The Crime Inc. Hatchet Hitchhiker is Caught and Booked
A homeless man known as 'Kai the hatchet-welding hitchhiker' who has been wanted for the murder of a New Jersey attorney after claiming he had been sexually assaulted has been arrested in Pennsylvania, authorities have announced.
Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, 34, who became an internet sensation after saving three people from a crazed driver with his famous hatchet, was arrested on Thursday Glassboro Police Chief Alex Fanfarillo tells NJ.com.
An arrest warrant had been issued for McGillvary in connection to the murder of 73-year-old Joseph Galfy Jr in Clark whose body was found in his home on Tuesday.
McGillvary, sporting long shaggy hair tied with a bandanna, later described his heroics in a hilarious, profanity-laced stream-of-consciousness interview that instantly went viral online.
Since the February incident, the 34-year-old self-described surfer dude has been regularly writing about his adventures on the road on his Facebook page under the user name 'Caleb Kai Lawrence Yodhehwawheh.
Prosecutors revealed on Thursday that Galfy met up with McGillvary at Times Square last Sunday and took him to his house in New Jersey that night.
McGillvary spent at least two nights in Galfy's brick home on a cul-de-sac in Clark, 20 miles west of New York, Romankow said.
Prosecutors said Galfy drove McGillvary to the train station on Sunday and McGillvary boarded a train to Asbury Park to meet a fan before returning and being picked up by Galfy later in the day.
Later that night, McGillvary called the fan again asking her for a ride, Romankow said. She couldn't pick him up, and McGillvary's phone went dead after that.
According to a police reconstruction of his travels after leaving Clark, the suspect somehow got back to the train station Monday and returned to Asbury Park to meet the fan. The two traveled to Philadelphia.
After lunch, they traveled to Glassboro, in southern New Jersey, and he stayed with another fan there. On Tuesday he boarded a train to Philadelphia where he was eventually arrested.
McGillvary had mentioned at one point heading to Georgia to visit a girlfriend, police said.
Union County Crime Stoppers had offered a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to his arrest.
Romankow said that on Monday, officers who were called by Galfy's relatives to check up on him after failing to reach him by phone for several days discovered his partially naked body bearing evidence of violence.
The official said the 73-year-old attorney appeared to have been beaten severely and was clothed only in pair of underwear and a shirt.
His current home is listed as Eureka, California, but McGillvary was locked up in jail for four days last December and wrote in Febraury about 'sleeping in a hay field off the I99 in Lathrop.'
The victim, 73-year-old Galfy, was found dead in his home on Starlite Drive in Clark at around 2pm May 13 when officers arrived for a welfare check.
An autopsy performed Tuesday revealed that the elderly man died from a blunt force trauma, said Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow.
According to his Facebook page, Galfy was a founding partner at the Rahway law firm Kochanski, Baron Galfy, P.C.
Galfy's neighbors said the 73-year-old had been living alone since his long-time partner died five years prior.
According to Galfy's obituary, he served in the Army from 1965 to 1970 as a major, and got his Juris Doctor degree from Seton Hall University.
Galfy served as the attorney for the Planning Board in Green Brook, and in his free time played in a wedding band for 25 years.
According to the prosecutor, Galfy's accused killer had cut his hair to change his appearance, and he is considered armed and dangerous.
 |
| Victim |
I have learned that in the past he has demonstrated his ability to use the backend of a hatchet,’ Romankow said. ’It's very possible he might be carrying that. If people see him, we ask them to please contact local police and tell them.’
A look at his Facebook page revealed that McGillvary posted an unsettling message on Tuesday, one day after the murder, describing what appears to be a sexual assault on him committed by a man.
'What would you do if you woke up with a groggy head, metallic taste in your mouth, in a strangers house... walked to the mirror and seen come [sic] dripping from the side of your face from your mouth, and started wretching [sic], realizing that someone had drugged, raped, and blown their f***** load in you? what would you do?' he wrote.
Just after 1.20pm Tuesday, the 34-year-old wrote a comment on his post: 'raped for social justice woo f***** hoo.'
Last Friday, McGillvary wrote a lengthy 'thank you' note to all the strangers who have been kind and generous toward him.
'Hey id like to express my gratitude to all the gnarly awesome people whove invited me in, partied hardy with me, and brought me to such cool places to meet such cool people,' he wrote in the post. 'ive met some of the greatest people in my life in these last three months and i wouldnt trade these experiences with you for all the money in hollywood.
Kai wrote on Facebook about his encounter with the knife maniac on December 1.
