Police seek two vehicles in Jayme Closs mystery

BARRON – Investigators are looking for two vehicles that were near a Wisconsin home last week around the time a couple were killed and their 13-yearold daughter vanished.

Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said at a news conference Monday that one of the vehicles is likely a 2008 to 2014 red or orange Dodge Challenger, and the other is either a 2006 to 2010 black Ford Edge or 2004 to 2010 black Acura MDX.

The vehicle descriptions marked the first time authorities publicly identified a specific lead in the investigation of the deaths of James, 56, and Denise Closs, 46, and disappearance of Jayme Closs. The couple were shot to death in their rural Barron home a week ago.

Also Monday, the Sheriff’s Department asked for 2,000 volunteers age 18 and older to help conduct a search Tuesday for potential evidence. “articles of evidentiary value” that could be related to the incident. One hundred volunteers searched the area between Barron and Turtle Lake last week but were unable to turn up any evidence.

The slayings and the mysterious disappearance of middle-schooler Jayme have rocked the small northwestern Wisconsin community.

Since the day her two neighbors were killed, Joan Smrekar has heard a helicopter circling the area near her house. Smrekar lives next door to the Closs home.

She and her husband heard two gunshots around 12:30 a.m. Oct. 15. It’s common to hear gunshots near their rural home, she said, but these sounded different. Louder. And they knew it was the wrong time of night for a gun to be going off.

“They were just seconds apart,” she said.

“Right now, we don’t feel anything other than compassion for what happened,” she said.