The Watcher of 657 Boulevard

👀In 2014, in Westfield, New Jersey, Derek and Maria Broaddus and there three young children were almost ready to move into their new dream home. It was June, and just three days after closing the sale. The renovations being made were almost done on their the colonial, six-bedroom, $1.3 million house, which is located a few blocks from Maria's childhood home. It was 10 p.m., Derek had just finished some painting on the house and went to get the mail from their mailbox. Inside the mailbox there was a letter with hand written script on the envelope that read, "The New Owner." 

👀Inside was a typed letter that began innocently enough, "Dearest new neighbor at 657 Boulevard, allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood." 

👀The writer then cryptically asked,“How did you end up here? Did 657 Boulevard call to you with its force within?” 

👀The letter went on: "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. I see already that you have flooded 657 Boulevard with contractors so that you can destroy the house as it was supposed to be. Tsk, tsk, tsk … bad move. You don’t want to make 657 Boulevard unhappy.” 

👀The author seemed to notice when the three Broaddus' children were playing with neighborhood kids earlier in the week. “You have children. I have seen them. So far I think there are three that I have counted. Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed to bring me your children? Once I know their names I will call to them and draw them too [sic] me."

👀Then the writer alluded to his identity, "Who am I? There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day. Maybe I am in one. Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe I am one. Welcome my friends, welcome. Let the party begin."

👀The letter was signed in a cursive font: “The Watcher.”

👀Derek was alone at the new house as he frantically raced around the house and turned off lights. He then called the Westfield Police Department. When the officer came to the house and read the letter he was utterly perplexed. He asked Derek if they had any enemies, which they did not.

👀Derek rushed back to his wife and kids, who were living at their old home elsewhere in Westfield, and informed his wife about the letter. They decided to contact the couple that sold them the house, John and Andrea Woods.  The Woods told Derek and Maria that in their 23 years of living there, they only got a letter like that once. It was a few days before moving out and the note had been “odd,” and made similar mention of The Watcher’s family observing the house over time. Andrea and her husband had thrown the letter away without much thought. The Woods family went with Maria to the police station, where Detective Leonard Lugo told her not to tell anyone about the letters, including her new neighbors, because all of them were now suspects.

👀The letter had been processed in Kearny, the U.S. Postal Service’s distribution center in northern New Jersey. It was postmarked June 4th, before the sale was public, the Woods had never put up a for sale sign. It was also only a day after the contractors arrived. The renovations were mostly interior, and people who lived nearby say they didn’t notice an unusual commotion. When Derek and Maria walked a detective around the house, they showed him that the easel on the porch was hidden from the street by vegetation, making it difficult to see unless someone was behind the house or right next door.

👀Some weird things started to happen.When Derek gave a tour of the renovation to a couple on the block, the wife said, “It’ll be nice to have some young blood in the neighborhood.” 

👀The general contractor arrived one morning to find that a heavy sign he’d hammered into the front yard had been ripped out.

👀Two weeks after the letter arrived, Maria stopped by the house and in the mailbox was another letter. She called the police. This time the letter was addressed to them directly, but their last name was misspelled. “Mr. and Mrs. Braddus. Welcome again to your new home at 657 Boulevard. The workers have been busy and I have been watching you unload carfuls of your personal belongings. The dumpster is a nice touch. Have they found what is in the walls yet? In time they will."

👀The letter identified the three kids by birth order and by their nicknames. “I am pleased to know your names now and the name of the young blood you have brought to me,” it said. “You certainly say their names often.” The letter asked about one child in particular, whom the writer had seen using an easel inside an enclosed porch: “Is she the artist in the family?”

👀The rest of the letter went:

"657 Boulevard is anxious for you to move in. It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house. Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement? Or are they too afraid to go down there alone. I would [be] very afraid if I were them. It is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs you would never hear them scream.
Will they sleep in the attic? Or will you all sleep on the second floor? Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I’ll know as soon as you move in. It will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better.

