A 21-year-old man has been charged with murdering the parents of a US teen as part of a calculated plot to kidnap her, police said on Friday, after 13-year-old Jayme Closs was found alive following three months in captivity.
The subject of a nationwide search since her parents were in October found murdered in their home in rural Wisconsin, Closs on Thursday afternoon made a seemingly miraculous escape, seeking help from a neighbor who alerted authorities.
Minutes later, police arrested the man that she identified as her captor, Jake Thomas Patterson, and have charged him with abducting Closs and fatally shooting her parents.
“Jayme was taken against her will and escaped from the residence in which she was being held and found help,” Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald told reporters.
The teen was said to be in good health and was late on Friday to be reunited with her extended family. She was cleared to leave the hospital and has been talking to investigators.
“She is doing as well as circumstances allow,” Fitzgerald said.
Patterson, who had no criminal record in Wisconsin, is accused of carefully planning his attack — specifically targeting the young teen for reasons that remain unclear. He is tomorrow to appear in court.
Closs was being held in a rural home about 120km north of her home in Barron, Wisconsin. She escaped and ran to a vacation cabin, where Jeanne Nutter was on Thursday just returning from walking her dog at about 4:30pm.
“She said she was lost. She didn’t know where she was,” Nutter said.
“I didn’t know the situation until she got near me, and then she told me her name, and I knew who she was, because I’d seen her picture everywhere,” Nutter added.
The 66-year-old took the teen to a neighbor’s home, where they called police.
Closs appeared traumatized, but in good physical condition, wearing an oversized sweatshirt and large shoes that were clearly not her own, Nutter said.
“She was crying when I first met her, but once I grabbed hold of her and held her as she walked, then she was calm,” she said.
Detectives have not yet established what had happened to the teen over the past three months or the motive for the kidnapping.
Patterson — the authorities’ only suspect — was described as unemployed and a long-time resident of rural Gordon.
He was on Thursday arrested without resistance while driving in his car.
Police said they believe that he had been searching for Jayme.
The sheriff said that they found a number of weapons at his home, including a shotgun that resembled the one used in the middle of the night on October 15 to shoot open the Closs’ front door and kill Jayme’s parents: James Closs, 56, and Denise Closs, 46.
A nationwide search for Jayme had left law enforcement frustrated with few clues and a trail that had gone cold.
“The suspect had specific intentions to kidnap Jayme and went to great lengths to prepare to take her,” the sheriff said, such as shaving his head to avoid leaving traces of identifying evidence behind.
There were no immediate links that explained how or why Patterson allegedly targeted Jayme Closs.
While the young man worked at the same meat processing plant as Jayme’s parents nearly three years ago, he did so for only one day and police said there is no evidence that there was any contact between them.
“Nothing in this case shows that the suspect knew anyone at the Closs home,” Fitzgerald said.
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