Short Stuff: Two Scary True Shorties!
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What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why was Los Angeles the bank robbery capital of the world? What exactly happened in the Marriott Hotel in downtown Boston in March of 2020? I'm Malcolm Gladwell. In my new audiobook, Revenge of the Tipping Point, I'm looking at these questions and exploring the dark side of contagious phenomenon. You can hear a sneak peek of the audiobook on my podcast, Revisionist History.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I should say, hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too, skulking around like a real ghoul who

who just wants to dig up a grave and eat the corpse inside. That's what Jerry does around this time of year. And this is short stuff, so let's get going because it's basically Halloween. That's right. The day before Halloween, we're going to talk about two scary stories. Big thanks to Medium, People Magazine, Cult of Weird, and The Cut, and other places for these two scary stories. The first one about the Breitsius family of Auburn, Pennsylvania. Mm-hmm.

who moved into a home for their family of six

They were like, let's renovate a little bit. Let's take down this wall in the living room. And oh my God, what is that? Basically, because what they found within the walls of the home were dead animal carcasses, bones, and skeletons. Yes. And very quizzically, they were wrapped in newspaper that dated from the 1930s and 40s. And apparently...

Every wall that they opened up to put insulation in, they found it packed with not only like dead animals, but also some spices, artifacts. And by God, I searched high and low for an example of what the artifacts were, but everybody just followed the example of whoever first wrote artifacts. And that's all you can get. So I have no idea what the artifacts are. Maybe that was the newspapers.

I guess those qualify as artifacts. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We'll just say that. So spices, newspapers, and dead animals. And they're like, I don't know what's going on here. So let's ask some locals what they think is happening. And it turns out that these people bought their house smack dab in the middle of Pennsylvania, Dutch country. And it turns out what had happened is they discovered that their house was being protected via a

kind of Dutch magic, Pennsylvania Dutch magic called powwow. That's right. It has its roots in Pennsylvania there. And it's sort of like, I mean, Christianity is part of it because they do use the Christian or I don't know if they're still around or maybe did use the Christian Bible. I think it is still around. Okay. But there's definitely folk magic, healing remedies, stuff like that.

And powwow refers to or it actually came from this German book called The Long Lost Friends by John George Homan, published in 1820. And they believe that it wasn't called powwow at first, but it was renamed that later after the Algonquin word for, you know, powwow, gathering of medicine men. And that was it. It was it was this book, basically, that also has kind of a creepy backstory there. Right.

Well, yeah. So just a little more about the book. It's a bunch of folk remedies and spells and recipes and, hey, use this cat's paw to ward off this thing. And very importantly to me,

Nothing in the book is for casting spells against somebody or for hexing somebody. It's all protective or defensive to like undo some hex somebody did on you. So it's basically all positive. And powwow doctors who, again, are still around today, they don't take a cent for what they're doing. If you want to give them something as a token of thanks, they'll accept it. But they do not charge for their services or else it won't work.

And to the people that they're working with and themselves, they are a conduit from God to this person who needs healing. And that's what they're serving as, which is where the Christianity part comes in. That's right. And I mentioned the creepy backstory of that book. Here is that. Because in 1928, it was found in the possession of a guy, a murderer named John Blymeyer, who

And there was a local witch in this story named Nellie Knoll. Great name. What? Great name? Nellie Knoll? Yeah. For a witch? Yeah, absolutely. John Blymeyer was convinced that he was cursed by one of his neighbors who

And so he went to break into that neighbor's house to find the spell book and try and reverse this curse. But when he broke in, his neighbor was actually there. So they just killed him. They mutilated him and they thought maybe that will lift the curse. So that has nothing to do with actually what's in the book, because like you said, it's a it's a positive book of protection spells mainly. But it is Halloween. So I thought it was worth mentioning. Yeah.

Yeah. And also reverse the curse sounds like a Cubs T-shirt from the 90s, you know? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Or Red Sox, maybe. So, yeah, it turns out that the house of Nelson Riemeyer, the neighbor who was killed by John Blymeyer, it's still around and his great grandson lives there. And the part of the floor where Riemeyer was burned alive is still singed. And the guy has cut it out and put plexiglass over it and gives tours of the house.

That's right. And again, has nothing to do with this home or the dead animals in the wall. They're just dead animals in the wall. And by all appearances, it was part of a powwow protection program.

