A homeless man who gained internet fame as ‘Kai, the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker’ has been arrested for murder in Philadelphia.
Caleb ‘Kai’ McGillvary, a “home-free” 34-year-old, had claimed that he stopped a violent attack on a man and woman at the hands of an apparently delusional man by bludgeoning the alleged assailant with a hatchet, during a bizarre roadside encounter in February.
Mr McGillvary’s vivid, expletive-laden description of his efforts to defend the pair in a five-minute interview with a New Jersey news reporter went viral, with one version viewed more than 3.9 million times on YouTube.
Police now allege Mr McGillvary is responsible for the murder of Joseph Galfy Junior, a man who died of injuries caused by blunt force trauma in Union County, New Jersey, on May 13, ABC News reported.
Police arrested Mr McGillvary at a Greyhound bus station in Philadelphia last night.
Mr McGillvary claimed he saved lives after Jett Simmons McBride, with whom he had hitched a ride in Fresno, California, launched into a crazed attack on bystanders during the incident in February.
Mr McBride allegedly ran his car into an African American man, pinning him against a truck and breaking both his legs. Witnesses said Mr McBride, who is now facing attempted murder charges, yelled that he was Jesus Christ, here to save the world from “black people”.
Mr McBride also allegedly turned on Tanya Baker, who rushed to the scene to help the trapped worker. Mr McBride allegedly grasped the woman in a bear-hug, at which point Mr McGillvary claimed that he intervened with his hatchet.
“A guy that big can snap a woman’s neck like a pencil stick,” Mr McGillvary said in the interview with KMPH Fox 26, which went viral online. “So I f***ing ran up behind him with a hatchet. Smash, smash, smash!”
“If [McBride] had started driving that car around again, man, there would have been a hell of a lot of bodies around here,” he said.
Rayshawn Neely, the man hit by the driver, told ABC News yesterday it was surprising to see Mr McGillvary accused of violence, but admitted he was scared of him when he first saw him swinging his hatchet.
The hatchet Mr McGillvary used in the February incident is stored in evidence for the attempted murder trial against Mr McBride.
On his Facebook page, on which he now has thousands of followers, Mr McGillvary last week thanked people who had allowed him to visit, stay the night or share a meal in recent months.
In a post on Tuesday, Mr McGillvary claimed he was raped by a man. He asked “what would you do” if you woke in a stranger’s house and found you had been drugged and sexually assaulted. One commenter suggested hitting the man with a hatchet, to which Mr McGillvary responded: “I like your idea.”
Mr McGillvary has been charged with homicide, with bail set at $3 million.
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