NJ - " I am the Watcher..." -- A Hoax ?

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Okay, going off the quote above, what did "she" used to be? (I am assuming she refers to the house.) If the letter was received only 3 days after the new owners took possession, how did The Watcher knew something was going to change?

We purchased a property last year and did a complete gut renovation on the house, but it did not begin the moment we took possession of the property. We had a contractor lined up ahead of time and all our ducks in a row, and it was at least a few days after settlement until we got started.

What in this house was changed so extensively? And, if such extensive renovations occurred, were the walls opened or moved?
 
LietKynes said:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-31...m-dream-home-targeted-terrifying-stalker.html

I am the Watcher. Bring me young blood': Family forced out of $1.3m dream home after being targeted by terrifying stalker
A Westfield, New Jersey family had just bought the six bedroom home when three days in they received their first letter from 'The Watcher'
The letters threaten the family and their children and 'The Watcher' claims to be from a family who have stalked the home and its owners for years

What think ye ?? :scared:

Was there a previous article on it here at WS ? If so, this could be merged. I checked and didn't see one. Apparently this happened in 2014.
My first thought was that the family who bought it could not afford the payments ; but that is mere speculation.

If the alleged perp's handwriting is consistent, and if there are fingerprints-- it wouldn't seem unreasonable for law enforcement to nab him/her and charge them with stalking.

My other thought was that it's being written by someone who wants the house and is waiting for the price to drop--- along with a little "spiritual" .......assistance. .. :giggle:

I'd be tempted to do what another commenter posted in the DM... buy it and turn it into a tourist attraction ; complete with wearing a costume and displaying the scary letters.

:moo:
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I am going to read further but I would not let someone scare me out of my home. I am curious about disclosure issues.
 
IHAVENOCLUE said:
Right now I am visualizing a family who has a granny living with them...

And... Unbeknownst to the family...

Sweet, old granny is secretly sending creepy letters to a family in a neighboring town....

I wonder if the letters smell of arthritis cream... Or ... talcum powder?

:giggle:
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Moth balls and Maja soap.....
 
wfgodot said:
Jersey Tribune:

Before 'The Watcher,' Westfield house was a place of joy, former resident says
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Reading this article was kinda creepy. Why is this 56 year old woman giving me the creeps? I dunno but i got pricklies on the back of my neck.

Something about the bedrooms. She doesn't give an answer about who had which bedroom and the watcher references the bedrooms in the letters. Something about who has the bedroom facing the street, I think?

I've been reading along, slightly amused, and then boom, I got creeped out. [emoji15]

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk
 
I found nothing creepy about the article about the former resident who grew up there. Basically she was saying she was not the only child in the house and the kids switched bedrooms growing up, especially when one child or another hit adulthood and moved out.

This was how it was in my childhood home, and as my brother bought our childhood home from our parents, the practice still continues. We swapped rooms as kids for many different reasons- one bedroom was smaller, one larger, one had a great place to hide things with attic access, one was easier to sneak out of without waking all the residents.

This woman reiterated the fact that nothing scary happened in the 25 years she resided there. Not sure how you can take that for anything other than what she says.
 
cutter99 said:
Okay, so if a former resident lived there for 25 years and grew up there, and has very pleasant memories, a couple things come to mind.



1) If there had been a previous "Watcher", they never interacted with the previous residents, who had children in the house.

2) Nothing scary, horrible, or nefarious happened to anyone in the house in its' near recent history, from 1963 until present. That is over 50 years of first person recollection of the history of the home. The former resident mentioned in the article has nothing to gain from lying about the time she spent in the house.

3) The "Watcher" is new to this situation and is somehow attached or related to the current owners.

Does anyone know what renovations were done to the house by the new owners? Were they extensive, did they involve opening any of the walls?

I would think if you have the resources to purchase a $1.3 million dollar home, you would have the resources to put in a state of the art security system, with video monitoring. Something about this just does not sit right with me!
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I will add to you couple of things to your observations. Long time reader, first time poster so bear with me.

