Seven-year-old Kristina Jacobson hugged two new teddy bears and arranged her candies by color on a hospital blanket, seemingly unfazed by seeing police kill her kidnapper after a wild 100-mile car chase.
The gunman was shot in the head as he sat with Kristina in an overturned car on the median of I-5 in southern Oregon."I can still picture him right in my head when he died. From here and up the head was off," Kristina told The Associated Press a few hours after the ordeal, pointing to her forehead.
Kristina said she used her Bambi book to smash a window after the man was killed because she didn't want the kidnapper's blood to get on her sundress.
The man, Lance Sterling Alexander, 25, abducted the girl at gunpoint from a day-care home Thursday and led police on a chase at speeds up to 110 mph while shooting at other drivers, authorities said. The 100-mile chase ended after Alexander's car ran over spikes set up by police and flipped over.
Before a police sharpshooter killed him with a single shot, Alexander negotiated with police for about an hour while holding a gun to the girl.
Kristina, a second-grader from Salem with long curly brown hair and a sparkling smile, spent 31/2 terrifying hours with the gunman after he forced his way into the day-care center where her parents left her. She was bound with tape.
"He had this little silver gun he put up on my head," Kristina said. "He said if I don't behave, he will put me in the trunk or shoot me.
"I was crying and asking him lots of questions. `Where are you going to drop me off? When are you going to drop me off?' "
Kristina spoke with the AP from a bed in a hospital emergency room, where she was treated for three small metal fragments in her right leg from the crash. She later went home with her parents.
"She'll be sleeping in bed with us for a while," said her father, Richard Jacobson.
Her mother, Shanna Jacobson, added: "She's obviously stronger than me."
Police gave no hint of what led Alexander, of Salem, to choose Kristina over three other children at the day-care home run by Chantiel Thomas. Her parents didn't know Alexander, who told Kristina his name was Mike. Court records show he was convicted twice for misdemeanor assault.
Pretending that he was looking for a dog, Alexander assaulted Thomas and ordered her to bind the children with duct tape, police said.
Forced into the car, Kristina managed to fasten her seat belt with her taped hands.
After police spotted the car near Eugene, the gunman started shooting and hit 10 other cars as he drove at speeds between 80 and 110 mph, state police said. He grazed the neck of one woman and hurt a man and an infant with flying glass.
At Rice Hill on I-5, state police put out a spike strip to puncture the tires. The car drove south five more miles before veering left into the median and rolling over twice.
The gunman ended up in the back seat; Kristina remained in the front.
"He said the F-word so many times I plugged my ear," she said. "He calmed down and told one guy to tell the police to go away or he would shoot me. He got all hyper and he was losing his patience."
Police gave the gunman a cellular phone and a police radio. He asked a hostage negotiator for cigarettes and demanded a car. Kristina asked for a banana and some Skittles, her favorite candy.
A police sharpshooter, meanwhile, took a position 150 feet away and killed the gunman with a single shot from a high-powered bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight.
Police were able to find a banana for Kristina, but she didn't get her Skittles until she got to the hospital.