Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He is a Sick, Dangerous Man // The Jake Patterson Kidnapping Story

Episode Date: October 7, 2026

In 2018, Jake Thomas Patterson committed a highly publicized double murder and abduction when he broke into a home in Barron, Wisconsin, and fatally shot James and Denise Closs. And then kidnapped Jayme Closs.

So why did this creep kidnap a girl and keep her under his bed for 88 days? So this all starts with this guy, Jake, and Jake is 21 living in Gordon, Wisconsin, and Jake doesn't have a lot going on. He's usually unemployed. Not only that, but he is a very disturbed individual. Like he fantasizes about dark stuff like kidnapping young girls and killing their families and stuff like that. But as far as we know, he's never acted on any of these fantasies. But then, one day, in 2018, all that changes. Because he's on his way to a job that he just got at a cheese factory, and as he's driving, a school bus stops right in front of his car to pick up some kids. And that is when he spots a girl. This girl, Jamie. Jamie is 13,

and she's getting on the bus to go to school. And immediately, Jake's sick ass is in fact with her, and he decides he's going to kidnap her. And this bus picks her up right outside of her house. So now Jake knows where she lives. So immediately, he goes to his dad's house, and he gets his dad's shotgun. Then he goes to Walmart, and he buys a ski mask, and he also cuts off all the hair on his head, and he shaves his face so that he doesn't lose any hairs

and accidentally leave DNA at the scene of the crime that he's about to commit. He also put stolen license plates on his car so that it can't easily be tracked if someone sees it. And by the way, he's so into the planning of this crime that he just stopped showing up for work at the cheese factory and he loses his job. Anyway, one night, he decides it's finally time to put this plan into motion. And Jake, he puts on his ski mask and he drives over to Jamie's house and he parks nearby. But then he looks and sees multiple cars in the driveway. And he just straight up chickens out and he drives away. However, he isn't ready to give up on this plan completely.

On a different night, he tries again. He drives there and he parks. But then he notices that someone inside the house is awake and the lights are on. And once again, he chickens out and he leaves. But then he decides to go away. back one more time, and it's just after midnight, and he puts on his ski mask, and he drives to Jamie's house, and he parks. And I guess this time, there aren't a lot of cars in the driveway, and it doesn't seem like people are awake. So he gets out of his car with his shotgun,

and he heads toward the house. When he gets there, I guess the family dog hears him and starts barking. Then Jamie's dad hears the dog barking, so he goes over to the door to check it out. and he starts looking through the little window on the door with a flashlight. And suddenly, Jake screams through the door, get on the ground! And Jamie's dad believes that this might be a cop, because that's probably what a cop would say. And he asks to see this cop's badge. Now at this point, Jake realizes that he's going to have to force his way inside. So he points his shotgun through the door and blam, he shoots Jamie's dad right through the door.

and this unfortunately kills him. And from here, blam, Jake shoots the doorknob, blowing it apart, and this allows him to get inside the house. Meanwhile, Jamie's mom had heard the dog barking earlier, and all the commotion, and she was terrified. So she grabbed Jamie, and they both ran into the bathroom and locked the door. So now they're locked in the bathroom, and she has her phone, so she calls 911.

Meanwhile, Jake is roaming through the house, house, checking rooms, searching for anyone else. And Jamie's mom knows that she can't make any noise because that will give away their location. So she stays completely silent while she's on the phone with the 911 operator and she just hugs Jamie while they hide in the shower behind the shower curtain. Now eventually, Jake realizes that Jamie and her mom are hiding in the bathroom. So boom, he breaks down the door and he opens the shower curtain and he points the gun at them. Then he uses duct tape to bind Jamie's hands and legs. After that, blam, he shoots Jamie's mom,

and she, unfortunately, doesn't survive. Then he drags Jamie outside, and he throws her into the trunk of his car, and he speeds away. Now, by this point, the police have been alerted because of the 911 call, and pretty quickly they arrive at the house, and they find Jamie's parents there, murdered,

and they also realize that Jamie is missing. So they start investigating and searching for her. Meanwhile, Jake takes Jamie to a remote cabin out in the middle of nowhere, where he lives. And it's kind of surprising because now that he has her, he tries to make her feel comfortable? Like he tries to make her feel at home, he makes her watch TV with him, and even play board games with him. And later, he goes to bed and he makes her sleep in his bed while he sleeps on the couch. So he just keeps her there in the cabin, and he plans to do so indefinitely. So from here, he makes her sleep in the same bed with him at night every single night.

And whenever he has visitors over, like his grandparents who come over often, he'll trap Jamie under his twin bed, and he'll box her in by stacking heavy plastic storage bins and free weights, basically making it so she can't crawl out and so that no one will see her. Also, whenever he needs to leave the cabin, he'll trap her under his bed. But then one time, when Jake gets back home, he sees that some of the bins around the bed have shifted or whatever, and he thinks Jamie tried to escape. And so, pow, he hits her, and he threatens her so that she won't do it again. Sometimes, he'll leave her trapped under the bed for around 12 hours at a time.

So she doesn't have any food or access to a bathroom. Meanwhile, out in the normal world, police and the community at large are still looking for Jamie, and there are missing posters of her everywhere, and the FBI is now involved, and they're helping with the investigation, while 2,000 people have volunteered to comb through the area, which is just miles and miles of wooded areas and cornfields. But so far, they haven't found anything. And months go by. And by this point, poor Jamie has been missing for around 88 days. And she's still a prisoner and she's still locked up in this creep's cabin.

So it's starting to look like no one is ever going to find her. Until. Until one day, Jake leaves the cabin to go apply for some warehouse job. So like normal, he traps Jamie under the bed and he tells her that he's going to be gone for a few hours. Then he leaves. And after a while, Jamie realizes that this might be her chance to escape. So she starts pushing on the weights and bins that are trapping her in. And eventually, she's able to push them aside just enough to get out from under the bed. Then she runs out of the cabin, outside, into the freezing cold. And she runs down the road, and she's in the middle of

nowhere, so there's nothing around. However, there just so happens to be. a local woman out walking her dog. And so Jamie sees this woman and she tells her that she's been kidnapped. And the woman actually recognizes her from the news and from missing posters. So this woman walks her to the nearest house and they call police. And police come and they get Jamie and she tells them all about Jake, where he lives, what he looks like and what kind of car he drives. And literally, just a few minutes later, police spot his car. driving, and bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And so ultimately, Jake takes a plea deal, and he gets sentenced to life in prison. Good.