Tag: Detroit Lions

NEED TO KNOW

• Christopher Thomas stalked and harassed Samantha Stites for more than a decade

• He ultimately kidnapped and raped her in October 2022

• The case is the subject of Hulu’s docuseries Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror, which premiered on Aug. 19

Christopher Thomas relentlessly stalked Samantha Stites for more than 10 years before abducting her in October 2022.

After they first met in 2011, Thomas began sending frequent messages to Stites, even after she told him to leave her alone. Thomas then escalated to following Stites wherever she went, including showing up at her job when her grandmother died.

“It was the first real experience where someone knows what my wishes are very clearly and doesn’t care,” she recalled in the docuseries.

Thomas’ terrifying behavior culminated in kidnapping Stites from her home near Traverse City, Mich., and raping her in a soundproof bunker. The case is the subject of the new ABC News true crime docuseries Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror, which premiered on Aug. 19 on Hulu.

So, what happened to Christopher Thomas? Here’s everything to know about where he and Samantha Stites are now — plus, how her case may impact stalking victims going forward.

Who is Samantha Stites?

Stites was born on Nov. 23, 1991, and grew up in Elk Rapids, Mich. Stites was raised by a single mom who worked in restaurants and bars to make ends meet.

Stites describes herself in the docuseries as a person who “[wants] to be welcoming and kind.” Stites’ friends added that she is an avid soccer player with a dark sense of humor who tries to make everyone around her feel included.

The Michigan native told PEOPLE in August 2025 that she loves biking, kayaking and hiking. Stites is also a fan of the Detroit Lions, the Kansas City Chiefs and the WNBA, she said.

Stites graduated from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., with her bachelor’s degree in social work in 2014. She later earned her master’s degree in social work from the University of Kansas in 2019, per her LinkedIn.

Who is Christopher Thomas?

Thomas was born Christopher Blaine Thomas on Aug. 15, 1984. According to The Huron Daily Tribune, Thomas was born and raised in Gladwin, Mich., where his family still resides.

Stites met Thomas in 2011 after he joined a campus Christian group, of which she was a member.

“I saw him at different events the Christian group was doing. He friended me on Facebook one day. At first I thought he was just lonely and for some reason saw me as an approachable person to talk to,” she recalled in Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror.

In the docuseries, Stites’ roommate Charissa Hayden described Thomas as a “nobody that [Stites] met in college — like a sad, lonely guy.” Stites said her first impression of Thomas wasn’t that memorable beyond him being “six to eight years older” than her and seeming “very socially awkward.”

Stites and her friends didn’t know it at the time, but two years earlier in 2009, Thomas had stalked a college student named Kelli (whose last name is withheld in the docuseries). The two first met at a residential treatment facility where she worked.

Kelli said Thomas began asking her out on dates and following her on her school’s campus, even though he wasn’t a student there. After Kelli spotted him outside of her home, she got a personal protective order (PPO) against him, but he kept driving past her house.

Thomas was eventually convicted of one count of stalking and was sentenced to two years of probation, according to the docuseries.

How long did Christopher Thomas stalk Samantha Stites?

Thomas stalked Stites for 13 years.

He began messaging Stites on Facebook within days of meeting her in 2011 and repeatedly asked her on dates. Each time, Stites politely but firmly declined his advances.

Thomas continued to message her and followed her at her job, at school, while she was out with friends and at frisbee practice. Stites recalled Thomas saying that he once “saw red and beat someone up,” causing her to fear his temper.

In 2014, Stites was accepted to a ministry internship in Kansas City, Mo. Thomas enrolled in the same program, causing Stites to realize that he had been stalking her for the past three years. On Sept. 18, 2014, Stites filed a petition for a restraining order against Thomas, per the docuseries.

“I was really concerned. I’ve never seen a stalking case as severe as this,” Norman Hayes, a retired Michigan judge, said in Stalking Samantha. “He was absolutely obsessed with her, he’s going to do something very severe — either rape, kill her, kidnap her. If you looked up ‘stalker’ in the dictionary, there’d be a picture of Christopher.”

Hayes granted Stites a protective order against Thomas for six years, and her life largely went back to normal: Thomas’ internship offer was revoked and he left her alone. She went to graduate school in Kansas, became a licensed social worker and bought a house in her hometown.

However, as soon as the PPO expired in September 2020, Thomas started following Stites again, even joining the same recreational soccer league.

Stites filed a petition for a new PPO in July 2022. Judge Kevin A. Elsenheimer denied the PPO due to a “complicated relationship” between Thomas and Stites, she said in the docuseries.

What did Christopher Thomas do to Samantha Stites?

In the early morning hours of Oct. 7, 2022, Thomas broke into Stites’ apartment. He jumped on top of her and choked her in her bed, then put her hands in cuffs, bound her feet and put a ballgag in her mouth, which he secured with duct tape around her head, she said in the docuseries.

Thomas then took Stites from her home and put her in her own car.

“Once we leave my house, the likelihood of me surviving this experience goes down drastically,” she recalled thinking in the docuseries. “This really becomes a fight for my life.”

Thomas blindfolded Stites and began driving, but because she was familiar with the neighborhood, she counted the turns he made in an effort to figure out their destination, Stites said. Thomas took her to a bunker he’d built inside of a storage unit that had a mattress on the floor and soundproof panels on the walls.

Thomas told Stites he planned to leave her paddleboard near Lake Michigan so anyone looking for her would assume she drowned, she said in Stalking Samantha. He then bragged about putting trackers on her car and the cars of several of her friends, adding that the Netflix series You inspired his bunker idea.

Stites said she knew her best chance to stay alive would be to remain as calm as possible. When Thomas told her he was terrified of going to prison, she told him that if he let her go, she wouldn’t call the police — and that as a social worker, she was good at keeping secrets.

Thomas refused to let Stites go unless he could rape her. After initially refusing, she agreed if he’d bring her home that evening, she said in the docuseries.

“I know enough about Christopher to know his integrity is important to him, and I was banking on that,” she said.

Thomas then raped Stites for several hours, she said.

How did Samantha Stites escape?

After he raped her, Thomas took Stites back home.

Knowing he still had a tracker on her car, Stites called a neighbor to drive her to the hospital, where she underwent a rape kit. While hospitalized, she spoke to Detective Mike Matteucci of the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office about what she saw and remembered. When discharged, a friend picked Stites up and let her stay at her home.

“As social workers, we take courses on crisis intervention,” Stites told PEOPLE. “I happen to always have been one who can think and act very clearly —  some people will freeze, others kind of panic. That’s something I had always had in the background, just my DNA. I’m usually somebody who you know can deal with a crisis in a calm manner, but I think definitely my training and education helped contribute to quick thinking and knowing what I should do.”

Stites added that she had previously read memoirs of sexual assault survivors — including Chessy Prout‘s I Have a Right To and Chanel Miller’s Know My Name — which assisted her in knowing how to proceed.

How did Christopher Thomas get caught?

Stites’ attention to detail aided police in arresting Thomas at his apartment and finding his bunker that night.

Officers searched Thomas’ house the night of his arrest and found the ballgag, handcuffs, receipts and boxes from GPS trackers, which he claimed Stites put on her own car. They also found countless photos and videos of Stites on his devices going back more than a decade.

Thomas first told officers he was hunting in the woods at the time of the kidnapping, then said that the abduction was actually “role-playing gone too far.”

Thomas was arraigned on Oct. 10, 2022, on one count of kidnapping, first degree home invasion, torture and aggravated stalking and four counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct, per the docuseries. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and was denied bail.

Where is Christopher Thomas now?

In December 2023, Thomas agreed to plead guilty to his kidnapping, torture aggravated stalking and home invasion charges in exchange for prosecutors dropping the four counts of criminal sexual conduct, per the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

Judge Elsenheimer — the same judge who denied Stites’ second PPO petition — sentenced Thomas to 40 to 60 years in prison in February 2024, per the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

During his sentencing, Elsenheimer told him, “If somehow you are released at some point in your future, then it is a requirement that you will have a lifetime GPS so that we will know where you are all the time for the rest of your days.”

Thomas is serving his sentence at Bellamy Correctional Facility in Ionia, Mich. His earliest possible release date is Oct. 7, 2062, per his Michigan Department of Corrections profile.

“Christopher’s in a place where the worst of the worst people are,”  Matteucci said in the docuseries. “He needs to be there. To do something like that to another human being, I just don’t understand it.”

Thomas’ sentence came as a huge relief for Stites.

“It just felt like I was kind of holding my breath for a year and a half — you know, thinking, ‘If, for some reason, somehow this person escapes jail, they’re in the local community,’ ” she recalled to PEOPLE. “Since I felt like the system had let me down previously, was that going to happen again?”

She continued, “When all was said and done, I was pleased with the outcome. There’s an element of safety I have now knowing that this person isn’t going to harm others or myself now.”

Where is Samantha Stites now?

The trauma of her kidnapping and assault drove Stites to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and seek short- and long-term disability from her job as a social worker. She estimates she has lost $40,000 in wages, per her victim impact statement, which she posted on Instagram.

Stites has also moved out of her house and invested in extra security for her new home.

“There’s a huge financial and physical burden to stalking,” she told PEOPLE. “I clearly wasn’t able to stay in that house where I had been kidnapped, you know? I had to move, and was feeling like, ‘How do I protect myself? What if somebody stalks me again?’ “

Even though Thomas is in prison, Stites has continued to feel unsafe. “I think there’s an element with sharing my story too that makes you feel uneasy, because now there’s all this attention, people can be crazy online,” she said. “Is somebody going to attach to me again? How do I protect myself through the future?”

Since moving out, Stites since found and spruced up a new home, which she shares with her dog, Murphy, a cat and foster pets. She enjoys sports and has continued her career as a social worker, per her LinkedIn.

Stites is sharing her story in hopes of reducing the shame that survivors of sexual assault, stalking and abduction face.

“Talking to different survivors I’ve met, no matter what their story is, there’s always something that they feel like [they] could’ve or should have [done differently], and it’s tough,” she said. “I think about how much I benefited from hearing other stories and feeling less alone. [It’s part of] my attempt to try to make a change in the way the PPO process is done and help advocate for other survivors.”

Stites and her friend Robin Treiweiler have also launched Beekeepers Advocacy, a survivor-led organization to protect victims of stalking, domestic abuse and abduction.

As a result of her case, the Grand Traverse County Court changed their PPO policy to ensure that if the petitioner mentions a previous PPO in their filing, court staff overseeing the petition must find out details of the previous order, per UpNorthLive.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

Read the original article on People