It started with an act of charity that raised $400K for a homeless vet. Here’s how it got nasty

It started out so well, as a feel-good story everyone loved: a man with a drug problem that ran him off the tracks, leaving him with next to nothing, is saved by a young woman who seemed to have everything by comparison — all in exchange for a good deed.

If not for circumstance, Kate McClure might have just had enough gas to zip by Johnny Bobbitt and his life beside Interstate 95 in Philadelphia. If not for circumstance, she would have used her smartphone to call up some sort of roadside assistance, gotten a gallon or two from a repairman, and been on her way.

Instead, the lives of Bobbitt, McClure and her boyfriend Mark D’Amico changed remarkably — all because of Johnny Bobbitt’s last $20, the fervent interest of thousands of people and the strange mechanisms of the internet.

They appeared on the news; locally, nationally, internationally. They set up an online fund to help get Johnny’s life back on track; people ate it up. With a few clicks, anyone, anywhere in the world, could help with that remarkable change.

So how did it unravel, get nasty and accusatory, and involve lawyers and now cops?

This isn’t to say that in the end, the story of how Bobbitt spent his last $20 can’t still make us feel good.

After reports that the $400,000 raised may be all gone, GoFundMe, the donation site where this all started, promised to make Bobbitt whole. Lawyers representing Bobbitt have put him in a detox program.

Bobbitt still did a good deed.

But for now, the story is a case: he’s suing McClure and D’Amico in civil court, saying he didn’t get all of the money donated to help him. Law enforcement executed search warrants, but no criminal charges have been filed.

Here’s how it all happened: