Samantha Stites and the soundproof storage unit
For eleven years he followed her. Then he broke in, blindfolded her and drove her to a cell he had built. She counted every turn.
- When
- 2011 to October 2022
- Where
- Elk Rapids and Traverse City area, northern Michigan
- Status
- Convicted
Content note stalking, kidnapping, captivity. No graphic images.
In brief
Samantha Stites was abducted from her home in northern Michigan on October 7, 2022, by Christopher Blaine Thomas, a man who had stalked her since they met at a college student group in 2011. He held her for nearly fourteen hours in a storage unit he had soundproofed and fitted with wall hooks. She persuaded him to release her by promising not to report him, went straight to police, and described the route well enough that officers found the unit and arrested him that night. Thomas pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torture and aggravated stalking and was sentenced to 40 to 60 years.
Turning pointBlindfolded in his car, Samantha counted every turn. After he let her go, that memory led officers to storage units V6 and V7.
- Survivor
- Samantha Stites
- Offender
- Christopher Blaine Thomas, convicted by guilty plea
- Where
- Grand Traverse area, northern Michigan
- Abducted
- October 7, 2022; held nearly fourteen hours
- Stalking
- From 2011, continuing after a 2014 personal protection order
- Sentence
- 40 to 60 years in prison
Timeline
2011
Samantha meets Christopher Thomas at a Christian student group at her college. He is standing alone, and she makes small talk with him. The messages start soon after.
2011 to 2014
She tells him repeatedly to leave her alone. He keeps appearing where she is, including at her job on campus.
2014
A court grants Samantha a personal protection order. He keeps following her anyway.
2014 to 2022
A Grand Traverse County sheriff's officer later says that when Thomas was not at work or asleep, he was tracking her. He puts GPS trackers on her car. She moves and changes her routines.
October 7, 2022
On a Friday morning Thomas breaks into her home. He takes Samantha and her dog, ties a bandana over her eyes and drives her to a rented storage complex. She counts the turns.
October 7, 2022
Inside two adjoining units, V6 and V7, he has built a small room with soundproofing foam, insulation, sandbags stacked to the ceiling and three metal hooks in the wall. He holds her there for nearly fourteen hours.
October 2022
She convinces him that if he lets her go she will not go to police. He drives her back to her car. She reports the kidnapping immediately.
October 2022
Officers find the cell exactly as she described it. Phone data narrows the search, an officer spots his black Cadillac CTS in an alley, and Thomas is arrested in a traffic stop the same night.
December 2023
Thomas pleads guilty. Other charges are dropped under the plea agreement.
2024
He is sentenced to 40 to 60 years in prison.
August 19, 2025
Hulu releases the three-part documentary Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror, in which Samantha tells her story publicly for the first time.
The full story
What happened
In 2011 Samantha Stites was a college student in Michigan, busy with a job and an internship. At a Christian student group she noticed a young man standing on his own and made some small talk with him. His name was Christopher Blaine Thomas.
That one conversation became eleven years of being followed. The messages came first. She told him to stop, many times. He showed up at her job on campus. In 2014 she went to the courthouse with an advocate and got a personal protection order. It did not stop him. A sheriff’s officer later put it simply: when Thomas was not at work or asleep, he was tracking her. He had put GPS trackers on her car. She moved, changed her routines, locked everything, and kept a hatchet in the house.
On a Friday morning in October 2022, she heard a floorboard squeak outside her bedroom door.
Thomas had broken in. He took Samantha and her dog out to his black Cadillac, stopped along the way, told her to lean forward and tied a bandana over her eyes. She knew the area well, so she did the one thing she could. She counted the turns.
The cell
The drive ended at the back of a storage complex, with woods behind it. Thomas had rented two adjoining units, V6 and V7, and spent about $5,000 turning part of them into a room roughly seven feet square. It had foam panels on two walls, insulation packed into the roof, sandbags stacked to the ceiling and three metal hooks in the wall. A detective said later that he clearly wanted to make sure no one could hear her if she screamed.
He held her there for nearly fourteen hours. Samantha stayed as calm as she could and kept him talking. Somewhere in that night she saw that he was panicking about what he had done, and about prison. She used it. If he let her go, she told him, she would not go to the police. He said he didn’t believe her. She kept going until he did.
He opened the doors, and she saw daylight.
