The real-life story behind Netflix’s The Watcher

Netflix’s new mystery crime thriller The Watcher has been a hit with audiences across the globe, but the creepy seven-part series is based on a terrifying true story. 

The premise comes “straight from every homebody’s nightmares”, said Marie Claire. It tells the story of fictional couple Nora and Dean Brannock (played by Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale) as they move into their dream home in New Jersey with their two children – only to be sent a series of disturbing letters by a mysterious stalker known as the Watcher. 

So far, so creepy. But the series is based on a true story first told to New York magazine in 2018 by the real-life Brannocks, Maria and Derek Broaddus, who received a series of mysterious letters as they prepared to move into their home at 657 Boulevard in June 2014. 

What is the true story behind The Watcher?

Derek and Maria Broaddus bought their idyllic new home in the New Jersey suburb of Westfield in 2014, fulfilling a dream of the couple to move into the neighbourhood where Maria grew up, with the new house just a few blocks from her childhood home.

As the New York magazine article details, renovations on their new $1.3m home prevented them from moving in straight away, but on checking the mail just days after completing the purchase of the house, the couple found a letter addressed to “The New Owner”. The letter sender would eventually identify themselves as the Watcher, and claimed to be looking over the house ahead of its “second coming”. 

The first letter the couple received read: “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. 

“My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out.”

The couple would continue receiving disturbing letters, which detailed watching their two children (not three as in the Netflix series) and referring to them as “young blood”. 

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/arts-life/culture/tv-radio/958389/the-real-life-story-behind-netflixs-the-watcher