Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Jayme Closs's miracle rescue after 88 days of captivity
Episode Date: January 11, 2019Eighty-eight days after her parents were murdered and she was kidnapped from her home, 13-year-old Jayme Closs escaped from captivity and a 21-year-old man was arrested. Nancy Grace explores the case ...with guests including Alicia Kozakiewicz -- herself a teen kidnapping survivor, Marc Klaas -- founder Klaas Kids Foundation, psychologist Dr. William July, private investigator Vincent Hill, criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor Holly Hughes, and syndicated radio host David Mack. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
She's coming home.
She's coming home.
Best night.
Just happy with lots of emotions and tears tonight, but so happy.
And I can't wait to hug that little girl.
Any idea when?
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow sometime?
Yes. She's getting rest. She's exhausted.
Have you talked to her?
I have not talked to her. She's sleeping.
Do you have details to put you at ease right now?
She's doing good. I know she's doing good, and she's in good hands.
Did you read the account in the Star Tribune?
They talked to some of the people who found her in Gordon.
I did, yes.
They said matted hair, she malnourished.
Yes, the biggest shoes.
Yeah, what does that mean?
What does that say?
We'll get her better.
We'll get her through this.
As long as she's alive and good, we'll get through anything.
Truer words were never said as long as she is alive
breaking news bombshell now 13 year old little girl jamie claus is alive and i can only say
three words praise the lord because statistically this is practically impossible. As you'll recall, this little girl,
Jamie, absolutely beautiful, was kidnapped out of her family home. Both of her parents were murdered.
The killer was only in the house about four minutes, clearly coming in for Jamie and leaving no witnesses behind.
What we are learning is that Jamie Kloss, a 13-year-old little girl with long strawberry blonde hair,
managed to escape a remote cabin a full three months after her mother and her father were murdered in their home.
About 70 miles away when she was found skinny filthy wearing somebody
else's shoes too big for her she walks up into an unknown person and says i've been kidnapped
a man murdered both my parents i'm nancy grace this is crime stories thank you for being with me
with me mark class founder of class kidslass, founder of Klass Kids Foundation,
who has devoted his life to finding missing children.
Alicia Koskikiewicz, kidnapped survivor taken from her home as a little girl.
A missing persons advocate, founder of the Alicia Project.
Dr. William July, psychologist.
Vincent Hill, PI and author. William July, psychologist, Vincent Hill,
PI and author, Holly Hughes, felony prosecutor, joining me right now, syndicated talk show host,
David Mack. David, can you believe it? My phone blew up at about 11 o'clock last night.
I could not believe Jamie Closs is alive. One of the most shocking, wonderful, incredible stories. As you
mentioned last night, the phone calls started going out. Everything went crazy about 445 yesterday
afternoon. That's when we had now discovered that Jamie Closs actually was able to escape
her captor and found somebody walking the dog and said, I need help. That's
where the good news all began. I want you to take a listen to Kristen Kacinkas, the woman who called
911 when a neighbor bams on her door saying these words, call 911. This is Jamie Kloss.
Approximately four o'clock. I was just getting home from work, just kind of getting unpacked.
And our neighbor came up to our door with her big dog.
And she kind of flung the door open and said, call 911.
This is Jamie Kloss.
And right next to her was a very, I don't know, slender-looking girl who looked exactly like Jamie Closs in the photograph that we've all seen.
She just came in, said she was Jamie.
We brought her in the house.
She came and sat down in our living room with us, and we called 911 immediately and waited for the police to arrive. Took
maybe a half hour for the police to get here. I don't know. I don't even really know how to
describe it other than just kind of like surprise and panic at the same time. So we just called
911. We waited. We kind of just talked with her. nothing too specific about what was happening.
I asked her if she knew where Gordon, Wisconsin was.
She did not.
But she was pretty clear about that she'd been taken.
Other than that, she didn't give us a lot of details.
We just waited for the police to arrive.
They came, they took her, and then that's basically it.
That's from our friends at KARE 11. It's Kristen Kacinkas, the woman who called 911 when a neighbor brings Klaus to the door.
As we know right now, an unidentified suspect has been arrested who is it straight out to mark class founder of class kids foundation longtime friend and colleague who has devoted his life
to finding and saving missing people particularly children after his daughter
Polly was taken mark class I've got to hear your analysis of what we know so far.
Well, it's a miracle.
It's a miracle, quite frankly.
The vast, vast majority of children that are kidnapped under circumstances even close to Jamie's never show up alive again.
