ELIZABETH, N.J. – A self-proclaimed “home-free” hitchhiker who became an Internet celebrity earlier this year for using a hatchet to stop a fight is suspected of beating a New Jersey lawyer to death, authorities said Thursday.
Caleb “Kai” McGillvary, 24, was last believed to be in Philadelphia, said Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow.
“We don’t know where he is,” Romankow said. “But we do know this man is used to being on the road and he is considered dangerous.”
Known as “Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker,” McGillvary took a star turn after intervening in an attack on a California utility worker. He described using a hatchet he was carrying to repeatedly hit a man who had struck the worker with his car then accosted him.
“In the past he has had the ability to use the back end of a hatchet and it’s very possible he may be carrying that,” Romankow said.