Sam Holden
Sam Tolhurst (2006-2008)
Jessica Chapnik
Episodes: 4298–4375; 4467–4616
Birth Name: Kylie Deeks
Date of Birth: 23rd January 1978
Siblings: Britt Grey
Marital Status: Shane Deeks (dec.); Jack Holden (2007-2008)
Children: Rory Tolhurst & Jessica Deeks (dec.)
Occupation: Physiotherapist
Sam Tolhurst arrived in 2006 when Jack needed physio after being attacked. A bond between the two of them soon formed, but Jack’s marriage had just fallen apart and he felt it was too soon to go into a new relationship.
Sam and Jack organized a swimming session to help him regain the use of his legs. Wanting to get to know her background, Jack asked Sam if she was married and had kids. It was clear that Sam didn’t like talking about her husband, so she told him that it wasn’t the right time to be discussing personal matters. Later on that evening, while in the hospital room, Sam opened up to Jack about why she was touchy about discussing her husband. She told Jack that she had a little girl who had a rare disease, and her and her husband travelled all over the world to try and find a cure, but nothing could help her. This cost a lot of money, which caused her husband, Shane, to sell drugs to pay for it. Durnig a drug deal, Shane shot someone, which Sam unfortunately witnessed. She went to the police and Shane was sent to prison.
Jack was supportive of Sam when he found out what she had been through and asked if she could bring her son in to meet him. She agreed, and the two of them got on like a house on fire!
Sam and Jack organized a picnic so Jack could get to know Rory better. But things started to get awkward when Rory mentioned their old house. Jack realized something was up and asked Sam what was wrong. Sam told Jack that her and Rory were leaving as soon as possible, leaving a confused Jack. Jack didn’t understand what was going on until later than day when he found Sam sitting on his doorstep crying. Sam opened up about her past and told Jack that her husband had friends on the outside who were after her and Rory. This causing them to move house numerous times. She also told him that Sam Tolhurst wasn’t her real name. Her real name was Kylie Deeks.
After clearing the air, Jack told Sam that he would always be there for her and Rory.
When Sam’s landlord pushed the price of rent up on her flat, Jack suggested they move in together. Rory was thrilled with the idea but Sam wasn’t so sure. However, she eventually agreed.
After Martha found out she was expecting Ash’s child, Jack went around to comfort her, which ended with Martha kissing Jack. Sam saw them kissing and got the wrong impression. But Jack explained that it was a moment of weakness on Martha’s part and that it didn’t mean anything.
Sam organized another picnic which turned out a disaster when one of Shane’s henchmen came after her.
Being chased through the bush, Sam screamed and screamed but nobody could hear her. She was eventually found after Jack spotted her necklace on the ground.
Later on that day, Jack came home to find a note written by Sam. It explained why she was leaving Summer Bay and how she couldn’t put Rory in that much danger again. Jack was devastated, but Sam made it clear that she still loved him.
Having tracked them down via police records, Jack met up with Sam and Rory and said a proper goodbye to them. Sam reassured Jack that if she was ever truly free the first thing she would do would be come back to the Bay.
Jack was due to be out on a boat trip with Brad, Alf, Ric and Dan and the boat was lost in a storm. Martha having realised she was still in love with him waited his return only to be told he had never been on the boat but had taken an urgent phone call.
In the city we saw Jack enter a hospital where Sam was a patient. Sam explained that she fell down the stairs whilst being followed by one of Shane’s henchmen and that Rory had called Jack in a panic. Rory was delighted to see Jack and when Jack suggested that she and Rory come and live with him while she recovered as if was the last thing Shane would expect, they didn’t take much persuading.
By the time Martha had raced around to his house to declare her love for him, Jack had Sam installed on the sofa and asked Martha to keep her company while he and Rory headed to The Diner for supplies. Sam confided in Martha that she still loved Jack as Rory convinced Jack of the same thing and on his return Sam announced that they’d stay in the bay and she and Jack resumed their relationship with a kiss.
A few days later Tony was attacked in his house and Sam became nervous that her ex husband knew where she was but Jack reassured her that it was unlikely. Sam allowed Jack to take Rory to the beach but warned him not to let him out of his sight and the minute he was gone she booked a train ticket for herself and Rory.
She was frantic when Jack called her to confirm that Tony’s attacker had been Shane, who had absconded from prison while on day release and her worry deepened when Jack admitted that he had left Rory with Martha and that he was now missing. Rory survived the ordeal unscathed, but Shane was not so lucky. During an unauthorized police chase, initiated by Jack, Shane’s car rolled and he was killed. Sam’s nightmare was over.
She had no idea that Jack was in danger of losing his job over his handling of Shane and was upset when he confided in Martha. She delivered an ultimatum, either he end his friendship with Martha or she and Rory would leave again. Jack chose Sam and ended his friendship with Martha.
Things started to look up for Sam as Rory settled into high school, she got her old job at the hospital and she and Jack moved into Rachel’s where they had much more space. Her happiness didn’t last long though as her old insecurities resurfaced when she realised that it was the house where Jack had lived while married to Martha.
She panicked when Rory went missing after a school trip but his safe return caused more problems when she insisted on not listening to Jack’s opinion on how to deal with the situation. They had a huge row with jack insisting she needed to let him in on decisions and Sam consented that he was right and suggested they make their relationship more official. Half an hour later Rory announced their engagement to everyone in the Diner including a stunned Martha.