We never hear about them. The ones that you do hear about, you can count on almost one hand, including one of
your guests today. So I think it's a testament to the hard work that everybody has done,
and it certainly gives hope to the parents of any child that continues to be missing,
that these kinds of events do happen, that they do come home, but that's certainly not to minimize
the hard road ahead for this child that she has to recover from the trauma of three months of being kidnapped and her parents having been murdered.
87 days. Jamie Closh, a 13-year-old little girl, has been held. She was kidnapped from her own
home back in October, both her mother and her father, we believe gunned down, dead and murdered. Police arrive at the home just
four minutes after the 911 call. Nobody really says anything in the 911 call, but you can hear
chaos going on in the background. You know something's happening. So police race over
there. They get there four minutes later. Mom and dad are both dead. Jamie, gone.
The door is not broken into.
Jamie has been located in the town of Gordon, 70 miles away from her home in Barron, Wisconsin.
Again, an unidentified suspect is in jail in connection to her disappearance.
She was described as filthy, skinny, her hair matted, wearing somebody else's shoes way too big for her.
She declined food, but Jamie did say, according to sources, who she believed had her and spoke of,
quote, being locked up. What does it mean? We don't know yet. Both her parents, Denise and James, dying, quote,
instantly of their wounds. Joining me right now, in addition to Dave Mack, our friend Mark Klass,
founder of Klass Kids Foundation, a very special guest, Alicia Kozakiewicz, a kidnap survivor,
missing persons advocate.
You can find her online, founder of the Alicia Project.
Alicia spoke for a long time online with a person she thought was a little girl about her age.
That little girl turned out to be someone very, very sinister. And around Christmas time when it was a beautiful outside she got a
message from the friend she gets up from a wonderful family dinner where
everybody's laughing and having a good time steps outside and her life changed
forever Alicia kidnapped and held hostage, and it is a miracle she survived.
Alicia, I'm so proud to have you with me along with Mark.
Alicia, what is this little girl going through?
First off, I just have to say that this is the best news ever.
I found out, and I literally jumped around and did a happy dance.
This is so incredible you
did because you were texting me at midnight that you were dancing and i just i was crying it made
me start crying i was so happy i couldn't believe it and that very day i had been pitching jamie
claus's story to major tv outlets to try to renew interest in finding Jamie Closs. And then this happened.
Alicia, she has a long road ahead of her. Explain. She truly does. She's been rescued and now she can
start the recovery process and the process of moving forward. But that's certainly going to
take time. And what we need to give her right now is time and space,
which I know is difficult and nearly impossible
because everybody wants to know what happened,
but we have to respect her privacy.
We have to give her dignity and respect.
And what she needs now more than anything
is support from her family, as well as from the public.
So please do not speculate,
do not entertain. Do not entertain
the online trolls. Like I said, she needs dignity and respect. I've already read some
terrible comments. There is no place for that. And really one of the saddest things here
is although that she has an amazing family supporting her who has never given up hope,
Jamie in many ways can never really come home from the home that she was taken from.
She lost her parents. Her new home is going to be something different and she's going to have to go
through such a grieving process. She has such a long road ahead, but thankfully she has people
surrounding her. She has people celebrating all over the nation and she is a beacon of hope for so many
parents and families who have missing children. She is such a beacon of hope and I'm so proud of
her for getting away and all I can say is welcome home Jamie. Jamie's family's in shock. This is the
outcome they've been praying for for 87 days and it's an outcome we all know is rare in a case like
this. We now know Jamie was in a
development about seven miles east of the small town of Gordon, Wisconsin. There are a lot of
cabins there, seasonal and permanent residents. Family members tell us they were told Jamie got
out and asked for help. What was your reaction when you heard the news? I cried. I sat down on the bench.
I was, I mean, I'm shocked.
We've had so much bad news this year.
Well, no, it's 2019.
So it's good news in 2019.
It's what we've prayed for every single day for the last 87 days or whatever it is, 87, 88.
I can't even remember.
Did it reach a point where you were bracing yourself for bad news or anything like that?
No, no, I honestly had faith.
I figured if they hadn't found her by now that the person that did this
didn't want her dead.
So I had hope every day.
Every day there was hope.
Just tell me what you're going through right now
and how you heard the news and how you reacted.
It was just unbelievable because, you know, you hear about, you know,
you're not sure if she's going to be found or going to be found,
and then when you actually hear it, it's just unbelievable.
We're all just so grateful and happy.
Are you in shock?
