Mystery Katie found after Kiwi's story goes viral

Reese McKee. Photo / Mark Mitchell

An overwhelming public response has helped a Wellington man track down a mystery American woman he met in Hong Kong last New Year's Eve.

Reese McKee, 25, says that after our story of his appeal to find "Katie from DC" went viral, he found the woman, whom he had met by chance in Hong Kong.

Mr McKee said he had yet to get in touch with Katie, but planned to "when things died down a little bit".

He also said he turned down an offer to appear on a US talk show.

The story received more than 100,000 views on the Herald website and featured in international media.

"The thing bloody exploded. God, the article went everywhere," Mr McKee said.

Last week, Mr McKee told of walking around Hong Kong admiring the lights when he found the woman crying on the side of the road.

After spending the night drinking and dancing, they parted. Her last words were: "Find me."

"Yeah, I'll find you," he said, before realising all he had to go on was her first name, Katie, a photo he found on his phone and the fact she was from "DC" - presumably Washington.

Mr McKee has since taken down the Facebook page about his search due to the overwhelming number of enthusiastic romantics trying to track down "Katie".

"The Facebook thing was getting out of hand. They were starting to infringe on other people. They tracked down every Katie in the DC area, which is a bit much.

"We found the girl ... She is from DC, she's not there at the moment, but she's sorta taken all her public profiles [offline] for a little bit."