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| The Watcher House in Westfield, NJ |
Sometimes stuff happens and other stuff—like guest
blogs—fall through the cracks. Such was the case with the author scheduled to
blog today. So because I’m such a lady of leisure (this is sarcasm for any of
you not familiar with the life author Lois Winston has created for me,) I’m
stepping in to tell you about a real-life mystery in the real-life town where
the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries take place.
Lois often gets many of her plot ideas from real-life
events. My latest Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, A Stitch to Die For, is no exception. She’s woven several recent
news stories into my latest foray as a reluctant amateur sleuth.
Shortly after the book was released our little
suburban commuter town made national news. A short walk from my home is a house
that is being stalked by someone calling himself The Watcher. Or so the owners
claim. Here are the facts:
In June 2014 the house, built in 1905 and located on
a street that has been designated historical, was sold for 1.35 million
dollars. (a far cry from the value of the 1950’s tract rancher that’s home to
me, my two sons, my communist mother-in-law, her devil dog, Ralph the
Shakespeare-quoting parrot, and occasionally my DAR mother and her zaftig
Persian cat.) The sellers had lived in the house since 1990. The new owners
made extensive renovations to the house but never moved in. Last June they
filed a lawsuit against the former owner for not disclosing that the house had
been stalked for decades.
According to the new owners, the seller received a
letter from The Watcher several days prior to settlement but failed to disclose
it. Three days after settlement the new owners received the first of three
letters from The Watcher. The Watcher claimed the house “has been the subject
of my family for decades” and that he was put in charge of “watching and
waiting for the second coming” after his father and grandfather before him. He
went on to make threats against the new owners’ three children. No letters were
ever received after mid-July of last year. Meanwhile the new owners went ahead
with their renovations.
The new owners turned the three letters over to the
police who investigated but found nothing. No letter addressed to the former
owner has surfaced, and she hasn’t admitted ever having received any. Other
former owners have stated there was never any problems regarding the house and
all had happy memories of living there.
In February of last year the new owners put the house
up for sale without ever having lived in it. The lawsuit claims they haven’t
been able to sell the house, even after repeated price reductions, because of
The Watcher. However, no one knew anything about The Watcher and the letters
until this past June when the lawsuit was filed and became public record.
Home disclosure laws vary from state to state. In
some states the seller would have had to disclose information about The Watcher
prior to closing. Not in New Jersey. Here the seller only has to disclose prior
physical problems such as a fire or flood. And who’s to say the seller had even
heard of The Watcher, let alone ever received a letter from him? That’s only on
the word of the new owners, and how do they know the seller received a letter?
I suspect Lois has her own theories about all this,
and she’ll probably wind up plopping me right into the middle of it when she
gets around to dumping me into a new mystery in Book 6. At least I know I’ll
survive whatever she has in store for me. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a Book
7.
A Stitch to
Die For
An Anastasia
Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 5
The adventures of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia
Pollack continue in A Stitch to
Die For, the 5th book in the
Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series by USA Today bestselling author Lois Winston.
Ever since her husband died and left her in debt
equal to the gross national product of Uzbekistan, magazine crafts editor and
reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack has stumbled across one dead body
after another—but always in work-related settings. When a killer targets the
elderly nasty neighbor who lives across the street from her, murder strikes too
close to home. Couple that with a series of unsettling events days before
Halloween, and Anastasia begins to wonder if someone is sending her a deadly
message.
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