Man held after daughter of shot couple ‘flees from captor’s cabin’

A MAN has been detained over the deaths of a US couple he killed because he wanted to kidnap their teenage daughter, investigators said.

Jake Patterson, 21, was arrested a day after the girl approached a stranger on a rural road saying she had been abducted in October and held against her will.

Patterson was taken into custody shortly after 13-year-old Jayme Closs sought help from a woman walking her dog in a heavily wooded area of Wisconsin about 60 miles north of Barron.

Jayme disappeared from her family home in Barron when her parents were killed on October 15.

During a news conference, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Jayme was taken against her will.

He said investigators believe Patterson killed Jayme’s parents because he wanted to abduct her, and that the suspect “planned his actions and took many steps to hide his identity”.

The sheriff said investigators think the girl was “the only target”.

A woman said she was walking her dog along a rural road on Thursday afternoon when a dishevelled teenage girl called to her for help, grabbed her and told her she was lost. Only then did the girl reveal her name.

Jeanne Nutter said yesterday that Jayme told her she had walked away from a cabin where she had been held captive not far from Ms Nutter’s home.

“I was terrified, but I didn’t want to show her that,” said Ms Nutter, a social worker who spent years working in child protection. “She just yelled ‘please help me, I don’t know where I am. I’m lost’.

“I honestly still think I’m dreaming right now. It was like I was seeing a ghost. My jaw just went to the floor.”

Jayme went missing after police discovered someone had broken into the family’s home and shot her parents, James and Denise Closs.

Sue Allard, Jayme’s aunt, could barely express her joy after learning she had been found. “Praise the Lord,” she said between sobs.