The two worked at a delivery company, where Samantha met Moussa Elhassani, a brother of Lori's husband.
Sally characterized the stay as "romantic", but said that the mood changed after they arrived in Sanliurfa, a city in southeastern Turkey.
A few days later, Elhassani drove the family in a van to the Syrian border, after telling Sally he was driving them to the airport.
[3][4] After crossing the border in territory controlled by the Islamic State, Sally and her children were separated from Elhassani and his brother.
[3][4] In August 2017, the Islamic State released a propaganda video featuring Sally's son threatening then-president of the U.S., Donald Trump.
[1][4] While living in Deir ez-Zor in late 2017, Sally learned of a nearby people smuggler through one of the enslaved Yazidi teenagers.
Sally paid the man in over 10oz of gold, and escaped with her four children and the family's three slaves while her brother-in-law, Abdelhadi Elhassani, was out of the house.
[1] Samantha Sally and her four children were taken into the custody of the American-allied Kurdish militias YPG/YPJ on November 18, 2017; the three Yazidis they had enslaved were returned to Iraq to reunite with their families.
[4] During that time, Sally also helped care for two young Trinidadian boys who had been brought to the Islamic State by their father.
[8] This was in connection to her role as an FBI informant prior to leaving the U.S. A month after her return, the additional charge of "providing material support for terrorism" was added.
[2] Sally's story was covered in the BBC Sounds podcast I'm Not A Monster and in the 2020 Frontline and Panorama documentary Return from ISIS.
[11][12] In 2024, Jessica Roy published a book on the lives of Samantha Sally and her sister Lori, titled American Girls.