A 25-year-old estate agent was just entering a property in Birmingham, followed by a man posing as a potential buyer, who had booked the viewing in advance. It was a day like any other, and Stephanie Slater was a normal, young working woman who just happened to be the wrong person at the wrong time - ending up a victim of a kidnapping case that shocked the nation.
It all happened in 1992, and Stephanie was just doing her job when she was abducted at knife point by Michael Sams. The terrified woman was told not to move by her kidnapper, who transported her transported to his workshop in Newark-upon-Trent in Nottinghamshire.
Stephanie endured the unimaginable ordeal of being kept handcuffed, gagged and blindfolded in a coffin-like box, itself locked inside a wheelie bin in Sams' workshop. The terrified estate agent was raped and held ransom for £175,000 from her employers. It was later revealed that the same man, from Sutton-on-Trent, murdered 18-year-old Julie Dart from Leeds after using similar means to imprison her.
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But Stephanie's destiny was going to be different - she had a plan to save her life. The brave woman contemplated ways that could keep her outside of the improvised coffin for as long as possible.
The chilling story of Stephanie Slater's abduction has been examined as part of a new BBC podcast 30 years after the shocking incident. In one of her testimonies during the podcast, she explained: "In the first few days I have been in the box for so long, my body was sort of starting to stiffen up. And when he got me out of the box, he'd sit me on a chair and he'd go and make porridge or whatever.
"And I am sitting on the chair and I'm trying to stretch my back and my arms thinking how nice it used to be out of that damn box. And he came back and suddenly, just suddenly I just said 'was Coronation Street on last night'."
Outsider Andy Whittaker, a BBC journalist who followed the case and has launched the podcast on Stephanie's legacy, said that this was the pivotal moment that 'almost certainly' saved Stephanie's life. "Something extraordinary" happened, he added.
Stephanie, the young woman who was abducted while simply doing her job, started building a rapport with her kidnapper. "I managed to build a rapport with him and kind of get him to see me as a human being a young woman, not just a piece of meat that he could kill and throw away", her testimony continued.
"I have no doubt that he was going to kill me. I just think you know, it would have been a matter of time. But I don't expect he thought that he'd have someone in the workshop there who could chat with him, who could even make him laugh."
There were moments when she questioned herself on whether anyone had noticed that she was kidnapped. The media at the time was banned from reporting on this incident.
This was because Sams was clear from the beginning that he did not want police involved. Stephanie's abduction was kept secret - and reporters were promised a press conference with the victim in exchange for the media's silence.
After eluding a police cordon to pick up a £175,000 ransom from her employers, Sams let Stephanie go. He took her home, dropping his 'innocent victim' two streets from her front door.
She could hardly walk, and the pressure of the blinds on her eyes made her "partially blind". A liaison officer opened the door of her parents' house and did not recognise Stephanie.
It was her dad's immediate impulse to hug his daughter that made the officer react. She was stopped from hugging her parents as Stephanie was a "walking crime scene" - and the officer was afraid that evidence could be contaminated.
Recalling what happened next from what Stephanie told her, best friend Stacey Kettner said there was "no emapthy". The 25-year-old was told to undress, then the officers cut her nails. "There was no gentleness", Stacey said. Stephanie said 'no' when asked by police if Sams had raped her due to the deep psychological and emotional ordeal she went through - and also to protect her distraught mum.
A press conference in front of various reporters who stayed silent throughout Stephanie's abduction, which lasted eight days, followed as promised by the force. She was put in front of the media less than 12 hours after being released - and before police had officially interviewed her.
A major hunt for Sams began - with him being the 'most wanted' man by police at the time. In a surprising turn of events, it was actually his first wife who recognised his voice from a clip played on BBC's Crimewatch. Sams remains in prison after being jailed for life in 1993. He has twice been turned down for parole, most recently in 2022.
Stephanie co-operated with police - and her evidence helped convict Sams of not only her kidnap, but also the murder of the Leeds teenager. However, she refused to re-enact her kidnapping aimed to help her memory of events.
In 1995, Stephanie published her own account of the kidnapping in a remarkable effort to make other women aware of dangers, and "trying to speak out for women who are taken by maniacs like Sams". Her book, Beyond Fear: My Will to Survive, was "a voice in the wilderness, because nothing seems to be done for women these days, nothing has been done since I was kidnapped." She also said Sams had raped her.
She fled to the Isle of Wight in an effort to re-build her life. Stephanie said she finally made the step of getting a wheelie bin after a long time because of the frightening reminiscence of her capture. She then built her own legacy, holding seminars on the treatment of crime victims.
The question of whether women's safety has improved 30 years on from Stephanie's horror story was raised in the BBC podcast. Andy Whittaker was a BBC presenter in Birmingham at the time of the incident - and followed her life story until she died of cancer aged 50 in 2017.
He told Nottingham Post: "Stephanie came from an ordinary family, but she was extraordinary because to do what she did, to make herself human and try to get out alive, to then work with police forces to help victims of crime - that is a caring thing. She dedicated her life to make things better for people that she did not know."
He went on and said: "At the time, I just felt it was so unfair that she had been through this horrific ordeal and that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, just doing her job. And then she lost her life, it just seemed unfair - which is part of the reason why I wanted to tell her story."
Mr Whittaker asked everyone who has contributed to the podcast if women and lone workers are safer now than they were 30 years ago. "One of the detectives who worked on the case said he thinks women are less safe now. So I think all of that says to us - we still have work to do, as a society, in making this world a safer place."
The episodes feature input from criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw, featuring interviews, audio drama and archive content. The podcast is available now on BBC sounds.
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