Samantha Stites was abducted, chained to a wall, and held in a soundproof bunker for 14 hours by a stalker who vowed to rape her, kill her and then make it look like she’d drowned.
But incredibly, Stites survived. And now she has revealed the unfathomable decision she had to make to save her own life.
As a trained master’s level social worker and therapist, Stites, 32, used psychological tactics to negotiate her escape from Christopher Thomas, 39, the man who had a sick obsession of her for more than a decade.
But the ordeal she had to endure at the hands of Thomas was a horrific one.
On October 7, 2022, Thomas laid in wait outside Stites’s home in Traverse City, Michigan, then entered after her roommate left.
Stites was still in bed when she heard the floorboards squeak. She called out her housemate’s name but there was no answer.
Then she saw a dark shadow lurking through the partial open door.
Stites kept a hatchet under her mattress for safety but, within seconds Thomas jumped on top of her with his hands around her neck strangling her.
‘I recognized him immediately,’ she told the Daily Mail. Thomas had tried striking up a friendship with Stites in 2011, but she told him to leave him alone.
In 2014, he enrolled in the same Christian ministry internship in Kansas City, Missouri as Stites. She filed a restraining order – but Thomas began stalking her again in 2020 when it expired.
Samantha Stites was kidnapped by her stalker. She realized the only way to survive was to let him rape her
Stalker Christopher Thomas (pictured during his police interview) began stalking Stites after she told him she was not romantically interested in him
Two years later – having placed a tracker on Stites’s car – events escalated horrifically with Thomas’s abduction and rape of Stites.
Recalling her thoughts on realizing Thomas break into her home, Stites said ‘[It was] everything I feared and worse but I never thought he would so something like that.’
The stalker placed a ball gag in her mouth, bound her hands and feet, blindfolded her, took her car keys got into her car and drove to the the 7×7 bunker storage unit he constructed.
Thomas showed Stites how he’d been tracking her on his phone and said he planned to keep her there for two weeks, then made the death threat.
Stites counted the turns to try and work out where she was being taken and managed to affect a calm demeanor that ultimately saved her life.
‘There were metal rings on the wall. He laid me on this twin mattress inside this soundproof room and I was like I’m gonna die. He’s gonna kill me,’ she recalled.
Reeling in fear Stites, whose story has just been turned into a Hulu documentary called Stalking Samantha, thought, ‘He’s going to rape me. There is no way I’m getting out of this situation. He is faster, stronger, more prepared.’
Stites knew there was no way she could avoid the sexual assault.
Stites and Thomas are pictured together after they first met at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2011. Thomas began an 11-year campaign of stalking against Stites after she told him she just wanted to be friends
Stites agreed to let Thomas have sex with her against her will in return for him taking her home after. Shortly after Thomas did so, she called the cops. Thomas’s arrest is pictured
But he told her he was afraid of going to prison. With incredible mental clarity, Stites realized that if she let Thomas have sex with her against her will, she could try and use it as leverage to ensure her survival.
‘He wanted to sleep with me and he was not willing to budge on that. I thought, well, even if I say, no, he could just tie me up and do it if he wanted so I made this awful deal with him not really being able to give consent appropriately and he followed through,’ she said.
Stites said that in return for sleeping with her, Thomas had to take her home safe.
She told him she would not go to the police and even suggested a possible friendship.
Thomas agreed to her demands and drove Stites home. He took her car to a nearby home improvement store and left it in a parking lot to try and stop her dashing to police.
Shaken by her unimaginable ordeal, Stites locked herself in a bathroom and called a friend who took her to hospital, where a rape kit was dispensed.
She also spoke to police and they began hunting Thomas. A day later, cops found a tracker that had been placed on Stites’ car, as well as the bunker she’d been kept in.
Thomas was arrested a few hours later.
Stites’s dreadful ordeal is now the subject of a Hulu documentary called Stalking Samantha
Through a plea agreement, Christopher pleaded guilty to kidnapping, home invasion, torture, and aggravated stalking in February 2024. He is sentenced to 40–60 years in prison.
Stites spent around 14 hours in the bunker before she was freed.
One of the scariest parts of her abduction, she said, was when she was left alone in the soundproofed container.
Stites eared that if something happened to Thomas, like a car accident, no one would ever find her.
‘I kind of felt like two people, you know, during that whole imprisonment period,’ she said.
The tactics she used was acting like a friend and treating him normal, letting him talk and say whatever her wanted to her, but as this was happening she was thinking to herself, ‘How can I get out of this situation?’
‘It really took kind of all of my brain power that day to stay calm and come up with a good plan because if I didn’t stay calm and revealed a lot of my true thoughts and how mad I was at him and how grossed out I was by the whole situation, you know, that would make him angry.’
One in three woman are stalked by someone they know. But many are are scared to come forward. Stites shared her concerns and worried if anyone would believe her.
She said her first few encounters with Thomas after meeting him at a Christian-faith group at Grand Valley University were innocuous enough.
During one of their group meet ups she found a rose on the windshield of her car When he asked her on a date and she declined he continued to pursue. It was difficult for him to take no as an answer.
When she told him that she wasn’t romantically interested in him and to leave her alone his obsession for her grew.
Stites says she considered herself an independent woman and believed she could deal with Thomas’s stalking herself.
But he could not keep away from her.
Shortly after the restraining order expired – but before the abduction – Thomas would show up to the soccer group Stites enjoyed and stare at her from the bleachers.
He would stalk her at the supermarket and her gym, giving his victim little respite from his menacing presence.
Growing more fearful that she was in danger she files for a new PPO in the Spring 2022, but the court requires a hearing with both parties.
Frightened that she may provoke Thomas, she withdraws her request – months later she was abducted.
Stites met Thomas while studying at Grand State University in Grand Rapids (pictured). He later followed her to a Christian ministry internship in Kansas City, Missouri
She describes Thomas as ‘a disturbed’ person and a lonely person who had been pining an unreciprocated love interest for decades.
While filming the documentary she learned that Stites wasn’t Thomas’ only victim. He stalked another young woman who also survived.
She developed PTSD from the kidnapping and imprisonment. Exposure therapy has helped her overcome some of the trauma.
Stites said she is now much more safety conscious and has taken steps to ensure she never again falls victim to a man like Thomas.
She understandably declined to say what they were.
‘I feel better knowing that that he is going to cover his anticipated life span or be in his 80s when he gets released,’ she said.
When asked how the old Samantha is before the stalking compared to the Samantha after the ordeal, she said it took her ‘several months to feel like herself again.’
She said she no longer likes to watch movies that revolve around kidnapping story lines and can be nervous around new people.
‘I’m just still very cautious. Most of all, I’m grateful to still be here and take each day as a gift.’
A person who likes to shy away from the spotlight said she decided to share her story and do the documentary is to help others.
‘I survived something like this, and, you know, not a lot of people have that opportunity,’ she said. ‘There are a lot of folks who are stalked and get kidnapped and die.’