Deputies Passed a Single Car en Route to Closs Home

It was allegedly Jake Patterson's car
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 16, 2019 11:44 AM CST
Jayme Closs Heard Deputies' Sirens While in Car's Trunk
In this image made from a pool video by KSTP-TV, Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, who is accused of abducting 13-year-old Jayme Closs and holding her captive for three months, makes his initial court appearance Monday, Jan 14, 2019, via video feed from the Barron County jail.   (KSTP-TV via AP, Pool)

During Jake Patterson's arraignment on Monday, Jayme Closs' family sat on the prosecution's side in court. So too did Patterson's father, at least until he was asked by a deputy to move to the defense's side. CNN reports it tried to speak with Patrick Patterson Tuesday at the Barron County Justice Center in Wisconsin but he didn't say much. "I'm sorry, I can't talk," he repeated, with CNN describing him as "shaking with emotion." He said he was there for the sole purpose of delivering a letter to the Closs family. He did not disclose its contents but said, "All I care about right now is Jayme's family." Per a criminal complaint filed Monday, Patrick Patterson visited the home where his son allegedly held Jayme for 88 days on a number of occasions; police say she was forced to hide under a twin bed during those visits. More on the case:

  • The AP spoke with Jayme's grandfather, Robert Naiberg, who had kind words to say about Patrick Patterson. "You can't blame the parents. A guy becomes 21 years old, and sometimes it's not how he was raised or anything." He says Jayme will live permanently with her aunt, and that she has expressed a desire to return to school.
  • The AP pores over the 12-page criminal complaint and sees a clue in how prosecutors might make their case. The complaint goes into depth about Jayme's abduction and how she managed to flee, "without lingering on her time in captivity." Defense attorneys think the decision was a conscious one: It both spares Jayme some additional trauma, and may "send a signal to the defense" that the prosecution thinks it has so much evidence those details are unnecessary.

  • According to the criminal complaint, Jayme heard the sirens of first responders as she was being driven away in the trunk of what she says was Jake Patterson's car. Indeed, it has emerged that deputies passed just one vehicle en route to the Closs home on Oct. 15—what they now say was Patterson's red Ford Taurus. The car yielded, and Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald says no one stopped the car because they didn't know yet what crime had occurred, reports USA Today.
  • The New York Times reports that per the complaint, Patterson told police he spent about 4 minutes in the Closs home and that he saw the deputies just 20 seconds after he began to drive off.
  • As for why officials never alerted the public to be on the lookout for the car, Fitzgerald says the vehicle was internally discussed, but due to how dark it was and the speed at which police were driving, they didn't feel like they had solid specifics on it.
  • The AP reports Patterson was on Tuesday moved from the Barron County Jail to a facility in Polk County. The transfer was described as an "administrative decision" and the sheriff said that Patterson had not been the target of threats. Officials confirmed one of Closs' relatives works at the Barron County Jail.
  • Patterson's grandfather spoke with ABC News Wednesday and called the 21-year-old "a perfectly nice kid" who was "shy and quiet. ... Computer games were more of a priority than social interaction," said Jim Moyer. "Nobody had any clues up until this thing happened."
  • The Times notes just how rare abductions by strangers are, citing a statistic from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. It fielded more than 25,000 reports of missing children last year; just 77 of those were kidnappings by nonfamily members.
(More Jayme Closs stories.)

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