She was angry when, after spotting Jack and Martha meeting up in town, Jack confided that the divorce hadn’t gone through and that he and Martha had to go to counselling. She was almost the hospital attacker’s next victim after refusing to wait for an escort to her car but was rescued in time by security who came to check up on her.
Sam and Jack rowed when he kept from her the fact that Dan had refused to sign off on his and Martha’s divorce but Jack managed to convince her that Martha had feelings for him but that he was committed to Sam.
She took an instant dislike to Rachel’s new boyfriend, intern Lewis Rigg and became convinced he was the hospital attacker. She had witnessed him having a fight with a female intern, who just happened to later be attacked, and Lewis just happened to be around when it happened. Sam openly accused Lewis of being the Hospital Stalker, which lead to further tension between herself, Lewis, and Rachel. When Sam was nearly attacked herself, she became certain that Lewis was the culprit, only to later be proved wrong (Reverend Hall was the real attacker, for reasons clear only to himself and God.)
After finding him once again talking to Martha, Sam encouraged Jack to confide in her so he confessed that he was in serious trouble at work and Sam encouraged him to hide the evidence to cover himself. When Jack slipped into another coma after being shot on duty, Sam kept an obsessive vigil at his bedside, refusing to let Martha, Jack’s family, or even Rory distract her from being the one to take care of Jack and to be there when he woke up.
Unfortunately for Sam, she let her guard down for a split second, and Martha was the one who Jack woke up for. He also thought that he was still married to Martha for a while and was distant as Sam ploughed full steam ahead with the wedding. Rory overheard Martha telling Jack that she didn’t think the wedding should go ahead and Sam furiously banned Martha from the wedding.
After a talk with Reverend Hall, Sam headed to The Campbell’s farm to try and make peace with Martha but was horrified to find learn that Martha had tried on her wedding dress just days before the wedding. Martha tried to alleviate the tension on Jack by skipping town with Michael, but she soon found herself back in the bay, broken up with Michael, and looking in longingly on Jack’s wedding.
After seeing Martha at the back of the church, Sam warned her off Jack once and for all. But it didn’t work. Martha and Jack maintained a connection, despite Sam’s best attempts to sever it, and despite their own attempts to ignore it.
When criminal mastermind Johnny Cooper returned to the bay to kill Sally Fletcher, he sought Sam’s help by blackmailing her into turning Lucas’ old bedroom into a safe house for him. He threatened to tell Jack that she had sent Shane to jail for crimes that she herself had committed (such as drug possession and distribution), and so she agreed to do as he said to save her reputation and her marriage. However, their arrangement took a turn for the worse when Johnny implied that he might take advantage of Mattie, who was unsuspectingly sharing her house with him. When Sam tried to take a stand against him, Johnny put her in her place by forcibly taking out his urges on her instead.
Things only got worse when Sam realized the depth of the situation she was in. She had tried to save Sally by urging Johnny to move on and forget his plans due to the amount of police that were on the look out for him, but Johnny refused to give up on his vendetta. He cornered Ric in the Holden house, and Sam listened in as Johnny attempted to kill him. However, her conscience finally overrode her self-preservation, and she emerged to hit Johnny over the head with a cricket bat, causing him to be hospitalized with brain damage, and the likelihood that he would not recover from his injuries.
Johnny beat the odds and woke up, much to Sam’s horror. His speech was impaired, but he was lucid enough to get the message out that something was hidden underneath the bed – Lucas’ bed – that would expose Sam. Sam intercepted the message and went looking for the note that Johnny had written, but unbeknownst to her, Tony had already picked it up, not realizing what it was, and sent it over to Jack in a box of Lucas’ old things that he thought Rory might want. Sam was becoming increasingly erratic as the pressure of Johnny’s missing confession got to her, and when it became apparent that Johnny was getting stronger, and more likely to expose her himself, she took matters into her own hands and set Nurse Julie up to give him a fatal injection.
Johnny died, and Sam thought she had gotten away with it, until Jack found the letter and realized what she had done to cover her tracks. He was disgusted with her for killing Johnny, and for lying to him about everything that she had done. Sam sited the fact that Jack never would have understood or supported her if she had told him, because he’d wanted to be with Martha all along anyway. Jack didn’t know what to do. Sam took Rory away to stay with her sister in the city while he made up his mind.
When Sam returned without Rory, Jack decided that he would have to turn Sam in for Johnny’s murder, but he would give her the concession of a head start to get out of town. Then he left to go get wasted. When Jack returned home, Sam was still there, and she had a surprise for him – she was pregnant. If he still wanted to turn her in, she would run and take the baby and Rory with her, and he’d never see any of them again.
Jack didn’t change his mind. He was still going to turn her in, and he planned to take custody of both Rory and the baby. They fought about it, and Sam was accidentally pushed to the ground. She was rushed to hospital, but tests revealed that she had lost the baby, which settled it for Jack. Knowing that she would be arrested, Sam fled the hospital and – amongst other things – confronted Martha, screeching at her that the only way she would ever be with Jack was over her dead body. Funnily enough, this prediction came to pass.
Sam’s dead body washed up on the beach shortly after, and all eyes turned to Martha and Jack. It was believed that they had killed Sam so that they could be together. Sam had bruises on her arms as if she had been held down, and had died of a heroin overdose. The fact that she had apparently been dumped in the ocean and was dead before she hit the water made this an unquestionable murder.