The Kidnapping And Escape Of Jayme Closs

A safe home, a quiet town, and a split-second encounter behind a school bus ignite one of the most harrowing survival stories in recent memory. We follow how a young girl became the target of a stranger’s obsession, how a meticulously planned home invasion left two parents dead, and how their daughter endured 88 days in a makeshift prison before engineering her own escape.

We unpack the anatomy of the crime: the offender’s isolating spiral, his methodical preparation to erase digital and physical traces, and the tactics he used to control and conceal. Then we pivot to the resilience at the heart of the story. Jayme Closs navigated threat, watched for patterns, and waited for a window. Her sprint to freedom collided with a community primed by weeks of search efforts and awareness, leading to a neighbor’s instant recognition and a swift arrest on a rural road. Along the way, we examine why massive investigations can stall without actionable leads, how awareness campaigns still change outcomes, and what survival psychology teaches about compliance, patience, and decisive action.

The legal resolution was unequivocal: a confession, life sentences without parole, and an aftershock felt across Barron, Wisconsin. We look at the human repair that follows—privacy guarded by family, support informed by survivors like Elizabeth Smart, and a town learning to hold both grief and gratitude. This is a true crime story with a different center of gravity: not the perpetrator’s ego, but the courage of a child who refused to be defined by his control.

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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/