All of the windows and doors in 657 Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house. Who am I? I am the Watcher and have been in control of 657 Boulevard for the better part of two decades now. The Woods family turned it over to you. It was their time to move on and kindly sold it when I asked them to.

I pass by many times a day. 657 Boulevard is my job, my life, my obsession. And now you are too Braddus family. Welcome to the product of your greed! Greed is what brought the past three families to 657 Boulevard and now it has brought you to me.

Have a happy moving in day. You know I will be watching."

👀After this Maria and Derek decided not to bring the children by the house anymore and put a hold on their plans to move in.

👀A few weeks later a third letter arrived. “Where have you gone to?” The Watcher wrote. “657 Boulevard is missing you.”

👀At one point, after talking to one of his neighbors, Derek thought that the case might be solved. John Schmidt lived two doors down. He told Derek about a neighbor that lived in between his house and Derek's. Peggy Langford was in her 90's, and several of her adult children, all in their 60s, lived with her. John described her and her family as a bit odd, but harmless. He said that one of the  the adult children, Michael, didn’t work and had a beard. John said that he was like Ernest Hemingway, as “kind of a Boo Radley character.”

👀The Langford house was right next to the easel on the porch. The family had lived there since the 1960's. Richard Langford, had died 12 years earlier, and the current Watcher claimed to have been on the job for “the better part of two decades.”

👀Derek told the detective about the family and he said he already knew. He had already brought Michael in for an interview, who denied knowing anything about the letters. Michael had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was young. He he did strange things, like walk through their backyard or peek into the windows of homes that were being renovated. People who had known Michael for decades didn’t think he was capable of writing the letters and most of the odd things he did was out of kindness.

👀Derek decided to take matters into his own hands. Derek set up webcams in 657 Boulevard and spent nights crouched in the dark, watching to see if anyone was watching the house.  He had a map displaying when each of 657’s neighbors had moved in. In the map, the Langfords were the only ones there since the 60's. 

👀Derek and Maria also employed a private investigator. He found two child sex offenders within a few blocks. Bill Woodward had also noticed something strange. He was Derek and Maria's house painter and he said that the couple behind 657 kept a pair of lawn chairs strangely close to the property. He claims to have seen a man sitting in one of the chairs staring at 657.

👀Derek reached out to a former FBI agent who served as the inspiration for Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs and they also hired Robert Lenehan, another former FBI agent. Lenehan said that the writer sounded old fashioned. 

👀Lenehan didn’t think The Watcher was likely to act on the threats, but he also thought that there was some kind of “seething anger” directed at the wealthy in particular. The Watcher was upset by new money moving into town. Lenehan recommended looking into former housekeepers or their descendants. 

👀In cooperation with Westfield police, the Derek and Maria sent a letter to the Langfords announcing plans to tear down the house in hopes of goating some kind of reaction, but nothing happened. The detective brought Michael in for a second interview but got nowhere, and his sister, Abby, accused the police of harassing their family. Derek and Maria hired a lawyer, who met with several members of the Langford family, as well as their attorney. The meeting grew tense and the Langfords insisted Michael was innocent. 

👀The investigation stalled and in December of 2014, the Westfield police told Derek and Maria that they had run out of options. 

👀Less than a year after the letters arrived, Maria and Derek decided to sell their home. This proved difficult with rumors buzzing around about the house and Derek and Maria sued the Woods for failing to disclose the threatening letter they'd received.

👀In 2016, Derek and Maria found someone to rent their home, with a clause that let them out if they received another threatening letter. Within two weeks, another letter arrived.

"Violent winds and bitter cold
To the vile and spiteful Derek and his wench of a wife Maria. 
You wonder who The Watcher is? Turn around idiots. Maybe you even spoke to me, one of the so called neighbors who has no idea who The Watcher could be. Or maybe you do know and are too scared to tell anyone. Good move. 

I walked by the news trucks when they took over my neighborhood and mocked me. I watched as you watched from the dark house in an attempt to find me … Telescopes and binoculars are wonderful inventions. My soldiers of the Boulevard followed my orders to a T. They carried out their mission and saved the soul of 657 Boulevard with my orders. All hail The Watcher!!!

