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Episode 43: The Watcher · Deadly Divas True Crime Podcast

0:11
SPEAKER_00: Hello, True Crime Divas and Dudes.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm Tina, and welcome back to your favorite true crime podcast, Deadly Divas.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Sarah, and if you're new here, welcome.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: We break down a new true crime case for you every Friday.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And this is a very special episode of Deadly Divas because it officially kicks off our Halloween spook tacular.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: All month long, we are celebrating spooky season with cases that are a little extra creepy.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: We've got ghost stories, unsolved mysteries, and other Halloween horrors, offering us a very frightening reminder that monsters walk among us every day of the year.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: And Tina is so excited for this, you guys.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: This time of year is what she lives for.
0:57
SPEAKER_01: She is in her element.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: All things fall and spooky.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: You won't see her without a pumpkin spice latte in her hand from September all the way to November.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's true.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of those guys, but just let me be happy.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: I'll let you be happy.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we are starting off our spectacular with one of the most unsettling mysteries I've ever heard: the Watcher House.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, there are no ghosts or monsters here, and nobody claims the house is haunted, but you don't need anything supernatural to turn your dream home into a nightmare.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Just three days after one family closed on theirs, a mysterious letter arrived from someone who seemed to know an unsettling amount about the house, and soon about the family themselves.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: The increasingly personal and disturbing letters were signed by a mysterious figure, the Watcher.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: And more than a decade later, we still don't know who that was.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: This is the still unsolved mystery of 657 Boulevard.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: So our story takes us to Westfield, New Jersey, an affluent suburb about 25 miles outside Manhattan.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Tree-lined streets, large historic homes with perfectly manicured lawn, great schools, a charming downtown, and most importantly for families looking to settle down, Westfield had a reputation for being extremely safe, which makes what happened to the broadest family feel even more out of place.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: Built in 1905, 657 Boulevard was a nearly 4,000 square foot Dutch colonial with six bedrooms, four bathrooms, four fireplaces, two porches, a finished basement, and an attic, sitting on nearly half an acre along one of Westfield's most desirable streets.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: It was the kind of sprawling century-old house people picture when they think about finally making it.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: Big family dinners, holidays, kids running room to room.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And by most accounts, it was one of the grandest homes in the neighborhood.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Maria Broadis had grown up just a few blocks away.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Her parents still live nearby, and she and her husband Derek were already raising their family in Westfield.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: That widens the pool of possibilities a little.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: The watcher could theoretically have been somebody from Maria's past, although there's no evidence for my immediate crazy ex theory, because isn't it always a crazy ex?
3:24
SPEAKER_00: I have some crazy exes, don't we all?
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, by 2014, Derek and Maria had three children, ages 5, 8, and 10.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Derek, who grew up working class in Maine, had worked his way up to senior vice president at an insurance company in Manhattan.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Shortly after he turned 40, the couple bought 657 Boulevard from John and Andrea Woods, who had lived there for 23 years.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: They paid about$1.35 million and they were thrilled to begin their lives there.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Their kids were already debating which fireplace Santa Claus would use at Christmas.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: How does Santa decide?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Right?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: Probably just the one with easiest access.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean, damn.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, they closed in June 2014 and immediately started renovations.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Three days later, at around 10 p.m., Derek was at the house painting when he checked the mail.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Among the bills was a white envelope.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Written across the front in thick handwriting were three words.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: The new owner, no return address.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Derek opened the letter.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: At first, it sounded almost like a friendly welcome from one of their new neighbors, but it quickly turned very dark.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Dearest new neighbor at 657 Boulevard, allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: How did you end up here?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within?
4:45
SPEAKER_00: 657 Boulevard has 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.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s, and my father watched in the 1960s.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: It is now my time.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you know the history of the house?
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Why are you here?
5:12
SPEAKER_00: I will find out.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: I see already that you've flooded 657 Boulevard with contractors so that you can destroy the house as it was supposed to be.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Tisk, tiss, tiss.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Bad move.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to make six five seven Boulevard unhappy.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I asked the woods to bring me young blood and it looks like they listened.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: You have children.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: I've seen them.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: So far, I think there are three that I've counted.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested?
5:42
SPEAKER_00: Better for me.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: Was your old house too small for the growing family?
