The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Girl’s Kidnapper Held on $5 Million Bond; Court Documents Reveal Crime Details

Posted on | January 14, 2019 | Comments Off on Girl’s Kidnapper Held on $5 Million Bond; Court Documents Reveal Crime Details

 

Thirteen-year-old Jayme Closs was found alive last week, nearly three months after being kidnapped by the 21-year-old man who murdered her parents. Today a Wisconsin judge ordered Jake Thomas Patterson held on $5 million bond, and details of the crime emerged:

A Wisconsin man accused of abducting 13-year-old Jayme Closs and holding her captive for three months made up his mind to take her when he spotted the teenager getting on a school bus, authorities said Monday.
Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, told detectives that “he knew that was the girl he was going to take,” and he made two aborted trips to her family’s home before finally carrying out an attack in which he fatally shot Jayme’s mother in front of her, according to a criminal complaint filed hours before Patterson’s first court appearance.
Prosecutors charged him Monday with kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents Oct. 15 near Barron, about 90 miles northeast of Minneapolis. He was also charged with armed robbery.
Investigators believe Patterson hid Jayme in a remote cabin before she escaped on Thursday. Police have said the two did not know each other. . . .
The complaint said Patterson went to the home twice intending to kidnap Jayme, but broke off one attempt because too many cars were in the driveway and called off another because the house was too active.
On the night she was abducted, Jayme told police, she was asleep in her room when the family dog started barking. She woke her parents as a car came up the driveway.
She and her mother, Denise, hid in the bathroom, clutching one another in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled shut. Her father, James, went to the front door. They heard a gunshot, and Jayme knew that James had just been killed, according to the complaint.
Denise Closs started to call 911. Patterson broke down the bathroom door. Jayme said he was dressed in black, wearing a face mask and gloves and carrying a shotgun.
Patterson told her mother to hang up and ordered her to tape Jayme’s mouth shut. Patterson told detectives that Denise Closs struggled with the tape so he wrapped the tape himself around Jayme’s mouth and head. He then taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, pulled her out of the bathtub and shot her mother in the head.
He dragged Jayme outside, nearly slipping in blood pooled on the floor. He threw her in the trunk and drove off, pausing to yield to three squad cars speeding toward the house with flashing lights. . . .
Patterson told investigators . . . he assumed he had gotten away with the slayings and kidnappings after two weeks went by. . . .
Authorities have not said whether Jayme was sexually assaulted. The complaint does not charge Patterson with any form of sexual assault.

The documents explain something that otherwise made no sense: How did Patterson, who lived an hour’s drive north of the Closs family home, find this girl?

Patterson told investigators that he worked at Saputo Cheese Factory, south of Almena for two days before quitting.
On his drive to the cheese factory on one of the two mornings he worked there, he had stopped behind a school bus on U.S. Highway 8, where he watched Jayme Closs get on the bus.
Patterson told investigators that he had no idea who she was, nor did he know who lived at the house, according to the complaint.
When he saw Closs, “he knew that was the girl he was going to take,” according to the criminal complaint.

So it was his job in Alemena, where he worked for only two days, that explains how Patterson — who attended high school in Minong, more than 50 miles from Barron County — located his prey. More details:

A man suspected in the kidnapping of Jayme Closs planned the crime methodically after he spotted the Wisconsin teenager getting onto a school bus. . . .
The complaint says Patterson didn’t even know Jayme’s name until he abducted her.
The complaint says Patterson used his father’s 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun because it is commonly used and he thought it would be more difficult to trace. It says he chose the gauge to do the most damage, and wiped shells and shotguns free of fingerprints and wore gloves to load the gun.
The complaint also says Patterson shaved his face and head and showered prior to the attack. He was dressed all in black. It says he took the license plates off his car, put stolen plates on and disconnected the dome and trunk lights.

And also this:

A Wisconsin man suspected of abducting 13-year-old Jayme Closs washed out of the U.S. Marine Corps after little more than a month.
Jake Thomas Patterson wrote in his high school yearbook that he planned to join the Marines after graduation. But military records show he lasted for only about five weeks before being prematurely discharged in October 2015 at the rank of private.
Marine spokeswoman Yvonne Carlock said by email that Patterson’s early discharge indicated “the character of his service was incongruent with Marine Corps’ expectations and standards.”

He couldn’t make it through basic training and never held a steady job, but when it came to kidnapping and murder, his planning was “meticulous.” Too bad they don’t have the death penalty in Wisconsin.



 

Category: Crime, Wisconsin

Comments

Comments are closed.