Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, of Gordon, Wis. has confessed to killing James and Denise Closs and kidnapping 13 year old Jayme Closs, according to criminal complaint documents released on Monday.
According to the complaint, Patterson told authorities that he was working at Saputo Cheese Factory. One morning as he was driving to work he stopped behind a school bus on U.S. Highway 8. He saw Jayme Closs getting on the school bus. He didn’t know who she was but told authorities he knew then and there that she was the girl he was going to take.
Patterson then began to plan his abduction of Closs. He drove to her house on two different occasions with the intent of kidnapping her but was scared away, once by several cars being in the driveway and once by lights being on and people milling about there.
On October 15, Closs was asleep when her dog began barking. When she got up to see what it was she saw someone driving up the driveway. She woke her parents up. When her father went to the front door there was someone standing there with a shotgun. Jayme and her mother, Denise, barricaded themselves in a bathroom. They heard the suspect shoot and kill Jayme’s father, James. Patterson says he then smashed in the bathroom door, tied up Jayme and shot Denise to death in the bathtub.
According to the complaint he then drove Jayme to his Gordon home where he made her hide under his bed whenever he had to leave or if he was going to have company. Closs says he hit her on one occasion when she did something to upset him. She said that on Christmas, Patterson left her alone under the bed for twelve hours while he went to have Christmas with his family in the Superior area.
On January 10, Patterson told Closs to hide under his bed because he was going to be gone for about six hours. She said that when he left she escaped from underneath his bed, put on a pair of his shoes and saw a woman walking her dog out in the road. Closs ran to the woman, who took her to a neighboring house while they called the sheriff’s department.
Sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home and Jayme told them that Jake Thomas Patterson had killed her parents and that she wanted to go home. Due to the proximity of the neighbors house to Patterson’s house deputies decided to move Jayme out of the area. As deputies were driving her to a safer area they spotted a red vehicle they suspected could be Patterson out looking for her. Deputies pulled over the vehicle and asked the driver, who was later identified as Patterson, to step out of the vehicle.
According to the complaint, Patterson told deputies he knew what they were pulling him over for. “I know what this is about. I did it,” Patterson told deputies according to the criminal complaint.
Patterson has been charged with two counts of first degree homicide, one count of kidnapping, and one count of armed burglary. He is due in court on Monday afternoon at 3:30pm.
