Minneapolis — Jayme Closs, who went missing almost three months ago from her Wisconsin home, was located alive Thursday evening, according to the Barron County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said a suspect is in custody.

The office said on Facebook that it didn't have any other details it could release "at this time as this is a very fluid and active investigation. We will not be answering any questions or taking calls on this tonight." A news conference was scheduled for Friday morning.

Jayme Closs has been located On Thursday evening the Barron County Sheriff’s Department was notified by the Douglas CO... Posted by Barron County Sheriff's Department on Thursday, January 10, 2019

CBS Minnesota spoke to Jayme's aunt Sue Thursday evening. She said her niece was in a hospital.

"There was rumors earlier today, and I prayed and prayed and they come to not be true," Sue said. "And I just shut myself totally down. I thought today was going to be the day, and then I find out two hours later that she's found and I just cannot believe this."

CBS Minnesota also reached a woman over the phone who confirmed she was the one who first encountered Jayme.

She said she was walking her dog and nearing her cabin when she saw the 13-year-old walking down the road. Closs approached her and told her that she needed help.

"I was at the right place at the right time," she told CBS Minnesota. The woman did not want to be identified by name.

The Associated Press quotes Barron Mayor as saying Thursday night he was overjoyed that Jamie is alive.

"There was a lot of discouragement because this took quite a while to play out," Fladten said. "A lot of people have been praying daily, as I have. It's just a great result we got tonight. It's unbelievable. It's like taking a big black cloud in the sky and getting rid of it and the sun comes out again."

"I hope that she's in good shape," the mayor continued. "She's no doubt been through just a terrible ordeal. I think everybody wishes her a good recovery and a happy life going into the future."

Closs, 13, disappeared Oct. 15, 2018, the same day her parents — James and Denise Closs — were found shot to death inside their Barron home.

CBS Minnesota reports that up until Thursday, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said, investigators hadn't received any credible leads in this case, despite thousands of tips.

A 911 call with garbled audio was made from Denise Closs' cellphone at about 1 a.m. on Oct. 15. Police arrived four minutes later and found the bodies of James and Denise. There was no sign of Jayme inside the home.

News that Closs had been found came hours after Fitzgerald debunked a report she had been found alive near Walworth County — which is hundreds of miles away from Douglas County where Closs was found.</s>CLOSE

Jake Thomas Patterson is accused in the kidnapping of Jayme Closs. (Photo: Barron County Sheriff's Department)

The man arrested in the Jayme Closs case was identified Friday as Jake Thomas Patterson by authorities and neighbors who lived in the same Eau Claire Acres enclave in the Douglas County Town of Gordon.

Jayme was found by a neighbor walking her dog late Thursday afternoon. Patterson, 21, of Gordon, was arrested a short time later after law enforcement swarmed the neighborhood of about 20 small homes.

Gordon is about 40 miles south of Lake Superior and about 65 miles north of Barron, Closs’ hometown and where her parents were killed in October.

Patterson was arrested without incident by a Douglas County sheriff's deputy who spotted a car described by Jayme a short time after she was rescued, Douglas County Sheriff Thomas Dalbec said at a Friday morning news conference.

"He was just down the road from the residence" when he was arrested, Dalbec said.

Jayme vanished early Oct. 15 when Barron County sheriff’s deputies, responding to a 911 call, found the door to her family’s home near Barron kicked in. Her parents, James, 56, and Denise, 46, were shot to death.

Patterson is in custody in Barron County, authorities said. He is being held pending charges of first-degree murder and kidnapping. Charges are expected to be filed Monday, said Barron County District Attorney Brian Wright.

"Jake Patterson had zero criminal history locally and zero criminal history in the state of Wisconsin," Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said at the news conference.

Authorities said no other suspects were being sought.

The neighborhood where Jayme was found remained blocked off by police Friday. Officers were searching the house.

Between 30 and 40 law officers were working on the case Friday, Fitzgerald said.

Neighbor Daphne Ronning said Patterson's parents moved to the home about 15 years ago and that Jake and his brother were raised there and attended high school at Northwood School in Minong.

Northwood School superintendent Jean Serum recalled Patterson as a "quiet kid."

"He was a good student" who graduated in May 2015, she said.

"He was a member of our quiz bowl team," which Serum described as a "battle of the brainiacs" competition between schools. She said he did not participate in sports or other activities.

The parents moved to another home once the boys became older, but Patterson and his brother continued to use the Town of Gordon home.

"We had some problems with them when they were teenagers – we caught them siphoning gas," Ronning said. "My husband talked with them and there was never anything else."

Ronning said she wasn't aware that Patterson was living in the house and had not seen Jayme.

