watching. good night! ♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, "the watcher." the unsolved mystery behind the netflix true crime sensation. >> i am pleased to know your names now and the names of the youngblood you have brought me. >> a new jersey family's dream turned into a nightmare. >> the letters themselves are kind of impossibly creepy and spooky and scary. >> a quiet community haunted. and it's not the first time. >> it seems like a horror movie, but it's real. >> the shocking murders a half century ago now part of the plot line. king of clerks. nearly three decades after kevin

smith became an indie cult god, after his own attack is the be thing that ever happened to me. >> "clerks" is back. surprising audiences. and even moving some to tears. >> the older we get, the more poignant life becomes. i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months... and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections, or a lower ability to fight them, may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. ♪nothing is everything♪ talk to your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. ♪♪

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thanks for joining us. tonight, it's a quiet community thrust into a spooky spotlight this halloween season. the backdrop of an eerie and unsolved case that left a family terrorized and is now featured in a new streaming sensation. that's not the only ghost story in this town. west field, new jersey. a picturesque bedroom community just 23 miles outside new york city. >> the schools are great. the people are very friendly. >> it's a beautiful town. great architecture, beautiful houses. >> you've got a house in westfield, you've pretty much made it. >> reporter: but these tree-lined streets are now home to a true crime obsession. >> welcome. you know i will be watching. >> who are you? >> reporter: netflix's smash hit

series. >> jimmy: the based on the reale terror that gripped the former owners of this house. >> they started getting strange letters from the watcher, each more and more ominous. >> whoever it was claimed they were not only watching the house, but there were a lineage in their family. >> reporter: tonight the stories behind the torment. >> there was really no way the broaduses were going to move into this house without figuring out what was going on. >> reporter: the gruesome murders that gripped this small community a half century ago. >> in westfield, people were afraid he was hiding in the woods or hiding in their attic. people were really afraid. >> it's pretty scary when the banker of your town is a volunteer at the lutheran church, goes to all the soccer matches, then they go off the rails like that. it scares people. >> reporter: it was 2014. derek and maria broadus bought what they thought was their forever home. a nearly $1.4 million house in westfield. >> the broughtuses could not be a more normal suburban american

family. they'd gotten to this point in their lives where they had some financial security, they could of theirs with their three kids. >> reporter: but the house came with a sinister threat. a watcher who sent the family several menacing letters alluding to imminent danger. >> the letters themselves are kind of impossibly creepy and spooky and scary. >> reporter: reid switeman wrote the shocking "new york" magazine article detailing their ordeal. he saw the letters firsthand. the letters recreated in "the watcher" with naomi watts and bobby canavale. >> i am pleased to know your names and the names of the young blood you've brought me. >> reporter: it incorporates westfield's notorious list family murders and has become a massive hit, 125 million hours streamed and counting, according to "deadline."

despite a police investigation, private investigators, and forensic analysts looking into the case, the watcher was never identified. >> i felt very bad for derek and maria. i felt they were very troubled, which i would be too if i received those at my new home. >> such efforts have not, however -- >> reporter: andy skabitsky was the mayor at the time. >> it was reported they didn't do enough, but trust me, the westfield police department is very professional, unlike depicted in the series. >> i think they did all they could with the informtion they had. they did dna samples on the few letters. there were only four letters total. so they didn't have a lot to go on. >> reporter: the family of five so fearful, never moved in. they struggled for years to offload the home. ultimately taking a $400,000 loss when they sold it in 2019. later selling their story rights to netflix. >> i am the watcher.

>> the show has been exaggerated and hollywoodized in all kinds of ways, but i think it at least captures some of the truth of what the broaduses went through. >> it's so far from reality, it's silly. i was mayor in westfield for 12 1/2 years. we have our share of characters. but none of them are like the ones depicted in the show. >> reporter: westfield police and town officials reluctant to talk about the renewed attention to the case. they say out of respect for the home's current occupants. >> i am watching the show. so i have to admit i'm probably guilty of, you know, giving in to that hype a little bit. >> people do talk about it. a lot of my co-workers are, oh my god, where's the house in comparison to where you live? >> greed is your sin. >> reporter: the watcher uses another piece of westfield's spooky history. >> we should all be prepared for the day when it comes.

