The Internet celebrity known as "Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker" remained behind bars in Philadelphia this morning as he awaits extradition in the murder of a New Jersey lawyer.
Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, who received the nickname because he used a hatchet to subdue a man who ran over a California utility worker, was arrested at a Greyhound Bus Terminal in Philadelphia Thursday night, police said.
Officials believe McGillvary, 24, killed Joseph Galfy, who was found in his Clark, N.J. home on Monday, dead of blunt force trauma. Prosecutors say Galfy met McGillvary in Times Square Saturday night, and brought him back to his house to spend the night.
They say they believe the two men had a sexual encounter.
"He had his underwear on and he had his socks on. He was beaten severely," said Union County Prosecutor Ted Romankow.
Authorities said McGillvary, who has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, posted on his Facebook page Tuesday saying that he "woke up with a groggy head. . .in a stranger's house," realizing he'd been drugged and raped. He asked followers, "What would you do?"
Prosecutors say they have the answer to that.
"We consider him the person who murdered Joe Galfy. . .We don't know where he is, but we do know that this man is used to being on the road. Make no mistake about it. He's considered dangerous. Armed and dangerous," Romankow said.
McGillvary spent Monday in Philadelphia, according to investigators. He was sightseeing with friends. Those friends accompanied him to Glassboro, N.J. where they all spent the night on Monday. At the train station on Tuesday, McGillvary told friends he was going back to Philadelphia and then on to Georgia..
McGillvary describes himself as "homefree," rather than "homeless," and said on Kimmel that he steals from Wal-Mart, Target and Safeway and gives away the loot.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
"Kai" became an internet sensation after his story of beating a driver with a hatchet was aired on television. The YouTube video below of the original interview at the scene of Kai's bizarre adventure has close to 4 million views. Warning: there is a lot of graphic language.
In the interview, from February of this year, Kai describes what happened to him when he was hitchhiking with a 300-pound man who claimed he sexually assaulted a teenager. Kai had hitched a ride with the man. The adventure turned violent when the driver claimed he was Jesus and purposely rammed his car into a man's car. When the driver got into an altercation with two women who came to help after the wreck, Kai pulled out his hatchet and beat the driver.
"That woman was in danger. He just finished what looked like, at the time, killing somebody, and if I hadn've done that, he would have killed me," Kai said at the time.
The story and the interview with Kai, went viral:
Here is the original story, which aired on KMPH-TV in California's San Joaquin Valley.