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Or was it greed to bring me your children?
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
5:50
SPEAKER_00: There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm in one.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm in one.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am one.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, my friends.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Let the party begin.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Signed The Watcher.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: That is creepy.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: So creepy.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: So the big takeaways here are that the Watcher claimed their family had been watching 657 Boulevard for generations.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And they talked about the house as if it were alive and seemed angry about those renovations.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: But the children were the most disturbing part.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: The Watcher had already counted all three children, repeatedly calling them young blood and making it very clear that they could see the broadest family, even though the broadestes could not see them.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And remember, Derek is reading this letter after 10 o'clock at night alone inside this house.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Like, can you imagine?
6:58
SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds like a horror movie.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the lines that got me most in it was the second coming of the house.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: The second coming.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: What the hell is that?
7:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Derek was alone in this huge old house, all the lights on, with darkness outside every window.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, anybody outside could see him and he could not see them.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: He started turning off all the lights and called the police.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: The responding officer read the letter and asked whether Derek had enemies, but he couldn't think of anybody.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: The letter mentioned the previous owners, John and Andrea Woods, so Derek and Maria contacted them and learned something they had not been told.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Just a few days before moving out, after 23 years at 657 Boulevard without anything similar, the Woodses had received their own letter from someone calling themselves the Watcher.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: Andrea remembered it as strange, but not very threatening.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: It mentioned the Watcher's family observing the house over the years and even thanking the Woodses for taking care of it.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: They just dismissed the letter and threw it away.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And now the new owner had a letter claiming the Watcher had specifically asked the Woods to bring young blood.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: The next morning, John and Andrea went with Maria to the Westfield Police Department and met Detective Leonard Lugo, who became one of the primary investigators.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: What a great name.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: I know, Leonard Lugo.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: His instructions surprised everybody.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: He said, don't tell anyone about the letters, especially the neighbors.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: The police had no idea who the watcher was, and they believed it could be anybody in the neighborhood around 657 Boulevard.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: A few days later, Derek and Maria attended a neighborhood barbecue.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Their children ran around while everyone welcomed the new family.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Except Derek and Maria had just been told that someone nearby might be watching their children.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: So while everyone smiled and made small talk, they were privately wondering, could you be the watcher?
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I'd be like Michael Jackson putting blankets over all their heads.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: No, literally.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: So around the same time, their contractor arrived one morning to find a business sign he'd secured in the front yard ripped out of the ground.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And this was not some poster board sign on two skinny metal legs that could have just been blown over by the wind.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: This was a sturdy wooden business sign that had been hammered down and keenly secured into the ground.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: This seemed like an intentional act of intimidation, a genuine threat.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Somebody was sending a very clear message, and it was not a nice one.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: Then Derek gave a neighborhood couple a tour of the renovation.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: During the conversation, the woman casually said it would be nice having some young blood in the neighborhood.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: I would kick her out immediately.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously that is an actual expression that people use, but I've never heard anybody use it.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: We use it a lot in the South.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, after reading that letter, after the police said the neighbors were suspects, yeah, that is extremely suspicious.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I just, what did you say?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: You need to leave.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: So then the second letter arrived.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: About two weeks after that first letter arrived, Maria stopped by 657 Boulevard to look at paint samples and check the mail.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: And there it was.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Another white card-shaped envelope with that same thick black handwriting.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: This time, Maria didn't even open it before calling the police.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: The watcher had written again.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And this time they'd done their research.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Welcome again to your new home at 657 Boulevard.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: The workers have been busy and I have been watching you unload carfuls of your personal belongings.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: The dumpster is a nice touch.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Have they found what is in the walls yet?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: In time they will.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm pleased to know your names now and the name of the young blood you have brought to me.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: You certainly say their names often.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Is she the artist in the family?
11:00
SPEAKER_00: 657 Boulevard is anxious for you to move in.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: It has been years and years since the Young Blood ruled the hallways of the house.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet?
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Will the Young Blood play in the basement?
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Or are they too afraid to go down there alone?
11:16
SPEAKER_00: I would be very afraid if I were them.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: It is far away from the rest of the house.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: If you were upstairs, you would never hear them scream.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Will they sleep in the attic?
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Or will you all sleep on the second floor?