Kai writes that the man was ‘all psyched until I say, "I come in peace" then he whips out his knife and yells out "DID LYNN SEND YOU? I'LL STAB YOU M*********** YOU BETTER RUN", so I ran halfway across the parking lot, dropped my sack, whipped out my knife, and yelled back "YOU WANNA F*** WITH ME? I'LL MAKE YOU A BODY YOU PUNK ASS BITCH. STEP UP MOTHER F*****'M A STICK YOU"
He writes that was looking for the belt buckle for his backpack under a skate ramp when a man came towards him with a knife.
Later that day a kindly stranger bought Kai some drinks and gave him $20 which he used to buy some liquor which he downed outside a Taco Bell.
But he then got into another fight when he tried to help a man who was lying sprawled on the ground and was jumped by four men.
Kai writes: ‘I'm all up for scrapping this fool but I couldn't get him separated from the others so I took a couple shots to the head trying to lure him out.
‘He hits like an ostrich, but without as much force. So I got jumped by 4 guys but made it out on my feet, AND I stood up to them like motherf***** cisco kid.
‘I felt like a million bucks wasn't anywhere near my infinite worth. then I went and smoked some kine herbs and went to bed in a shed well fed. I'm lovin this life, locationally here in Santa Cruz and otherwise. Thanks people. What an adventure.’
There are few pictures of Kai uploaded although they include one of him with a group of friends partying on top of a car. Kai stands in the foreground with his shirt off and his thumb in the air.
One of more animated posts reads: 'now, you! and me! and everyone! and everytwo! and everythree...! no more borders! pleasin to the eye! destroy the prisons and hunt down the NSOR! ninja training with vets on the street! [M]IA crooked cops! Free Haiti! Free all black lands!! Bring down the House of Wettin and share the wealth of those rothschild/bilderberg/whoever "rich" peeps with those who actually LABOR for it! REPOST IF YOU LIKE!!! SAY ITS FROM ME!!!’
Another post reads: 'Please, if you're going to bother capitalizing on this (his heroics) AT LEAST refer to me as homefree, not "homeless". that pisses me off, cowardly f****** businessmen referring to REAL men as "homeless". have they ever actually SUNG the national anthem? S***'
His most heartwarming post seems to suggest he is more accepting of others than they have been to him in the past.
It reads: 'I don't look to anyone for validation. I am valid. Your [dis]agreement does not affect me. Fulla respect, your opinion is still worthwhile. Acceptance ♥'
His disclosure that his family think he is already 'dead' came at the end of the TV interview when he was asked what happens to him now.
Kai also said that he would always put his own life before that of another – and take the selfless option.
'I'm braver than who?': Poetry of Kai
4 days in county jail
2 sleeping on a concrete slab, in a holding cell with people
1 day lockdown in max three with people
1 in general population with people
No ID? freud says that's wrong.
Mom keeps me.
Even when they try to take our very fingerprints (mais non!)
Got out, what did I do?
I had eaten from the garbage of mcdonalds and held myself with as much dignity as the people trying to smear me afterwards. What a crime. I'm braver than who? and yet called homeless?
NO.
I am homefree.
Time to play the game that belongs to know one.
Potheads, just know.
Kai's story began February 2 when he hitched a ride with the deranged driver, 54-year-old Jett Simmons McBride.
In the interview he said that that he was in the passenger seat after being picked up, when 300 pound, 6-foot-plus McBride began to make wild and racist comments.
Describing himself as 'straight out of Dogtown', he said: 'The driver's like, ‘You know what? I’ve come to realize I’m Jesus Christ and I can do anything I f*****g want to and, watch this! and then drove his Oldsmobile straight into a Pacific Gas and Electric worker who was Africa American.'
Pinning the man against his truck, McBride then exited his car and began to pull the injured man away from the bind, risking further injury.
Kai witnessed two women, Tanya Baker and her daughter, Ginger Miller Parraza rush over to help.
He said: 'These two women are trying to help him, and this guy runs up and tries to grab one of them, man.
'A guy that big can snap a woman's neck like a pencil stick.'
'So I f*****g ran up behind him with a hatchet. Smash, smash, smash!'
Kai speaks in a similar fashion on his Facebook page where he writes: 'Btw just because I show respect with and value the time of hard drug users, does NOT mean that I use hard drugs. List of what I work with:
'-Coffee -Cigarettes -Marijuana -occasional trips with cacti/mushrooms (last one was Dec 21/2012 with "zion-essence") So if you ever make it out of a ride with a racist rapist wannabe mass murderer, expect to be wired for sound with adrenaline. THANKS (for what you've given me -.^)’
& {Adam}
Comments