Bound teenager on YouTube: Kayla Berg?

In October 2009, a video was uploaded to YouTube. The clip isn’t even a minute long, but it caused a stir because some people believed it could be related to a missing person case—a case that, until then, few had heard of. Fifteen-year-old Kayla Berg disappeared in Wisconsin in August 2009. At first, it was thought she had simply run away from home, but it soon became clear that there must be more to the teenager’s disappearance.

Then this disturbing video surfaced:

“Hi Walter, I got an awesome necklace, the most amazing necklace I’ve ever seen, and I know she wanted me to buy it for her. She kept looking at me and giving that look, you know the look. And then we got kind of tired of the mall, and I brought her back to my place. I know, I know she hates cameras, Walter, but I’m going to show you anyway. Are you ready?”

When the video first appeared in October 2009, no one seemed interested. It wasn’t until seven years later, in 2016, that the video spread like wildfire. Suddenly, the video was shared many times, and everyone was wondering what the clip could be about. A few resourceful internet detectives noticed that the girl at the end of the video bore a resemblance to a girl who had been missing for about seven years at that time: fifteen-year-old Kayla Berg from the US state of Wisconsin.

She had been reported missing two months before the video was uploaded. Now, people feared the video could show Kayla Berg’s kidnapper. The lead was taken so seriously that even the police began investigating the video’s creator. But who exactly was the missing Kayla Berg, and could she really be the girl in the video?

Kayla Berg was born in 1993. Her parents, Hope and James, also had an older son named Jimmy. Hope brought a son from a previous marriage into the relationship when Kayla was a toddler. Despite this, Hope and James separated and retained custody of Kayla and her brother Jimmy. They lived primarily with Hope but were allowed to visit their father James at any time and spend weekends with him.

In May 2009, Hope and Kayla moved together from Wisconsin to Texas. Kayla’s two older brothers remained in Wisconsin; they were already adults and could therefore live independently. Fifteen-year-old Kayla accompanied her mother to her new home. However, they only lived in Texas for just under two months because Kayla’s father, James, received a cancer diagnosis.

Kayla longed to live near her father again, and her mother granted her this wish. So, at the end of July 2009, they returned to Wisconsin. Since Hope didn’t immediately find a new apartment and a job, Kayla moved in with her grandparents so she could be close to her sick father while Hope stayed with friends and focused on finding a job and an apartment.

At fifteen, Kayla was in the middle of her teenage years, which was not easy for her anyway, and on top of that, she had to somehow cope with her father’s cancer diagnosis. Kayla soon sought distractions that her parents didn’t approve of. The girl partied a lot, often with older guys. One of them was Kayla’s boyfriend, Miguel Marrero.

He was nineteen and lived in Wausau, about forty kilometers from Kayla’s family in Antigo. He threw parties that Kayla often attended, and she didn’t always tell her parents. In August 2009, Kayla took things to the extreme. That day, Hope and James were at the police station to file a missing person report for their daughter.

Kayla had told them she was sleeping over at her friend Natasha’s the night before. However, Natasha had told her parents she was sleeping over at Kayla’s. So, the two girls had obviously lied, and neither of them came home that night. Just as the worried parents were at the police station, Kayla finally got in touch.

It turned out that the two girls had been at a party in Wausau the night before. To hide this from their parents, they had pretended to be sleeping over at each other’s houses. Kayla’s parents were, of course, angry, but primarily relieved that nothing had happened to their daughter. A few days later, Hope and James would be back at the police station. They would file a missing person report that remains open to this day.

On August 11, 2009, Kayla spent time with her friend Natasha again. Other friends were also there in the afternoon. Kayla made plans for the evening with a friend named Kevin Kielcheski. She briefly visited her father before being picked up by Kevin around 8:45 p.m.

Kayla and Kevin didn’t have anything specific planned; they just wanted to drive around in Kevin’s car. Kevin was good friends with one of Kayla’s older brothers. The whole family knew Kevin well, so the parents had no problem with him spending some time with Kayla, even though Kevin was already twenty-four years old.

He often drove Kayla and her friends to their dates. The family saw him as a kind of big brother to Kayla. Around 9:30 p.m., Kayla and Kevin visited a McDonald’s restaurant in Antigo. Kevin waited in the car while Kayla went inside and ordered something to eat. There she met Beth, a friend who worked at the restaurant.

Kayla and Beth spoke briefly and arranged to talk on the phone later, but this call never happened. The next morning, Kayla’s father, James, called her mother and told her that Kayla hadn’t come home overnight. Unsure what to do, Hope called Kayla’s friends, but no one knew where she was. Kevin Kielcheski was only reached after a while via text message.

He wrote that he had dropped Kayla off the previous evening on a one-way street in the town of Wausau. Kevin couldn’t remember the exact address. Hope and James did something they would regret for years to come: they did nothing and waited. Just two days earlier, they had wanted to file a missing person report with the police, and shortly afterward, Kayla had contacted them.

They hoped it would happen the same way again, but the hoped-for call or any other sign of life from Kayla never came. Only after five or six days, on August 16th or 17th, did Hope and James report their fifteen-year-old daughter, Kayla Berg, missing. The authorities initially believed Kayla was a classic runaway, especially because of her recent behavior. Kayla had often slept elsewhere without informing anyone. Her friends were questioned, but it was reported that they were vague and uncommunicative, as if they were hiding something from the investigators. However, as more and more days passed without contact with Kayla, the police reconsidered the runaway theory.

