Updated on: Aug 18, 2025 01:32 pm IST
Three-part docuseries traces Samantha Stites’ decade-long ordeal of stalking and abduction by Christopher Thomas, premiering August 19, 2025 on JioHotstar.
An incredibly unsettling tale of contemporary stalking and survival is finding its way to Indian OTT viewers. The three-part true-crime documentary series Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror will make its debut on JioHotstar (OTTplay Premium) on August 19, 2025. It is a terrifying series about Samantha Stites, a Michigan woman who faced unrelenting harassment from Christopher Thomas for eleven years and triumphed over her unwavering will to live.

From college acquaintance to relentless stalker
Beginning in 2011 when Samantha was a first-year college student, the series follows her nightmare as it unfolds. Christopher, who initially appeared to be a passing acquaintance, quickly became obsessed with her. Even in broad daylight, Samantha was pursued and abruptly attacked in mundane places like supermarkets, restaurants, sports events, and even parking lots close to her house for more than ten years. When Christopher’s behaviour became habitual and the stalker events got more brazen, Samantha’s friends and investigators described a growing feeling of panic.
Reconstructing the stalking pattern and its escalation to violence is what makes the documentary series particularly disturbing. Things began to change when Christopher stormed Samantha’s house in early autumn of 2022, abducted her, and hid her in a bunker he had constructed in a storage unit close to her neighbourhood. Samantha was confined in a room made for long periods of confinement, isolated from the outside world.
Samantha’s firsthand account
Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror depicts Christopher’s cold-blooded crimes over the course of three episodes using exclusive police case files, bunker surveillance film, and photographs taken from the perpetrator’s phone. The series gains a uniquely intimate viewpoint as Samantha recounts her experience for the first time. By sharing her narrative of mental and physical struggles to survive captivity and escape, she transforms her own tragic experience into an inspiring tale of strength.
The investigators who helped foil Christopher’s plots and her loved ones who were close to her paint a full picture of the brutality of the stalking and the events leading up to his capture.
Release details
Releasing on JioHotstar (OTTplay Premium) in India on August 19, 2025, Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror promises to be a spine-tingling and meticulously documented tale of a woman’s struggle to stay strong in the face of unimaginable horror.