Woman kidnapped by stalker survives 13-hour ordeal by outsmarting her captor

Samantha Stites endured years of unwanted pursuit before her stalker abducted her and locked her in a bunker. She survived by using her training to persuade him to let her go.

Samantha Stites was a freshman in college when she first met Christopher Thomas in 2011. What started as an awkward acquaintance soon spiraled into years of harassment. Despite repeatedly rejecting his advances, Thomas pursued her obsessively with constant messages and unwanted attention.

By 2014, Stites secured a six-year personal protection order (PPO) against him. But when the order expired, the harassment resumed.

In 2022, Thomas escalated his fixation to a terrifying level. He kidnapped Stites and held her inside a soundproof underground bunker he had secretly built and stocked with supplies. Investigators later revealed he had modeled the bunker after the one in the Netflix series You.

“I didn’t know if I was going to live”

For 13 hours, Stites was trapped underground, unsure whether she would survive. Instead of panicking, she relied on skills she had developed as a social worker, staying calm and trying to read her captor’s fears.

She realized that Thomas was terrified of going to prison. Using that knowledge, she assured him she wouldn’t involve the police if he released her. To convince him further, she pretended to be open to a relationship.

At one point, Thomas told her he would only let her go if she agreed to sleep with him. Desperate to escape, Stites agreed, securing a promise from him that he would release her afterward. “I said, ‘You promise me, Christopher, that if I sleep with you, you will let me out tonight.’ He looked me in the eyes and shook my hand,” she later recalled on Good Morning America.

True to his word, Thomas eventually drove Stites back to her home. She immediately went to a hospital, where doctors collected evidence of the assault, and then worked with police to locate the hidden bunker.

Within two days, Thomas was arrested. He later pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torture, and aggravated stalking, receiving a prison sentence of 40 to 60 years. Prosecutors dropped the sexual assault charge in exchange for his plea.

Now 33, Stites says her quick thinking was rooted in her professional training. “As social workers, we take courses on crisis intervention,” she told PEOPLE. “My education and training definitely contributed to quick thinking and knowing what I should do.”

Her story is now featured in a new Hulu documentary, where she shares her experience in hopes of raising awareness about stalking and survival.

Stites’ ordeal shows how persistence from a stalker can escalate into extreme danger—and how trusting instincts and staying calm in crisis can mean the difference between life and death.