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A 5-year-old girl abducted from a north Phoenix apartment complex on Christmas Day 2009 was rescued the same night after a patrol officer spotted the brown pickup she had been taken in and other officers stopped it with spike strips.

Police received the call at about 2:15 p.m. The girl had been playing in a common area with her two sisters, ages 7 and 9, when a man parked a brown pickup in a nearby lot and walked over carrying a camera, Phoenix police Sgt. Andy Hill said. Hill said the man pulled down the 7-year-old's pants and photographed her, then grabbed the 5-year-old and threw her into the truck through a window. The older sister pounded on a neighbor's door, and the neighbor called police.

An Amber Alert went out as officers searched on foot, by car and with helicopters. About seven hours in, Officer Mike Burns pulled up near a brown pickup with a man and a small girl inside, and the truck raced off. "There was no doubt in my mind," Burns told reporters the next day. "If he disappears, we may not get her back."

Burns alerted the force and stayed with the truck through a 10-minute chase across north Phoenix, according to the Associated Press. Officers laid spike strips several blocks ahead, and the punctured tires sent the pickup off the roadway. The driver ran and was arrested about a block from the wreck after a brief struggle in which he punched an officer in the face, Hill said.

The girl was rescued at about 9:30 p.m. and taken to a police facility that works with young crime victims, where investigators determined she had been molested. She was treated and returned to the aunt who has legal custody of her and her sisters. Hill said children abducted by strangers are rarely found alive after the first several hours. "We really did have a Christmas miracle," he said.

Larry Jon Ladwig, 45, was booked into jail that night on charges of kidnapping, molestation of a child, aggravated assault of a police officer and felony flight. He pleaded guilty on June 15, 2010, to kidnapping, sexual conduct with a minor, attempted child molestation, attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and aggravated assault. A Maricopa County judge sentenced him on July 16, 2010, to 30 years in prison with no possibility of parole, to be followed by two lifetime terms of probation. He was 46 by then.

The Associated Press named the girl while the Amber Alert was active but stopped identifying her once investigators suspected a sex crime. The recording posted here is police radio traffic from the search and the pursuit rather than the call that started it, and runs a little over four minutes.