Jayme Closs (Photo: Courtesy of the Barron County Sheriff's Department)

Jayme, a student at Riverview Middle School in Barron, had not been seen or heard from since her disappearance until Thursday, when she approached a woman in the Town of Gordon after escaping from a home, identified herself and asked the woman to call 911.

Bill Glauber of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report from Minong.

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Read or Share this story: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2019/01/11/suspect-jayme-closs-case-arrested-identified-jake-patterson/2547093002/</s>Sheriff IDs suspect in abduction of Wisconsin teen and killing of her parents as 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson

BARRON, Wis. (AP) — Sheriff IDs suspect in abduction of Wisconsin teen and killing of her parents as 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson.</s>BARRON COUNTY — Authorities on Friday identified the suspect in the kidnapping of 13-year-old Jayme Closs as Jake Thomas Patterson. Patterson is also suspected of killing Jayme’s parents in their Wisconsin home in October.

Here’s what we know about him:
• Patterson is a 21-year-old from Gordon, Wisconsin, about 70 miles north of Barron, not far from where Jayme lived with her parents.
• Patterson was taken into custody Thursday after the girl gave investigators a description of his vehicle, according to Douglas County Sheriff Tom Dalbec. A short time later, a patrol officer found a vehicle that matched the description and pulled it over. Patterson was arrested down the road from his home outside Gordon. He did not appear to be looking for Jayme, Dalbec said.
• He’s being held in the Barron County Jail. He faces two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the killings of Jayme’s parents, James and Denise Closs, and one count of kidnapping, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald told reporters.
• Patterson “planned his actions and took many proactive steps to hide his identity from law enforcement and the general public,” Fitzgerald said.
• Fitzgerald said investigators believe Jayme was Patterson’s target and that the suspect had no earlier contact with her family.
• Patterson had “zero” criminal history locally or in Wisconsin, Fitzgerald said. Authorities are not looking for any additional suspects.
• He’s unemployed, Fitzgerald said, and lives in a remote area outside Gordon.</s>BARRON, Wis. (WCCO) – Authorities in western Wisconsin have identified the man suspected of kidnapping Jayme Closs and killing her parents.

Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald identified the suspect at a Friday morning news conference as 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson, who is being held on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. He said that Patterson targeted Jayme and took precautions to hide his identity from authorities.

It’s not believed that Jayme or her parents had any connection to Patterson prior to the abduction on Oct. 15.

Police arrested Patterson, of Gordon, just minutes after Jayme was found on Thursday evening. Authorities say the 13-year-old gave police a description of Patterson’s car, and they quickly located the vehicle.

Authorities say Jayme escaped her captor and was rescued after encountering a woman who was walking her dog in Gordon. The woman brought Jayme to a neighbor, who called 911.

Officers brought Jayme to a Duluth-area hospital for monitoring. She is expected to be reunited with her family on Friday.

Fitzgerald said his legs were shaking when he got the news that Jayme had been found.

“It was awesome. The stress and relief…It was awesome,” the sheriff said. “I don’t have a different word.”

The teenager was missing for 87 days. She disappeared on the morning of Oct. 15, when police were called to her home in Barron, which is about 65 miles south of Gordon. Inside, officers found her parents, 56-year-old James and 46-year-old Denise, dead with gunshot wounds.

In the days and months that followed, massive ground searches and vigils were organized and investigators were flooded with thousands of tips, none of which provided a break in the case.</s>Sheriff: Jayme Closs, Wisconsin teenager missing since October, has been found alive; suspect in custody

