A woman who was held captive in a soundproof bunker by her stalker has shared her horrific ordeal in a new documentary.
Samathan Stites was a student a Grand Valley State University in Michigan in 2011 when she first met Christopher Thomas at a Christian student group.
She told ABC News: "At first I think he is just lonely and for some reason finds me an approachable person to talk to. And then at some point, it kind of changes."
Stites was forced to block his number after he began bombarding her with requests for a date and would not take no for an answer - however, his chilling obsession with her did not end there.
It was the start of a 13-year ordeal in which Thomas relentlessly stalked Stites, going as far as putting a tracker on her car, delivering flowers to her work, and showing up at the same public places she was at.
Stites was granted a six-year personal protection order (PPO) after she graduated in 2014, when a friend of hers spotted Thomas leaving her apartment block.
It granted Stites only temporary relief as Thomas returned as soon as the order expired in 2020, appearing at the same bars and grocery stores she visited, and he even joined the same soccer league and gym as her, causing Stites to apply for a second PPO.
Unbeknownst to her, Thomas had secretly begun building a soundproof bunker in a storage unit after being inspired by the Netflix series You.
On October 7, 2022, Thomas broke into Stites' home early in the morning and kidnapped her, taking her to the bunker where she was to be held captive.
Once inside, Thomas revealed he'd been tracking her movements for a year using GPS devices he'd secretly installed on her and her friends' cars, which linked to a tracking app on his phone.
He told her that she would be held there for two weeks, and showed her the supplies he'd prepared, including food, water, and a bucket to use as a toilet.
She told the Telegraph that she recalled thinking: "This is like a horror film. Is he going to rape me and kill me in this room? I can’t fight my way out."
Fearing for her life, Stites used the skills she'd learned from working as a social worker to engage Thomas in conversation, and saw her opportunity when Thomas expressed fear of going to prison.
After almost 13 hours in the bunker, where Thomas had raped her, she convinced him to release her after she promised not to report the crime to police.
As soon as he let her go, Stites sought immediate medical attention as well as reported the horrifying incident to the authorities.
An investigation revealed that Thomas had a prior conviction for stalking another woman, identified only as Kelli, who told ABC News she had obtained a protection order against Thomas in 2009 after he engaged in similar stalking behavior.
She said: "I always knew that there would be somebody else. When they called me in 2022, there's like this guilty feeling like he did do it to somebody else. I was right."
Thomas was sentenced to 40 to 60 years in prison for his crimes after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torture and aggravated stalking in December 2023.
Stites chose to share her story in a documentary - Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror - on Hulu and Disney+.
She told ABC News: "Justice is a funny thing. It doesn't necessarily come in the form of prison years. I can't ever go back to before I was kidnapped.
"And that's something I had to grieve. But knowing that I'm finally turning the page on this and that I should feel safe with him off the street and that I am protected meant a lot. I felt free."
Stalking Samantha: 13 Years Of Terror is available to stream on Disney+ now.