THE HITCHER Explained: The Real-Life Murders Behind the Film

In the parking lot, a man approaches him, asking for a ride. He explains that he is in a hurry to see his sister, who is giving birth. Reluctantly, the driver decides to help the man in need. Shortly after, the hitchhiker (the hitcher?) suddenly attacks him, threatening him with a screwdriver and demanding money.

A struggle ensues, but the driver ultimately manages to escape. He drives aimlessly for a while, trying to shake off the unpleasant experience. Eventually, he heads toward home, only to be shocked when he spots the unknown hitchhiker lurking in the darkness. Terrified, he calls the police from the nearest phone booth. The responding officers discover a broken window in the back door, traces of blood, and the body of an elderly woman in the upstairs bedroom. It is the driver’s mother, and he is immediately arrested on suspicion of murder. Initially, no one believes his story about the deranged stranger, until evidence at the crime scene confirms it. The real perpetrator would be identified and captured fifteen years later.

A chilling tale? An urban legend? A movie script?

No, this is a true story that occurred in June 1991 in Maryland. The driver’s name was Charles Holden, and his mother, the murder victim, was Dorothy Donovan. The hitchhiker, one Gilbert E. Cannon, was sentenced to life imprisonment. He confessed that he was merely looking for a place to sleep and chose the first unlit house he found. He had no idea that his victim was related to the driver he had earlier attacked… a truly improbable coincidence. The Maryland story happened five years after the release of The Hitcher, and while it cannot be said that truth preceded fiction, it undoubtedly matched it. What are the odds of such a scenario? Close to zero, yet it happened.

The young protagonist of The Hitcher, Jim Halsey, is driving from Chicago to San Diego to deliver a car to a client. He has been waiting a long time for an opportunity to go to California. The weather is bad; it’s pouring rain, and not even coffee and cigarettes can keep him awake. So, he stops to offer a ride to a hitchhiker. He wants to help, and he hopes that the company will keep him from falling asleep at the wheel. Unfortunately, he chooses the wrong person, as John Ryder is pure evil—a sadistic killer who drags the unfortunate young man into a cruel game of cat and mouse.

Screenwriter Eric Red drew inspiration from The Doors’ song Riders on the Storm, specifically the verse that begins with the words, “There’s a killer on the road…”. He thought it would make an excellent opening for a film: atmospheric music, a raging storm, and a murderer emerging from nowhere.

And so, John Ryder was born

Stretching across eastern California and the southern part of the Great Basin, the Mojave Desert covers an area of about 65,000 square kilometers and has a notorious reputation as a haven for killers looking for a secluded spot to dispose of their victims’ bodies. “If you marked every area where a body was found with a cross, the Mojave Desert would look like Forest Lawn Cemetery,” says Keith Bushey, a former deputy sheriff in San Bernardino and now a retired veteran with 43 years of law enforcement experience.

If you’re planning to kill someone, you look for an isolated place, and the California desert is perfect for that.

Despite its many tourist attractions, the Mojave captures the imagination primarily due to its dark side. Over the years, it has attracted both serial killers, particularly those hunting along highways (so-called highway/freeway serial killers), and opportunistic murderers. Recently, the case of the McStay family gained widespread attention—a mother, father, and two children abducted from their home in Fallbrook in 2010 and murdered in the desert in Victorville, California, where their bodies were discovered by a motorcyclist three years later. Police arrested Chase Merritt, a business associate of Joseph McStay. He faces the death penalty. For him, the desert proved unforgiving, and the McStay family may finally see justice. Many other victims, however, remain unidentified, and their killers unpunished.

There are many interpretations of John Ryder’s character, which is all the more intriguing given how enigmatic he is. Very little is known about him. His entire existence seems to revolve around this specific stretch of Route 66. He has no criminal record, no insurance, no documents—nothing. He speaks only a few sentences. When asked where he’s from, he replies, “Disneyland.” He avoids answering questions. What does he want? If his words are to be believed, he wants to be stopped.

The desire to be stopped is often attributed to serial killers. It is seen as the flip side of the “uncontrollable urge” driving their actions—an urge that clashes with rational judgment. The rational part wants to be stopped, while the need to kill, understood as a kind of animalistic, uncontrollable instinct, fights against any vestige of humanity. This simplification, though understandable, is largely a myth. More often, killers take pride in their deeds and develop a sense of power that grows with each murder, bolstering their confidence. Sometimes this sense of power and belief in their superiority over law enforcement leads to mistakes and recklessness, eventually resulting in their capture. Then, they might build a brash facade (“You caught me only because I let you”) or a defense strategy (“I’m insane; I couldn’t control myself”).

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. History offers cases of killers who voluntarily turned themselves in. Among them was Wayne Adam Ford, who in 1998 walked into a police station, declaring that “God told him to confess” to four murders—according to some reports, he brought a severed female breast in his pocket to prove his claims. There was also Mack Ray Edwards, who killed six children between 1953 and 1969, confessed, and later hanged himself in his cell (“I have a guilt complex,” he said). Another case is that of Elmer Wayne Henley, an accomplice of Dean Corll (known as the Candy Man). Henley assisted Corll in various ways with at least five of his 28 confirmed murders and ultimately shot him dead. The case of Edmund Kemper III is also particularly interesting. FBI profiler John Douglas described him as “the most intelligent criminal I’ve ever interviewed.” According to Douglas, Kemper’s high IQ contributes to his self-awareness and analytical abilities.

