Ep 26 – Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hippie: Folk Hero or Murderer?

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In February 2013 a Youtube video went viral, and for a short time a young drifter named Caleb Lawrence McGillvary was a star. In an interview with a local news station, Caleb who prefers to be known as “Kai” described how he had “suh-mashed!” in the head with a hatchet a man from whom he had recently hitched a ride. The driver who stopped to pick up Kai was mentally unstable which would become apparent after the man drove his car into a group of utility workers, and then wrapped a passerby in a bear hug while muttering that he was descended from God himself. Kai was, for a brief period after the video’s release, a folk hero.

Even if I was gay, do you know how many hot guys wanted to fuck me after that shit in California? I’m not even being vain. It’s just a fact, like, no offense, but he was not a looker.

-Kai

Kai only enjoyed his new celebrity for a short while. Three months after Kai’s recounting of that day went viral, he killed a 73-year-old man. Kai was convicted of 1st degree murder and sentenced to 57 years in prison. How did this happen? Is Kai really the eccentric hippie with a heart of gold that millions of people saw in that 2013 viral video? Find out on episode 26 of Where is the Line?

Sources

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—. “‘You Have to Decide If It Was Murder… or Self Defense,’ Kai the Hitchhiker’s Lawyer Tells Jury at Opening o.” Nj, 9 Apr. 2019, http://www.nj.com/union/2019/04/you-have-to-decide-if-it-was-murder-or-self-defense-kai-the-hitchhikers-lawyer-tells-jury-at-opening-of-murder-trial.html. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.

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