Maybe a car accident. Maybe a fire. Maybe something as simple as a mild illness that never seems to go away but makes you fell sick day after day after day after day after day. Maybe the mysterious death of a pet. Loved ones suddenly die. Planes and cars and bicycles crash. Bones break."

👀Even though the renters were mentioned in the letter, they decided to stay if more cameras were added.

👀This year, Derek and Maria finally sold their home for $400,00 less than they paid for it.

👀The case of the Watcher currently remains unsolved. The only real clue is that a DNA test that came from one of the envelope reveals that the person who sealed it was a woman.

The Disturbing Unsolved Murders At Cabin 28

36-year-old Glenna “Sue” Sharp was a quiet woman who loved her kids.

In the fall of 1980, her and her five children left their Connecticut home after separating from her abusive husband, James Sharp. They traveled cross-country visiting friends and old neighbors. In November, Sue then decided to relocate to Keddie, California, where her brother Don was residing at the time. 

At the time, Keddie was a run-down, low rent, railroad town were violence ran rampant. i don't know what the population was at the time, but in 2000 there were 96 people living there and in 2010 there was a cenus of 66 people.

She rented a 3 bedroom Cabin, number 28, at the Keddie Resort. Sue's 15-year-old son, Johnny, took an unfinished room downstairs that was off a small utility area in the partial basement. With no indoor stairs or separate bathroom, he used the back staircase or front door to gain access to Cabin 28. His little brothers, 10-year-old Rick and 5-year-old Greg, shared a bedroom at the front of the cabin that was next to the living room. Sue and her youngest daughter, 12-year-old Tina, shared the rear bedroom opposite the kitchen.

In February, Susan's oldest daughter, 14-year-old Sheila, gave birth to a baby in Oregon. The baby was put up for adoption and Sheila rejoined her family in Cabin 28. Sue slept in a twin bed while the girls shared the queen. On occasion Sue slept on the pull-couch in the living room.

Sue had one close friend, a neighbor woman with the last name of Meeks. Sue hung out at a neighborhood bar called The Back Door.  She had a steady boyfriend and their relationship was volatile. In March of 1981, they broke up following a shouting match.

On April 11, 1981, Sue and Sheila drove from Keddie to pick up John and his friend Dana Hall Wingate from Gansner Park in Quincy, and brought them rhw 5 miles back to Keddie. Two hours later, John and Dana hitchhiked back to Quincy to visit friends. The two were seen in the city's downtown area. A woman named Donna Williams claimed to have picked them up in front of a tire store and given them a ride down the road to another friend's home. John and Dana later attended a party at Oakland Camp in Quincy.

That same evening, Sheila departed the home shortly after 8:00 pm to spend the night with the Seabolt family, who lived in an adjacent cabin. Tina, who had been watching television at the Seabolts', returned home to the cabin around 9:30 pm. Sue remained at home with Rick, Greg, and the boys' young friend, Justin Smartt.

The next morning, after Sheila awoke, she headed to Cabin 28 to get her church clothes. It was sometime after 7 a.m. and when she swung the door open to cabin 28, she was in for a horrifying shock. There were three dead bodies on the floor, one of which was covered with a blanket. Between the doorway and the closest body was a knife. Screaming and crying, a frightened Sheila desperately ran back to the Seabolts. Zonita Seabolt rushed Sheila across the street to the landlord's Cabin number 25. Zonita then called the Plumas County Sheriff’s Office.

While waiting for the police, Zonita’s eldest son Jamie returned went around the back of Cabin 28 and knocked on the boys’ bedroom window. A face popped up in the window. Jamie dragged an unharmed Greg, Rick, and a neighbor child, Justin Smartt from that window. Jamie then crept up the back stairs to see if anyone else was still alive. The back door was ajar and once inside, Jamie saw the three dead bodies, but no one else.

When police arrived, they discovered that the three bodies were that of Sue, John, and John’s friend, Dana Wingate. They were all bound by adhesive tape and electrical wiring.  