11:29
SPEAKER_00: Who has the bedrooms facing the street?
11:32
SPEAKER_00: I'll know as soon as you move in.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: It will help me to know who is in which bedroom, then I can plan better.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: All of the windows and doors in 657 Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: I am the watcher and have been in control of 657 Boulevard for the better part of two decades now.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: The Woods family turned it over to you.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: It was their time to move on, and they kindly sold it when I asked them to.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: I passed by many times a day.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And now you are too brought as family.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the product of your greed.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Greed is what brought the past three families to 657 Boulevard, and now it has brought you to me.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Have a happy moving in day.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: You know I will be watching.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: Signed, The Watcher.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: I I'm definitely too afraid to go in the basement, too afraid to go in the attic.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: And what do you mean you can plan better?
12:31
SPEAKER_01: Like what in the actual?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so this just escalated significantly.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: The watcher now knew Derek and Maria's names, and even more frightening, the children's names and nicknames.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And remember the line about one of the children being an artist?
12:46
SPEAKER_00: The watcher apparently had seen her using an easel inside the enclosed porch, which was difficult to see from the street.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: So whoever this was may have been getting very close to the house.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And now they're asking where the children sleep, talking about them screaming in the basement and saying that knowing their bedrooms would help them plan better.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that was enough.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: After this letter, the broadasses stopped bringing their children to 657 Boulevard all together.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: And and the what's inside the walls comments.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: So scary.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: What's in there?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Is it like skeletons or like the the green goo from um Ghostbusters?
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: No, I pictured the the house, the house that bleeds in that horror movie.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to remember.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Which one was that?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Is it Amityville?
13:34
SPEAKER_00: I think it's Amityville.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Amityville.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: So creepy.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, now we get into our first real suspect.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: One family quickly became a major focus, the Langfords next door.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Michael Langford lived there with his elderly mother, Peggy, and several adult siblings.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Their family had been there since 1961.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: The same decade the watcher claimed, their father began watching 657 Boulevard.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Michael was considered eccentric.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: He was in his 60s, didn't work, had a large Hemingway-like beard, and one neighbor described him as a Boo Radley character.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Now I pictured him.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: His brother later said that Michael had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was younger, and Michael had reportedly startled newcomers by walking through backyards or looking into windows of homes being renovated.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no thank you.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely no thank you.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And what a coincidence, right?
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, that doesn't make him dangerous, of course.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Longtime neighbors generally described him as harmless, just a little strange.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: One said Michael even collected his newspaper every morning.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: You may be homeless and a little strange, but you can stay away from me and my family.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Agree.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, from Derek's perspective, the coincidences were hard to ignore, especially because the Langford property was one of the few nearby places that potentially offered a view of that easel.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: The police were interested too.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Detective Lugo had questioned Michael about a week after the first Watcher letter, before the second letter was even sent.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Michael denied knowing anything, but according to Derek and Maria, Lugo later said the narrative Michael gave matched things in the Watcher letters.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And we don't know what that meant specifically, and there was no confession or physical evidence.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: Well maybe he used the term young blood as well.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: He might have.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: Still, though, consider the timeline.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: If Michael was the watcher, he knew police were looking at him and then supposedly sent an even more disturbing letter using the children's nicknames and discussing where they slept.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is incredibly brazen, or police were looking at the wrong guy.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: But the Broadises were not ready to give up.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: In cooperation with Westfield police, they tried to bait the Langfords, sending them a letter claiming they planned to tear down the house.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: The logic was clever.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: The watcher called the house their job, life, and obsession and was already upset about the renovation.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: So surely erasing it from existence entirely might provoke a reaction.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Playing with fire, maybe.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Right?
16:10
SPEAKER_00: So they sent the letter and waited, but nothing happened.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: No angry letter, no confrontation, nothing connecting the Langfords to the threat.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Lugo questioned Michael a second time.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: He again denied involvement, and his sister Abby accused police of harassing the family.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: I was just wondering, like, if this family is totally innocent of anything, receiving that letter must have been like really shocking to them.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, why why are you sending me this?
