My stalker kidnapped me from my bed… he kept me prisoner in a soundproof bunker before a nightmare ‘deal’ for my life

AS she lay asleep in the dead of night, Samantha Stites’ heart pounded as she awoke to the sound of footsteps outside her bedroom door.

Grabbing an axe that she had kept hidden underneath her mattress for safety, she was too late, Christoper Thomas – the man who had stalked her for over a decade – was already standing over her with an evil look in his eyes.

He then proceeded to gag and kidnap her, before holding her prisoner for nearly 15 hours in a soundproof bunker that he’d built inside a remote storage unit close to her home.

Samantha, who went to Grand Valley State University in Michigan, had met Thomas at a Christian group she went to on campus in 2011.

From the moment he laid eyes on Samantha, who is now 33-years-old, twisted Thomas had convinced himself she was the girl he’d one day marry.

THE FIRST MEETING

“I must have been in my third year when I met him,” recalls Samantha, speaking to Mama Mia’s ‘True Time Conversations‘ podcast.

“We’d been playing frisbee at my off-campus apartment in some green space there and he’d come out and joined us to play.”

Samantha, who could tell Thomas was around eight years older than her, described him as a “really awkward guy” who she assumed may have trouble making friends.

“I just kind of offered kindness to him,” she explains.

After he added and started speaking to her on social media, Samantha could tell there was interest from his end, but having no interest, she continued to politely dismiss his advances.

“There really weren’t any red flags to me at that time… this was before the Me Too movement and was in a Christian setting where I felt like I had to be kind and welcoming to newcomers and be a nice, polite person,” she says.

“It didn’t strike me that this would ever go down this path of stalking.

“It was just somebody who doesn’t really have friends, is new on campus, and doesn’t really get social cues.”

However, his persistence continued…

THE OBSESSION ESCALATES

The turning point for Samantha came when Thomas turned up at the bus stop and showed up at her workplace with flowers after her grandad had died.

By this point, she’d already blocked his phone number, email and told him “very clearly in person” and via text that she was not interested.

Samantha, whose story has been re-told in three-part Disney+ documentary ‘Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror,’ recalls: “I get angry with him at this bus stop and other people are witnessing me yelling at him and telling him, ‘I’ve asked you to leave me alone so many times.

It was like something that someone would create in a horror movie

Samantha Stites, 33, Michigan

‘I don’t know why you’d show up to my work with flowers. I don’t know what makes you think I have any interest in talking with you.

‘I’ve blocked you. I’ve asked you so leave me alone.’”

Despite feeling “embarrassed” that she was causing a scene, Samantha hoped her yelling would finally get Thomas to listen.

But after that encounter, even after she moved away from where she went to college, the obsession escalated.

Samantha, who planned to go halfway across the country for a ministry internship, hoped that she could leave Thomas behind and move on with her life.

But two days before Samantha was planning to move for her internship, he showed up in her hometown, leaving her “shocked” at how he’d even managed to find her.

It was then that he told her he’d been accepted onto the same internship that she had, and asked for a ride.

At this point, it became clear to Samantha that she needed to get the legal system involved, so she filed for a personal protection order which was for seven years.

According to the student, it made her feel safer and “essentially sort of solved the issue” at the time as Thomas got kicked out of the internship.

However, she says she still saw him around the holidays, when he managed to find her at a huge conference she attended which hosted over 20,000 people.

I don’t so much get the heart racing like I used to, but I’m still definitely somebody who looks over my shoulders a lot

Samantha Stites, 33, Michigan

After telling security and having a male friend escort her every day, that was the last she saw of Thomas for seven years.

By the time she was in her late 20s, Samantha had finished grad school, moved back to her hometown and was getting on with her life.

But one day, she was playing in a football match when her “heart dropped” after seeing him again – and after the protection order had expired.

Thomas proceeded to join Samantha’s gym and football league, but technically he had not done anything wrong; a request she’d made in July 2022 for a second personal protection order was denied.

Samantha avoided any interaction… that was, until, on October 7th, 2022, when he broke into her house while she was asleep and kidnapped her.

THE KIDNAPPING

Recalling his words to her, Samantha says: “He put his hands around my neck and was strangling me to get me to stop screaming and he’s like, ‘I just want to talk.’”

Bound and with a gag around her mouth and tape around her head, Thomas carried her out and bundled her in his car.

“I’m shackled at my hands and feet,” she recalls. “I’m like he’s going to rape and murder me – I was positive it was going to happen.”

Samantha was then taken to a storage unit he’d rented close to her house, where he’d built a soundproof bunker inside which had sandbags stacked to the ceiling, a bed and shackles attached to the wall.

“It was like something that someone would create in a horror movie,” Samantha recalls.

Inside the bunker, Thomas revealed he’d tracked her movements for over a year using GPS devices, and told her he’d taken two weeks off work so they could spend time there together.

He also told her he wanted to marry her – despite acknowledging she would have no interest in that – and said that he’s never been able to get over her and never felt like she gave him “closure.”

For Samantha, the only thing she could possibly do next was to either “outsmart” him or “convince him” to let her go.

Using her skills she learned when she trained as a therapist, she decided to appease him and apologise for being “unfair” to him all those years ago.

Knowing he was scared of going to prison, Samantha spent the whole day trying to answer his questions and convince him that they could be friends and forget what had happened.

But Thomas told her he’d only release her if they had sex first, so Samantha made that “really awful decision” – to save her own life.

“He eventually followed through with his end of the promise and let me go, which was wild,” she recalls.

“I thought all day I was going to die and now I’m just like, you just let me go into my car and what? Like, what just happened?”

GETTING JUSTICE

Samantha immediately sought medical attention and reported the incident to authorities and just 36 hours later, Thomas was arrested.

Cops discovered he’d had a tracker on Samantha’s car for months, and found more than $5,000 worth of receipts for tools and equipment he bought to create the lair – where he also hid rifles and a crossbow.

It also emerged that he had been arrested for stalking a former colleague in 2010.

Although sickeningly he claimed Samantha participated in ‘role play’, Thomas was charged with kidnapping, home invasion, torture, aggravated stalking and four counts of criminal sexual conduct. 

He was convicted in 2024 for kidnapping, torture and aggravated stalking, and sentenced to 40 to 60 years in prison.

Speaking of how the incident in 2022, and the 13 years where she had to watch her back, has affected her now, Samantha says: “I think in some ways things are kind of getting better with time.

“Like no matter what, if there was somebody in the house with me those first few months and they were making a noise, I just would feel very tense.”

Now, Samantha says she understands people need to visit for different reasons.

“I don’t so much get the heart racing like I used to, but I’m still definitely somebody who looks over my shoulders a lot,” she continues.

“I never have headphones in, I’m not wandering around by myself at night, but some of the startle responses I feel like have gotten better with time.

“But I’m very wary about men after all of this and I don’t know how much that’s going to change.”