FENTON • When St. Louis County police Officer Sean Becker went to a Fenton car wash about 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, he was checking out a report of a 6- to 8-year-old boy wandering about.

Instead, he was confronted with a younger child backed up against a wall of the car wash, very afraid.

Becker knelt and tried to get the child to look at him instead of the ground.

"Show me where you came from."

No response.

"Show me where Mom and Dad are."

Still, nothing from the child dressed in a T-shirt that read "Missouri Rocks," boys gym shorts and new gym shoes.

Finally, the child pointed toward Center Street, which runs past the car wash, and said, "Brown car."

When Becker placed the child in his patrol car, she grimaced, acting hesitant, nervous and scared. After being fastened in the seat belt, she suddenly seemed to feel safe and began to talk, Becker said in an interview Thursday with the Post-Dispatch.

"Are you a little boy or a little girl?" he asked. "A little girl?"

She nodded yes as he drove near Center Street. Thinking she lived nearby, he pulled over to see whether she could walk in the direction of her home.

About 20 to 30 feet later, she stopped walking and stared blankly at him.

"Do you know where you're at?" he asked her.

She nodded no.

"Then I thought of the little girl from Louisiana and thought this could be a 1 in a million chance that it's her," Becker said of the 4-year-old who had been kidnapped Monday from her front yard by convicted child molester Paul Smith.

Becker radioed back to his communications center and asked for her full name.

"Is your last name Maier?" he asked her.

She nodded yes.

He quickly checked her arms and legs for signs of bruising and found none. Then he took her to St. Clare Health Center in Fenton and called other officers to secure the scene.

Once at the hospital, nurses gave her a blanket and a drink. She was clutching a stuffed animal that people at the car wash had given her.

She was also more talkative.

"Do you have a brother?" Becker asked her.

"Yes, Blake. He's 6," she told him.

Becker snapped a few pictures of the child with his cell phone and sent the images to officers at the FBI command post so they could show her parents.

"They were in disbelief and shock that she was still alive," said Becker, an officer for St. Louis County since January 2007.

"It was an emotional experience. To be that lucky was amazing. I'm happy she's back with her family."