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, leave me alone.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get it.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: So the broads has later hired attorney Lee Levitt, who met with several Langfords and their lawyer and showed them the letters and photos explaining the possible sight line from their property.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: The meeting became tense, but the family remained adamant that Michael was not the watcher.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Investigators did have one potentially valuable piece of physical evidence from the letters.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: DNA recovered from the flap of one of the envelopes appeared to belong to a woman.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: That didn't necessarily mean the watcher was a woman.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: The writer could have had somebody else seal the envelope, but it finally gave police something physical they could compare against possible suspects.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And that actually is where the Langford theory began to fall apart.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Investigators secretly obtained a water bottle Michael's sister Abby had used and compared her DNA to the sample.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And it was not a match.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Neither were Maria Broadis or Andrea Woods.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: Authorities eventually told Derek and Maria the Langfords had been ruled out.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: After all those coincidences, they were essentially back to where they started, with female DNA, but no identity.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: By now, Derek was becoming consumed with finding the watcher.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: He installed cameras and sometimes sat inside the darkened house at night, watching to see whether somebody was watching him.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: He mapped neighbors, sight lines, how long families had lived nearby, and who could hear the children.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: The broadasses hired private investigators, former FBI agents, and a forensic linguist, and circulated handwriting samples hoping someone might recognize them.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Derek even considered trained German shepherds and posted a job aimed at military veterans whose basic assignment was to just stand in the backyard and look intimidating.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: That sounds expensive.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Right?
18:31
SPEAKER_01: But I could understand getting like a big dog or something, but then every time they have corgies and they bark every tiny little noise.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine if you did have some kind of big guard dog and they were just barking every 30 minutes, she'd be on the edge of your seat.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the neighbors, there's already so much friction with the neighbors that's just going to cause more because you've got a barking dog all the time.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, at this point, their$1.35 million family home had basically become the headquarters of a very dangerous and elaborate security operation.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: So former FBI agent Robert Lenahan studied the letters and thought the writer might be older, noting old-fashioned habits like double spaces after periods, formal language, and surprisingly little profanity.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Side note, I double space, and this made me feel ancient.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I learned to type on a typewriter in middle school, and double spacing was like a religious practice.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Now that I've dated myself, let's get back on topic.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Robert also saw a strong theme of resentment toward wealth, renovations, and people changing old homes.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: And again, the watcher wrote as if 657 Boulevard were alive, unhappy, crying, wanting something.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: And what it wanted most was young blood.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: The investigation produced several other odd possibilities.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: A house painter noticed an older neighbor sitting in a lawn chair unusually close to the broadest property.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: And instead of facing his own home, he was facing 657 Boulevard.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: That proves nothing, but you're definitely writing his name down.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Then came an even stranger lead.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: During later surveillance, officers noticed a car stop outside 657 Boulevard late at night.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: They traced it to a young woman whose boyfriend lived on the same block.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: According to one investigator, she told police her boyfriend was into dark video games and had mentioned a character called The Watcher.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't play video games, though.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Just like spooky, scary, dark.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: It's not like a black market thing.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: No.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: No, okay.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Police asked this man to come in for an interview.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: He agreed, but then didn't show.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: They scheduled another.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: And again, he did not show.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: Investigators didn't have enough evidence to force him to cooperate, and eventually that lead went nowhere.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Now it doesn't mean that he was the watcher, but it's definitely one of those things that keeps you wondering.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: There was also another really interesting development.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Around the time Derek and Maria received their first letter, another longtime family somewhere on Boulevard reportedly received a similar letter from someone calling themselves the Watcher.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: So now all these letters are coming out of the woodwork, huh?
21:18
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Their children were grown, they didn't find it nearly as threatening, and they just threw it away.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Police didn't learn about it during the initial investigation.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: It surfaced later after one of the family's adult children posted about the letter on Facebook and then deleted the post.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Investigators tracked the family down and they confirmed receiving something similar, but the physical letter was gone.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: So no handwriting comparison, no DNA, no postmark, and no exact wording to compare to the broadest letters.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: And it raises yet another question.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: The Watcher claimed this generations long obsession with 657 Boulevard specifically.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: So Why were they riding to another house?
