Spoiler Warning: The Watcher (2022)
The Watchercurrently ranks among Netflix’s top ten shows, capturing the audience with anunsolved mysterybased on a true story. The show follows the Braddock family as they purchase a new home and settle into their new neighborhood. They begin to receive creepy anonymous letters signed by a mysterious stalker who calls themselves “The Watcher.”
With strange neighbors and odd situations occurring in their home, the family is spooked and goes to the police to try and figure out who is watching them and sending these threatening letters. The investigation leads to some disturbing discoveries about their new home, the neighborhood and the people in it, and families who previously lived in the house. Eventually, the Braddock family can’t take it anymore as the stress and pressure begin to drive the family apart.
They decide to list the house and move back into the city. When the house finally sells, Mrs. Braddock believes they will now be able to move forward with their lives. But with the case still unsolved, Mr. Braddock remains obsessed with finding out who was responsible for the letters. We don’t get to find out who The Watcher is, but neither does the family the show was based on. So that makes us wonder how much of theshow is based in realityand how much of it is fictional.
What Is the Real Story of The Watcher?
Let’s first go over what happened inthe real-life Watcher case. In 2014, Maria and Derek Broaddus bought the home at 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey. The couple planned to move in with their three young children after renovations were completed when they began to receive the creepy letters from the Watcher. The previous owners of the house, John and Andrea Woods, also received a single letter from the Watcher, but only when they were getting ready to sell the house after living there for 23 years. Unlike the letters the Broadduses' received, it was more odd than threatening and simply thanked the family for taking such good care of the house. The Woods couple thought nothing of the letter and threw it away.
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The letters from the Watcher changed drastically in tone when the Broaddus family began renovations. The Watcher condemned them for making alterations to the house and made disturbing comments about their children. Derek was the one to read the first letter and notified the police about it. Both Maria and Derek then contacted the Woods to inquire if they knew who the Watcher might be. The Woods responded to them about the letter they had received, but they no longer had it to provide to the police. Later, the Broaddus family took precautions by installing a security system.
The family continued to live on edge for several weeks as theyreceived more letters. The letters were even addressed to them by name and included details about their children. They contained information on the house that only a few people could know, and several of the neighbors were questioned by the police. After the renovations were finished, the family was so overwhelmed with anxiety that they could not bring themselves to move into the house. And six months later, they decided to sell. But of course, at this point, rumors began to spread about why the home sat empty, so the only offers they got were well below the asking price.
For years the couple struggled with police and private investigators to get the case solved, but with very little evidence, they were unable to locate the culprit. The Broadduses even filed a lawsuit against the Woods couple, which ended up being dismissed. Eventually, a family rented the home from them, and once again, the Watcher sent a letter. However, nothing came of the letter, and after another set of renters, the Broadduses finally sold the home in 2019.
What Is Fiction?
Besides the name changes and the number of children the family has, there are quite a lot of things that were fictionalized in the show. The neighbors were loosely based on real people, but not everything that happened in the show happened in real life to the Broaddus family.
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The family, in fact, never officially moved in due to the threats made regarding their children. So the events surrounding Carter’s pet ferret being killed never happened. The Broaddus family also didn’t have a teenage daughter, so the whole storyline of Ellie dating an older boy was fictional.
Pearl and Jasper were based on neighbors they had called Peggy and Michael, that were the prime suspects at one point in the case but were eventually ruled out. While Michael was described as an odd person and had a history of mental disability, he did not break into their home. The home behind 657 Boulevard also had lawn chairs that were pointed to face the back porch, just like Mitch and Mo from the show.
However, the baby-eating blood cult was never real, and the character of Andrew and his wife and son was also fictional. John Graff and the crimes he committed were also based on reality. Although the murders didn’t occurwithin 657 Boulevardand had nothing to do with the Watcher letters, they did occur in Westfield.
Derek Broaddus, just like Dean Braddock, did become obsessed with discovering the identity of the Watcher. However, he never sent any of the letters himself. Nor did he continue to visit the home after selling it. Karen, the real estate agent that befriended Nora and eventually bought the house after they listed it, was also entirely fictional. It took several years for them to finally sell the house, and the new owners have not heard from the Watcher. But just like in the show, the Watcher was never caught.
