The story of the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker is a story made for our times. It’s the kind of true-crime, twist-filled saga that would have piqued our interest a hundred years ago or 50 years ago — but because it took place in the 21st century, meaning there was a huge viral component to the telling of the tale, this wasn’t just a local news feature. It exploded in a big way, before quickly imploding in even more stunning fashion. In a matter of months, a beloved instant anti-hero who had Hollywood knocking on his door was behind bars, and a man was dead.
Whether you remember the details from this story or it’s all new to you, writer-director Colette Camden’s Netflix documentary “The Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker” is an early-year contender for any list of the most fascinating true-crime films of the year. Camden briskly but thoroughly walks us through the paces of the story in a mostly linear fashion, relying on a treasure trove of news footage and viral videos; a few simple, dramatic recreations lensed in golden silhouettes; some insightful recollections from the reporter who broke the story, and a handful of TV producers and bookers who had some bizarre encounters with the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker, aka Kai Lawrence, aka Caleb Lawrence McGillvary.
On Feb. 1, 2013, Jessob Reisbeck, a sports reporter and anchor at Fresno, California, station KMPH, was doing fill-in duty on the news side when he heard a police scanner description of a car accident in which a hulking, delusional man later identified as Jeff Simmons McBride had seemingly deliberately rammed his car into a utility worker — and when a bystander approached trying to help, McBride attacked her in a bear hug, threatening to squeeze the life out of her. Reisbeck arrived on the scene, where witnesses told him that McBride’s passenger had leaped to the woman’s rescue, beating McBride on the head with a hatchet he had taken from his backpack.
Reisbeck managed to corral that passenger, one Kai Lawrence, an unhoused young man in a bandana emblazoned with peace symbols and long curly hair — and his on-camera interview was pure gold, with the laid-back Kai sounding like a direct descendant of Spicoli from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” as he described what happened: “Went straight out of Dogtown, skateboarding, surfing it up … I look over, the guy’s pinned there. Buddy gets out … grabs [the woman], 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, SUH-MASH!”
With that, Kai disappeared without talking to any other reporters — and Reisbeck had the foresight and the ingenuity to realize this was not only a great local news scoop, but the entire, unedited interview was gold — so he uploaded the full conversation on YouTube. “I woke up the next morning and my world was different,” says Reisbeck. Within hours, the YouTube video had a half-million views. “I knew that day that Kai the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker was born,” recalls Reisbeck.
We see a montage of news reports from across the country, and dozens upon dozens of viral videos of onlookers reacting to the interview and even creating songs from the instantly famous, “Smash, Smash, SUH-MASH!” quote. Stephen Colbert notes, “For the first time in human history, people are saying, ‘Boy, we sure are lucky that homeless hitchhiker was carrying a hatchet.’ ”
Lisa Samsky, a reality TV brand manager who worked on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” and Brad Mulcahy, a researcher for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” whose job it was to track down and book viral sensations, enlisted Reisbeck’s help in finding Kai, who was still doing his thing on the streets but was well aware he had become an Internet sensation . Both Samsky (who was interested in a possible reality show about Kai) and Mulcahy recall how they were instantly charmed and fascinated by Kai — but also alarmed by his sometimes-weird energy and erratic behavior. Reisbeck also acknowledges that from the get-go, there were some warning signs; after all, Kai had turned around the hatchet and used the blade on Simmons for the third blow, and there was also that almost gleeful exclamation of “Smash, Smash, SUH-MASH!”
Writer-director Camden expertly segues from the relatively light, wacky, carefree sequences into the darker material, as we hear troubling details about Kai’s childhood (though his mother denies certain allegations in an on-camera interview). Meanwhile, the adult Kai keeps getting into trouble—urinating in public, getting drunk, wandering the country, exhibiting inconsistent behavior.
Cut to May of 2013 — just three months after Kai became a viral sensation — and Kai’s arrest for the murder of New Jersey attorney Joseph Galfy in Galfy’s home. I’ll leave it to the doc to lay out what happened, but suffice to say the relatively short-haired, neck-tattooed, Caleb Lawrence McGillvary who was sentenced to 57 years for first-degree murder seems like an entirely different being than the carefree peacenik we see in that first TV interview.
“Why didn’t [anyone] see that he was dangerous?” says Mulcahy. “I think people did. … I saw what I thought I saw, and I wanted to help the person I thought I saw. I was wrong.” Says a friend and neighbor of Mr. Galfy: “If you’re going to glorify someone, you better know who you’re glorifying.” In the end, of course, no one but Kai Lawrence is responsible for the actions of Kai Lawrence. It was a feel-good story that turned horribly tragic.
