Who are the current owners of the house in Netflix's hit new show 'The Watcher'?
WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY: Netflix's new show 'The Watcher' created by Ryan Murphy has been an instant success, making it to the top of the Most Watched List in USA. The television show is based on a real-life incident in Westfield, New Jersey in 2014 involving a family that moved there and was soon tormented by a letter writer known simply The Watcher. The terror the Broaddus family went through is fictionalized in the series, but the house is quite real.
Nora and Dean Brannock, played by Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale are based on actual victims Maria and Derek Broaddus.
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The couple purchased the six-bedroom house on 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey, in 2014 for $1.3 million. Soon after the purchase the family started receiving anonymous letters who seemed to be familiar with many intimate facts about their life and the structure of the property. The letters also warned the couple that their three children "would never hear them cry" if they walked down to the basement. The very first letter stated that the Broadduses' new home had long been a source of curiosity for family members and that he was now "in charge of observing and waiting for its second coming" as the building reached its 110th birthday.
Although there were some leads, the writer's identity never established with certainty. The Union County Prosecutor's Office states that the inquiry is not ongoing but also not finished. In June 2015, the Broadduses filed a lawsuit against the previous owners, John and Andrea Woods, alleging that they had also received a letter from the Watcher days before the sale but had kept it a secret.
Police inquiries, forgery allegations, and efforts to sell the house drove the Broadduses insane as more letters continued to arrive. As a transparency measure, they asked prospective purchasers to read The Watcher's letters, which killed the majority of purchases.
Who owns The Watcher house now?
The Watcher House was eventually sold to another couple, Andrew Carr and Allison Carr at $959,000 in 2019, five years after it went on sale. The Broaddus family suffered a $400 000 loss, according to the deed filed with the Union County Clerk's Office. The new inhabitants have not received any letters from 'The Watcher', according to The Cut.