Mystery solved - Wisconsin girl, missing for months, escapes captor

By Gabriella Borter and Joseph Ax

(Reuters) - A 21-year-old Wisconsin man was charged on Friday with holding a 13-year-old girl captive for three months after murdering her parents, one day after the teen managed to escape and was discovered by a woman walking her dog.

Thousands of volunteers and hundreds of law enforcement officers had searched around the clock around the small town of Barron after Jayme Closs’ parents were found shot dead in their home, the front door open and the girl gone.

Relying on what Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald called “the will of a kid to survive,” a disheveled Closs escaped a house in the tiny town of Gordon where she had been held captive, about 60 miles (100 km) north of Barron, and found a woman with her dog on Thursday afternoon.

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The woman and Closs hurried to a neighbour’s house on Thursday to call authorities.

“This is Jayme Closs!” the woman said when the neighbour opened the door, according to the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. “Call 911!”

Both the woman and the neighbour recognised the teen immediately due to the enormous public campaign after her disappearance, Fitzgerald said.

Less than 15 minutes later, Jake Patterson, 21, was in custody, after police pulled over his vehicle, based on Closs’ description.

Patterson, an unemployed resident of Gordon, has been charged with murder and kidnapping. James and Denise Closs were discovered shot dead in their home on Oct. 15.

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More than 200 law enforcement officials were on the ground around the clock in the days after Jayme’s disappearance, sifting through thousands of tips but finding little to go on.

The search that stretched across cornfields and wooded areas drew 1,500 volunteers, nearly half as many people as the entire 3,400-person population of Barron, which sits about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Minneapolis.

Hundreds of locals had attended a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony at Riverview Middle School, which Jayme attended, in her honour last month. The “tree of hope” was decorated with messages and lighted in blue, Jayme’s favourite colour, and green to symbolize missing child awareness, the Star Tribune reported.

Authorities have released few details about Patterson, who has no previous criminal record in Wisconsin, saying they were unsure whether he knew Closs. She was the “only target” in the crime, Fitzgerald told reporters on Friday.

Attempts to reach Patterson’s relatives and neighbours on Friday were unsuccessful.

Closs is not the first kidnapping victim to survive months in captivity.

Closs was speaking to investigators on Friday after spending a night in the hospital for evaluation. Authorities said they did not know details about the conditions of her captivity or how she managed to escape.

She was due to be reunited with her extended family later Friday.

“I just cried … lots of happy tears,” Jen Smith, the girl’s aunt, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” programme.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Gabriella Borter in New York, Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Scott Malone and Jeffrey Benkoe)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.