow,
Speaker 2: that is messed up around the corner from the Brodess's house.
Speaker 2: The planning board is allowing the plan that the Brodess
Speaker 2: is wanted when the exception has to be even larger.
Speaker 2: Who are these people in Westfield? Most people in Westfield
Speaker 2: rarely think of the Watcher anymore. The real estate market
Speaker 2: is doing fine. Many were surprised to find out that
Speaker 2: the Broadesses were still dealing with the problem. Hindsight made
Speaker 2: Derek and Maria wonder if they should have sold the
Speaker 2: house at a loss early on, and six five seven
Speaker 2: Boulevard conjured too much emotional pain for them to ever
Speaker 2: consider moving in. They hoped that a few years of
Speaker 2: renting the place without incident will help them sell it.
Speaker 2: The Prosecutor's office was continuing its investigation, but the Broddesses
Speaker 2: knew it was unlikely the Watcher would ever be caught
Speaker 2: and that the legal punishment would probably be minimal. But
Speaker 2: the Watcher was no longer the only person sending anonymous
Speaker 2: letters in Westfield. Christmas Eve, several families received an envelope
Speaker 2: in their mailboxes they'd been delivered by hand the homes
Speaker 2: of people who had been the most vocal in criticizing
Speaker 2: the Broadesses online. One of them, who lived a few
Speaker 2: blocks down the boulevard, had written on Facebook, I wish
Speaker 2: we could go back to the days of tarn feathers.
Speaker 2: I have just the couple in mind. Another family who
Speaker 2: got a letter said that it was quote weirdly poetic
Speaker 2: unquote as the Watchers had been, and that it accused
Speaker 2: the families of speculating inaccurately about the Broadesses. It included
Speaker 2: several stories about recent acts of domestic terrorism in which
Speaker 2: signs of brewing mental illness had gone unnoticed. The type
Speaker 2: letters were signed friends of the Broadest family. The letter
Speaker 2: writer had clearly been infected not only with the Watcher's
Speaker 2: pensiant for anonymous notes, but also a simmering resentment, one
Speaker 2: that had snaked its way through Westfield, making enemies of neighbors.
Speaker 2: The people who received the letters didn't know who sent them,
Speaker 2: but the tone had a familiar ring. When New York
Speaker 2: Magazine reporter Reeves Wideman, who wrote this story, asked Derek
Speaker 2: Broadus whether he had written them, whether Derek had written them,
Speaker 2: Derek paused for a moment, then admitted he had. He
Speaker 2: wasn't proud of it. He hadn't even told his wife,
Speaker 2: and he said they were the only anonymous letters he'd written,
Speaker 2: but he'd felt driven to his wits in fed up
Speaker 2: with watching silently as people through accusations of his family
Speaker 2: based on practically nothing. One of the people who received
Speaker 2: the letters or said they'd never met the broad Esses
Speaker 2: and had no interest in doing so. The Watcher had
Speaker 2: been obsessed with six five seven Boulevard, and Derek, in turn,
Speaker 2: had become obsessed with the Watcher and everything the letters
Speaker 2: had set in motion. It's like a cancer, he said.
Speaker 2: We think about it every day. Sitting at the Westfield
Speaker 2: train station, Derek showed Weedman his phone so he could
Speaker 2: read the fourth letter. You are despised by the house
Speaker 2: it went and the Watcher one. Remember call eighty eight Murdery,
Speaker 2: so that your kind of murdery story, your creepy, your
Speaker 2: bone and chilling experience can inspire an episode of the show.
Speaker 2: I'm z Evan Odelberg and this has been kind of murdery.
Speaker 2: See you Thursday.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please subscribe, review and tell
Speaker 1: your friends you can find us on social media at
Speaker 1: kinda Murdery or email at Kindomurdery at gmail dot com.
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