22:02
SPEAKER_00: It also meant Watcher correspondents had now reportedly reached three families, the Woodses, the Broadises, and that other Boulevard household.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't eliminate a Broadest Hoax theory, but it certainly makes it more complicated, and the clue surfaced too late to give investigators much they could actually use, unfortunately.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Eventually and sadly, the Broadises accepted that they couldn't move their children into 657 Boulevard.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: They lived with Maria's parents while continuing to pay the mortgage and taxes on their empty dream home.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Derek would go there to maintain it, sometimes shoveling snow from the driveway of a house his family had never slept in.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, they decided they had to sell.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: In 2015, they put 657 Boulevard back on the market.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: But they made a decision that would make selling extremely difficult.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: They disclosed the watcher letters.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: So they had morals.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: They believed the Woodses should have told them about the earlier letter, so they were not going to hide the same information from someone else.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Which, yeah, like you said, I gotta say, have some morals, have some class.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And that really makes me think they were not behind this.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: So potential buyers were warned, and serious buyers could read the letters if they chose.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: Imagine seeing that in a house disclosure.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even gonna go take a tour, no thanks.
23:25
unknown: Yes.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: So at least one buyer was interested, and they initially seemed willing to take a chance.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Then he read the letters, and the broadises never heard from him again.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Not surprised.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, the house didn't sell.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: So the broadises sued the Woods family.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Derek and Maria argued that the Woodses should have disclosed the letter they'd received before selling.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: Do you think they should have?
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Really?
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how how bad was the letter?
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Was it as bad as these?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: They said it wasn't all that threatening, but still, I mean, morally they should have.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: If I'd have just saved one random letter that wasn't threatening, I don't know that I would have done.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I see why the broadest has had to, because there was multiple letters and they were very threatening.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I personally I would disclose it.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: You would.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't feel right.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: So the Woods has countered that they'd lived there peacefully for 23 years and received only one strange letter shortly before leaving.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: The lawsuits were eventually dismissed, leaving the broadasses stuck with the house.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: So they proposed another solution.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Tear down 657 Boulevard, split the lot, and build two new houses.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: The neighborhood strongly objected.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm not surprised.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, more than a hundred people reportedly attended the planning board proceedings, arguing the plan would permanently change the character of the block.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: One woman across the street even hired an attorney to come to this meeting to fight it.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: After hours of heated debate, the board unanimously rejected the proposal.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: 657 Boulevard wasn't going anywhere.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Then in 2018, the same planning board approved another subdivision elsewhere in Westfield, creating lots even smaller than the Broadasses had proposed.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: And this detail really made me wonder like how deep the Watchers' ties go in this town.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, were they somebody with power and authority?
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Somebody with a huge amount of influence?
25:33
SPEAKER_00: And this is just my opinion, but I think so.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: So by then the Watcher story was public, and people were asking a new question.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: What if there was no Watcher at all?
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Some neighbors became convinced Derek and Maria had fabricated the whole thing, maybe because they regretted the expensive purchase or hoped to profit by demolishing it and building two homes.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't see that.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't either.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: But no evidence has proven either of them wrote the Watcher letters, and that theory has problems.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: The Woodses reported a letter before the Broadises owned the property.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Another Boulevard family reported something similar.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Maria's DNA did not match the envelope DNA.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And financially, this supposed hoax was a frickin' disaster.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't make any money.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: They lost almost$400,000.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: Also, I was thinking if it had been them and they somehow had sent the letter to the oneses before they bought the house, they would have some balls on them to then turn around and sue the woodses for not telling them about a letter they wrote.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: That would be so brazen.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: So still, there is one bizarre detail that keeps suspicion alive.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Derek later admitted he did send some anonymous letters, but not the Watcher letters.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: After years of accusations and abuse, including a nearby resident posting, I wish we could go back to the days of Tar and Feathers.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: I have just the couple in mind.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Derek apparently snapped.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: On Christmas Eve, several vocal critics found anonymous envelopes hand delivered to their home.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: The letters accused them of spreading lies about the Broadises.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: One recipient called the writing weirdly poetic, and the envelopes included articles about acts of domestic terrorism where warning signs of deteriorating mental health had supposedly been missed.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: They were signed, Friends of the Broadus family.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: And here's the crazy part.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Nobody actually caught Derek.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Journalist Reeves Weedman noticed something familiar about the letters' tone and simply asked him if he'd written them.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: And Derek flat out admitted it.