TV show 'You' inspired true crime case highlighted in ABC's docu-series 'Stalking Samantha'
Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror" begins streaming August 19 on Hulu.
It's a real-life stalking case with inspiration from a fictional crime show.
Samantha Stites shares her story about enduring over a decade of stalking before being kidnapped and escaping with her life in ABC News Studios' latest docu-series "Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror."
"I initially met him, and he was just kind of an awkward, you know, student in passing," Stites told On The Red Carpet.
She described how her captor "was following me to my work, following me to my gym, grocery shopping."
Eventually, she says she "told him to leave me alone. He's not necessarily trying to talk to me, but I'm starting to see him lots of places."
Stites filed for a personal protection order, which held up for six years. But when that order expired, filing a new one proved difficult, as the court required a hearing with both parties present.
"I decided to not pursue that hearing, because I was scared that if they denied it even in person, that then, you know, he would get trickier or would be angry and try to hurt me," she continued. "I never got that chance because I was kidnapped."
Awoken in the early hours of the morning by her kidnapper, Stites quickly found herself in a makeshift bunker.
"I'm in this torture chamber. I see these soundproof patches on the wall, so no one's going to hear me scream," she described.
She reveals that the TV show "You" inspired her captor. "He saw this stalker have this actual relationship with the women. So I think I think in a lot of ways, that kind of validated that he wasn't the only one."
On her escape, she said, "I'm not a Superwoman. I'm not- don't have CIA training, you know. I don't know that I could have survived something like that, had this been a stranger who did this to me."
From her escape to his arrest, uncover all of the details in "Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror," streaming August 19 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of Hulu and this ABC station.