i want to see you again in heaven. >> reporter: in the series, the character john used to live in the watcher house and murdered his family there. john graph is based on a real westfield resident, john list, who shot and killed his mother, wife, and three children in a different westfield home in 1971. >> it was a real-life horror story in westfield. there's an entire generation of people that were afraid john list was coming for them. he was on the run for 18 years. he became known as the bogeyman of westfield. >> reporter: father wants us dead is a podcast about the list murders. >> the mass murder of an innocent family 50 years ago forever shook this quiet town. >> reporter: at the time of the killings, list, a devout christian, had lost a series of jobs. >> he was too proud to file for unemployment or even admit to his wife that he had lost his jobs. in his mind, living in poverty was a sin. and so he decided that the thing

to do would be to kill his family. >> reporter: list shot his wife and mother first and, later, his three children, after school. in between killings, going about his day. that scene portrayed in "the watcher." >> he said he made a sandwich and ate lunch that day. just as though his wife and mother weren't lying dead in the house. john list had carefully planned how he was going to kill his family. he had already started to spread the cover story, which was they were going to go visit a relative in north carolina. >> reporter: it took a month for the murders to be discovered. by then, list was long gone. >> the true sociopathic narcissist. he went on the run, he met a woman, he got married, he thought he would be safe. he was out in colorado, i think, when he met his second wife. and he moved to richmond. and he was hiding in plain sight. >> reporter: list was finally caught in 1989, thanks to an

episode of "america's most wanted." >> the suspect, john list, is accused of murdering his family 17 years ago. >> reporter: the show hired a forensic sculptor to create a bust showing how john list would have aged. how uncanny was the likeness between the bust and john list? >> it looked like the same guy with the same hairline, with the same glasses, with the same weight. it was beyond uncanny, and it made the front page of the "new york times." >> reporter: in 1990, list was convicted of five counts of murder and sentenced to five life terms in prison. >> were you determined to kill them? >> once i made the plan, yeah. it's just like you go in, there's no stopping after -- after you start. >> reporter: in 2002, abc's connie chung spoke with john list in his first on-camera interview about the murders. >> you ate lunch in the kitchen where you had shot your wife in cold blood? >> that's correct.

>> how could you? >> i was hungry. it was just the way it was. >> reporter: list died in prison in 2008. he was 82 years old. you helped solve the john list case. what do you think it will take to solve the watcher case? >> you know what, it's a combination of serendipitous luck, it's also hard work. hard, hard work on the side of investigators, law enforcement. >> reporter: the watcher case remains unsolved, with millions of households tuning in to "the watcher" series. clues starting to pour in once again. >> i've continued to get tips. one of the reasons people have been obsessed with this story is it's a mystery to solve. >> everybody has a theory about who the watcher might be and what their motivation is. >> reporter: the house at the center of it all today barricaded from curious onlookers with yellow tape

surrounding the front yard. >> it's a great house to own if you're not spooked by this. >> and as far as we've heard, they have not gotten any letters. up next, "clerks." it's enjoyed cult classic status for nearly 30 years now. kevin smith is back. and while some things have changed, others have stayed the same. moderate to severe eczema still disrupts my skin. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections,

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produce. a small price to pay for a film now recognized by the library of congress. actor and director kevin smith is back at it again with "clerks 3." here's a look. >> maybe jay and silent bob could be characters. >> they've been here since the first movie which was the last time they were cool. they've been with the franchise so long, they still give them cameos and put them on the lunchboxes. . >> i sat down with the very funny kevin smith. first of all, thanks so much for joining us. >> let me tell you something, any time i get a chance to be on "nightline," which has been never in my entire career, so it's cool to be here, man, very cool. >> i cannot believe it's been 30 years since basically you became an indie cult god and hollywood -- >> look, your lips to the lord's ears. maybe -- i think of myself as the indie film nuisance. i've just been around so long, i'm like indie film herpes. just when you're like, oh, it

went away. then a flare-up, oh, i can't hang out with people, embarrassed to talk about it. >> this flare-up is "clerks 3." >> yes this outbreak. >> this outbreak. and i read somewhere that it started out as very dark. >> yeah. >> a theater shooting -- >> when i rwrote -- you did you research. 12 years ago, very hurricane sandy based, and it concluded with an in-theater shooting. it was right after the aurora shootings happened. that said, it was like the "king lear" of "clerks" movies, obsessed with death, written by a guy who hadn't tasted it yet. >> you then had a massive heart attack. >> 4 1/2 years ago. >> how's your health? >> amazing. i honestly feel better than i have -- the heart attack's been the best thing that happened to me. forced me to go vegan, made me

