Christopher Thomas broke into Samantha Stites’ home in the early morning hours of October 7, 2022. He jumped on top of her in bed and choked her, then forced handcuffs onto her wrists, bound her feet, and shoved a ball gag into her mouth before wrapping duct tape around her head. Thomas blindfolded her and carried her to her own car.
As he drove, Stites counted the turns. She knew her neighborhood well enough to map where he was taking her. She also knew something else. Once they left her house, her chances of survival dropped. This was now a fight for her life.
Thomas drove her to a soundproof bunker he had built inside a storage unit. He had spent months and thousands of dollars preparing this space. Inside sat a mattress on the floor, soundproof panels on the walls, food, water, and a bucket for a bathroom.
This horror had been building for 13 years.
Six Years of Peace, Then He Came Back
Samantha Stites met Thomas in 2011 at a Christian group on her college campus in Michigan. She was 20, he was 27. She thought he seemed lonely. When he friended her on Facebook, she figured he needed someone to talk to. Within days, he started messaging her, asking for dates. She said no. He kept asking. He showed up at her work with flowers, at her frisbee practice at school. When her grandmother died, he was there. Stites told him clearly to leave her alone. He didn’t care.
In 2014, Stites was accepted to a ministry internship in Kansas City. Thomas enrolled in the same program. She understood then what was happening, and the filed for a restraining order in September 2014.
Michigan Judge Norman Hayes told ABC News he had never seen a stalking case this severe. Thomas was obsessed. Hayes believed he would eventually rape, kill, or kidnap Stites. The judge granted her a six-year personal protection order. The ministry program revoked Thomas’s offer, and he left her alone.
Stites rebuilt everything. She earned her master’s degree in social work from the University of Kansas in 2019, became licensed, and bought a house near Traverse City. She had six years of peace, where she could breathe and live without looking over her shoulder.
Then, in September 2020, the protection order expired. Thomas came back. He joined her soccer league and started following her again. In July 2022, Stites filed for a new protection order. Judge Kevin Elsenheimer denied it, citing a “complicated relationship” between Thomas and Stites according to the ABC News docuseries “Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror.”
Three months later, Thomas broke into her home.
She Counted the Turns
Inside the bunker, Thomas said Netflix’s “You” inspired it. He showed Stites a GPS app on his phone tracking her movements for over a year. Trackers sat in her car and friends’ cars. He’d leave her paddleboard near Lake Michigan so everyone would think she drowned.
Stites knew from social work training that people freeze or panic in trauma. She had to think clearly. She knew Thomas. His patterns, his fears, his need for integrity.
When Thomas said he feared prison, Stites saw her opening. She told him she could keep secrets. If he let her go, she wouldn’t call the police. He refused unless she let him rape her first. She said no, then recalculated. She agreed if he let her go. “I know enough about Christopher to know his integrity is important to him, and I was banking on that,” she said later.
After assaulting her for hours, Thomas kept his word. Remembering the tracker, Stites called a neighbor to drive her to the hospital for a rape kit. She gave Detective Mike Matteucci every detail.
Police arrested Thomas that night. They found the ball gag, handcuffs, tracker receipts, and thousands of photos and videos of Samantha Stites spanning a decade. Thomas claimed he was hunting, then called it “role-playing gone too far.”
In 2009, Thomas had stalked another woman, Kelli. He followed her, despite a protection order. He was convicted of stalking. When detectives called Kelli in 2022, she said she’d always known there would be somebody else.
He Won’t Be Free Until 2062
Thomas was charged on October 10, 2022, with kidnapping, home invasion, torture, aggravated stalking, and four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. He pleaded guilty to the first four charges in December 2023. Prosecutors dropped the sexual conduct charges as part of the plea deal.
Judge Elsenheimer sentenced him to 40 to 60 years in February 2024. The same judge had denied Stites her second protection order three months before the kidnapping. If he’s ever released, he’ll wear a lifetime GPS monitor. He’s at Bellamy Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan. His earliest release date is October 7, 2062.
Turning the Page
The trauma left Samantha Stites with PTSD. She couldn’t return to the house where she was kidnapped, so she moved and spent money she didn’t have on security. Disability leave cost her $40,000 in wages. But she kept working as a social worker and launched Beekeepers Advocacy with her friend Robin Treiweiler to protect stalking victims.
Her case forced Grand Traverse County to change how it handles protection orders. Court staff now review previous orders before deciding on new petitions. Statistics presented during her case show that one in three women will be stalked in their lifetime.
“I felt free,” Stites said about Thomas’s sentencing. She can’t go back to who she was before. But Thomas is off the street. She can finally turn the page. She’s still turning it, still working and advocating, still fighting so other women don’t have to count turns in the dark or wonder if the system will protect them when it didn’t before.
Read More: Father who never stopped searching for abducted son reunited after 24 years