They don't know what that house might have been trying to be protected from. That's kind of creepy. But they took care of everything to the tune of about $20,000 because insurance would not cover it. No, they said this existed before your policy. So T.S. for you. The spookiest part of the story. Exactly. So let's take a break and we'll come back and talk about a second real life horror story. How about that? Let's do it.

In the back of your mind, you've always suspected there's something strange about reality. The Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast proves there is. All October, hosts Joe McCormick and Robert Lamb take a lighter look at the scary side of movies, history, and the occult. This movie has both Christopher Lee and retinal optography. That was the idea where you could look in a dead person's eyes and see the last thing they saw.

That's right, in this case, a dinosaur. Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Starr. I'm John Starr. I'm John Starr. I'm John Starr. I'm John Starr. I'm John Starr.

Stuff you should know. Okay, Chuck. So for the second real life scary story, we're going to talk about the saga of Derek and Maria Brodess, who bought a dream home essentially in Westfield, New Jersey in 2014. They paid over asking for it.

which is also very scary. They paid $1.4 million for it. And this house was a four-bathroom, six-bedroom Dutch colonial, which should be the opposite. It was built in 1905. And they loved the house. They thought it was amazing. What they didn't know is that there was a stalker watching the house who called themselves, appropriately, the Watcher.

That's right. This is, of course, the basis of the Netflix show, The Watcher. And we should also say we're going to cover this in about six or seven minutes. And this is a very dense story. So there is a lot more out there about The Watcher. And this is the broadest of overviews about the broadest family. You like that? Mm-hmm.

But this house was originally built in 1905. About a month before closing, the Woods family who was selling it got a letter from someone that called themselves the Watcher. Sure. It was hand-typed, and they claimed to be watching the house and one of a long line of people in their family that had been watching the house since 1905. Yeah, and one little note about the letters. The letters were typed, but the envelopes were hand-typed.

handwritten in a block of script. Yes. And that to me suggests strongly that the watcher couldn't figure out how to type onto an envelope, which I find hilarious. Yeah, that's pretty funny.

So 657 Boulevard is where this house is. And the Woods family had lived there for 23 years. They were like, this letter is kind of weird. It's a little creepy, but we're selling it. And let's just not tell anybody that. Right. So, yeah, apparently it was the first letter they ever got. No one ever seems to have intimated that they got one prior to this. So they just kind of threw it away and were just like, whatever.

And then over the course of the next month, as the Broaddus' started moving their stuff in, three days after closing in June, they received a letter, their first letter. And it was essentially the Watcher introducing themselves to this new family who'd moved into this house at 657 Boulevard, that the Watcher was the third generation to watch this house.

Hey, Dave, maybe we could, Dave, producer Dave for the shorties, maybe we'd have some scary music when we read these letters. Oh, great idea. Great idea. So cue the scary music, and here we go with letter two. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s, and my father watched in the 1960s. It is have be, and of course, put the little parenthetical S-I-C in there. Which means I'm not the dummy. They're the dummy. Yeah.

Talking about the house. Mm-hmm.

I asked the previous owners to bring me young blood. So this is not the kind of letter you would want to get when you're moving into your new house, especially because you have kids. And this person is this anonymous letter writer is mentioning young blood that you apparently brought to them. And they the the watcher said that the woods had sold the house because the watcher asked them to and they were doing the watchers bidding something that the watcher like to apparently think

about themselves, that they were in control of everything that happened with this house. And two weeks later, another letter arrived. It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Braddis. They left the O out this time. And it got even more detailed about the kids. ♪

Yeah, I was talking about their birth order, their nicknames. And this is very creepy, but it asked who would be in the street-facing rooms and said, it will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better. Man, don't forget the music there, Dave. So Derek Brodess did what every normal father and husband would do in 2014. He set up webcams in the house. Yeah.

Yeah. And they hadn't moved in, by the way. In fact, never moved in. They had moved some of their stuff in. But given what was happening, they were slow rolling, I think. Yeah. So weeks after the second letter. So this is a couple of months after they closed on the house. They got another letter that said, where have you gone to? 657 Boulevard is missing you.

And that's fairly creepy, but at least it wasn't a threatening letter this time. But it also showed that the watcher was clearly watching the house. And so a year went by, a year, Chuck, where these people who paid almost one and a half million dollars for their house never moved into it because they were too scared of what

whoever this person was. And they also grew very paranoid. I don't think the Netflix special took any liberties with that. I think it was like an actual depiction of like how this family, especially the dad kind of descended into paranoia and suspecting anyone and everyone of being the watcher. They just couldn't take this at all. So they just never moved in the house and they tried to sell it and it did not go very well.