A bent steak knife was found on the floor. A bloodied butcher knife and a claw hammer were found on a table near the entry way of the kitchen. Blood splatters were found on the walls and ceiling. Drops of blood on Tina's bed. The investigation pointed to rape as the motivation behind kidnapping Tina, instead of murdering her in the home with the others. More evidence found included a bloody footprint that was discovered in the yard and knife marks in some of the walls of the home.

Sue was found under the blanket. She was laying on her side near the living room sofa, nude from the waist down and gagged with a blue bandanna and her own panties, which had been secured with tape. She had been stabbed in the chest, her throat was slashed, and on the side of her head was an imprint matching the butt of a Daisy 880 BB gun. John was lying on his back, his throat was slashed. John's feet were tied to Dana's. Dana was laying face down and  had multiple head injuries. She had been manually strangled.  Autopsies determined that they died from the knife wounds from the bent steak knife and blunt-force trauma from a hammer.

Sheila and the Seabolt family heard didn't hear anything during the night. However, there was a couple living nearby that were awakened around 1:30 am by what sounded like muffled screaming, but couldn't say where from. Tina's jacket, shoes, and a shoe box containing various tools, were missing from the cabin. The cabin showed no indication of forced entry. An unidentified fingerprint was found on a handrail on the stairs leading to the cabin's back door. The cabin's telephone had been left off the hook, its lights were off, and the drapes were closed.

The crime scene was never properly secured. It took for the police to realize that Tina Sharp was missing. When the first police officers arrived at the scene, Justin tried to tell them that Tina was missing, but they wouldn't listen. It wasn't until hours later she was gone.

Police theorized that at least two people committed the three murders. The only suspects at the time were Marty Smartt and his roommate John "Bo" Boubede. Marty served two tours in Vietnam and was seeking psychiatric help at the Reno VA hospital a few weeks before the murders. Marty was married to Justin's mom, Marilyn. They lived two cabins away from the Sharps. Marty was allegedly abusive and Sue was counseling Marilyn, which made Marty furious. 

Bo, who had a criminal history of bank robbery for which he spent time in prison, claimed he was at the hospital for epilepsy and a suicide attempt. The two men met there, and Marty brought Bo with him to Keddie, California.

Marilyn, later claimed she had found Tina's bloody jacket in her basement and had turned it in to police. I haven't found an official record of this. 

When investigators interviewed Marty Smartt he claimed that a claw hammer had disappeared from his home. 

Shortly after the murders Marty took off to Reno.

Detectives also interviewed members of the Seabolt family, who recalled seeing an unknown green van parked at the Sharps' cabin around 9:00 pm. Other neighbors recalled noticing a brown Datsun parked at the residence that evening, which appeared to have a tire that was going flat.

Justin at first said that he dreamed details of the murders and then later claimed to have actually witnessed them. Under hypnosis he claimed to have heard sounds coming from the living room while watching television in the bedroom with Rick and Greg. 

He went to investigate and saw Sue with two men. Then John and Dana then entered the home and began heatedly arguing with the men. There was a fight, Tina entered the room, and she was taken out of the cabin's back door by one of the men.

Carla McMullen, a family acquaintance, later told detectives that Dana Wingate had recently stolen an unknown quantity of LSD from local drug dealers.

In December 1983, detectives ruled out serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole as potential suspects.

In 1984, on the 3rd anniversary of the murders,  a cranium portion of  Tina's skull and part of her mandible were discovered 50 miles away at Camp Eighteen near Feather Falls in Butte County. Shortly after announcing the discovery, Butte County Sheriff's Office received an anonymous call that identified the remains as belonging to Tina. Near the remains, detectives also found a child's blanket, a blue nylon jacket, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans with a missing back pocket, and an empty surgical tape.

Bo, who allegedly had ties to organized crime in Chicago, died there in 1988.

In 1996, Robert Joseph Silveria, Jr., was examined as a potential suspect in the murders.

Martin Smartt died of cancer in Portland, Oregon, in June 2000.