Transcript

A Safe Home Shattered

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Home is where you're supposed to be safe. A place of joy and happiness where many of your fondest memories are made. Especially if you have kids. It's where they take their first steps and often where they celebrate their first holidays. It's not supposed to be a house of horrors, a place where a complete stranger breaks in in the middle of the night, guns blazing, and takes your child. But unfortunately, it happens. Like it did in October of 2018 in Barron, Wisconsin. So, what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's A Disaster. Tonight we're diving into a true crime survival story. The story of Jamie Closs's kidnapping and her eventual escape from her captor. And tonight's episode is brought to you by Little Bird's Chocolate Peccadillos, the sinfully good, guilt-free chocolate bar. Jake Patterson was born on June 17th, 1997, in Douglas County, Wisconsin, to Patrick and Deborah Patterson. He had two older siblings, Eric and Katie, and they grew up in a small rural area in an extremely small town surrounded by woods. He had a pretty normal childhood, did well in school, had friends, he would go outside and play, get in trouble occasionally. You know, typical kid shit. But in 2007, his parents got a divorce and fucked up his whole little world. His parents ended up selling their home when they split, with mom moving to the suburbs, while dad got a little creepy ass cabin in the woods. Never trust anyone that chooses to live alone in the woods. Anyways, they ended up getting joint custody. So Jake stayed with his mom during the week and his dad on the weekends, and none of this sat well with him. Later in high school, people described him as very quiet and rather nerdy and geeky with just a small circle of friends. Despite his quiet nature, he was known for violent outbursts and getting mad at the smallest of things. In 2015, after graduating high school, he ditched his mom and moved into the creepy cabin in the woods and completely cut himself off from everyone. Since his dad was barely ever around, the only people that were living in the cabin was him and his older brother Eric. Eric was four years older and definitely not a good role model. He had multiple charges and convictions for wide-ranging shit, from sexual assault to drug charges. In fact, he had just got out of prison after serving an eight-month sentence for making drugs. After high school, Jake, the lazy shithead, skipped college and joined the Marine Corps. Unsurprisingly, he didn't last long. Five weeks into boot camp, they gave him the boot for quote-unquote character issues, which I'm gonna assume is the polite way of saying he was a lazy piece of shit with anger problems. And how lazy was this shithead? He would go on to get multiple jobs that he'd be there for a week at most and quit. A few places he didn't even last a day. He did this for three years. Work a few days, quit, be a lazy ass for a bit, then find another job. And that's a lot of fucking jobs. I've never been able to understand how people can do dumb shit like this. Anyways, after three years, Eric moved out of the house, leaving Jake completely alone, which is what he wanted. Until he started to get extremely lonely and realized that it wasn't what he really wanted. He wanted a girlfriend. But Jake, being the lazy loser he is, didn't really have that much luck with women. So what's a loser like this to do? Well, he's just going to kidnap one and force them to be his girlfriend. In October of 2018, he was 21 and working at a cheese factory outside of Barron, Wisconsin. On the way to work one day, he gets stuck behind a school bus, stopped at a bus stop, and then he sees her. 13-year-old Jamie Closs is getting on the bus. He was able to see into the bus and watched her walk down the aisle and meet up with her friends, laughing and smiling. He was obsessed instantly and made the decision that this was going to be the girl that he would kidnap. So he quit his extremely lucrative job at the cheese factory, and for the next two weeks, he spent every second of every day trying to plan how he was going to kidnap her. Now, Jamie Kloss was born in July of 2005 in Barron, Wisconsin. She was the only child of James and Denise Kloss. She was 13 years old and was an eighth grader at Riverview Middle School and had a very close group of friends in school. She was very outgoing and funny. She loved participating in dance and volleyball, which made her the exact opposite of the guy that would become obsessed with her. Her very best friend was a little dog named Molly. The two would do everything together. Both of her parents worked at the Jenny O Turkey Processing Plant, which Jake had actually worked there too for a day, but there's nothing that said he would have had any contact with James or Denise. Denise loved gardening, and James was a huge Green Bay Packers fan. Typical Wisconsin nerf. Denise and James were a loving couple. They were well known all through the town through the church and their love of community service. So after Jake sees her and becomes obsessed, he tries to find out everything he can about her, where she lives, her schedule, anything he could find out without leaving any sort of digital trail. He stayed off the internet and did it old school. He is an unemployed shithead, so what else does he have to do? Realizing kidnapping her was going to be harder than he originally thought, he made the decision to sneak in in the middle of the night and take her by force if needed. And for that, he'd need a gun. He got a hold of a 12-gauge Mossberg, a fairly common gun in the area. Did not leave any possible evidence behind, he put on some gloves and wiped out every single shotgun shell. Then proceeded to shave all of the hair off his body so he wouldn't leave behind any DNA evidence. He then switched the plates off of his car and another car so if his car was ever seen on any security footage, they would have the wrong plates. He removed all of the interior lights so no lights would show when he opened the door in the middle of the night, and then he ripped out that little safety cord in the trunk of his car so it couldn't be opened from the inside. Then he bought a black ski mask, black gloves, and all black clothing. October 11th was his first attempt at kidnapping. He got ready to go and headed to Jamie's house. But when he goes into the driveway, he sees a car