Convicted of eight murders, Kemper is currently serving a life sentence (though he initially demanded the death penalty for himself) and deliberately does not seek parole. Through rational analysis, he concluded that his behaviors would repeat if he were released. He also willingly cooperates with FBI analysts, meticulously examining his crimes and their motivations. “Maybe it will stop others like me from killing,” he says. Kemper’s motivations are unlikely to stem from remorse; he has simply deduced that he needs to be stopped. Unlike William Heirens, known as the Lipstick Killer due to the message scrawled in lipstick in the bedroom of his second victim: “For God’s sake, catch me before I kill again, I cannot control myself.” Despite his desperate plea, Heirens did not turn himself in. Arrested in 1946, he died in 2012 as an 83-year-old man, having recanted his confessions and accused the police of brutality. Fritz Lang made a film inspired by Heirens’s story, While the City Sleeps (1956).

One interpretation of John Ryder’s character suggests that he is less a flesh-and-blood person and more a symbol of the dark side lurking within Jim (and, by extension, within all of us). Ryder embodies hedonistic freedom without any legal or moral constraints, raising the question of how much of our so-called proper behavior is dictated by genuine necessity and how much is imposed by fear of consequences, ostracism, or stigma. Ryder undoubtedly inspires fear with his pure cruelty, lack of higher emotions, and disdain for everything a normal person holds dear: innocence, order, love. He also instills fear in Jim, constantly encouraging him, one way or another, to confront him. Want to conquer your fear? Face it head-on.

Perhaps we are not inherently evil, but, as Immanuel Kant suggested, we possess a susceptibility or even an inclination toward evil. Ignoring this fact is self-deception. In one breath, Ryder tells Jim, “I want you to stop me,” and, “Say you want to die.” Jim flees from confronting Ryder, only to realize along the way that being a decent, good, innocent person doesn’t protect one from anything. Ryder tempts him constantly: Become me, embrace the dark side of your nature, accept the fact that it exists, accept that I exist, don’t be a coward, go on. Unless you want to get rid of me? In that case, go ahead, stop me, eradicate every negative instinct—go on. Can’t do it? Coward.

Jim succumbs to the temptation. Perhaps for righteous reasons, but he still takes matters into his own hands. In the original version of the film, this is even more evident: Jim kills Ryder while he is lying helpless on the ground. In the final version, this scene was softened: Ryder gets to his feet (indicating that he still poses a threat), giving Jim a justified reason to shoot him. Symbolically, he overcomes the dark side of his nature by acknowledging that he is capable of committing evil. Literally, however, he resorts to calculated vigilante justice, which we all support because John terrified us as well.

A second interpretation of John Ryder’s character takes on a broader yet more general dimension. In the 1960s and 1970s, hitchhiking was not only a widely accepted means of transportation but also a way of life, an expression of freedom. Free artistic spirits, students, hippies—all were captivated by the romantic image of the liberated traveler, and the crown jewel of this hitchhiking mentality was California. It wasn’t until 1985 that the ViCAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program) was implemented. This was the first serious attempt to compile a national database of violent crimes, particularly murders, and a tool for analyzing potential links between crimes committed in different states. Previously, individual cases were often treated as isolated incidents due to a lack of communication between departments.

Gradually, the accumulation of data turned the attention of law enforcement and the FBI to the serious issue of serial killers hunting along highways and freeways. Hitchhikers frequently became their victims. In 2004, the FBI launched the Highway Serial Killers Initiative, a database collecting information on this specific group of criminals. It now includes over 500 cases. To mention just a few of the most infamous from California: Keith Duncan Jesperson, who signed his crimes with a smiley face, earning him the nickname “Happy Face Killer”; Herbert Mullin, who killed to “prevent earthquakes”; Christopher Wilder (“Beauty Queen Killer”); and Randall Woodfield (“I-5 Killer,” named after the interstate highway where he hunted).

Most notably, there was the case that gained astonishing media attention—shockingly widespread for a time long before the internet: the Freeway Killer. This convenient nickname was coined by the press to describe a murderer operating in California in the 1970s, leaving his victims along freeways. It was later adopted by the police once they decided they were dealing with a series of crimes rather than isolated incidents. The most surprising twist? It turned out that the Freeway Killer was not one criminal but three, operating independently: Patrick Kearney, William Bonin, and Randy Steven Craft. They were apprehended in 1977, 1980, and 1983, respectively. All of their victims were young men, often hitchhikers. Together, the trio murdered at least 110 people.

It is the echoes of this decade-long panic that can be found in The Hitcher. John Ryder symbolizes the danger lurking on the road—nameless, cruel, and capable of striking anyone who lets their guard down. A threat hiding in roadside diners, isolated motels, or truck stops. Mobile and unpredictable, it crosses state lines with ease, eluding police detection and intervention. By that time, the public was beginning to understand the brutal truth that the carefree days of traveling the country by the kindness of random drivers were fading. Predators could be lurking on the road, and no one was safe from them, regardless of gender, age, or race. Defending oneself effectively against them was difficult because—like John Ryder—they were elusive, cunning, and unimaginably cruel.

Devoid of a biography or past, Ryder could, in essence, be any one of them. Therefore, critics lamenting the supposed lack of depth in the relationship between Ryder and Jim made a mistake in assuming they were witnessing something motivated personally. It wasn’t. Jim simply had the misfortune of encountering Ryder, just as David Murillo, James Macabe, Keith Klingbeil, John LaMay, and many others did. On this level, The Hitcher serves as a grave warning and a call to vigilance because John Ryder could be lurking anywhere and, if he chooses, could easily disguise himself behind the facade of a friendly uncle, smiling as he opens his truck door and offers you a ride.