What to Know
- "The Watcher" is a creepy-letter watcher who says it is their duty to watch over a million dollar home in Westfield, New Jersey
- The story is now on the Thrillist's list of "Creepiest Urban Legends in Every State"
- The author sometimes pens letters that say "Who has the bedrooms facing the street?" or asking about "young blood"
Remember those stories about a scary-letter writer known as “The Watcher?”
Well, those tales are popping up again. This time as the creepiest urban legend in New Jersey, according to Thrillist.
Don’t know the details? Here’s the gist. Back in the summer of the 2015, a family had just moved into a home, apparently worth a million dollars, in Westfield. A short time later, the family started getting eerie, sometimes menacing, letters written by somebody who was only known as “The Watcher,” who claimed his purpose was to watch over the home.
That isn’t even the strangest part. The letter writer would often pen lines saying things such as, according to Thrillist, “Who has the bedrooms facing the street?”
In an even more unusual turn, a New Jersey husband and wife claimed they were eventually scared away from the home earlier this year after receiving a fourth letter from “The Watcher.” Only this time the letter contained specific threats and was "more derogatory and sinister than any of the previous letters," according to Lee Levitt, attorney for Derek and Maria Broaddus.
In one of the earlier correspondences, the stalker asked whether the new family brought him the "young blood" that he requested. The Broadduses, who have young children, refused to move into the home and have been unsuccessful in their attempts to sell the property.
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They sued the prior owners of the house in June 2015, claiming that they also received a letter from "The Watcher" but never disclosed it. That family has since countersued, stating the letter they received was not threatening and alleging they were defamed.
They are also suing Westfield because the town's planning board rejected their plan to raze the house and subdivide the land so they could build two houses.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the tri-state, other creepy urban legends are making Thrillist’s list.
In Connecticut, rumor has it that anyone who steals an artifact from Dudleytown will have a curse put on them and their family. It began back in England where Edmund Dudley had his head cut off for conspiring against King Henry VII, according to Thrillist. A curse was then put on the rest of the Dudleys who moved to the small Connecticut town of Cornwall.
In New York, it’s The Montauk Project, a series of alleged government experiments conducted in the Long Island town back in the early 1980s. Psychological warfare, experiments on children and paranormal buffs have all been rumored as having a part in the project.
