Kidnapping Nightmare Takes Its Toll -- 3 Figures In Rescue Of Girl Learn To Cope

SALEM, Ore.- Chantiell Thomas is finally telling her story. Kristina Jacobson is appearing on "Oprah!" Sheriff's Deputy Jim Main is back doing his job in Douglas County.

The three principal figures in the Oct. 3 kidnapping and rescue of 7-year-old Kristina find their lives forever altered by what happened that frightening day.

Thomas, the day-care provider, gave a long interview to the Roseburg News-Review this week giving details of the kidnapping. Too shaken to talk to reporters in the days after the event, she wants people to know she did everything she could to save the children in her charge.

Kristina, who drew national attention for the articulate way she described her ordeal, still daydreams about the incident. When there's a knock at the door, she sometimes crawls under a table or locks herself in the bathroom.

Main, who fired the shot that killed Kristina's abductor, says strangers walk up to him and shake his hand or hug him.

Neighbors have repainted the house where Thomas and her husband, Dave, live. A sophisticated security system has been installed. But Thomas is leery of even walking to the mailbox alone. The family now has a German shepherd. Whenever she leaves the house, Thomas grips a panic button that can automatically summon a 911 dispatcher.

And she cries every night.

Thomas, who operated a home day-care center, had two youngsters and her own two children with her when there was a tap at the door

that morning. She remembers looking through the window at the clean-cut man at her doorstep.

Lance Sterling Alexander, 25, smiled at her.

"The only thing was, he had his hands in his pockets," Thomas recalled.

Alexander said he had lost his dog and wondered if she had seen it. After a couple of minutes of small talk, she reached down for a piece of paper to write his phone number in case she saw the animal.

"When I came back up, he had a gun pointed at my face," Thomas said.

She recounted having to bind up the older children with duct tape. She remembered Alexander trying to kiss her, and she told him not to do so in front of the children.

He took the $15 from her purse and rifled through drawers.

He ordered her to the master bedroom, where he tried to sexually assault her. Once she tried to wrestle the gun from him, and a pocketful of bullets scattered on the floor.

He warned that if she didn't cooperate, "he would come out here and do it with the kids," Thomas said.

Finally, she lunged for her husband's handgun and turned to point it at Alexander.

Click. Nothing happened.

Alexander pointed his gun at her face and pulled the trigger. Somehow, the bullet missed, but he didn't know that. He grabbed Kristina and darted out the door.

Thomas called police, and within minutes they were there.

"All I could say was, `Get her back, please get her back,' " Thomas said.

Alexander pulled away in the Thomases' car and headed down Interstate 5, shooting at cars along the way. After 110 miles, north of Roseburg, the car left the highway and overturned. A standoff with police followed.

After getting a clear aim, Deputy Main fired a rifle shot that killed Alexander. In an instant caught in a now-famous picture, Kristina bolted to safety.

Three weeks ago, the Thomases hosted a chicken dinner for the Jacobsons, along with Main and his wife.

"They must have hugged me 20 times," Thomas said.

Now 8 years old, Kristina went to Chicago last week to appear on an Oprah Winfrey show about the year's most touching stories. The program is to air near the end of the year.

There is a movie deal in the works. But Kristina's parents say the family just wants to live as it did before.

"We're just your normal, average people," Rich Jacobson said, "and we want to live a normal, average life."