When sentencing her kidnapper, Jayme said, “I used to like going out with my friends. I like going to school. I like dancing. He took all those things away from me too. It’s too hard for me to go out in public. to go. “
Looking back on Jayme’s escape to freedom on January 10, 2018, Smith said she is grateful for those neighbors, the law enforcement officers who fought for justice, the world that kept her attention to finding her – and, most importantly, Jayme’s courage.
“We always want to say and remind others never to take life for granted,” Smith said. ‘You never know what the future will bring. Always remember to take the time to tell your loved ones you love them. ‘
Towed from her house to the trunk of a car
Jayme was sleeping in her bedroom on October 15, 2018 when she woke up to barking from her dog Molly. She was rushing to get her parents when she saw an unknown Taurus standing in her family’s driveway with the headlights off.
While her father James walked to the door with a flashlight, Jayme and her mother Denise hid in the tub of a bathroom that was barricaded with a cupboard drawer. Jayme winced when she heard the gunshot that killed her father. Her mother called 911.
The only thing the dispatcher could hear when the call came in around 12:53 pm was “a lot of shouting”.
Patterson, who had shaved his head and face to avoid leaving DNA behind, burst into the bathroom to find Jayme and her mother. After he shot her mother, he dragged the duct tape-bound teen to the trunk of his car.
Patterson rushed off and gave in to police cars headed for Closs’s house, a deputy sheriff said.
I have been under a single bed for months
Volunteers and police searched northern Wisconsin for three months. Jayme’s photo hung over posters and a total of $ 50,000 was offered for information about her.
All the while, she was 70 miles away at Patterson’s house in Gordon. Her captor forced her to stay under his double bed, where she sometimes stayed for up to 12 hours, without food, water or access to the bathroom.
When his dad came to visit, he turned up the radio in the bedroom to muffle her movements, and he would scare Jayme by yelling and hitting the walls and warning that “ bad things would happen to her if she would try ‘to get out.
Two weeks after the kidnapping, Patterson told detectives that he thought he got away with his crimes.
Jayme escapes
But then he told Jayme on January 10 that he would be gone for a few hours. Once he was gone, she pushed back the bins and weights that had barricaded her under the bed, crawled out, stepped 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’m Jayme.”
The woman took her to the nearest house where they called the emergency center.
Patterson returned to the area and was arrested shortly afterwards. Prosecutors said he confessed in detail during an interview after his arrest.
He was each given a life sentence for the murders of James and Denise Closs and was given a 40-year sentence for the kidnapping, including 25 years in prison and 15 years on parole.
Jayme had the opportunity to read a statement before he was convicted, saying he should be locked up forever.
“Jake Patterson took a lot of things that I love from me. It makes me the most sad that he took my mom and my dad,” she said.
CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Keith Allen, Faith Karimi, Jason Hanna and Steve Almasy contributed to this report.