Sam Winchester - Background

Background

Sam was born on May 2, 1983 to John and Mary Winchester in Lawrence, Kansas. He is one of two focal characters of the series. He is the couple's second child, four years younger than his older brother Dean. He is named after his maternal grandfather, Samuel Campbell.

When Sam was only six months old, his mother Mary was killed by the demon Azazel, whom his mother walked in on while he was feeding Sam demon blood. Sam is saved from the ensuing fire by his father, who then gives him to a four-year-old Dean to carry outside. Since that moment, Dean has felt responsible for Sam and became Sam's protector, partially due to pressure from their father to keep his brother safe.

Sam and Dean spent their childhood moving from town to town every few weeks while their father hunted supernatural beings and their mother's unknown killer. Until the age of 8, Sam believed that his mother had died in a car accident and his father was a traveling salesman, until Dean revealed to him the existence of the paranormal. Sam apparently started hunting alongside his brother and father around the age of twelve, however, he began wanting a normal life without monsters; years later, a teacher encouraged him to carve out a life away from the "family business" after reading Sam's story about a werewolf hunt. At nineteen, after a heated argument with John, Sam leaves for Stanford University, thus leaving his family and their hunting crusade behind him.