drop a bunch of weight. >> how did that change "clerks iii"? >> it made it better. the old version, i ditched it. wait, i'm going to do a version where randall, the character in the video store, has my heart attack. then in a kind of twist of how we did things, he comes to the conclusion he wasted his life, he's like, i've been watching movies, she make one. so him and his friends make a black-and-white movie in a convenience store that looks awfully like the first one we made. people come in expecting a laugh because "clerks" historically has been comedy. we give them the laughs. the whole first hour and change is nothing but laughs. and it's fun making a movie, it's meta. you're falling down rabbit holes, "wait, i watched the scene in clerks!" but in the last 20 minutes it gets super emotional. i spent all morning on twitter. it's a series of people being like, why? why did you make me cry? how dare you make me cry. >> wow. >> yeah, a lot of people pissy

about the fact that they got tears in their eyes. >> wow. >> that was nice. i can't surprise people anymore, like you said, it's been 30 years, everybody knows my bag of tricks. he wears a hat, he tries to be dirty. if you can surprise them in other ways, with the heart, they weren't expecting that. >> but what do you think is getting to people? because as you mentioned -- >> their own mortality. >> it's out now on digital and you're getting rave reviews. >> people like it. >> people are saying it's life-affirming and heart wrenching. what is it about its heart that's resonating with people? >> you know, honestly, i assume this. most people grew up watching "clerks" are around my age, we all kind of got into it the sale time. me as the storyteller/filmmaker, they as the audience. those who have stuck with me for years are really dialed in. they're roughly my age. and the older we get, the more poignant life becomes. because suddenly people you were with 20, 30 years ago aren't

with you anymore. you know, your voice gets more crisp the further you get in life. when we all began this journey, we were fumbling and figuring things out. now we're in family mode. now some of our kids are having kids. we're entering the last stage of our lives. >> i want to touch a little bit about the actor who plays jay to your silent bob. he has had a harrowing sobriety journey, and you've walked alongside him during every step of that. >> back when we were kids, he had a heroin addiction and oxycontin. he kept that quiet. he was afraid, right? like, ashamed. when we started doing the podcast like 12 years ago, i was like, now you put it on front street. that means that everyone you meet could be like, "how are you holding up?" everyone could potentially be a sponsor. for the first four years of the podcast, it was definitely instrumental in keeping him clean. then he had a daughter, logan, and that changed the game completely.

jay never knew his own dad. people who come from situations where they didn't have the familial love of both parents or whatnot tend to be that parent when they grow up. it's crazy to say, because he's got a million-dollar heart but a nickel head, always has. but he's hands-down the best father i've ever seen in my wife. i wish he had gone first and then i had seen how he did it. because i would havehi my kid's ruined them talthe to. why do it on the road? >> i i do it so i can take on it the road, sit with 1,200 to 18 hull people every night, who are dialed in as if it was a marvel movie. the movie's out, you can watch it at home. i'm touring it till december. this week i go to atlanta, orlando, tampa, nashville, and north carolina and south carolina. >> people at home are diving for their pens and pencils right now. >> i hope so, go to

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finally tonight, a first look at our powerful new investigation debuting tomorrow on "impact" by "nightline." >> it's just past 4:00 a.m. on a jungle road in southern mexico known as la ruta del cafe, the coffee route. we've come to investigate reports of human rights abuses on these remote mountainsides. we've been investigating a farm where we've been told children are working in the fields. >> i've got to tell you we are to expose the fact that children are picking coffee. this puts them out of business. so we're in a little bit of danger here. >> we expect the workers to start arriving soon, and we are on the lookout for child labor. >> how old are you? >> 12. >> the fact that there's a camera here right now makes us sitting ducks. >> vamanos! >> within minutes they were on to us. >> this is an area of severe conflict. this is a danger zone. >> there's a major disconnect between what consumers believe

they're buying and what the reality is on the ground. >> new episodes of "impact" by "nightline" streaming every thursday on hulu. that's "nightline." see you back here same time tomorrow. thanks for staying up with us. good night, america.