1. If my husband, children and I, had recently moved into a new house and received a threatening letter by a self proclaimed "Watcher", I would at the very least contact the police as a heads up kind of thing. In this day in age, I wouldn't have simply shrugged it off.

2. I would immediately call the seller to find out if they had any experiences with the "Watcher." Possibly the sellers could lie, nonetheless I'd ask.

3. As aforementioned, I would have installed security cameras outside and inside and other high tech security equipment.

4. How did the buyers know the sellers received a letter 'on or about the week of May 26'? I think the buyers said the "Watcher" mentioned it in the letter to them. The specificity of the date is strange to me. Why would the "Watcher" not just say, "I've sent a message to the Woods too." As opposed to giving the approximate receipt date of letter? The main point of the Watcher's letter to the buyers would be to let buyers know the seller recently received a letter too. The exact timeframe of the letter doesn't seem necessary. An approximation of the timeframe-yes but exact timeframe-no.

5. Why would the "Watcher" send a letter to the sellers first? Wouldn't it be more important that the current buyers know of the Watcher's self proclaimed "rightful ownership and possession" of the house? The sellers are no longer pertinent.

6. Now we have the third generation of the "Watcher" watching the house. Decades of watching, wouldn't there be some whisperings and/or rumors going around the neighborhood and/or the town about this supposed "Watcher?" Especially with the proximity of the List murders.

7. Were the buyer's cell records examined to see if their phones pinged on a tower in Kearney where the letters were postmarked? I know cell record evidence is controversial, but it would at least rule out that the buyers had been near the mailbox location.

8. Did either buyer mention receiving these letters to family members, friends or co-workers? If I'd received a threatening letter I'd immediately tell my sister, friends etc. Simply for the sake of discussion, but also in case something happened to me. I would also ask the neighbors if they knew anything about the "Watcher."

9. Did the buyers warn the construction workers about the possibility of evil doings by the "Watcher" so they could be on alert?

9. Have they done a forensic study of buyer's finances? This goes to the "in over their head" theory.

10. Was there DNA evidence found? Fingerprints on stamp, envelope, and/or letter?

11. Buyers only received 3 letters in year? If I were the "Watcher" and my family had been consumed/obsessed with this house for nearly 100 years, I'd be writing a whole lot of letters.

12. Were the letters handwritten or typed? Goes to have police doing forensic examination of buyer's computers, mobile phones etc.

13. It's hard for me to imagine that one family could have such a vendetta, hatred, obsession against a house and its' occupants that it would consume them for nearly 100 years.

14. I just googled to see if I could find any fiction book (as I type that it could be a non-fiction book too) had a similar plotline. But didn't find anything.

I don't buy the buyer's story. The evidence or lack thereof doesn't add up to me. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
 
All good points, Lizzy. I agree its a hoax. Either buyers looking to rescind the purchase, or a third-party that wants the house back on the market.
 
Lizzysun said:
4. How did the buyers know the sellers received a letter 'on or about the week of May 26'? I think the buyers said the "Watcher" mentioned it in the letter to them. The specificity of the date is strange to me. Why would the "Watcher" not just say, "I've sent a message to the Woods too." As opposed to giving the approximate receipt date of letter? The main point of the Watcher's letter to the buyers would be to let buyers know the seller recently received a letter too. The exact timeframe of the letter doesn't seem necessary. An approximation of the timeframe-yes but exact timeframe-no.



.



12. Were the letters handwritten or typed? Goes to have police doing forensic examination of buyer's computers, mobile phones etc.

.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the letters came to the house addressed to the Woods family and were forwarded by the new owners? If that happened, you might not remember the exact date, but you would remember forwarding them.

I think I read that the letters were hand printed? That would point (IMO) to someone who was not computer-savvy. If I were going to send an anonymous letter, I would definitely print it at the library, the UPS, wherever, but I wouldn't put my prints and my possibly identifiable hand-printing on it.