BARRON, Wis. (AP) — Sheriff: Jayme Closs, Wisconsin teenager missing since October, has been found alive; suspect in custody.</s>A Wisconsin teenager missing for nearly three months after her parents were killed in the family home was found alive and a 21-year-old man has been jailed kidnapping and homicide charges.At a press conference Friday morning, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, is being held in the Barron County Jail on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. Patterson, from Gordon, Wis. where Closs was found, is being held in the Barron County Jail.The sheriff said Patterson had no prior criminal record and that investigators believe Patterson killed Jayme's parents because he wanted to abduct her, and that Patterson "took many steps to hide his identity."Fitzgerald says Jayme managed to escape from a cabin on Thursday and approached a woman who was walking her dog. That woman alerted a nearby neighbor, who called 911.Fitzgerald says Closs was medically cleared, is out of the hospital and is being interviewed by law enforcement.The woman who found Closs pounded on her neighbors' door shouting: "This is Jayme Closs! Call 911!"Jayme was skinny and dirty, wearing shoes too big for her feet, but appeared outwardly OK when she was discovered Thursday afternoon near the small town of Gordon, the neighbors said."I honestly still think I'm dreaming right now. It was like I was seeing a ghost," Peter Kasinskas told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "My jaw just went to the floor."Jayme went missing on Oct. 15 after police discovered someone had broken into the family's home outside Barron and fatally shot her parents, James and Denise Closs. Jayme was nowhere to be found, with the Barron County Sheriff's Department describing her as likely abducted.Detectives pursued thousands of tips, watched dozens of surveillance videos and conducted numerous searches in the effort to find Jayme. Some tips led officials to recruit 2,000 volunteers for a massive ground search on Oct. 23 but it yielded no clues.Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said in November that he kept similar cases in the back of his mind as he worked to find Jayme, including the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, who was taken from her Salt Lake City home in 2002, when she was 14 years old. She was rescued nine months later with the help of two witnesses who recognized her abductors from an "America's Most Wanted" episode."I have a gut feeling she's (Jayme's) still alive," Fitzgerald said at the time.He was right.The Star Tribune reported Town of Gordon resident Kristin Kasinskas heard a knock on her door Thursday afternoon. It was her neighbor, who had been out walking her dog, with Jayme alongside.In the 20 minutes Jayme was in their home, Kasinskas and her husband, Peter, tried to make her feel more comfortable, they said. They offered her water and food, but she declined both. Jayme was quiet, her emotions "pretty flat," Peter Kasinskas said.Jayme told the couple she didn't know where she was or anything about Gordon. From what she told them, they believe she was there for most of her disappearance.Gordon lies about 40 miles south of Lake Superior and about 65 miles north of Barron, Jayme's hometown. The town is home to about 645 people in a heavily forested region where logging is the top industry.The Douglas County Sheriff's Office confirmed on its website that Jayme was found in the town at 4:43 p.m. Thursday, and that a suspect was taken into custody 11 minutes later. The Associated Press couldn't confirm the Kasinskases' account; the sheriff's office's non-emergency line rang unanswered Thursday night and Sheriff Thomas Dalbec didn't respond to an email.A neighbor says she and her husband had problems years ago with the man suspected of kidnapping a Wisconsin teenager and killing her parents. Investigators say Jayme escaped from a cabin in the town of Gordon where Patterson was holding her Thursday.Daphne Ronning told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Patterson's parents moved to Gordon about 15 years ago.She says the parents later moved away but Patterson and his brother continued to use the home. She says she and her husband once caught them siphoning gas. She says her husband spoke with them and they didn't have any further problems.Ronning says she didn't know Patterson was living in the house and hadn't seen Jayme around.ABC7 spoke with one of Jayme's aunts, Sue Naiberg Allard, after the news broke that she was found."There's rumors earlier today and, I prayed and prayed they were true and they come to not be true and I just shut myself totally down because I thought today was going to be the day the to find out two hours later that she was found, I just cannot believe this," she said.Barron Mayor Ron Fladten said Thursday night he was overjoyed at learning she is alive."There was a lot of discouragement because this took quite a while to play out," Fladten said. "A lot of people have been praying daily, as I have. It's just a great result we got tonight. It's unbelievable. It's like taking a big black cloud in the sky and getting rid of it and the sun comes out again."He acknowledged that Jayme may not be the same person she was before she disappeared."I hope that she's in good shape," the mayor said. "She's no doubt been through just a terrible ordeal. I think everybody wishes her a good recovery and a happy life going into the future."The notification that Jayme had been found came just four hours after Fitzgerald had taken to Twitter to debunk a report that she had been found alive near Walworth County. Douglas County, where Jayme was found, is hundreds of miles northwest of Walworth County.</s>BARRON, Wis. (AP) — Sheriff: Jayme Closs, Wisconsin teenager missing since October, has been found alive; suspect in custody.</s>Wisconsin police gave details about the discovery of 13-year-old Jayme Closs, who went missing in October when her parents were found shot to death.

 Jayme was found alive yesterday in the town of Gordon, which is in the northwestern part of the state about 40 miles southeast of Duluth, Minnesota.

 A short time after she was found, police arrested a suspect based on the description Jayme gave officers of his vehicle.

 Officers spotted the suspect, pulled him over and took him into custody.

 The suspect, 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson from Wisconsin is being held on two counts of first degree homicide for the murder of Closs’ parents and one count of kidnapping.

 The Barron County Sheriff says Patterson planned his actions and held Jayme captive in a residence from which she escaped.

 Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald believes Jayme was the “only target” in the murder and kidnapping. He adds that she is safe and recovering with family members.

According to the sheriff, Patterson had zero criminal history. Also, officers do not know yet what happened to Closs during her three months in captivity.

 The sheriff also says that Jayme was inside the house when her parents were killed and it is still a mystery how Jayme became the suspect’s target.</s>Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, has been charged with kidnapping Closs.
Teenager Jayme Closs, who went missing in October 2018 in Wisconsin after the murder of her parents, is found alive. A suspect, Jake Thomas Patterson, age 21, has been arrested and charged with two counts of murder and one count of kidnapping.