Yes, and I think that's part of it too.
It's like, no, it's just great.
We thought it was going to be a different ending,
and we're so happy that hopefully she's okay.
We don't really know what shape she's in.
We don't really know a lot. She's okay. We don't really know what shape she's in or, you know, what we don't really know a lot. She's alive.
That's KARE 11's Lou Raguse speaking with Jamie's aunt Kelly and Jeff,
uncle Jeff. They don't know a lot right now. Nobody really does.
Maybe they've been briefed in the last minutes,
but what we do know is this, that a miracle has taken place.
13-year-old Jamie Closs has been found alive 88 days after she was taken from her family home.
Both parents shot dead.
She was found skinny, filthy, wearing shoes way too big for her. She flagged down a lady dog walker and said,
I've been kidnapped.
A man killed both my parents.
You earlier heard the woman that called 911 recounting what she observed.
Jamie kidnapped from her home in October when her parents were murdered.
She was found in the town of Gordon, about 70 miles from her home in Barron.
There is a suspect behind bars.
We don't know any more right now.
Skinny, filthy, wearing shoes too big for her, declining food, and blank.
A blank and flat affect.
What more do we know?
Back to Dave Max, syndicated talk show host.
It was a, quote, seasonal community about seven miles from Gordon.
And that tells me somebody was hiding out with her in, like, a cabin or a remote trailer that was used for hunting and fishing or boating.
What do you think, Dave Mack?
You've actually described exactly where it is, about seven miles outside of this town.
The town only has about 1,000 residents anyway.
This is out in the middle of nowhere.
But police and FBI have already taped off this one cabin about seven miles from town in the middle of nowhere.
And the actual person that lived in that cabin was a 21-year-old man that they took into custody.
He's the suspect everyone's talking about. He's only 21,
but was living in this cabin out in the middle of hunting territory where most of the people are
only out there when they're going to be hunting or fishing or something like that during the winter.
This says to me, to Mark Klaas, founder of Klaas Kids Foundation, this was planned, very well
planned to go in, execute her parents, get Jamie, and take her to a remote hunting cabin.
You know, Nancy, like in all, of course it was well planned.
I'm only speculating here, but in the vast majority of cases where the kids come home alive,
J.C. Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Shasta Groney, Mitzi Sanchez, Sean Hornbeck, Ben Owensby, Alicia, Hannah Anderson,
these kids were taken by sexual
predators. And it's such a long, long road for them to get back to mental health and to put
their lives together. We can only hope and pray that the same thing happens for Jamie, that she's
able to put her life together and lead a productive and happy existence.
The woman who called 911, Kristen Kaczynska, a teacher,
said that they recognized Jamie immediately,
but that Jamie seemed like she was in shock and very timid.
She did talk a little bit.
She sat down in their living room.
She did not give much details.
I asked her if she knew where Gordon, Wisconsin was,
and she did not even know where Gordon was or where she was at that moment.
She did state who she believed had her,
and she did give a little information about that person's car,
which obviously had to be the car he used when he came to kidnap her.
But other than that, she did not give a lot of detail.
Now, Kacinkas asked her if the person was somebody that she knew in the community.
And reportedly, she said that she, Kristen, recognized the name, but not someone she knew very well.
What do we know about this person?
Joining me right now is Holly Hughes, veteran prosecutor, now defense attorney in the Atlanta jurisdiction.
Give me your profile of who you think this 21-year-old guy is. He is someone, it reminds me very much of the Elizabeth Smart case, where the guy was a
handyman. He was in and out of the house. He knew exactly where to go to execute the parents and get
away with Jamie very quickly. He's a loner, he's an outsider, and he just wants someone to be there with him even if they don't want to
be. So I'm thinking this man probably doesn't have a steady job. He doesn't have to report
somewhere every day and there's not a lot of oversight. This is someone who can hide out in
the woods for months at a time. 87 days he had this poor little girl and no one noticed. That
means he doesn't have visitors
popping by he's not afraid someone's going to knock on the door and say hey dude let's go grab
a beer together this is an isolated person who is non-threatening enough that he can come up and
get those little handyman jobs say hello to people in the community and again we hear it a million
times oh he was such a quiet person he was was such a nice boy. We had no idea.
And yet he was able to pull this off.
We also know this.
We know that she did give some clues very quickly to Mark Klaas,
that she talked about being locked up or hidden whenever the perp had to leave.
What do you make of it, Mark?
Well, she was a prisoner.
I mean, she was absolutely a prisoner.
