My son Caleb 'Kai' McGillvary became YouTube sensation before horrific twist – I fear I'll never see him again | The Sun
HE was on the brink of fame and fortune, but Caleb McGillvary went from a viral sensation to a murderer in just three months.
In February 2013, the American drifter became an overnight star at the age of 24 thanks to a viral interview with Fox News.
But just three months later, McGillvary – by now dubbed Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker – shockingly beat a New Jersey attorney to death, a crime for which he was later sentenced to 58 years in jail.
A new Netflix documentary, Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker, out on January 10, explores the rise of McGillvary, who even signed a contract with the producers of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, before his shocking fall from grace.
It also looks into his allegedly troubled childhood, after it was reported he was sexually abused in foster care, killed hamsters and tried to burn his home down.
McGillvary even claimed he was locked in a cage by his mum, who insisted he was locked in his room for his own safety, heartbreakingly telling the documentary: “I don’t know if I will ever see him again.”
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'Smash! Smash! Smash!'
McGillvary shot to fame for a crazed, expletive-filled interview with television news reporter Jessob Reisbeck in Fresno, California, in February 2013.
With untamed, long hair pushed back with a bandana and armed with only a backpack, he was a drifter relying on the kindness of strangers, who described himself as "home free".
Identifying himself only as “Kai” he told Jessob how he had fended off a man he had been hitching a ride with, called Jett McBride, after the driver went on a rampage.
During their journey, McBride – who was 6ft4 tall, weighing over 21 stones – introduced himself as the second coming of Christ before slamming his vehicle into a pedestrian in broad daylight, pinning their body against a truck.
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When an onlooker rushed over to help, McBride came out of the vehicle, trapped her in a bear hug and began to choke her.
He was stopped by hitchhiker McGillvary, who came running over and bashed his head in with a hatchet he had been carrying in his backpack.
McBride was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to nine years in a mental health facility, and McGillvary was originally hailed as a hero in the days after the attack.
Detailing what happened, he said: “He runs up and he grabs one of them, man. Like a guy that big can snap a woman's neck like a pencil stick! So I f***ing ran up behind him with a hatchet.
“Smash! Smash! Smash!”
But he also had some sweet sentiments within his interview too, saying: “No matter what you’ve done, you deserve respect. It doesn’t matter your looks, your age, anything, you’re worthwhile.”
Jessob uploaded the six-minute interview to Youtube that night, and it already had 500,000 views by the morning.
“We knew we had gold dust,” he says in the Netflix documentary. “He had such an endearing quality.
“I don’t know whether I’ve met someone with as much charisma as this guy before.”
Kardashian-style TV contracts
McGillvary was being contacted by every TV company in the world, and ended up landing a few appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live, as well as signing a contract with the team behind Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Reality TV brand manager Lisa Samsky, who worked with the Kardashians, says: “The appeal with Kai was that most people who are heroes aren’t homeless people.
“He was someone who came from a different walk of life, and could expose people to a life they’d never seen.
He seemed cute, sweet and innocent, and had that It factor.”
Arrested for beating pensioner to death
But the video that made him a viral sensation ultimately led to him being arrested for the murder of Joseph Galfy.
Joseph was found dead at his home in Clark, New Jersey, wearing only underwear and socks, with his head bashed in.
After police found a piece of paper tucked under a laptop with McGillvary's name and number on it, along with a train ticket receipt, they looked at CCTV footage of Joseph purchasing a train ticket for McGillvary at the station before hugging him goodbye.
Thanks to how recognisable McGillvary was at this point, police were tipped off about his whereabouts, and apprehended him at a bus station in Philadelphia a few days later.
On May 12, 2013, McGillvary met Joseph in Times Square, New York, and the two men drank beers together.
Joseph then invited homeless McGillvary to spend the night in the guest bedroom of his home in Clark, New Jersey.
To this day, McGillvary claims the 73-year-old raped him on the first night, and he killed him in self-defence.
However, Joseph's death occurred on the second night that McGillvary was staying with him.
In Facebook posts, McGillvary claimed that Joseph drugged his beer, and that he passed out.
According to him, when he woke up on May 12 he found a nude Joseph on top of him and raping him, so he fought him off and fled the scene.
Assistant prosecutors Jillian Reyes and Scott Peterson said Joseph’s brutal injuries showed this was “so far from self defence, it’s not even funny".
In the documentary, crime scene pictures show bloodstains on the ground from Joseph’s battered ears, “as if he’d been stamped on repeatedly”.
Despite his plea of self-defence, McGillvary was sentenced to 58 years in jail in 2019.
At his sentencing, the judge called him “a powder keg of explosive rage,” adding, “You created this public image of a free spirit, but underneath that free spirit the jury saw another side of you: a cold-blooded, calculated, callous killer.”
He will have to serve at least 85 per cent of his sentence under terms imposed in state Superior Court in Union County.
'Caged up like an animal, as a child'
Before he was arrested, McGillvary claimed he had a very troubled childhood.
In a Facebook post on Mother’s Day 2013, he wrote: “First memories I was in a crib and ‘Family’ was fussing over me. I kept getting told that I ‘had a demon’.
“I would be locked in a room for 20 hours a day with a little porta-potty camp toilet in the corner of the room.
“Then after that my mouth filled with hot pepper and soap for yelling f*** you at the top of my lungs.
“Happy Mother’s Day.”
In the original interview with Fox News, he also claimed: “I don't have any family. As far as everybody I grew up with is concerned, I’m already dead.
“When I was a kid, I was locked in a cage for four f***ing years like an animal, so they could watch TV and f*** and s***.”
However, after his arrest, it emerged that McGillvary was born and raised in Edmonton, Canada, and that he had family there who were concerned for him, contrary to his claims otherwise.
His parents divorced when he was four years old, and in the Netflix documentary, his mum Shirley Stromberg claims her son struggled with behavioural issues his whole life and was hospitalised for some time.
In a psychological report filed as part of the court case, McGillvary even admitted to killing hamsters and trying to set the family home on fire as a child.
For this reason, Shirley claims she only ever locked him in his room for his own safety.
She says: “I had to, for a short period of time, have the ability to stop him getting out of the room too early because he was a free spirit, and would get up earlier than me, and get into stuff that could harm him.
“Being a responsible parent, I needed to not allow that to happen.
“It was for a short period of time and was in his best interest and for the safety of a little guy.
“Not really understanding what was going on, the medical field wondered if he had ADHD and things like that, but in the end there wasn’t one diagnosis.”
Shirley also insists she’s reached out to her son on more than one occasion, but to no avail.
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“I’ve told him if he wants me to visit him, I will,” she says. “Right now he says no.
“I don’t know if I will ever see him again.”
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