there with their headlights on. So he immediately backs up and tries to play it off as if he's just pulling in to make a U-turn and then got out of there. Two days later, on the 13th, he tries again, making it all the way out the driveway before seeing the basement light was on. Thinking someone was awake, he got back in his car and sped off again. Finally, on October 15th, he's bound and determined he was going through with his plan no matter what. To pump himself up, he sticks the shotgun in his mouth and vows tonight is the night, or he'll kill himself. Parking at the end of the driveway, he heads to the door dressed in his all-black getup. Molly, being the good little guard dog she is, starts barking, alerting the family to danger. When James comes down to investigate the noise and see what's going on, he's shown a flashlight through the door on Patterson. Thinking there's a cop outside, James demands to see his badge. Jake just yelled at him to open the fucking door. But James isn't having it and not about to give up, demanding that he identify himself. Pissed and tired of the exchange, Jake makes the decision and shoots James in the head with his shotgun and forces his way into the house. He then begins to go room to room searching for the object of his obsession when he comes across the locked bathroom door upstairs. Jamie and Denise had locked themselves inside and barricaded the door as best they could and hid in the tub. He tried to kick down the door but failed, so he bashes at the door until he finally gets through. Denise is frightened and holding Jamie tightly as she tries to call the cops. She doesn't get a chance to say anything to Dispatch and the call hangs up as Patterson comes into the bathroom. Finding this odd, Dispatch does end up sending out a cop to check things out. Patterson rips off the shower curtain and stares down at Jamie and Denise. Denise is holding her daughter tightly, shielding her with her body. Jake hesitates for a minute before holding his gun on Denise and demanding she duct tapes Jamie's mouth shut, which she fails to do. She tries, but she's terrified and can't get the tape to stick. Jake loses his temper and rips the duct tape out of Denise's hand and tapes up Jamie's mouth and binds her hands and feet as he pulls her out of the tub. With Jamie in hand, he puts the shotgun to Denise's head and, unwilling to look at her, because he's a fucking coward, turns away as he pulls the trigger. Denise died instantly as the shotgun removed part of her head. He dragged Jamie outside, almost slipping on her dad's blood, and threw her in the trunk of his car and sped away, just narrowly avoiding the cops as they were responding to the call that got disconnected. The police had arrived four minutes after the 911 call. The cops barely missed him, not even a minute earlier, and they would have caught him coming out of the house. Instead, they drove right by his red four torus, sitting on the side of the road, waiting for them to speed by. When the cops get to the Kloss family home, they don't know what to expect. But things kept getting worse as they approached the busted front door. They had to try and push and squeeze through, since James's corpse was blocking the door. Now they're rushing in, guns drawn, and stepping over the single shotgun shell laying next to the body. Next they find Denise's body in the bloodstained bathroom. They, however, don't find Jamie. With the cops in his rear view, Patterson drives the hour to his creepy cabin in the woods. And by now, on top of it being creepy, it's filthy. Old Jake, not much of a housekeeper. There's garbage and old food littering the floor. There's barely room to walk in the filth as he pulls Jamie from his trunk and forces her inside. Inside he makes Jamie change her clothes as he watches and leaves to burn them. Gotta get rid of that evidence, you know. Then he tells her she lives there now and lays down the house rules. If she screamed, if she tried to run away, tried to contact anyone on the outside, he would kill her. And that if one day the police came through the door, or if anyone came looking for her, they would not be taken alive. Since that first day, a loaded shotgun was kept near the door outside his room with extra shells on the floor next to it. She was then taken to his room that he had set up for her. He had a twin-sized bed that he told Jamie that she could sleep under. Under the bed he had put a pillow and a blanket for her and surrounded the bed with plastic totes filled with weights so she couldn't move them. He had put shit on top of the totes that would fall if she did manage to move them so he could hear if she would try to escape. This would end up becoming the standard operating procedure. Every day she's put under the bed like this, and he plays music to cover any noise she might make. If he has to leave the cabin or anyone visits, like on his dad's weekly Saturday visits, she's put under the bed like this and he plays music to cover any noise she might make. The first days were the hardest on her. She was terrified of Jake. She avoided him as much as possible. She didn't talk to him, she didn't look at him, she refused to eat anything he offered. She tried to escape once, but was quickly caught and savagely beaten. She tried her best to appease him after this to escape another beating. They started watching movies together and playing board games and talking for hours, which greatly pleased Jake, thinking she was starting to open up to him. The whole time, she was only thinking of escape. He eventually let her start sleeping in bed with him at night, but then back under the bed during the day. The weeks following her kidnapping, the Baron County Sheriff would conduct massive searches with thousands of volunteers. Hundreds and then over a thousand tips would come in, and each tip would have to be looked into, which created a massive waste of resources. But they were desperate for information. Extensive searches of the house led to not a single shred of evidence other than a few shotgun shells. They had nothing. No DNA, no fingerprints, nothing. The FBI issued a$25,000 reward for information that led to Jamie's recovery. Jenny O would later double the reward to$50,000. They thought they finally caught a break two weeks after she disappeared. Her house, which was still under observation by Barron County deputies and the Wisconsin Bureau of Investigation, was broken into. They watched as a man