A New Jersey family has vacated their new $1.3 million home after receiving a series of terrifying letters from someone dubbed "the Watcher," and is suing the previous owners for allegedly failing to disclose that the place was being surveilled by a psychopath.
The Broaddus family—which includes three young children—enjoyed only three unperturbed days after closing on their new Westfield home before receiving the first Watcher correspondence. The letter, excerpted in a chilling court filing, reads like a passage from Helter Skelter.
"[The house] has been the subject of my family for decades," the Watcher explains. "I have be [sic] put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched in the 1920s and my father watched it in the 1960s. It is now my time."
Oh! Like, your time to guard it and make sure everyone inside is safe? OK, sure, that's a little "hands-on" for most people, but...nice idea?
No.
"Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested?" it continues. "Have you found all the secrets it holds. Will the young bloods play in the basement. Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I will know as soon as you move in."
He goes on to describe how the former owners, the Woods, passed the home off on the Broaddus family when the Watcher "asked them to."
“Have they found out what’s in the walls yet?” the Watcher asks. “I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me,”
Suffice to say the Broadduses are suing previous owners John and Andrea Woods, who allegedly sold the tony Westfield home despite knowing full well that the house was being creeped on.
As one neighbor tells CBS New York, “I would be pretty upset if I bought a house and found out that the previous owners knew about it."
So far, police have no solid leads on who could be behind the chilling missives.
"Our police have conducted an exhaustive investigation into the threatening letters. Our police went the extra measure and left no stone unturned," Westfield Mayor Andrew Skibitsky said during a council meeting on Tuesday. He added that no charges have been filed.
Anyone with information about the source of the letters is asked to call Westfield police. For more on this sort of thing, we now turn to LAist.