I thought a second ago you were going to say these people didn't move into their $1.4 million house for a year because they were too scared and privileged. Yeah. We just won't move in. So one other thing, too, I called it a Netflix special, which I think kind of outed me as almost 50. Right. A program. It was the Netflix movie of the week. You watching your program? Yeah.

So they went to court and said, hey, these woods people got this. They knew about this. They didn't disclose this. Now we've got this scary haunted house.

Or maybe not haunted, maybe being stalked by a real dangerous person. And the Woods were like, no, no, no, that's not true. That didn't happen. And so news started getting a hold of this. They started reporting it. They actually did DNA testing and found that a woman's DNA on the envelopes and letters and that they had a Kearney DNA.

Postmarks on them. Yeah, that's 20 miles away and closer to New York. I don't know if we said this. This whole thing takes place in what is it? Westfield, New Jersey, right? Yeah, of course. New Jersey. OK.

So the cops are involved now. The prosecutor's office is actually involved. They're spending money testing this stuff for DNA, like you said. And they started theorizing of who it could be. And they thought maybe it was one of the other prospective buyers who was mad that they'd been outbid by the Burtis's.

Maybe to get them out of there. Yeah, exactly. Could have been one of the neighbors, like the Watcher essentially intimated. And then there was a lot of suspicion on the Brodess family too, that they were essentially like the family

the family from the Amityville horror that they had, they were trying to basically create a, a sellable story, which is what turned out to be the case actually. Yeah. Or buyer's remorse too. That's another one too. Um, but they, uh, that was, that would be a terrible, uh,

terrible thing to do if you just wanted to sell the house and there were other people who had offered over asking why would you like saddle it with a now famous stalker rather than just being like we're going to sell it and we'll try to sell it at least break even

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That doesn't make much sense. Yeah. So in 2016, they tried to subdivide the property into a couple of lots, get rid of that house, build two more. The zoning board in the town said no. No. Big slap in the face. And they rented the place. And the renter was like, yeah, I mean, I know about this watcher thing, but like, I

I wasn't too freaked out. It was fine. It was a good house to rent. And I did have a clause, an out clause in my lease in case another letter popped up. Smart. And another letter did pop up. And this was a really creepy one. And I think you should read this one. Oh, the whole thing. Okay. 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. Remember, this whole thing had become like a media circus by now.

All hail the Watcher!

Pretty full of themselves, right? Yeah. He kind of came across as a smarmy a-hole in that one, whoever this watcher is. He or she. Don't forget they found female DNA on the envelope. Oh, yeah, that's true. It sounds like something a guy would do, though. They did mention the renter in that letter. The renter was a little bit spooked, but was like, but I'll stay here, you know. I like this place. Get some of those cameras in there and I'll be fine.

And then there was one last spooky tag on this letter about the revenge that might befall them. Maybe a car accident. Maybe a fire. Maybe something as simple as a mild illness that never seems to go away but makes you feel 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. They threaten to make a plane crash.

Hey, that's pretty scary. So how'd the whole thing end up? The Broadus family finally did sell the house about five years after they bought it, right? Yeah, at a $400,000 loss. And that is the end of the story. What I don't know is how the Netflix show, surely it just doesn't wrap up that way. Oh, you haven't seen it? No, have you? Yeah, it's good.

Oh, is it good? Do you watch the whole thing? Yeah. How does it end? Well, don't tell me how it ends, I guess, on air. I honestly don't remember how it ends, but it didn't seem to be like a succinct ending, like everything was wrapped up, if I remember correctly. But it gets nuts, man. It's off the rails. And, you know, I'm sure they fictionalized a lot of it. But it's got, what's his name, the guy like Rose Byrne's husband, Bobby Cannavale. Oh, he's married to Rose Byrne? I didn't know that.

Yeah, one of my favorite couples. And I sat next to him in a lounge at LaGuardia Airport one time. Very nice. And he smiled at me. So I think we got something brewing there friendship-wise. I think so, too. Well, then you should definitely watch the Netflix special on The Watcher because you need something to talk about with him. That's right. And thanks to everyone for indulging this extra long two-part shorty. And be safe tomorrow. Happy Halloween, everybody. Happy Halloween, everybody. Short Stuff's out.

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