Here's what to know about the real-life family and what they are up to nearly 10 years later.
Inspired by the events involving a stalker scaring a family from ever moving into their idyllic home, The Watcher is an unbelievably spooky story with a Ryan Murphy spin. But for all the twists and turns and haunted house vibes added by the co-creator of the limited series starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale, there’s a real-life family, home and community affected by a mysterious person who upended the lives connected to the Westfield property.
With the series captivating audiences on Netflix, here’s a look at where the original family is now and how residents of the New Jersey town have responded to Murphy’s adaptation of the still-unsolved events that started nearly a decade ago.
What to Remember About the House
On the series, Watts and Cannavale play Dean and Nora Brannock, a successful couple of a growing family who put all of their savings into securing the house of their dreams. They are based on Derek and Maria Broaddus, who bought a $1.3 million, six-bedroom Dutch Colonial house at 657 Boulevard in 2014.
Not long after they closed on the house and slowly started renovations, they received the first of many and increasingly menacing letters from a stranger who identified themself as "The Watcher," who explained in one note that "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."
Despite a lengthy investigation that involved the police, a former FBI agent who was the inspiration for Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, confrontations with their neighbors, legal complaints involving the previous owners, The Woods, who also received a similar letter while they still lived in the home, and even rogue Reddit users scouring the internet for answers, the identity of "The Watcher" remains unknown.
Unlike the series, which – spoiler alert – puts all the blame on an eccentric private investigator created for the series played by Noma Dumezweni who paid the surrounding neighbors to be part of her elaborate scheme, the family was never able to figure out who was behind the letters.
What Happened to the Family
In 2019, after never moving into the home, the Broaddus family sold the property at a considerable loss. Before finally being able to sell the home, which had garnered a considerable reputation around town, they were even able to rent it out – but only briefly. The new family moved out sooner after “The Watcher” sent them a letter as well.
Since then, the Broaddus family has moved into another home, this one The Cut reports, "a lovely, albeit smaller, house" in Westfield. But that hasn't stopped Derek from obsessing over the case, with him telling the magazine, "It's like cancer. We think about it everyday."
Despite Netflix securing the rights to the 2018 article, the family has not been involved in any TV or film productions, documentaries or on-camera interviews and even requested the streaming service to not use their real names or likeness.
How Westfield Residents Have Responded
As for the neighbors and other nearby residents? They are now dealing with renewed attention surrounding the area and actual property, which is now owned and lived in by another couple listed as the Carrs.
"The family that lives there now has nothing to do with the actual story," Westfield local Amy Delpuerto tells New Jersey’s News12. "Neighborhood-wise, it's been nuts. Even when we're standing here there's a lot of people doing U-turns, and, I mean, kind of going all over the place. It's definitely a change from what's normally a pretty quiet street."
She adds, "I mean, it's a Netflix top show, it's just so much more intriguing, so much more magnetizing to do something that's probably not the best decision."
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