in a puffy coat broke into and rummaged through the house before running in and arresting Kyle Jenk. They got him right-handed with a pocket of Jamie's underwear and clothes, but during the interrogation, he maintained he knew nothing about her kidnapping. He just wanted her underwear. So, not a kidnapper and murderer, just an extra creepy shithead with a list of burglary arrests. So it was back to shifting through the nearly 2,000 tips that had come in. During Christmas, while everyone is still trying to find Jamie or thinking of her, Jake is having a little Christmas party at the cabin. His dad and friends had come to visit for a little Christmas get together. No one knew Jamie was locked up under his bed. He's got the music in the bedroom turned up to hide any noise she might make in her little prison. She's stuck and can't do anything. She's come to the realization that no one is coming for her. If she ever wants to leave, she's on her own. Finally, on January 10th, after being held for nearly three months, she was able to break out of her little prison while Patterson was gone. She got the weighted-down tubs to move just enough to crawl out and run. She steals a pair of Jake's shitty old shoes and makes it out into the cold Wisconsin countryside. She's lost and alone with no idea where she is. But fortune was smiling on Jamie as she saw a woman walking her dog down the road. She runs up to the woman, Jean Nutter, and frantically tries to tell the woman who she is and that she'd been kidnapped. Jean looks the girl over, seeing her torn clothes, and she's obviously malnourished, and of course, she recognizes her name. Jamie's name and picture had been plastered all over social media and billboards in the area. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone that hadn't heard of Jamie. Jean, who lived way too close to Jake, took Jamie and ran to the home of Patrick and Kristen Kacinska's. They get Jamie safely inside and call the cops while Patrick stands guard at the door in case Jake comes home. The cops get there quickly and after asking a few questions, they decide to get Jamie out of the neighborhood in case Jake comes home and goes into a rage. They wanted to avoid an unnecessary firefight with a crazy shithead, and they left at just the right time. They passed Jake on their way out. His description and location was quickly passed on to other officers. Jake, after seeing Jamie had escaped, left the cabin to try and find her. His whole plan, his little delusional life, was starting to fall apart and it would all be for nothing if he can't find her. During his frantic search, he's spotted by two deputies searching for him and stopped. As they approach the car and yell at him to put his hands up, he surrenders quietly, replying only that he knows what this is about and he did it. He's quickly arrested and taken away. His eventual bond was set for$5 million as he was charged with two counts of first-degree intentional homicide, kidnapping, and armed burglary. Jamie's safe return shocked the community. After being gone for three months, no one really expected her to come home alive. Her aunt Jennifer Smith was very grateful though and took Jamie in, eventually becoming her legal guardian. She would even be reunited with her much-loved dog Molly. Jenni O would go on to honor the$25,000 reward they originally offered for information that led to Jamie's return. Since Jamie rescued herself, they gave her the money. No clue if the FBI ever issued their$25,000 reward. Along with this though, there was also money from a GoFundMe that reached$150,000. Jake would go on to make a full confession and was fully cooperative with the police. He pleaded guilty to avoid going to trial. He gave the reason for this as he didn't want to cause Jamie the trauma of going through the trial and having to relive it, which it was fine living through it the first time, but apparently having to repeat it was a step too far for this shithead. While waiting trial, he wrote a letter to Care TV11, a local news channel saying how sorry he was and what he did was stupid. In order to help not only Jamie but the whole community come to grips with the new reality they were living in, they brought in Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth had gone through a very similar kidnapping to Jamie when she was taken from her home in 2002 at the age of 14 and ended up escaping after nine months of captivity. So she knew what she was talking about when she gave advice to not only Jamie, but the entire town of how to heal through this and get on with some semblance of a normal life. In March, Jake's trial finally happened. He was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole for the murders of Denise and James, plus an extra 40 years for kidnapping. They ended up dismissing the burglary charge. He would also have to register as a sex offender in prison. Not sure if this is because of the kidnapping charge or not, there was never any mention of sexual assault at any point, although this could simply be because of Jamie's age and no one wanted to bring it up or make her relive that shit, so they kind of swept. Under the rug. Which that is all pure speculation on my part. Especially when it's been stated that it never ever happened. While in prison, he would end up getting beaten up at least twice. You know, most prisoners don't take too kindly to people that hurt kids in prison. So he would eventually be moved to a prison in New Mexico out of safety concerns. You know, because he kept getting his ass kicked while the guards watched. Jamie has since been living a relatively quiet life with her aunt. The awesome Aunt Jenny has been doing her best to keep her life private, only releasing a small update every few years. Jamie's childhood home would eventually be torn down, so it was no longer a constant reminder of the tragedy. And that was the story of Jamie Clos's kidnapping and escape. Thanks for listening. And if you liked the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your apple choice. And you can reach out to the show at historiesadisaster at gmail.com with questions, comments, or suggestions. As well as following the show on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever. And share the episode. Your friends will love it. Yeah, pet a penguin or a dog. Lock your doors, hug your kids, chase that dream. Live for today, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. Thanks and goodbye.