Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Unbelievable Story of Kai The Hitchhiker

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

This is the story of Kai the Hitchhiker

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My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So this guy, his name's Kai. And Kai has a problem.

He just unalived a guy with his bare hands. And now he's on the run. Now, Kai, he's a hippie, he's a free spirit, he's kind of homeless and kind of traveling around America. But one day, he's out hitchhiking in California. And someone pulls over to give him a ride. This man, Jet. And Jets like, hop in, buddy.

And off they go. So they're driving along and they get to talking and they get to token a little Zaza. And for some reason, Jet suddenly just snaps and has a complete psychotic break. He starts telling Kai that he's actually Jesus, he's swerving all over the road, he goes on about how he hasn't slept properly in weeks, and about how he essayed a girl. He's shouting racist things, I mean, all kinds of stuff. And Kai, he tries his best to act chill. But then, Jet sees a group of gas and electric workers on the side of the road.

And suddenly, skirt! He swerves right into them and pow! He hits one of them. a black man, pinning him between his car and another truck. And then Jet hops out of the car and he yells, I am Jesus Christ! And he starts shouting racial slurs. And then he makes his way over to the worker who's still stuck, and he starts trying to tug him out, which is actually doing more harm than good.

But then this former nurse, she happens to be walking by, and she sees all this. So she immediately runs over to help. But Jet, who's 6-4, 300 pounds, he just picks her up, and he starts hitting her, and she starts trying to fight him off. off, but Jet, he's just too strong. And it looks like he's really about to hurt her. Until. Kai, he notices all this is going on, and he knows he has to do something. So he reaches into his backpack and he grabs a hatchet, and he leaps into action. He runs over to Jet and he swings

the blunt side of the hatchet, hard, boom, striking Jet on the head. And then he swings again, boom. And then finally, he swings with the bladed side. Boom. And this stops Jet dead in his tracks. Jet falls to the ground, injured, no longer a threat. And just like that, Kai is a hero. I mean, he saved that woman's life. And then fast forward to a few hours later, police and paramedics and local news, they've all shown up to the scene. And a reporter goes to interview Kai. And so Kai gets on camera and he explains what happened. So I fucking ran up behind him with a hatchet, smash, smash, smash. But then he also adds this little nugget of wisdom. Before I say anything else, I want to say no matter what you've done, you deserve respect.

Even if you make mistakes, you lovable. And it doesn't matter your look skills or age or size or anything, you're worthwhile. And that becomes the moment a viral video is born. This video blows up on YouTube and it starts trending. And people are sharing it around and they're making remixes and they're making t-shirts with smash, smash, smash on them. And this story is everywhere and Kai is getting really popular. He's doing interviews on TV. He gets invited to go on Jimmy Kimmel, and there's allegedly talk of him getting his own reality show, and Kai, he's having a great time with all this. I mean, it seems like his life is really starting to turn around. Second on two. About three months later, after the viral moment, Kai takes a trip to

New York. And while he's there, in Times Square, he meets this man, Joseph. Joseph. Joseph is 73, he's a lawyer, and Kai and Joseph, they really hit it off. Joseph offers him a ride, and then he invites him over to his house in New Jersey, and then they have dinner and Kai crashes there, and Kai stays with Joseph for two nights. And then on the second night, something crazy happens. Kai ends up unaliving Joseph, and I'll get to why. But fast forward to Monday morning, and Joseph, he doesn't show up to work. So his friends call police to do a welfare check. And so police show up to his house and they check through the whole place, and there, in the bedroom, they find Joseph in his underwear, unalived. He had been beaten to death.

Now in the living room, they find a piece of paper near Joseph's laptop with a name and phone number on it. Kai's name and phone number. So Kai immediately becomes the number one suspect. But by the time police find Joseph's body, Kai has already left town. He flees to Philadelphia where he's trying to lay low. But unfortunately for Kai, disappearing is way harder than it used to be, now that he's got all this internet fame.

So yeah, someone spots him pretty quickly. And three days later, police find him. him at a Starbucks and they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And so they charge him with Joseph's murder. Here's the thing though, Kai absolutely unalive Joseph that night. That much he admits to. But what's called into question is why he did it. So here's what Kai says happened on that night. On the second night he was staying at Joseph's, Kai and Joseph are just chilling. And Joseph makes Kai some burgers and he serves him a few beers. But then, according to Kai, Joseph slips something into his beer because pretty quickly Kai passes out. Hours later he suddenly wakes up with Joseph standing over him

in his underwear. Allegedly he was attempting to essay him. So Kai just flips out and loses it and he punches him and he elbows him and he knees him in the head and pretty quickly Joseph goes down and Kai just kicks him over and over again until he's no longer alive and the beating is pretty brutal. Now to be clear, the essay of it all hasn't been substantiated, that's just what Kai says happened. While police and prosecuting attorneys on the other hand, they say that Kai's story is bullshit. They say he's a mentally ill guy who just happens to have a very violent streak. Regardless, Kai's still unalived a guy, so he goes to trial, he's found guilty of first-degree murder, and he's sentenced to 57 years in prison. And by the way, Kai still has a YouTube channel and sometimes he posts videos.

from prison. I wanted to share that joy with y'all. It's crazy.