The 21-year-old man accused of kidnapping teenager Jayme Closs from her Wisconsin home after slaying her parents initially spotted her boarding a school bus.
According to a timeline established by law enforcement officials, family members, and people who live near Patterson, Jayme escaped from her captor and sought help the community of Gordon, soon running into a woman walking her dog.
The woman, Joanne Nutter, took the teen to a nearby house because her own house was closer to the alleged kidnapper.
But the ordeal started months prior, in October 2018, when Patterson worked for two days at a cheese factory that was also the workplace of James and Denise Closs, parents to Jayme.
“The defendant stated he had no idea who she was nor did he know who lived at the house or how many people lived at the house,” the complaint stated. “The defendant stated, when he saw (Jayme), he knew that was the girl he was going to take.”
Patterson disclosed that he drove to the Closs home twice with the intent of kidnapping the teen but one time there were too many cars out front and the other time there were lights on and people walking around.
He finally struck on Oct. 15, barging his way inside and shooting James and Denise Closs dead. He then grabbed Jayme and fled.
Jayme told investigators that she was asleep in her bedroom that night when she heard her dog barking. She saw someone driving up their driveway and alerted her parents. Her father went to the front door to find out who it was. It was Patterson, armed with a firearm. Jayme said she heard a gunshot and knew her father had just been killed the complaint stated.
Denise Closs hid with her daughter in the bathroom and called 911 but soon Patterson broke down the door and shot Denise after the mother put tape over her daughter’s mouth at his instruction.
Patterson drove her about an hour’s drive away to his cabin in Gordon and told her that “nobody was to know she was there or bad things would happen to her.” When friends or family members visited him in the coming months, he would hide her under his bed and block her in with stacked totes and laundry bins with weights holding them in place.
The complaint stated that Jayme finally escaped on Thursday after Patterson once again made her get under his bed and informed her he was going to be gone five or six hours.
She waited until he left then pushed some bins away, crawled out, put on a pair of his shoes, and fled the home.
Police officers found him a short time later driving around the area and arrested him based on the description conveyed to them by the girl. “I know what this is about. I did it,” he told officers.
Patterson was scheduled to make his first court appearance via video at 3:30 p.m. on Monday to be formally charged with two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping.