Like all of these kids are, she is completely cut off from society. She has no
ability to get away from the guy. And quite frankly, if these things go on for a long period
of time, Stockholm syndrome tends to set in and it becomes more and more difficult for them to
extricate themselves. So the fact that she was able to escape and able to find somebody to help her
is just piles of miracles upon the miracles.
It's a great day for missing kids.
Hi, Nancy Grace here.
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Find the truth. Did she say anything about who had she escaped?
Did she say anything about was there anybody coming after her?
I don't know if there was any fear there from from her in that someone was looking for her.
She didn't she didn't express like any like fear, fear, like she didn't say that she was
afraid this person was coming after her.
But she did say that somebody took her.
She did say that somebody killed her parents.
She told us a vehicle to be watching out for.
Wow.
It just, yeah, can't even believe it.
How are you guys processing it right now?
I don't know if it's hit you yet.
I don't know.
This has been a little bit of a hectic night.
I don't know.
I don't know how we're processing it.
Yeah, because you must have seen her face everywhere the last three months
and then to actually have her sitting in there.
Yeah, definitely.
Yep.
Wow.
I've seen her face all over.
And our school has done Green for Hope events,
well-dressed in green for Hope for Jamie being found.
I mean, so, yes, we've seen her face a lot.
So I knew it was her the second she walked in the door.
And her physical state, was she seeming to be okay physically?
I think so.
I think overall, yes.
She looked tired.
Yeah, she looked tired. She looked thin, I thought. Thinner than her photographs, anyway. A little unkept, but okay overall.
Bombshell now. Jamie Closs, a 13-year-old girl, has been found alive against all odds.
Joining me, psychologist Dr. William July.
You can find him at drwilliamjuly.com.
Reports are Jamie Claus turns up, quote, like a ghost on a Wisconsin street well over an hour away from where her two parents were shot dead in their own home one evening in october
cops arise for arrived four minutes later jamie is gone you know dr williams july i want to uh
address something alicia was telling us alicia kozikevich who is a survivor herself creator of
the alicia project that all of the internet trolls, all the haters, all the naysayers
are saying, did she have something to do with it?
Was it this little girl's fault?
You know what?
She's filthy.
Her hair is matted.
She's wearing somebody else's shoes.
She took nothing with her.
I find it very difficult to believe that this little girl who comes up and says,
a man shot my parents, had anything to do with their death.
You know, I think it's absolutely outrageous that anyone would even think about that right now.
We have a person who is a little girl who has been absolutely totally traumatized and has been through a horrific experience that most people can't even imagine.
And I think that's the problem. We live in a world where this anonymity that people hide behind on the Internet desensitizes them to horrible acts like this.
And when there's an act of this nature people think uh that it's some sort of
uh almost like a fictitious story to most people this is reality this young lady has been terror
you know just completely traumatized and that's why she was so numb when she was discovered when
she was discovered and it's going to take a lifelong process of repairing herself and coming back around to some sort of sense of normalcy
because everything that was normal to her has been completely turned upside down.
And I just, I'm so thankful to God that she had the resilience to do what she did do to escape.
Yeah, because if you play it out to Vincent Hill, cop turned PI, author of Playbook to
a Murderer, Vincent, if you play out the scenario, it's very, very rare that a kidnapper
keeps a child alive over, you know, 24 hours, much less 72 hours, much less this long.
And as in the case of with Alicia, and I'm going to go to her in just a
second, her perpetrator, she believed was about to kill her that afternoon before she was saved.
I mean, if you spin this out and you logically look at the next step, what was he going to keep
her forever? Turn her into his child bride? What? What was going to happen? I think that her life
was in total jeopardy, Vincent. He couldn't keep her forever.
Yeah, absolutely. He couldn't keep her forever because eventually somebody would be on to him.
You know, what's interesting, Nancy, I'm looking at Google Maps as we speak.
This is a straight shot down Highway 53 from where Jamie was taken to where this guy or this person was found.
So is this someone that kind of made his way into
that town of baron kind of knew the family i'd seen jamie we don't know there's a lot of questions
investigators are coming through right now to figure out who this guy was what was his motive
i said way back in october nancy but this motive whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa did you just say
what was his motive holly hughes what was his motive? Holly Hughes, what was his motive?
I mean, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.
Well, unfortunately, and I think Mark pointed it out first, we're speculating here, but it is sexual perversion.
It is he wants somebody who was there at his beck and call.
