GORDON, Wis. – Jake Thomas Patterson’s goal was kidnapping Jayme Closs — not killing her parents, police said Friday. Patterson, 21, was familiar with…
GORDON, Wis. – Jake Thomas Patterson’s goal was kidnapping Jayme Closs — not killing her parents, police said Friday.
Patterson, 21, was familiar with the city of Barron, where Jayme’s family lived, and targeted her specifically, police said at a Friday morning news conference.
Authorities said they did not yet know whether Jayme, 13, and Patterson knew each other before he kidnapped her in October. Police have found no evidence that the two communicated on social media.
Jayme’s parents, James, 56, and Denise, 46, were fatally shot during her abduction Oct. 15. They did not know Patterson, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said.
Patterson had no criminal history. Neither he nor the Town of Gordon, where Jayme was found, were the focus of the investigation until Jayme escaped Thursday afternoon, Fitzgerald said.
Patterson, of Gordon, was being was being held in the Barron County Jail Friday on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. The district attorney expects to file charges next week.
Patterson was arrested after Jayme escaped from an isolated home outside Gordon and provided the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department with a description of Patterson’s vehicle.
An officer spotted the car, pulled it over and arrested Patterson, police said.
Jayme has been medically cleared at a hospital and would be reunited with her family soon, police said. Detectives were questioning both her and Patterson Friday morning.
Thursday evening, a skinny girl with matted hair emerged from a wooded area in rural Wisconsin and told a dog walker she was Jayme Closs, the 13-year-old who had been missing since her parents were found shot dead in October.
