Found! Girl held hostage for 88 days
Kidnapped 13-year-old in dash to freedom as her parents’ ‘killer’ arrested
MALNOURISHED, bedraggled and wearing shoes far too large for her, a 13-yearold kidnap victim has been found by a woman out walking her dog.
Jayme Closs’s 88-day hostage ordeal ended when she apparently escaped from a remote cottage and made a dash for freedom.
She had been missing since October when she was abducted from her family home by a gunman who burst in and shot her parents dead. Dazed Jayme was discovered on Thursday afternoon – 70 miles from her home in Wisconsin, uS. The dog walker took her to a nearby house where the family described Jayme as ‘skinny and dirty but outwardly OK’. Police later arrested 21year-old Jake Patterson who was pulled over in his car close to the place where Jayme was found.
He is accused of killing James Closs, 56, and his wife Denise, 45, and kidnapping their daughter. Detectives believe Patterson, who has no previous criminal history, murdered them because he wanted to abduct the girl, who was ‘his only target’.
It is thought that Patterson had no previous contact with the family but had connections to their home town of Barron. Investigators are working to discover why he came to target her. Jayme was taken to hospital for tests but was released yesterday.
local sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Patterson ‘planned his actions and took many steps to hide his identity’. He claimed the suspect kept the girl at a ‘home
in a remote area’, adding: ‘Jayme was taken against her will and escaped from the residence at which she was being held.’
Jayme was found near the town of Gordon, 40 miles south of Lake Superior, where many homes are unoccupied during the state’s bitterly cold winter. She approached the dog walker and asked for help, saying she had been kidnapped and a man had killed her parents.
The woman took Jayme to a neighbour’s house and banged on the door shouting: ‘This is Jayme Closs! Call 911!’ Teacher Kristin Kasinskas, who opened the door, said: ‘I think we recognised Jayme immediately. Her picture has been everywhere around here. She seemed in shock and kind of timid, but she did talk to us a little bit, and she came in and sat down in our living room and was able to have a conversation with us.’
Mrs Kasinskas said Jayme, who refused food and water, described ‘being locked up or hidden when this person had to leave, but she did not go into any detail about how she got away’.
‘She said that this person usually hides her when others are near, or when he has to leave the household.’
She added: ‘She did not go into detail about how she got out of the house or anything like that.’
Jayme’s aunt Kelly Engelhardt said her astonishing reappearance was the news that the family had ‘prayed for’ every day since the abduction.
She stressed: ‘I figured if they hadn’t found her by now that the person that did this didn’t want her dead, so I had hope.’ Police said the killer of Mr and Mrs Closs only remained in their home for four minutes, stepping just 5ft into the open plan house but still managing to shoot the couple and abduct Jayme.
Both parents died instantly from their wounds.
Police went to the house after the emergency services took an alarming call from Mrs Closs’s mobile phone. Nobody spoke but the sound of yelling could be heard in the background.
Officers found the door had been kicked in. Inside, the parents were dead and Jayme was missing, but there were no other signs of a disturbance.
Investigators were hard pressed to find any forensic evidence at the Closs home as the killer barely stepped inside.
Patterson was arrested on two counts of first-degree homicide and one count of kidnapping. Jayme was last night expected to have an emotional reunion with relatives.