On August 20, 2009, an official investigation was launched. By this time, several days had already passed. Kevin Kielcheski was the first person questioned by the police, as he was the last person to see Kayla. Kevin told the police that Kayla had asked him to drop her off at her boyfriend Miguel’s house on the evening of August 11.

Therefore, he had driven her to Wausau and dropped her off at Miguel’s address on Highway 52. The house is about a forty-minute drive from Antigo. Kevin also stated that he did not see Kayla actually go inside; all the lights were off, and it seemed as if no one was home. This statement was interesting to the investigators for two reasons: firstly, because Kevin had previously said he didn’t remember exactly where he had dropped Kayla off, and secondly, because Miguel hadn’t seen Kayla at all.

She knew Miguel had moved from Highway 52. Just a week earlier, she was at a party at Miguel’s new apartment, so why should she have asked Kevin to drop her off at her boyfriend’s old address? It is unclear whether the two even went to Wausau that evening; there is no data to prove it. Neither surveillance footage nor the location history of Kevin’s cell phone provided any information.

In October 2009, Kevin was charged with second-degree reckless endangerment because he admitted to consuming drugs with Kayla. This confession allowed for the charge of endangerment and thus further investigations. In the same month, the house in Deerbrook where Kevin lived with his parents was searched. The investigators were looking for clues about Kayla’s disappearance.

However, about two months had already passed since then. Theoretically, that would be enough time to make important evidence disappear. The police also confiscated Kevin’s car. Investigations weren’t limited to Kevin, though; Kayla’s boyfriend Miguel was also under scrutiny.

GPS data placing him twice in Lincoln County on the night of August 11–12, 2009, led to a police search of the area, but without success. Kayla’s mother, Hope, later said in interviews that Miguel never contacted the family after Kayla’s disappearance. This struck her as odd, even though Kayla was on a break from her relationship with Miguel at the time of her disappearance.

When the police analyzed Miguel’s mobile data, they naturally wanted to ask him about his whereabouts in Lincoln County. However, Miguel refused to make any statement. While this was his right, it was incredibly frustrating for the investigators. Some sources say his car was searched and a few items were seized, but what exactly was found was not disclosed.

Since Miguel was never officially suspected or charged, it was presumably nothing connected to Kayla. Instead, the police continued to focus on Kevin. In 2011, Kevin’s parents’ property was searched again, as was a potato farm where Kevin had worked for a time. Cadaver dogs were also used. In the same year, the charges against Kevin were dropped due to lack of evidence.

Kayla’s mother is still tormented by this. She makes accusations and assumes partial responsibility for her daughter’s disappearance, and of course, Hope wonders what could have happened to her daughter. It was known that Kayla and Kevin used marijuana. Hope feared Kevin might have given Kayla other drugs as well, and that she might have overdosed.

Kevin could then have panicked and made Kayla disappear. However, after 2011, Kevin was never charged with a crime against Kayla again, and the case went quiet for several years until 2016 when the ominous video surfaced. When the video was circulated, the Kayla case became known overnight, and the investigators’ focus briefly shifted.

The video was published in October 2009, two months after Kayla’s disappearance. At the time, no one was interested, but suddenly it received hundreds of thousands of views. The clip is disturbing, regardless of whether the woman in the video is actually Kayla or not. The police were contacted, and the video was taken offline.

The responsible police department began an investigation and searched for the creator of the video. The video was originally posted on a channel called Hi Walter. The caption simply stated:

“My videos to Walter, the friend who apparently can’t find me.”

Kayla’s mother, Hope, was terrified when she saw the video, but also hopeful, because even she believed the girl in the video was her daughter. She said the girl looked and sounded exactly like Kayla, and the clothes looked similar to what Kayla last wore. In an interview, Hope said:

“She sounded like she looked like she did. It made me shudder. It’s hard to explain. The first thought is, ‘That’s my daughter,’ but I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s real. I don’t know if it’s a fake. My God, it could be someone else’s child, or a missing loved one. Or, if it’s a fake, this person has an extremely warped sense of humor.”

The suspicions turned out to be correct. The police were able to track down the video’s producer, who credibly assured them that the video was a tasteless joke. The video led the investigation in the wrong direction and wasted numerous resources that could have been invested elsewhere. On the other hand, attention was drawn to the then almost forgotten case. Her mother said:

“I guess the only advantage I had from it was the worldwide media coverage. Her name became known worldwide, and very quickly. Otherwise, it was a nightmare, a living nightmare.”

The video, therefore, had nothing to do with Kayla. The only positive outcome was that Kayla’s case gained more attention. However, even today, no one knows what happened to her back then. Whether Kevin really dropped her off at Miguel’s old address could never be determined. Not only does Kayla’s mysterious disappearance give one pause for thought, but also the video that led investigators astray.

Clearly, the creator didn’t know the context and only wanted to upload a sketch to YouTube that, years later, would be linked to a criminal case and cause such a stir. He couldn’t have known that, and it wasn’t a crime either. Nevertheless, the whole situation provides grounds for discussion: is it morally acceptable to upload such sketches without context or a disclaimer, or should creators be more sensitive to such topics?