The arrest and the plea
Samantha went straight to the police. Because she had counted the turns and remembered the unit numbers, she could tell detectives where to look. Officers approached the storage row not knowing whether Thomas was inside, or armed, or waiting. The unit was empty, and exactly as she had described it.
Phone data narrowed the search area. An officer looking down an alley saw the front of a black Cadillac CTS. Surveillance units watched Thomas walk to the car and drive off, and officers pulled him over and arrested him that night.
He first claimed the whole thing had been role-play. In December 2023 he pleaded guilty to kidnapping, torture and aggravated stalking, and other charges were dropped under the agreement. He was sentenced to 40 to 60 years. At sentencing he said he was sorry.
Samantha has since told her story in her own words, including in a three-part Hulu documentary. Speaking about the outcome, she said justice doesn’t necessarily come in the form of prison years.
What the video couldn't include
She had done everything she was told to do
Before the kidnapping, Samantha kept her doors and windows locked, had a Ring camera a friend had given her, and kept a sharp hatchet in the house. He got in anyway.
He spent about $5,000 building the cell
Police said Thomas bought his materials at Menards. The room was framed in 2x6 lumber, about seven feet square, with a second exterior door, foam panels on two walls and insulation packed into the roof and sides. A mattress lay on the floor.
She found a hatchet under the mattress
During the night Samantha found a hatchet hidden under the mattress. She kept it close. She said having a weapon made her feel better.
The idea came from a TV show
According to the documentary coverage, Thomas told her the idea for the bunker came from watching the Netflix series You.
Police did not know if he was inside
When officers reached the storage row they did not know whether Thomas was in the unit or whether it was rigged. A K9 officer called out a warning over a loudspeaker before they went in. Thomas had been described as armed, with a rifle and a crossbow.
His first story was role-play
After his arrest, Thomas initially claimed the kidnapping was role-play. He later pleaded guilty.
She filed a second protection order
After his arrest Samantha filed a new personal protection order and attached the earlier one to it.
Her dog survived
Thomas took her dog along with her. The dog survived.
The video and the record
The episode tells this case in about 2 minutes with illustrated recreations. Here is how its key moments line up with what is documented.
He met her at a college student group, and she was kind
Documented
Samantha's own account, given in interviews and the documentary.
Soundproof panels, sandbags to the ceiling, three metal hooks in the wall
Documented
Described by police during their walkthrough of units V6 and V7.
Her promise not to go to police
Documented
The quoted line is Samantha's account of what she said. The video shortens a long negotiation into a few lines.
Nearly fourteen hours inside the cell
Compressed
Reports range from about thirteen to almost fifteen hours. The video uses the middle figure.
Phone data and receipts tied him to the bunker and the tracking
Compressed
Phone data narrowed the search for Thomas, and seized GPS tracker receipts tied him to the surveillance of her car. The video groups these into one line.
Every image of Samantha, Thomas and the storage unit
Reconstruction
AI-generated illustrations. No real footage or police photographs are used.
What the four marks mean
- Documented
- Shown as it is recorded in court filings, police statements, or consistent reporting.
- Reconstruction
- A reasonable visual recreation of a documented event. The event happened; the image is illustrative.
- Compressed
- Real events shortened, merged, or reordered to fit the runtime.
- Dramatized
- A storytelling choice (framing, wording, emphasis) that the record does not establish.
Sources
- [1]Hulu“Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror”Samantha's account, police interviews, storage-unit surveillance footage and the police walkthrough of the bunker. Directed by Sara Mast; also aired by ABC News.
- [2]ABC News“Stalker sentenced to decades in prison after keeping woman in soundproof bunker”
- [3]People“He Stalked Her for 12 Years. Then Came 14 Hours of Sheer Terror Inside a Soundproof Bunker”
- [4]Inside EditionInterview with Samantha Stites
- [5]WPBN / UpNorthLiveLocal reporting on the case, plea and sentenceAlso August 20, 2025. Protection order timeline, the dog, conviction and sentence.
- [6]NJ.com“How did Samantha Stites escape from stalker's bunker?”
- [7]Primetimer“How Samantha Stites tricked her stalker”
- [8]LADbibleCoverage of the sentence and arrest
- [9]Michigan Department of CorrectionsOffender sentence information
VerifiedKey facts in this file were checked against multiple consistent reports and first-person or official accounts. Last reviewed September 12, 2026. How we check cases