He's probably not able to have a close relationship with a female of his own age. So he needs to force someone to be with him and to meet those ugly needs that he has.
So what he's done is he has taken a captive who has no choice because it's do this or I'll kill you.
Do this or I'll beat you. Do this or I'll starve you.
And so, you know, the motive is that he literally just wants a plaything.
It is a horrible reality, but it is truth.
And when you look at it statistically, Vincent Hill, I agree with what Holly said.
Vincent Hill, a former cop turned PI and now author.
When you look, you know what, Vincent, hold on.
Let me go to Alicia.
Alicia Kozikevich is a child kidnap and
sex assault survivor she is now a tireless advocate and founder of the
Alicia project Alicia you're the one that first said that commented on the
ugly things said online about this girl I know I mean it hurts me I dread the day my children
read all the horrible stuff written about me online every case I ever tried
has been picked apart and is cast in the worst light everything is nefarious and
evil and awful why do people do that I don't know but let me ask you this
Alicia how has it affected you I think, a reason that people do that is
because they think now that they own the story, that they've watched it like it's a movie and now
they deserve the ending. They deserve to know all the loopholes. They deserve to know everything.
And also they just like to rile people up. And it's one of the most frustrating things. And
when it comes to blaming her, I just want to point out, because people forget this, that he murdered her parents so that when he said, I'm going to kill you, there was no, oh, maybe he won't.
The threat was real.
So her to escape was so brave.
And it's so terrible to read those comments.
I always want, you don't see the trolls, but I always want to comment back and support.
And that's not the way to do it. We have to just support her by either being kind and joining in
the celebration. Alicia, you were there. You were in her shoes. You're convinced your kidnapper was
going to kill you that afternoon after having you chained up and bound and unable to escape.
You knew your life was ending that day.
I did, and he kidnapped her for a reason, but eventually his games were going to have to come to an end.
He was going to have to kill her.
They're just unreal. It's what we've been waiting for for 88 days to come.
I mean, every day you expect something,
but then it seems like when you finally, a day goes by
and you're not really expecting anything, and then all of a sudden, bam.
I mean, we got our false information this afternoon, and then to have, within hours later, the most amazing news we can possibly get.
I mean, it's the complete opposite of what we were feeling just a day ago.
It's crazy great emotions that you can't explain.
It's just, it's unreal man. You're hearing
Jamie Claus's uncle Steve Nyberg telling Fox 9's Paul Bloom about what a
difference one day makes. Yesterday they were in the depths of despair, not giving
up but so desolate about the kidnap of 13 year old Jamie Kloss the murder of her mom
and dad and now she is alive in response to what Alicia Kozakevich was telling us a kidnap survivor
as a child founder of Alicia Project Mark Klass founder Klass Kids Foundation let me point out
that front door while it wasn't burglarized with like a crowbar, it was kicked in, according to sources.
There is nothing, Nancy, that a child can do to stop a determined predator.
There's absolutely nothing.
They're overpowered in every way, shape, and form, which is why it's up to us, once we identify who these individuals
are, to protect the kids and the rest of the vulnerable citizens from these individuals.
They're evil to the core. They've got no redeeming qualities. And we know that the ultimate outcome,
as Alicia just mentioned, is going to be death. So we have to protect kids from these characters if and when
we're able to identify who they are they're big they're mean they're evil and they're determined
so what else can one do you know this is what we know late last night investigators blocking off all the streets leading to a cabin there at South Eau Claire
Acres Circle and they combed everything for evidence. The residence believed to be that
of a 21 year old male. We now believe he is being held in the Douglas County Jail.
Not getting any more details overnight but I wonder what they're doing in that cabin.
To Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host, we know that there is a very important press conference about to occur.
Tell me about it.
At that time, we're going to hear more about what's transpired over the last 87 days.
Because, as you mentioned, they gave out very little information after her after she was actually found alive
matter of fact yesterday afternoon we had a report that was called false that the sheriff said nope
it's not true we didn't find her and then a couple hours later they announced yes we have and it is
jamie but they are withholding almost all the information it'll all come out later on this
morning and over the ensuing days we expect to know who they have in custody. We know it's a 21
year old man. We expect to find out if they were in that cabin for the entire time. As Jamie
indicated, she felt like she had been in that cabin the entire time. And we'll find out some
more particulars about the actual murder scene and what happened the night she was taken.
Straight out to Vincent Hill, PI and author of Playbook to a Murder. We know that that cabin, that remote cabin there in Eau Claire,
it's about 80 miles from Minneapolis to get a mental image of where this is,
big hunting, fishing area.