In 2001, Dana Wingate's father said that the police, "stumbled over each other and fouled up the case."

In 2004, the cabin was demolished. 

In a 2008 documentary on the murders, Marilyn Smartt claimed that she suspected her husband Martin and Bo were responsible. Marilyn claimed that on the evening of the crimes, she had left Martin and Bo at a local bar around 11:00 pm and returned home to go to sleep. She said she woke up around 2:00 am to find the two burning an unknown item in the wood stove. Additionally, she alleged that Martin "hated Johnny Sharp with a passion." In the same documentary, Sheriff Doug Thomas said he had personally interviewed Martin, and that Martin he had passed a polygraph. 

In 2013, the case was looked into with a fresh pair of eyes by Plumas County Sheriff Greg Hagwood and investigator Mike Gamberg.

On March 24, 2016, a hammer matching the description of the hammer Martin claimed to have lost was discovered in a local pond. Plumas County Sheriff Hagwood stated: "the location it was found... It would have been intentionally put there. It would not have been accidentally misplaced." Gamberg also stated that at that time, six potential suspects were being examined.

One day Gamberg was organizing old case reports and boxes of old evidence. He found the 9-1-1 audio of the anonymous caller sealed in a envelope, it apparently had never been submitted into evidence. Gamberg also found letters Marty had sent to Marilyn after the murders. In one of the letters he wrote, "I've paid the price of your love & now I've bought it with four people's lives, you tell me that we are through? Great. What else do you want?"  Marilyn claimed that she never remembered getting that letter, but did recognize Marty's handwriting.

In a 2016 interview, Gamberg stated that the letter was initially "overlooked"  and never admitted as evidence. When talking about the the previous investigation of the murders Gamberg said,"You could take someone just coming out of the academy and they'd have done a better job." 

A counselor whom Marty regularly visited also alleged that he had admitted to the murders of Sue and Tina, but claimed "I didn't have anything to do with [the boys]." Marty allegedly told the counselor that Tina was killed to prevent her from identifying him, as she had "witnessed the whole thing."

In April 2018, Gamberg stated that DNA evidence recovered from a piece of tape at the crime scene matched that of a known living suspect.

What Happened To Susan Osborne And Her Son Evan Chartrand?

Susan Lynn Osborne and Evan Eric Chartrand

Susan and her son Evan Chartrand lived in Holtville, Alabama. They shared a home with air force veteran Jerry Marshall Osborne. He was the first person Susan had dated after her divorce from Evan's father. By 2017 42 year-old Susan and Jerry had been married four years. Jerry was protective of Susan and 13-year-old Evan.  He took good care of them. Susan even was able to quit her job to be a full time mother while Jerry worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher.

Susan's mother, Linda, lived in Texas. The last time she saw her daughter was when Linda visited Susan in Alabama for mother's day. Linda and Susan went out for manicures and pedicures before having lunch. Linda left after May 29th, memorial day weekend and traveled to Michigan for her granddaughter's graduation. While in Michigan, Linda was sending Susan texts and pictures, but getting no response back. Susan never had gone more than a day or two without returning her mother's texts or phone calls. This worried Linda and she sent Susan a letter which was returned unopened and marked not deliverable. 

Susan wasn't answering texts or phone calls from her friend Holly either. Holly had moved from Alabama to Florida just before memorial day. She tried to contact Evan as well, but he didn't respond either. Then both Susan and Evans phones were disconnected.

A month after Linda last heard from Susan, she contacted police to go do a welfare check on her daughter and grandson. When an officer arrived at Susan's house, her car is in the driveway. The officer than talks to Jerry, who is in the midst of thoroughly cleaning the house. He claims that Susan left him on Memorial day and took Evan with her. He said that they were picked up by some man. Jerry said that she returned the next day to grab furniture and other belongings. Susan's two beloved dogs were also missing, they were later found at the animal shelter. Both Susan and Evan's belongings were missing from the home, but Susan left her 10-year-old daughter Hannah behind, and her family doesn't believe she would have voluntarily abandon her daughter.

