WHEN estate agent Stephanie Slater took Michael Sams for a house viewing in
Birmingham in January 1992, a normal day turned into a scene from a horror
film.
Sams, a one-legged toolmaker, attacked her and then held her hostage for eight
days.
Stephanie, now 48, recalls in Britain’s Worst Crimes: “He seemed to fly
through the air at me, his face contorted.
“He had a knife and a flat chisel with a hook on the end. I thought to myself:
‘You’re going to die’.”
Sams, who it emerged had kidnapped and murdered Julie Dart, 18, six months
previously, demanded a £175,000 ransom for her release.
Stephanie, then 25, was raped and locked inside a wheelie bin in his lair at
his workshop in Newark, Nottinghamshire.
She said: “He told me there were boulders above me and if I tried to escape
they’d crush me to death.
“My hands were attached to a metal bar. He put electrodes on my leg and said
if I moved they’d kill me.”
When the ransom was delivered by Stephanie’s boss, Sams released her.
He was caught and given four life sentences following a nationwide manhunt.
Stephanie is still deeply affected by her ordeal, but is determined not to
dwell on her evil captor.
She said: “You can analyse it, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t
matter.”
Britain’s Worst Crimes: Kidnapped – The Stephanie Slater Story airs
tonight at 8pm on Channel 5.