It’s dark and cramped. You can’t sit up and rolling over is impossible. Unable to escape, you stare up at the bottom of the bed, wondering what was going to happen next. Your stomach growls, but no one cares. It’s probably for the best since there aren’t any bathroom breaks. Sure, you could push one of the crates out of the way and slip out – except he’d know. He’d know you tried to leave. You’re Jayme Closs and you’re trapped.
In the early hours of October 15, 2018 in the city of Barron, Wisconsin, Jayme Closs, 13, was asleep in her bed. Just after midnight, her dog started barking, waking her up. Looking out her window, she could see a car coming up the driveway, one she didn’t recognize, one with no lights on. Scared, she ran to her parents’ room. Her father, James, took a flashlight and went to the front door, while she and her mother, Denise, took refuge in the bathroom, locking the door and hiding in the bathtub.
It wasn’t long before the sound of a gunshot rang through the house. They knew James had been killed.
Denise started to call 911, just as the intruder broke down the bathroom door. He was dressed in black wearing a ski mask and a black coat. He carried a shotgun.
The intruder ripped back the shower curtain to reveal Denise clutching her daughter. He grabbed the phone away from her and threw it. Next, he told her to hang up the phone and ordered her to tape Jayme’s mouth shut. As any person would be in this situation, Denise was rattled and had difficulty with the tape. The intruder had no choice but to tape Jayme himself, wrapping it around her mouth and head before taping her hands behind her back. He taped her ankles together and pulled her out of the bathtub. Another gunshot rang out; the bullet striking her mother in the head. Both of Jayme’s parents had just been murdered.
The 911 operator could only make out a disturbance and yelling before the call dropped. When they tried to call back, they got Denise’s voicemail.
The intruder dragged Jayme outside, nearly slipping on James’s spilled blood. He placed her in the trunk of his red, four-door, car and calmly drove away. Emergency vehicles came racing down the road toward the Closs home, and the intruder yielded as any driver should. His calm behavior let him slip by undetected.
The whole event took place in just four minutes.
At the Closs home, police questioned neighbors who reported hearing gunshots, but dismissed them as hunting was common around their homes.
Jayme lay in the trunk of that car for what felt like two hours before they reached their destination: a house in rural Gordon, about 70 miles away from her home.
He took her clothes and gave her his sisters pajamas. Then he took her clothes and burned them along with his gloves, the duct tape, everything he had used. There wouldn’t be any evidence.
Her kidnapper made it clear that no one was to know she was there, else bad things would happen to her.
As a prisoner, Jayme would spend time with him, walking in the yard, playing badminton, catch, or board games. They watched TV, cooked together, and even slept in the same bed.
Whenever he was away, Jayme was made to hide under his bed where he stacked totes and laundry bins around the bed with weights stacked against them. If she moved them, he would know. On one occasion, she accidentally moved one of the totes. She was told something bad would happen if she did it again.
On at least two occasions, he thought she was trying to get out from under the bed. He struck a wall and screamed so much, that he felt she was scared and would never try it again. Once he even struck her on the back, with what appeared to be a handle, used to clean blinds.
After about two months, he let Jayme write a letter to her aunt telling her she was alive. He considered dropping it at her driveway, but never actually did.
Often, on Saturday nights, his father would come for a visit. When other people happened to be in the house, he would play loud music, so there was no chance of anyone hearing her. She was trapped under the bed for hours on end, sometimes as long as 12 hours with no food, no water, and no bathroom breaks.
He came and went frequently, but as time wore on, he felt he was safe. On January 10, 2019, nearly 3 months after Jayme was abducted, her captor left the house telling her he would be away for a couple of hours. This was her chance to escape.
Confident he was gone, Jayme pushed the bins away from the bed and ran, wearing a light shirt, leggings, and a pair of his sneakers. She came across a local woman walking her dog and asked for help, “I’m Jayme Closs. I don’t know where I am. He killed my parents. Please help – I want to go home.” The woman was Jeanne Nutter, and she instantly recognized the girl. She quickly took her to her home and called the police.
Police arrived around 4:45pm Jayme was able to describe her captor and his vehicle before being removed from the scene and taken to a nearby hospital for her safety. When a deputy spotted his car, they stopped him. He exited his vehicle and said, “I did it.”
Jake Patterson was arrested.
In a confession, Jake Patterson, 21, admitted that he had fantasized about kidnapping a young teenage girl since his discharge from the Marines for medical reasons, after only three months. He was able to repress those feelings, until the day he saw Jayme one day in September. Jayme was getting on the school bus near her home when he saw her. “He knew that was the girl he was going to take.”
Patterson made a total of three attempts to kidnap her, aborting the first two times due to activity around the home. Later, he admitted, “If it wasn’t Jayme, it would probably be someone else.”
While the world searched for the missing girl, he watched the news, following accounts of the abduction, and over time grew increasingly confident that he had gotten away with it. “After a while I thought, well I could get away with this. I mean, I understand how when there’s no connection, a person has no connection to someone, how that’s fucking almost impossible to solve, or really hard to solve.”
Despite what many may think, he did feel remorse. “I just felt so bad like every time I looked her I was like, I can’t, like I couldn’t literally couldn’t believe that I actually did this.”
With no history of criminal activity, his confession left many confused. Why did he do this, what was his motive? In the end, even he couldn’t fully explain the “why”. In a letter in response to questions from a reporter, he apologized for his crimes, and said they were committed “mostly on impulse”.
Hormel, the parent company of the Jennie-O store, where Jayme’s parents had worked, had offered up a $25,000 award for her safe return. On January 24, they awarded the money to Jayme for rescuing herself.
As for Patterson, he was charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, one count of kidnapping, and one count of armed burglary. On March 24, 2019, Jake Patterson pleaded guilty to two counts of intentional first-degree homicide and one count of kidnapping. The judge agreed to dismiss the armed burglary account, and on May 24 his sentence was handed down.
Jake Patterson was given the maximum sentence possible. Two consecutive life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder charges, plus an additional 40 years for the kidnapping.
Since then, Patterson has made multiple public statements that he was sorry for his actions. Today he resides in a prison in New Mexico, where he was transferred in July 2019 for safety concerns.
It’s always a blessing when a victim of a kidnapping is found, just like Elizabeth Smart.