Welcome to websleuths, former lurker!
 
nj.com:

'The Watcher' suit shouldn't have gone public, homeowners' lawyer says

---
Lee Levitt, the Parsippany attorney for the couple who received threatening letters after buying the home, asked a judge to seal the complaint over concerns about the safety of his clients.

"The (lawsuit) involves direct threats to our clients' children by an unknown individual," Levitt wrote to Superior Court Judge Kenneth Grispin in a letter dated June 17, just days before the suit gained widespread media attention.

Grispin denied the request, citing among other reasons that Levitt had not filed a brief delineating the specific authority under which the file could be sealed.
---
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more at link above
 
Morag said:
I think I read that the letters were hand printed? That would point (IMO) to someone who was not computer-savvy. If I were going to send an anonymous letter, I would definitely print it at the library, the UPS, wherever, but I wouldn't put my prints and my possibly identifiable hand-printing on it.
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snip

---
According to a Broaddus family neighbor [....] they were sent via USPS and appeared to have been printed through a computer, as opposed to scarily handwritten.
---
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http://gawker.com/neighbor-the-new-jersey-watcher-struck-from-newark-1714236527
 
Welcome Lizzysun! AWESOME post!

That latest article linked is certainly the most comprehensive account with background yet.

I am really only considering a few options here at most-

1) Hoax due to buyer's remorse, biting off more than they could chew financially, cold feet, or something along these lines.

2) The Watcher is attached to the new owners for some reason- a rival, someone they offended or dissed somewhere along the way, a "fatal attraction" type situation, another potential buyer for the house who was outbid, etc.

I do not see any way the former owners would have been involved in this. They bought their new home 2 years before selling "The Watcher" house, so I would think they were comfortable enough that they did not have to desperately take just any offer on the house. The previous owners are well respected former members of the community with long term careers in a highly respected field.

Something smells really bad here!!!
 
Is there any legitimate reason this lawsuit should NOT have been made public?

I understand that to an extent there are minor children involved, but they are not living in the house and there is absolutely no evidence that anyone has actually tried to harm anyone!

What possible reason could there be for the lawsuit not being made public? Did the current owners really think the former owners and title company were just going to roll over and pay them what they asked?
 
cutter99 said:
Is there any legitimate reason this lawsuit should NOT have been made public?

I understand that to an extent there are minor children involved, but they are not living in the house and there is absolutely no evidence that anyone has actually tried to harm anyone!

What possible reason could there be for the lawsuit not being made public? Did the current owners really think the former owners and title company were just going to roll over and pay them what they asked?
Click to expand...

I have a hunch that one person had snow-balled their partner & got the "crazy-train" rolling in motion which perpetrated this trumped up lawsuit. Now the brakes are being put on & everyone is slowly realizing there's been a complicated, intricate back story. All is not what it appears & I think this confabulation lies solely within the new buyers realm. IMHO, someone either wasn't being forthright AND someone isn't very stable.

Oh what a tangled web we weave; when we choose to deceive....
 
This story has shades of The Amytiville Horror. Maybe they were hoping to sell a book and film rights....
 
Please. Ronald DeFeo killed his family. He was the one and only killer. There never was a haunting, let alone walls dripping blood or a satanic pig.

I am in no way disparaging people who chose not to buy a home because they get a bad vibe - I lived, as a student, in a bad vibe house because I had no choice - but the ridiculous claims of Amytiville are just that. Ridiculous.

This watcher malarky is the same. No idea if they could or could not afford the house. It doesn't really matter. If had a bet on this, it would be a woman didn't really want to leave her life, she's into holistic medicine, she has convinced herself the house it demon possessed, and all these letters are a result of mental illness/and/or a woman who doesn't want to move to the suburbs.

This next sentence may give all of you pause, and disregard what I'm stating, but anyone who has had a real/what they perceived as real/paranormal experience - they would not be blasting it all over social media.
 
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