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: He said he wasn't proud and that Maria hadn't known, but that after years of being accused of fabricating their nightmare, he had reached a breaking point.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: He insisted those were the only anonymous letters he had ever written.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I bet that was some kind of marital argument too, and she found out about that.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: No doubt.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: She got his ass.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: But I do believe him.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I really think that after living through this unwavering nightmare for years in constant fear for his family with no end and no justice in sight, he just snapped.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's certainly not a good look, though I understand why people are suspicious.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, the Broaduses found tenants willing to rent 657 Boulevard.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: They were a family with grown children and two large dogs.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: The renter apparently wasn't particularly concerned about the watcher, but just in case, the lease included a clause allowing the family to move out if another letter arrived.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: And about two weeks after they moved in, the watcher returned.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Of course he did.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: This was 2017.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: More than two and a half years had passed since the Watcher first appeared.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: There had been lawsuits, national media coverage, Derek's attempts to secretly surveil the house, and of course, the very public fight over the Broadus' attempt to demolish 657 Boulevard.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: And apparently, the Watcher had been paying attention to all of it.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Derek happened to be at the house dealing with a squirrel problem in the attic when the renter handed him the envelope.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: The letter was dated February 13th, the same day Derek and Maria had given depositions in their lawsuit against the Woodses.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: This time, the envelope wasn't addressed to the new owner.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Instead, it was addressed to the vile and spiteful Derek and his wench of a wife, Maria.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Wow, tell me how you really feel.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: Right?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: You wonder who the watcher is?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Turn around, idiots.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you even spoke to me, one of the so-called neighbors who has no idea who the watcher could be.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you do know and are too scared to tell anyone.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: Good move.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: I walked by the news trucks when they took over my neighborhood and mocked me.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: I watched as you watched from the dark house in an attempt to find me.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Telescopes and binoculars are wonderful invention.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: 657 Boulevard survived your attempted assault and stood strong with its army of supporters barricading its gate.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: My soldiers of the Boulevard followed my orders to a T.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: They carried out their mission and saved the soul of 657 Boulevard with my orders.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: All hail the watcher.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a car accident, maybe a fire, maybe something as simple as a mild illness that never seems to go away, but makes you feel sick day after day after day after day after day.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the mysterious death of a pet.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Loved ones suddenly die.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Planes and cars and bicycles crash, phones break.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: You are despised by the house.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: And the watcher won.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that got way darker talking about death and car crashes and wow.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this letter feels different.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: It feels like just pure rage.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: And it made one thing very clear.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: The Watcher had apparently been following everything that happened.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: The media coverage, Derek watching the house, and the very public fight to demolish it.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And after everything the Broadises had been through, the writer ended with, and the watcher won.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And sadly, they did.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Derek and Maria never spent a single night in 657 Boulevard.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: So the renters were understandably shaken by the letter.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: No shit.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: But amazingly, they stayed.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: They asked the broadasses to install additional security cameras around the property, which they did.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not me.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I'd have been gone.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd been out of there so fast.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And they continued living inside the house that Derek and Maria had been too terrified to ever call home.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Is that brave or is that stupid, y'all?
32:03
SPEAKER_01: I would have literally been like, here's my month's notice and my month's rent, but my stuff will be gone by tonight.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: No, literally, they're just completely unbothered by anything, apparently.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: I guess.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: So by this point, whoever wrote those letters had turned the neighborhood upside down and set off years of public warfare.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: The broadesses suspected their neighbors, the neighbors suspected the broadasses, police watched residents, private investigators watched houses.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Derek sat inside 657 Boulevard watching for somebody who might be watching him and eventually sent anonymous letters of his own.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: A quiet suburban block had become a place where everybody was watching everybody else, and still nobody could identify the watcher.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: In July 2019, five years after buying 657 Boulevard, Derek and Maria finally sold it.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: The price?
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Nearly$400,000 less than they'd paid before even considering everything else the ordeal had cost them with the renovations and the security.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: The buyers knew about the letters and they bought the house anyway.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: But they got a deal.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, apparently that$959,000 was the point where they were like, okay, I'll take my chances and get this.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: Since that sale, there have been no publicly reported watcher letters targeting the new owners, which leaves one enormous question.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: If this person was so obsessed with 657 Boulevard, why did they apparently stop once the broadses were gone?
