BARRON COUNTY, Wis. — On the same day 13-year-old Jayme Closs was found alive, officers with local law enforcement pulled over the man suspected of kidnapping her. As he got out the car, a criminal complaint states the man identified as Jake Patterson said, "I did it."
Those statements are from a criminal complaint released Monday. The court document was released to news media just a few hours before Jake Patterson was expected to make his first court appearance.
The criminal complaint is the formal charging document filed in court which lays out the legal case against a suspect. In Wisconsin, charging documents often contain detailed information about the case.
21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson is accused of kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents back in October.
Patterson was formally charged Monday on two counts of First Degree Intentional Homicide, one count of Kidnapping, and one count of Armed Burglary, according to online court records.
According to statements made in the court document, Patterson methodically planned the crime after he spotted Jayme Closs getting onto a school bus. The criminal complaint says Patterson told investigators he was driving to his job at a cheese factory one day near Almena, Wisconsin, when he stopped behind a school bus and watched Jayme get on.
The complaint quotes Patterson as saying when he saw Jayme, “He knew that was the girl he was going to take.”
The complaint says Patterson went to the Closs home twice with the intent of taking Jayme but was unable to do so because too many people were around before he was able to kidnap her.
The complaint says Patterson didn’t even know Jayme’s name until he abducted her.
When it came to taking Jayme, the criminal complaint says Patterson used his father’s 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun because it is commonly used and he thought it would be more difficult to trace. It says he chose the gauge to do the most damage, and wiped shells and shotguns free of fingerprints and wore gloves to load the gun.
The complaint also says Patterson shaved his face and head and showered prior to the attack. He was dressed all in black. It says he took the license plates off his car, put stolen plates on and disconnected the dome and trunk lights.
When asked about the night of her kidnapping and parents' murder, Closs told police she tried to hide from Patterson, but that he dragged her out of her home and threw her in the trunk of his vehicle.
The complaint states that Jayme and her mother hid in the bathroom as Patterson came to the front door. Statements in the court document says they heard a gunshot and knew Patterson had killed her father.
The criminal complaint says Patterson then broke down the bathroom door, shot her mother and taped Jayme’s hands and ankles. He then dragged her to his car and threw her in the trunk, court documents say.
While she was held captive allegedly by Patterson, the criminal complaint says he hid Closs under a bed for hours at a time and warned her that “bad things could happen to her” if anyone found her there.
The criminal complaint says Jayme was forced to go under a bed in Patterson’s remote cabin and that he would stack totes, laundry bins and barbell weights around her so she couldn’t move without him noticing. The complaint says Jayme was kept up to 12 hours at a time with no food, water or bathroom breaks.
Jayme escaped Thursday after Patterson made her go under the bed, according to the court document, and told her he was going to be gone five or six hours. The complaint says she pushed the bins away, crawled out, put on a pair of his shoes and fled the house.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
