Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror

Dear Samantha,

I don't even have the words express how sorry I am for the years of pain you endured - the stalking, the abuse, the emotional torment. I am in awe of your strength and resilience. It's more than anyone should ever have to bear.

The emotional impact is overwhelming, filled with a desperate anger and a hope that it will just finally go away. It seems to have arrived the moment everything else was exhausted-when there was nothing left to give.

I am so terribly sorry for all you have had to endure. There was a moments a flicker, where you may have lost your life. That reality is horrifying.

I hope with my heart that you are well. May bright lights shine upon your path, and may God bless you with love and peace.

The viewers who are giving this a low score and saying it's impossible for something like this to happen or the victim is unlikable are the actual problem and why things like this continue to happen. As a woman who went through something similar but not nearly as scary as Samantha, I also did not immediately seek help for the situation because I was told I didn't have enough evidence and I believed no one would believe me. It's a sad time in our world when people not only judge a victim and basically victim shame but also do not believe her because of these judgements. And just because you can't find a ton of info online about it means it didn't happen? This started over a decade ago. Yes, the sentencing itself was recent but the events leading up to it were during a time when the internet and social media were not as rampant. Get your head out of the sand and maybe get off the internet for a while and try to imagine a time when you didn't rely on it for every single thing. Sad sad people out there.

I'd heard of this case through close friends and followed the story as it was updated through a small news station. Hearing this more intimate re-telling made me realize how much worse the situation was for her and how disturbing the perpetrator was. He was calculating and clearly preparing for this abduction. I'm so glad she made it out alive and is using her voice to educate others on the dangers of stalking and sexual violence. People don't believe women as much as they should.

First of all, the victim, Samantha is unlikeable and hard to believe she is a therapist, the way she shrugged off red flag after red flag is disturbing.

In addition, this came off as a mockumentary and not a serious documentary.

However, despite the above, the reason I'm calling bs on this is due to the fact that there is NO report anywhere online regarding this crime or sentencing. For such a serious crime, there should have been quite a few news stories on it, but not even ONE. The only stories floating around are referencing this "documentary".

Highly disappointing, I stopped watching after episode one.

One reviewer that said they found nothing about this story on the internet until a few days around the date of the release of the documentary. They need to learn how to search the internet better. On 12 Oct 2022 there was a local news story published online on a Chicago news channel and there was also at that time (2022) a GoFundMe created to support the victim in this story. Over $32,000 has been raised.

I feel like I understand the victim Samantha in this story because I've had to 'pretend' to save my own life several times. The best way in my opinion to cope with the aftermath is to put it behind you and this could appear to some people as detached. Well I challenge anyone to go through a similar circumstance, survive through your own wits, and then not distance yourself from the act. You need to do it to keep your sanity. The worst thing you can do is let an unfortunate situation traumatize you forever and ruin the rest of your life. My motto is 'Never let them win'. Don't let them take more from you than they already have.