Man Suing Netflix After Photo Used Without Permission In Documentary About Hatchet-Wielding Murderer

A Kentucky man is suing Netflix after a photo he posted to Instagram was used in a documentary about a murder that didn’t involve him.

Taylor Hazlewood, 27, is suing the streaming service for using his photo without permission and tying him to a crime he did not commit, Buzzfeed News reported. In June 2019, Hazlewood was with his friend and snapped a picture of himself holding the friend’s hatchet, which he posted to Instagram.

Thinking nothing of the photo, Hazlewood was shocked when friends started reaching out to him after the Netflix documentary “The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker” premiered in January of this year – nearly four years after Hazlewood posted the innocent photograph to social media.

Netflix used Hazlewood’s photo while a narrator asks, “Is this a guardian angel or a stone-cold killer?” A tweet also appears on screen from someone saying, “you can never trust anyway.”

But the documentary is not about Hazlewood, nor has Hazlewood been accused of any crime. The documentary is about Caleb McGillvary, who became a viral sensation in February 2013 when he gave an interview to a local Fox affiliate in California describing his role in an incident that resulted in the death of a woman. McGillvary, who identified himself as “Kai,” animatedly described how he was hitchhiking and picked up by a man named Jett McBride. McBride allegedly told McGillvary that he had once raped a 14-year-old girl and then reportedly struck a pedestrian at an intersection, pinning her against a parked truck. McBride, according to McGillvary, got out of the car and attacked a bystander who came upon the scene to help. McGillvary said he jumped out of the vehicle to help the pedestrian, grabbed a hatchet from his backpack, and attacked McBride to get him to stop harming the bystander.

McGillvary said he was interviewed by police and released.

The viral video received more than 8 million views on YouTube, was sampled by The Gregory Brothers, and landed McGillvary interviews on Inside Edition and Jimmy Kimmel Live.

But several months after becoming famous, McGillvary was arrested for the murder of New Jersey attorney Joseph Galfy. McGillvary said he killed Galfy in self-defense after the attorney drugged and raped him. McGillvary was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to 57 years in prison.

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Hazlewood has no connection to McGillvary or any of the crimes mentioned in the documentary. His attorney, Angela Buchanan, told Buzzfeed that Hazlewood is “a private and quiet man, was galvanized by his inclusion in the true-crime documentary The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker, which tells the salacious story of Caleb McGillvary’s rise to fame and subsequent first-degree murder conviction.”

“Netflix, and the production companies upon which they rely, must be held accountable when they are negligent and cause this sort of reputational harm,” Buchanan added.

Hazlewood is seeking at least $1 million in damages.

McGillvary is also suing Netflix for the documentary, demanding more than $1.3 million for “ruthlessly exploiting a hero’s life story for money,” according to The Washington Post.

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