In 2009, a channel was created on YouTube simply called, "Hi Walter! It's me Patrick!" which eventually contained only contained one video titled, "Hi Walter! I got a new gf today! In the video, a man (assumedly Patrick though he never states his name on camera) opens by telling someone named Walter that he has found himself a girlfriend. He excitedly talks with a wild-eyed expression about how he met this girl at the mall and that she's very hot and attractive. He then says he wants to show her on camera, even though she's very shy and the camera cuts to what looks like a dark basement with a wooden door that's padlocked shut. The man then steps into view, unlocks the door, and a woman can be seen inside on all fours, sobbing and begging to be let go. The man steps into the room with her and after the door closes behind him, we can hear her screaming before the video abruptly ends. The channel has since been taken down, but the video has of course been re-uploaded and is easy to find on YouTube:
For a long time, the video went relatively unnoticed but began to really go viral around 2016 when the mother of a missing teen saw the footage and became convinced that her daughter was the imprisoned woman shown at the end of the video. Up until this point, those already aware of the video (particularly the Reddit community) had been busy dissecting it, many coming to the conclusion that it was fake. Aside from the cheesy acting from "Patrick," those skeptical of the video pointed out things like the fact that at the beginning of the basement scene, it sounds like the man says something along the lines of, "Action," furthering the suspicion that this was a hoax. But to one viewer, Hope Sprenger, the video looked all too real and potentially offered answers as to what happened to her missing daughter, Kayla Berg.
In 2009, only a few months before the channel's creation, 15-year-old Kayla Berg went missing after being dropped off at her boyfriend's house in Wausau, Wisconsin. In 2016, when the possibility arose that the girl in Patrick's video might be Kayla, the Wisconsin police were alerted and began immediately investigating the video's origin as well as the people behind it. They admitted that there were similarities between the missing girl and the girl in the video, causing valid concern that this was not a hoax after all. However, it all turned out to be a false alarm when Antigo police were able to identify the the creators of the video.
Leading the video and playing the role of Patrick was a man by the name of Michael Maton from Utica, NY. As for the actress, the imprisoned girl was a woman by the name of Lucy Cavo and the producer of the video was a man named Jason Derr. All three of the people behind the video were from Utica, NY and had nothing to do with the missing teen from Wisconsin. According to them, the video wasn't even intended to reference her case. Once this information was established, Antigo police issued a statement, ensuring the public that the video was nothing more than a hoax, but by that point the damage was done. Hope Sprenger was said to be traumatized when she saw the video and believed she was seeing her daughter being held captive by Maton, and this led to the creators issuing an apology for the harm they caused. However, Maton went on to blame the media for misconstruing what was meant to be a short YouTube horror film that had nothing to do with Kayla Berg's disappearance and even called it slander.
As troubling as this situation was, this is not the only time a YouTube creator has led the public to believe they had something to do with a missing person's case. In 2012, a video was uploaded of a middle-aged man laughing sadistically into a camera, winking, and the words "Happy Anniversary" appeared on the screen. The video itself was also titled "Happy Anniversary," and was posted 8 years to the day that a young woman by the name of Maura Murray went missing after crashing her car on Route 112 in Massachusetts. The uploader himself had named the channel "Mr112dirtbag" which references not only Route 112, but also Murray's father's claims that whoever had abducted his daughter was a dirtbag. However, police investigated the source of the video and it turned out to be yet another cruel hoax.
The internet can be a disturbing place, even if you only remain on the surface web. While most would have enough of a moral compass to know when creepy content takes it too far or at least is in need of some context to prevent a scare, there will always be those who will do harm, whether intentionally or not. The story behind "Hi Walter!" can serve as a cautionary tale of how a lack of context can unfairly cause alarm to those dealing with something as horrible as the abduction of a family member. To this day, the disappearances of Kayla Bern and Maura Murray remain unsolved.
Sources on Maton and Mr112dirtbag:
- https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/hi-walter-i-got-a-new-gf-youtube-kayla-berg-investigation-396802761.html
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4286854/Unmasked-internet-hoaxer-Hi-Walter-viral-video.html
- https://imgur.com/gallery/91MAa
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2104121/Videos-taunt-family-Maura-Murray-eighth-anniversary-disappearance.html
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