What are they doing inside that cabin right now, still cordoned off?
Nancy, they're going through that with a fine-tooth comb. They're looking for
any type of evidence, physical. They're taking pictures, everything inside that home. Plus,
they want to know, was there someone else inside that cabin outside of this 21-year-old? There
could have been someone else, Nancy. So they're checking all of that. To Mark Klass, the feelings her family is going
through right now. Explain what you went through. Well, Nancy, I was living in fear and anger for
the entire 65 days that my daughter was missing. But overriding all of that, I had hope. I had
hope that we would find her and we would be able to bring her home alive. And as long as hope exists, there's always a chance that the child will be found and
will come home alive. But it becomes more and more difficult as time goes on to be able to hold
on to that hope. So I think when you get to a point where the child's been gone three months,
four months, something like that, that, you know, you go from a different status, you get to a point where the child's been gone three months, four months, something
like that, that, that, you know, you go from a different status, you go from a, a search to,
to trying to, to grasp the gold ring, the, to find the miracle in the event. And that's what
happened here. And I can only imagine the sense of relief that exists within that family now and their sense of goodwill towards humanity for the simple fact that so many people supported this effort and that it was successfully resolved.
Let's take a listen now to the presser with law enforcement on the latest with Jamie Closs.
For 88 days, I have stood before you and said we would work tirelessly to bring Jamie Closs home. Today I can report we have done just that. At this moment Jamie is being in the
comforting embrace of law enforcement as the investigation in her three-month ordeal ensues.
88 days ago we stood before you speaking about the unthinkable tragedy and asked you to help us
find 13-year-old Jamie Closs. Last night, our collective promise was fulfilled with Jamie's safe recovery.
Jamie is safe, and the family is requesting that you please respect their privacy
at this extremely emotional time.
I'm now going to bring up Sheriff Tom Dahlbeck, the Douglas County Sheriff,
and he'll address this part of the incident.
My agency received a 911 call about 4 30 yesterday afternoon from a individual who
was out walking her dog, said she was approached by a young female claiming to be Jamie Kloss.
This lady immediately went to a nearby house, notified that neighbor of the claim,
and this neighbor called 911, and my deputies responded in mass immediately and identified Jamie
as the person that approached the neighbor took control of her and possession of her and put her
in safekeeping and a short time later one of my patrol sergeants happened to find a vehicle that
matched the description that Jamie gave my deputies of the suspect and pulled the vehicle over and took the suspect in custody at that time.
Beyond that, Jamie was taken to a local hospital up in the Duluth Superior area where she was looked over and examined and she was held overnight for observation.
And the suspect was interviewed and subsequently brought back down here to Barron County.
Thank you, Sheriff Dahlbeck, and thank you, deputies, for the work that they helped in this case.
The suspect was arrested and is currently being held in the Barron County Jail.
That suspect is Jake Thomas Patterson, P-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N.
He is 21 years old from Gordon, Wisconsin.
He is currently being held on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide
for the murder of Jamie's parents and one count of kidnapping.
We do plan a 4 p.m. media update with more details to be released at that time right here.
As you heard, the suspect is being charged with kidnapping.
Jamie was taken against her will and escaped from a residence at which she was being held and found help. We also do not believe that this time that the
suspect had any contact with the family. We do believe Jamie was the only target. I can tell
you that the subject planned his actions and took many proactive steps to hide his identity from law
enforcement and the general public. Yes. You or the other sheriff talked to us about Jamie's demeanor, her condition in those moments when she fell in that neighborhood.
What does she look like? What does she sound like? And how is she right now? Description.
I can talk about now. She is good. She's been cleared from the hospital. As Sheriff Delbeck
said, there is a reunification process in place going on
right now that includes medical, mental evaluations, questioning by detectives
and FBI and DCI agents, and then reunification with family.
How much do you know right now about what happened to her the last three months?
Do you know that yet?
We do not know that. This group behind me does not have that information.
We are, this is a very active and fluid case.
We are serving search warrants right at this moment in Gordon, in other areas for vehicles, looking for evidence.
And again, we hope to release a lot more of that information at 4 o'clock.
Sheriff, you said that Jamie was the target, not for parents.
So what interaction, what contact did the suspect have?
That's what we're trying to figure out now, but we believe there was very, we believe there was really none.
No contact.
Do you know if they knew each other prior to this?
I don't know that.
And now our prayers go on for Jamie Closs.
Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off.
Goodbye, friend.
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