The next day, the police returned with a search warrant to find Jerry cleaning his home yet again. The inside of the house had recently and needlessly been completely remodeled. The hardwood floors were replaced with carpet, it was freshly painted and there was all new furniture. Jerry told detectives that he had to paint the walls because Susan spray painted obscenities before she left. He also said that he burned the old furniture that Susan didn't take. Neighbors claimed that all through the summer, Jerry had been burning things in his yard, pretty much non stop and that the smoke was thick and the smell was terrible. Cadaver dogs alerted to possibly human remains at or near Jerry's burn barrel.

When detectives used luminol in Jerry's house, there were traces of blood all over in the laundry room, guest bathroom and kitchen. The house was equipped with an elaborate security system with cameras at every door, but by the time the police began investigating, all the footage from the time of Susan and Evan's disappearance was gone because Jerry had bought a replacement system on June 1st.

Holly contacted police and told them she saved emails that Susan had sent her. Jerry had become very possessive of Susan and would listen into her calls and texts, so Susan sent those secret emails to Holly. From the emails the police learned that Susan discovered Jerry had previously worked as a gay escort before their marriage, advertising his services online. She recognized him in the ad photos by the tattoos. She said she thought Jerry was still escorting and spoke about leaving him, but later said she and Jerry had worked things out and she still loved him. Susan had also told her mom about this as well.

Jerry is considered a person of interest in his wife and stepson's disappearances, but he maintains his innocence. The two cases remain unsolved and foul play is suspected. Evan takes medicine that is crucial too his heath that was never picked up from the pharmacy.

Did You Know About Brittany Spears' Secret Album?

Britney Jean Spears is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actress. Born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, she appeared in stage productions and television series, before signing with Jive Records in 1997. Spears's first two studio albums, ...Baby One More Time and Oops!. She is a multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning pop icon Britney Spears is one of the most successful and celebrated entertainers in pop history

After Brittany Spears and Justine Timberlake broke up, she disappeared for awhile. Once back in the limelight, Brittany started acting weird. In 2004, unbeknownst to her record label, she secretly wrote an album called "Original Doll". This album included a song about a girl who had been cloned. The song was called "Mona Lisa". Allegedly, her record label didn't want anyone to hear it, but Brittany did. Brittany walked into a radio station and had them play Mona Lisa. After that, she wasn't illegally allowed to put out any of that music.

Later, Brittany Spears' music video called "Break The Ice" was released. The video portrays her destroying a highly secured laboratory with several clones, including one of herself.

There was also two popular DJs that claimed Brittany Spears and Justin Timberlake both died in a car crash and so they were cloned. One of the DJs was named Keith Kramer and the other one was Tony Longo aka Twitch from the Ellen Show.

Brittany's voice also changed a lot during the years. She went from a big powerful voice to the baby voice we know today. It is rumored that doing the baby voice damage her vocal cords permanently.

In 2007, Brittany Spears shaved her head and seemed to go a little crazy.  One of her previous managers theorized that at the time she didn't really go crazy. The claim was she did this because she didn't want to take a drug test and that if she had failed the test, her kids would have been taken away.

Was she really a previous meth addict that just wanted her kids? Some claim that she was working for the Bush administration and every time there was controversy surround their campaign they'd bring forth a scandal involving Brittany to distract the public. 

In 2006 is when a lot of people were pissed off at Bush for the Iraq war situation. That is also when the child welfare services started investigating Brittany Spears. Also in 2006, there was a important midterm elections for republicans and it wasn't looking good for them thanks the the Bush Administration. Around this time is when Brittany announced that her and Kevin Federline were getting a divorce.

This brings us back to 2007 when Brittany supposedly went crazy. Just before, Bush had announced that al-qaeda was reformed, which was contradictory to the campaign promises he had made.

During this time, Brittany came out with her album called "Blackout". Much to the surprised of many people, that album was a huge success. People wondered how she pulled it off amidst the stuff she was going through. Some people suggested that it wasn't really her that was singing on the album and that it was her backup singer was Maya Marie.