In his captor’s sentence, Jayme said, “I loved going out with my friends. I love going to school. I love dancing. He took all these things out of me too. It’s very difficult for me to go out in public.”
Reflecting on Jayme’s flight to freedom on January 10, 2018, Smith said he is grateful for those neighbors, the police who fought for justice, the world that kept his attention on finding her – and, most importantly, for Jayme’s bravery.
“We always want to tell and remind others to never value life,” said Smith. “You never know what tomorrow will bring. Always remember to take the time to tell your loved ones that you love them.”
Dragged from your home to the trunk of a car
Jayme was sleeping in her room on October 15, 2018 when she woke up to her dog Molly barking. She ran to pick up her parents when she saw an unknown Taurus in her family’s garage with her headlights off.
While his father James went to the door with a flashlight, Jayme and his mother Denise hid in the bathtub of a bathroom closed by a cabinet drawer. Jayme cringed at the shot that killed his father. Her mother called 911.
All the dispatcher could hear when the call came in around 12:53 was “a lot of screaming”.
Patterson, who shaved his head and face to avoid leaving DNA, burst into the bathroom to find Jayme and his mother. After shooting her mother, he dragged the teen taped to the trunk of his car.
Patterson accelerated, yielding to the patrol cars on their way to the Closs’ home, said a police officer.
Stuck under a single bed for months
Volunteers and police officers searched northern Wisconsin for three months. Jayme’s photo was spread on posters and, in total, $ 50,000 was offered for information about her.
The whole time, she was 70 miles away, at Patterson’s house in Gordon. Her captor forced her to stay under her single bed, where she sometimes stayed for up to 12 hours, without food, water or access to the bathroom.
He turned on the radio in the bedroom to drown out his movements when his father came to visit, and made Jayme afraid screaming and hitting the walls, warning that “bad things would happen to her if she tried” to leave.
Two weeks after the kidnapping, Patterson told detectives that he believed he got away with his crimes.
Jayme escapes
But then, on January 10, he told Jayme he would be gone for a few hours. As soon as he was gone, she pushed the cans and weights that protected her under the bed, crawled out, walked out the front door, and stepped into the snow.
A woman walking her dog saw the girl, who said she needed help.
“I’m lost and I don’t know where I am and I need help,” said the teenager. “I am Jayme.”
The woman took her to the nearest house, where they called 911.
Patterson returned to the area and was arrested shortly after. Prosecutors said he confessed in detail during an interview after his arrest.
He received a life sentence each for the murders of James and Denise Closs and a 40-year sentence for the kidnapping, including 25 years in prison and 15 years on probation.
Jayme had a chance to read a statement before his sentence, in which she said he should be arrested forever.
“Jake Patterson took a lot of things that I love from me. I’m even 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.