Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old girl who vanished after her parents were found dead in their northwestern Wisconsin home, has been found alive, the Barron County Sheriff's Department said. / CNN
US teen Jayme Closs defied the odds and stunned the world after surviving an 88-day abduction by a man who is believed to have murdered her parents in her home in rural Wisconsin.
It was October 15 last year when 13-year-old Jayme was allegedly kidnapped by an intruder who had just shot her parents Denise and James Closs.
Jake Patterson, 21, has been charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping over the incident.
Patterson is set to make his initial appearance Monday afternoon local time in Barron County Circuit Court. Prosecutors are set to formally charge him with two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping before court begins.
Investigators believe Patterson broke into James and Denise Closs' home near Barron on October 15, blowing the front door open with a shotgun blast. They say he then gunned the couple down and made off with their 13-year-old daughter, Jayme.
A panicked 911 call was made that night, with frantic movement heard, but no words audible. The call lasted for less than one minute before somebody hung up.
After murdering both her parents it is believed Mr Patterson then abducted Jayme and took her to his home about 120km away in Gordon.
Jayme Closs, 13, went missing after her parents were found dead in their home. Jake Thomas Patterson will be formally charged in relation to the murder and abduction. Photo / AP
Investigators believe the goal of the assailant was to kidnap Jayme, though Patterson has no apparent prior connection to the family.
The 21-year-old is accused of keeping the young girl captive for the next 88 days. Little is known about what transpired over that period, however an FBI special agent working on the case has called it the kind of incident that every parent or family member "dreads".
Patterson has no criminal history.
Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald, leading the investigation, has said he wants to know why Jayme was targeted, in an attack he has described as being calculated.
After the chilling murders, police were unable to recover a single fingerprint. They claim Patterson shaved his head to avoid being recognised or associated with the crime.
"She's a survivor. Yes. She's our little survivor," Jayme's aunt, Jennifer Naiburg Smith, said. She is now Jayme's legal guardian.
INVESTIGATORS INITIALLY STUMPED
Although Jayme had disappeared, investigators said they initially "keyed in" on the parents because the daughter was an innocent child who they didn't believe could be targeted.
Denise and James worked as supervisors at a turkey processing plant. It was initially suspected that a disgruntled worker may have murdered them.
Jake Patterson had, as it turns out, worked at the same turkey processing plant, but only for a single day three years ago.
This remains the single thread tying him to the Closs family. But investigators have ruled it out as a link, labelling it as being too tenuous.
Voted "quietest person in class" during high school, he appears to have remained similarly estranged from his peers and society after graduation.
Jake Thomas Patterson has been jailed on kidnapping and homicide charges after allegedly killing a Wisconsin couple and abducting their teen daughter, Jayme Closs. Photo / AP
He is believed to have been unemployed and didn't attend any of the local businesses with enough frequency for anyone to recognise him.
Patterson had been living in a property owned by his parents, alone, for many years since his mother and father moved away after separating.
The double-storey house had a trampoline in the backyard and a disused boat covered in tarps in the yard. It is unclear how he made a living.
He reportedly hadn't been in contact with anybody in his family for many years.
Then, on Thursday, a woman walking her dog in the town of Gordon, about an hour north of Barron, spotted Jayme on the street.
That woman happened to be Jeanne Nutter, a former child protection worker.
Nutter described Jayme's condition as "skinny and dirty but outwardly OK", saying her hair was matted. Jayme had made a harrowing journey across the freezing and snowy rural Wisconsin landscape to her escape. Nutter said she was alarmed that the teen wasn't wearing boots or gloves.
Jayme Closs, right, with her aunt, Jennifer Smith in Barron, Wisconson three months after first being abducted. Photo / Supplied
"She told me who she was and then that's when I said this child needs to be someplace safe and you need to get her there now," Nutter said.
Wearing an oversized shirt and shoes that were too big for her, she described a girl who seemed like she'd grabbed at whatever she could to make her escape, trying to survive as she ran through the icy wilderness.
Nutter told reporters she knew the young girl needed help and took her inside. Fearful the kidnapper may be looking for Jayme, she told her partner to get a gun as he called 911.
Jayme described Patterson's car to law enforcement officers and they found him soon after, driving the streets, allegedly hunting her.
He has no criminal history in Wisconsin.
But many questions abound. Authorities have said Patterson's goal the night he broke into the Closs' home was to kidnap Jayme, but it's unclear how Patterson became aware of her, especially since he lived an hour away.
Investigators say there's no evidence of any online interactions between him and Jayme. Her family insists they don't know the man. Her grandfather, Robert Naiberg, told The Associated Press that Jayme told FBI agents she doesn't know Patterson at all.
Charging documents in Wisconsin typically contain at least a partial narrative of what happened at a crime scene, as prosecutors try to prove there's probable cause to support the allegations.
Details of Jayme's three-month captivity have not been released, and Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald has not said whether Jayme was sexually assaulted. But Patterson's attorneys, public defenders Charles Glynn and Richard Jones, have been lauded for taking high-profile cases with a special emphasis on sexually violent people, according to a state public defender office news release from February 2018.
