One day in January 1992, Stephanie Slater, a 25-year-old real estate agent, took a client to view a house on the outskirts of Birmingham, England. The client, who introduced himself as Bob Southall, had an ordinary appearance but an indifferent demeanor, which made Stephanie want to end the showing early.

As they went upstairs, the man revealed his true nature as a kidnapper. "He changed completely. His face, his eyes became cruel", Stephanie later recalled.

33 years ago, real estate agent Stephanie Slater vanished without a trace. Photo: Lynn Hilton

With a knife held to her throat, her hand injured, and her life threatened, Stephanie panicked intensely. In that life-or-death moment, she remembered advice from Dr. Miriam Stoppard's Adult's Handbook: stay calm and appeal to the humanity of the assailant.

"I told myself to stay calm, to let him see I was a person, not an object", she recounted. That reaction saved Stephanie's life. The attacker calmed down, took her down to the garage, tied her to a car seat, and covered her with a blanket.

On the way, he declared that he had abducted her to extort 175,000 GBP from the real estate company. The kidnapper was Michael Sams, a toolmaker from Nottinghamshire.

At Sams' workshop in Newark, Stephanie was blindfolded, handcuffed, and locked in a wooden box (coffin-like) placed inside an industrial dumpster. He also attached electrodes to her body, threatening to electrocute her if she moved.

"It was bitterly cold. I was in pain, paralyzed, and just wondered what was happening", Stephanie shuddered recalling the eight days of hell.

While police and the company sought to deliver the ransom, Stephanie had to eat, sleep, and relieve herself inside the cramped box. Sams only fed her fish, chips, and a few candy bars. During the rare moments the box lid was opened, she tried to converse, even hugging him to maintain a fragile human connection.

On the 8th day, after receiving the full ransom and successfully evading police due to thick fog, Sams released Stephanie two blocks from her home. Having been blindfolded for too long, she stumbled blindly back to her parents' house.

Michael Sams was later arrested when his ex-wife recognized his voice on a television news report. Police discovered Sams had not only abducted Stephanie but had also brutally murdered another girl named Julie Dart prior to her abduction. Thanks to Stephanie's detailed testimony about the structure of her confinement, Sams was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993.

Stephanie with her father, Warren Slater, at a police press conference after her release. Photo: Brian Bould

Stephanie survived, but the cost was too high. She suffered severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She could not return to work and once had a panic attack just from seeing a dumpster on the street.

Despite efforts to write a book and participate in women's protection campaigns, Stephanie lived a secluded and solitary life for many years afterward. In 2017, she died of cancer at age 50.

"Before the incident, I had a job, a boyfriend, and a vibrant life. He took everything and destroyed my next 25 years", Stephanie once said in a late-life interview. For her, the day of her release was merely a transition from the kidnapper's prison to a prison of eternal mental anguish.

By Nhat Minh (Metro)