Is Midnight in the Switchgrass a True Story? All About the Real Highway Killings That Inspired the Megan Fox and Bruce Willis Thriller

The 2021 film Midnight in the Switchgrass stars Megan Fox and Bruce Willis as FBI agents working an operation to catch murderers who use highways and truck stops to find their victims.

When their investigation crosses paths with a sadistic serial killer in Florida, they must race against the clock to find him before it’s too late. Though it’s not based on a true story, the murders committed by fictional truck driver Peter Hillborough (Lukas Haas) were inspired by real events.

Emile Hirsch, who plays Florida Department of Law Enforcement Agent Byron Crawford in Midnight in the Switchgrass, told AMFM Magazine that screenwriter Alan Horsnail purposely never named the real-life cases he based the movie on. But, they’re eerily similar to those associated with Texas’ truck stop killer, Robert Benjamin Rhoades.

The Houston-born truck driver has only ever been convicted for three murders since his arrest in 1990. But the FBI believes that at one point, Rhoades was kidnapping, torturing, raping and killing anywhere from one to three women every month, per GQ. When he was caught, the convicted killer reportedly told police that he had been “doing this” for 15 years.

Although Rhoades’ case is very similar to the plot of Midnight in the Switchgrass, which is now streaming on Netflix, another broader initiative by the FBI to solve killings on American highways also inspired the movie.

Here’s everything to know about the inspiration behind Midnight in the Switchgrass and the real-life serial killer whose crimes match those depicted in the film.

Warning: Midnight in the Switchgrass spoilers ahead!

What is Midnight in the Switchgrass about?

Midnight in the Switchgrass is a crime thriller that follows FBI agents Rebecca Lombardo (Fox) and Karl Helter (Willis), who get pulled into an investigation involving a string of missing and murdered women from a small Florida town. Even though his bosses aren’t convinced, local cop Crawford (Hirsch) believes it to be the work of a serial killer.

After Helter quits the case because of Lombardo’s risky investigative methods, she teams up with Crawford to find the killer who most recently kidnapped a teenager named Tracey Lee (Caitlin Carmichael). The stakes get even higher when Lombardo — who often goes undercover to nab her targets — gets abducted by the killer, revealed to be a trucker named Peter Hillborough (Haas).

While filming the movie, Fox met her future partner MGK, who acted as a pimp named Calvin. The musician said on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021 that he only took the role to meet Fox.

How did Midnight in the Switchgrass end?

After being drugged by Hillborough, Lombardo finds herself chained in his shed with Lee, who she helps escape. When the serial killer returns, he interrogates and tries to hang the FBI agent — but fails to see her concealed knife, which she uses to stab him while she’s choking.

Crawford finally pieces together the killer’s identity and, thanks to a helpful tip from Hillborough’s daughter who saw Lee running through their backyard, finds Lombardo in the shed. She later wakes up in the hospital where Helter praises her for her bravery.

Is Midnight in the Switchgrass based on a true story?

Hirsch told AMFM Magazine that while the movie’s screenwriter, Horsnail, intentionally chose not to name a specific case as inspiration for Midnight in the Switchgrass, he did pull from “two or three real-life serial killers.”

“[Horsnail] never actually named the real-life cases that he based it off of,” Hirsch told the outlet. “He wanted to take from the real events but still make his own separate narrative. Which I think was smart because as soon as you do something that is totally a true story then there’s a certain pressure to get it right or to stay accurate.”

The film’s log-line, of being “based on the true story of Texas’ most dangerous serial killer,” may point to the influence of Robert Benjamin Rhoades, though, who was known as Texas’ truck stop killer.

Who is Robert Benjamin Rhoades?

Robert Benjamin Rhoades is a convicted murderer known as the truck stop killer. He was arrested in April 1990 after an Arizona state trooper noticed that his tractor-trailer had a blinking light. The officer found Rhoades inside the cab with a woman chained to a wall, and he was charged with aggravated assault, sexual assault and unlawful imprisonment, per The Telegraph.

After his arrest, investigators linked Rhoades to three murders. In February 1990, he kidnapped 14-year-old Regina Walters in Illinois, who was hitchhiking to Mexico with her 18-year-old boyfriend, Ricky Lee Jones.

Her body was discovered after Rhoades was in custody, and he was sentenced to life in prison for her murder. It is unclear what happened to Jones but investigators said in 1992 that the remains of a man who had been shot in the head may have been Walters’ boyfriend, per The Marshall News Messenger.

In 2012, the killer pleaded guilty to two counts of capital murder in Texas for the 1990 slayings of Douglas Scott Zyskowski and Patricia Walsh, who were hitchhiking from Seattle to Georgia, per ABC News. Both of their bodies weren’t identified until years later.

How many people did Robert Benjamin Rhoades kill?  

Though Rhoades was only convicted of three murders, authorities believe he’s responsible for more. Vanessa Veselka wrote about Rhoades for GQ in 2012 and claimed she had almost been abducted by the killer after she accepted a ride from him in 1985. She wrote that he must have “seemed okay” or she wouldn’t have gotten into the truck — but once she did, “he changed.”

“He stopped responding to my questions,” Veselka wrote. “His bearing shifted. He grew taller in his seat, and his face muscles relaxed into something both arrogant and blank.”

She continued, “A few minutes later, he pulled the truck onto the shoulder of the road by some woods, took out a hunting knife, and told me to get into the back of the cab … Then he said one word: Run. Without looking back, I ran into the woods and hid. I stayed there until I saw the truck pull onto the interstate.”

Veselka said that she never went to the police and didn’t tell anyone about her encounter with Rhoades for years.

What is the Highway Serial Killings Initiative? 

In 2021, Midnight in the Switchgrass actress Carmichael told ComingSoon that the FBI’s Highway Serial Killings Initiative was the “framework” for the movie. The government organization launched the initiative in 2009 after noticing a pattern of women being murdered and dumped along the Interstate 40 corridor in Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi.

“I was really interested in reading about the actual highway serial killings initiative started by the FBI and seeing the frameworks that our story was based upon,” Carmichael told the outlet. “It gave me definitely a new perspective on the research and prep for this role, as opposed to just researching similar kidnappings or abductions for my character.”

In his 2024 book Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers, former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi claimed that of the 850 murders that have happened on highways in the U.S. since 1980, around 200 of them are still unsolved.