Video with a hatchet-wielding hitchhiker changed Jessob Reisbeck's life. Now it's No. 1 on Netflix.

Ten years ago, on what was his first day doing television news, Jessob Reisbeck's life and career were turned upside down by a hatchet-wielding hitchhiker named Kai.

More accurately, by an unedited video that Reisbeck, now the evening news anchor at Milwaukee's WDJT-TV (Channel 58), uploaded to YouTube featuring a hatchet-wielding hitchhiker named Kai.

That moment, the aftermath and the horrible crime that followed are the focus of the new Netflix documentary, "The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker." Since its debut on the streaming service Jan. 10, the movie has climbed to the top of Netflix's most-watched list.

“Even since this documentary, it’s different, man," Reisbeck said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel Friday. "It’s such an amazing, special, once-in-a-lifetime thing to be part of the No. 1 movie on Netflix. But at the same time, I'm heartbroken and torn because he’s sitting where he’s sitting and there’s another gentleman who’s dead.

"This whole experience has definitely changed me.”

Fellow Channel 58 news anchor Mike Curkov interviewed Reisbeck about his experience with the Kai story and the Netflix documentary for a special segment that will air during Channel 58's 10 p.m. newscast on Jan. 19.

When Reisbeck met Kai, the hatchet-wielding hitchhiker

Reisbeck, who was born in Wisconsin Rapids and moved to California when he was 5, had always wanted to be a sports broadcaster. After graduating from Arizona State University, he first worked as a sports anchor and reporter at WAOW-TV in Wausau, then, after a stop in Syracuse, got a sports job in 2009 at KMPH-TV in Fresno, California.

Reisbeck had been at KMPH for nearly four years when he was drafted to fill in on the news side: “They kind of used me as the utility man, if you will as well, kind of a Swiss Army knife.”

On Feb. 1, 2013, they were listening to reports on a police scanner of a car crash that sounded like it was escalating into something more. Reisbeck went to the scene and tried to piece together what happened. A driver had apparently pinned another man against a truck with his car. When a witness tried to help the pinned man, the driver attacked her. A hitchhiker who had been riding with the driver then stepped in, fending off the man with a hatchet.

Reisbeck saw the hitchhiker, who said his name was Kai, and asked him to tell his story. The interview, a mix of inspirational platitudes, bleeped-out language and vivid descriptions ("Smash! Smash! Smash!"), aired on the evening news. But later that night, Reisbeck decided to upload the entire, unbleeped video to YouTube.

"I knew I had six-plus minutes of something special, something that people don’t see every day, something that I thought deserved to be seen," Reisbeck said. "I thought this guy Kai was super special and dynamic, and I wanted to at least give other people a chance to see it.”

The clip exploded, was turned into a slew of memes and was shared by tens of thousands. (Today, the video has 7.9 million views.)

“This was back when, almost 10 years ago now, social media wasn’t what it is now, even, by any stretch of the imagination," Reisbeck said. " … YouTube wasn’t even really used for uploading news clips or people’s own little videos. And maybe Kai had something to do with that.”

In addition to all the social media buzz, Reisbeck was getting "hundreds and hundreds" of calls and emails from media outlets trying to get a hold of Kai. (Reisbeck had his email contact, the only thing he edited out of the YouTube video, to protect Kai's privacy.)

As shown in the Netflix documentary, Reisbeck eventually talked with Kai and went through the various pitches with him. In the interview Friday, he said he “never made a dollar off the guy. It was never about money, it never has been.”

“I was trying my best to do right by this guy.”

Kai on Jimmy Kimmel, and on trial for murder

Kai, who went by the name Kai Lawrence, landed an appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" just days after the video went viral. Although, as the Netflix documentary shows, Kai behaved erratically and was impossible to handle, he was generating loads of interest from producers, including the people behind "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."

“He had opportunities on the table from Justin Bieber, the Kardashians and Jimmy Kimmel,” Reisbeck said. “It’s just not what he wanted. He’s just wired different than us. He’s an amazing dude, but it’s very hard to put (him) into a box. He’s not your typical person, that’s for sure. … He wanted to do it his way, and his life.”

While Kai was homeless (in the documentary, he repeatedly says in interviews that he's "home-free"), he was fairly easy to trace. Everywhere he went, it seemed, people recognized him and wanted him to pose with them for posts on Facebook or YouTube or Instagram.

“Once he got out doing his thing and he was famous and then he had all these other people just coming up on the street and trying to get an Instagram video or a YouTube video with him, I think that’s when it got out of control for him,” Reisbeck said. “It was more people on social media that ended up being more of a negative thing for him."

Barely three months after his viral moment, Kai was arrested on the other side of the country for the death in New Jersey of a 73-year-old attorney named Joseph Galfy. (Kai, whose given name is Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, claimed he was raped by Galfy; the police said the sex was consensual.) After spending six years in a county jail, Kai was convicted of murder in 2019 and sentenced to 57 years in prison.

In the documentary, a friend of Galfy's says the media shares some of the “blame for the creation of Kai.”

For Reisbeck, his role in Kai's story is a "tough topic."

"Obviously, I'm the one who did the interview and that’s the interview that skyrocketed him to fame. And now, he sits where he sits now," Reisbeck told the Journal Sentinel. "If that interview was never done, would it have happened? Probably not, but if I had not gotten the interview, would he have talked to someone else, another reporter? Probably. And I can honestly say, anyone else who had that interview wouldn’t have looked out for him or at least tried — tried, tried, tried — to look out for him like I did."

Reisbeck comes to Milwaukee — twice

Just one month after Kai was arrested, Reisbeck's career took a different turn. He landed a job at WITI-TV (Channel 6) in Milwaukee, where he spent five years as morning news co-anchor before taking a morning co-anchor job in Washington, D.C. Two years later, in November 2020, he returned to Milwaukee, this time as co-anchor of the evening newscasts on Channel 58.

Now that Kai is in prison, he and Reisbeck keep in regular contact. Reisbeck said that Kai is going through "a ton" of appeals processes in his case.

“I hope somehow the documentary helps him and I hope somehow this documentary in other ways helps the Galfy family," Reisbeck said. "I don’t think I'll ever be life without Kai for sure.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jessob Reisbeck talks about 'Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker'