ESTATE agent Stephanie Slater was just doing her job — attending a property viewing — when evil struck.
Unbeknownst to her, the man posing as a potential buyer was one of Britain’s most notorious kidnappers.
Stephanie Slater was held captive following a routine property viewing[/caption]
Who was Stephanie Slater?
Born in 1966, Stephanie Slater was an estate agent from Great Barr in the West Midlands.
She was a popular, outgoing person who was the life and soul of any social situation.
However, in January 1992, a seemingly normal work day changed into something terrifying and was to shape the next 20 years of her life.
What happened to Stephanie Slater?
On January 22, 1992, a 25-year-old Stephanie attended a viewing with a potential buyer at a property in Birmingham.
However, the man posing as a buyer, Michael Sams, abducted her at knife-point.
He then transported her to his workshop in Newark-upon-Trent, Nottinghamshire.
She was to endure an ordeal that was to scar the next two decades of her life.
Stephanie was handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded while being kept in a coffin-style box by Sams.
The wooden coffin was then locked in a wheelie-bin.
Her kidnapper only occasionally let her out to give her food to keep her alive.
When she was allowed out of her box-like prison, she realised that she needed to do something to try and stay out.
Starting conversations with the depraved Sams, she tried to build a rapport with him, so that he did not view her as a disposable object he could just kill and discard.
After evading police to collect the £175,000 ransom he had demanded from her employers, her captor dropped her home, leaving her two streets from her house.
She had been missing for eight days.
Stephanie could barely walk or see due to the restraints that had been used to imprison her.
Her evidence helped police capture Sams and convict him of the kidnapping, as well as the murder of a Leeds teenager.
Stephanie Slater was kept prisoner in a makeshift wooden coffin for eight days[/caption]
It was only in a later meeting with police that Sams admitted the murder of the teenager was a “practice run” for the kidnap of the estate agent and that he had no intention of collecting the ransom.
His sole aim was to murder her.
When did Stephanie Slater die?
Stephanie died in 2017 after a battle with cancer,
She was taken ill near her home on the Isle of Wight.
In the years before her death, she wrote a book called Beyond Fear which was later dramatised into a film for TV.
Her bravery and openness about her ordeal raised awareness for others and gave victims of similar ordeals the strength to continue with their lives.
Murder: Burried Alive — True Crime Presents
ITV is airing a documentary delving into the painstaking police investigation undertaken to find evil Sams.
It includes the details of Stephanie’s terrifying ordeal, as well as the aspects of the case that set it apart from the kidnapper’s previous crimes.
The documentary Murder: Buried Alive — True Crime Presents airs on ITV1 on Tuesday, October 7, 2025, at 9pm.
To watch it on-demand, you can also stream it for free on ITVX.