33:42
SPEAKER_00: More than a decade later, we still don't know.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was a neighbor.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: The sightlines, nicknames, and knowledge of the renovations certainly suggest someone close.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that generational story was true.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was that boyfriend who repeatedly skipped police interviews.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the female DNA could still provide an answer someday.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the broadises knew more than they admitted, although no evidence has ever proven that they wrote those letters.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe the whole story about generations of watchers was just invented by somebody nearby who just didn't want them there.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the motive, if the goal was getting rid of the broadises, it worked.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Their children never slept in those bedrooms or celebrated Christmas around those fireplaces.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: And this case became so infamous that it eventually inspired the Netflix series called The Watcher, which came out in 2022.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: And this show is like mostly fabrications and only very loosely based on the real story, but it's a really good show.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: A really good one to watch if you haven't seen it for spooky season.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: But I remember when I first watched it and you said that you were doing this story and texting you and saying they weren't really sacrificing babies and having tunnels from the houses, were they?
34:58
SPEAKER_01: No spoilers.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: No.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: No, they definitely weren't.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, though, in real life, somebody really did write those letters and torment that family for years.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Somebody knew when the broadasses bought 657 Boulevard.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: They saw the contractors.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: They watched and counted the children, listened closely enough to learn their nicknames, and wrote about those children screaming in a basement where their parents might not hear them.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Nobody was physically injured or killed, but that doesn't mean nobody was harmed.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: The emotional and financial damage to this family was enormous.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: They endured years of fear, threats, instability, investigations, lawsuits, financial losses, public accusations, and suspicion from the community where they planned to raise their children.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And while we don't know who the watcher was, we do know that it takes somebody that is completely depraved to deliberately terrorize a family through their young children.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Derek and Maria met them.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they stood beside them at that neighborhood barbecue.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: This is just my opinion, but I think they did.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: I think police interviewed them, and I think they're still in Westfield to this day watching.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: So where does that leave us today?
36:16
SPEAKER_00: 657 Boulevard is still standing.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: Another family lives there, and as far as the public knows, the Watcher has been silent.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere, there may still be at least one person who knows exactly why the broaduses were chosen and why once they finally disappeared from 657 Boulevard, the Watcher did too.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: And that is the still unsolved mystery of the Watcher of 657 Boulevard.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Final thoughts?
36:44
SPEAKER_01: Did anybody look at the people that bought the house after them?
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they were interested in the house the first time and the broaduses outbid them.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: That actually was looked into.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: They hadn't bid on the house, but they did live in a different house in the neighborhood.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: They were a little bit suspicious and they did get a killer deal on that house, that 959,000.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's a possibility.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: A couple of letters save you$400,000.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people, like probably half of people, think that the broadasses did it.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people think they were involved.
37:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it was them.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't see their motive.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't either.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what did they gain?
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't, they lost.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Their family was traumatized for years.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Like you would have to be a literal psychopath to do that.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: To put your children through that.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: To scare your young children and traumatize them and set yourself back financially.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just it doesn't add up to me.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they were involved.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I think that multiple people were involved from the neighborhood.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: I think that it's just one of those snobby, stuck-up neighborhoods.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: They didn't like outsiders.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want the wild children running around.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Lowering the tone of the neighborhood.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: Lowering the tone of the neighborhood.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: I think it was just a bunch of HOA type assholes.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: I do wonder, because of that board planning meeting, like how far the ties go.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Was it somebody with a lot of influence in the town?
38:13
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a good possibility.
38:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those are the only motives that you can really think of is either the neighborhood didn't like them and wanted them out, or the people that bought the house, their motive was getting the house that much cheaper.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one of the things from the letters that really sticks out to me, and it's not really a a big deal, but they mentioned the dumpster.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: The dumpster sitting in the front yard.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the dumpster is a lowest touch.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: So that's what really makes me think it was somebody from the neighborhood that just didn't like looking at that damn dumpster, which I get it.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: It's an eyesore, but like you gotta do what you gotta do.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not that bad.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: And it's not permanent.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: Right, scary lettuce to people.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: All right, guys.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope that you enjoyed our very first episode of our spook tacular, and we will be back next week with another creepy episode.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Sarah is gonna be doing the Green Briar Ghost.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: We will see you next week.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: Until then, be David Not Deadly