Jayme said during the sentencing of her author: “I loved going out with my friends. I like going to school. I like dancing. He took all this stuff away from me too. Me around to go out in public. ‘
Smith reflected on Jayme’s flight to freedom on January 10, 2018, and said she was grateful for the neighbors, the law enforcers who fought for justice, the world that drew her attention to it – and especially for Jayme’s bravery.
“We always want to say and remind people never to take life for granted,” Smith said. “You never know what tomorrow will bring. Always remember to take the time to tell your loved ones that you love them.”
Dragged from her home to the trunk of a car
Jayme was sleeping in her bedroom on October 15, 2018 when she woke up with her dog Molly barking. She hurried her parents when she saw an unknown Bull in her family’s driveway with the headlights off.
As her father, James, walks to the door with a flashlight, Jayme and her mother Denise hide in the bath of a bathroom barred with a cupboard drawer. Jayme stooped when she heard the shot that killed her father. Her mother called 911.
All the sender could hear when the call came in at about 12:53 was “a lot of shouting.”
Patterson, who shaved his head and face so as not to leave DNA, burst into the bathroom to find Jayme and her mother. After shooting her mother dead, he dragged the adhesive-bonded teenager to the trunk of his car.
Patterson quickly drove away and conceded to group cars on their way to the Closs home, a deputy said.
Stuck under a single bed for months
Volunteers and police searched northern Wisconsin for three months. Jayme’s photo was splashed over posters and a total of $ 50,000 was offered for information about her.
All the while, she was 70 miles away in Patterson’s Gordon home. Her author forced her to stay under his twin bed, where she sometimes stayed for 12 hours, without food, water or access to the bathroom.
He would turn on the bedroom radio to muffle her movements when his father came to visit, and he would frighten Jayme by shouting and hitting the walls, warning that ‘bad things would happen to her if she tried’ to get out. to come.
Two weeks after the kidnapping, Patterson told detectives he believes he got away with his crimes.
Jayme escapes
But on January 10, he told Jayme he was going to be out for a few hours. As soon as he is gone, she slides away the trash and weights that block her under the bed, crawls out, climbs out the front door, and steps into the snow.
A woman walking with her dog saw the girl who said she needed help.
“I’m lost and I do not know where I am and I need help,” the teenager said. “I’m Jayme.”
The woman brought her to the nearest house where they called 911.
Patterson returned to the area and was arrested shortly thereafter. Prosecutors said he admitted in detail during an interview after his arrest.
He each served one life sentence for the murders of James and Denise Closs and was sentenced to 40 years for the kidnapping, including 25 years in prison and 15 years on parole.
Before his sentencing, Jayme had the opportunity to read a statement in which she said he should be locked up forever.
“Jake Patterson took a lot of things I love away from me. It makes me sadder that he took my mom and dad away,” she said.
CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Keith Allen, Faith Karimi, Jason Hanna and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.