Jeanne Nutter was out walking her golden retriever near her home in the tiny town of Gordon, Wisconsin, when a girl approached her. She was thin, her hair matted. And despite the below-freezing temperature, she was dressed in a light jumper and pants. No gloves, no coat. The shoes on her feet appeared to be several sizes too large; mens’, perhaps. “I’m lost, and I don’t know where I am, and I need help,” the girl told Jeanne, according to CNN. “When she got near me and I could see who she was, she told me, ‘I’m Jayme. '” Jayme Closs. A 13-year-old girl missing since October 13 from a town more than 100km away. The case had attracted international media attention, after the bloodied bodies of her parents, Jim and Denise, had been discovered inside their Barron home with fatal shotgun wounds. Jayme was gone, and according to police, there was no evidence at the scene that she had been injured. For 88 days police scoured the area in search of the teenager, appealing to the public for information. A tree-lighting ceremony was held by schoolmates over Christmas, the branches baring a sign: HOPE. Then on Thursday, she emerged, pleading for help from a total stranger. Jeanne Nutter escorted her to a nearby house and pounded on the door. "This is Jayme Closs!" she told the occupants, according to local news station, CBS WEAU13. "Call 911!" Within minutes of her recovery, officers swooped on a suspect, courtesy of details about his vehicle provided by Jayme. His name: Jake Thomas Patterson. Authorities believe the 21-year-old killed the teen's parents in order to abduct her, and will allege he held the schoolgirl captive for 88 days in a remote cabin near where she was found.<doc-sep>Jayme Closs was kidnapped and spent 88 days in captivity after her parents were murdered Jayme Closs was asleep at home just after midnight on Oct. 15, 2018, when the insistent barking of her dog, Molly, woke her up. Gazing out her bedroom window, the 13-year-old saw a car pulling into the driveway of the home she shared with her parents, Jim and Denise Closs, outside of Barron, Wisconsin, and went to alert them. Jim rose and peered out through a window — and was struck dead by a gunshot fired from the other side of the door. Get push notifications with news, features and more. Hiding in a bathtub, where the mother wrapped her daughter “in a bear hug,” the horror wasn’t over for Jayme and Denise. The intruder broke through the locked bathroom door, killed Denise with a single shot to the head, then dragged Jayme to his car and threw her — bound with duct tape — into the trunk. A 911 call placed by Denise had captured only yelling, drawing police to the bloody scene. But with Jayme gone, the search went into overdrive, as authorities swiftly declared the teen to be “missing and endangered” and issued an AMBER Alert. For 88 days Jayme’s fate and whereabouts remained a mystery. The small community responded with prayers, social media campaigns and thousands of fliers ensuring that Jayme’s face was everywhere. 1-28-c0ver • For exclusive details about the amazing escape of Jayme Closs after nearly three months in captivity, subscribe now to PEOPLE or pick up this week’s issue, on newsstands Friday. On Jan. 10, that effort paid off after Jayme bravely acted to save herself, escaping her alleged abductor’s cabin where she’d been held hostage for nearly three months after the suspect told her he was leaving for five or six hours. Outside, alone and confused in the sparsely populated woods near Gordon, about 70 miles from her home, Jayme raced toward a woman walking a dog. “I recognized her immediately,” the dog-walker, Jeanne Nutter, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “Her pictures are everywhere.” “She was crying,” Nutter recalls. “She told me, ‘I’m Jayme. '” jayme Jayme Closs (middle) with Lindsey Smith and Cory Sager | Credit: Courtesy of Lindsey Smith • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. Police who responded passed Jayme’s alleged abductor on the roadway, apparently out looking for her. The suspect, 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson — a man not on police’s radar, with no criminal record but allegedly with an obsession he’d developed for Jayme after he spotted her boarding a school bus, according to a criminal complaint — didn’t put up a fight when an officer stopped his car. 2wayb Jake Thomas Patterson | Credit: Barron County Sheriff's Dept According to the complaint filed in Barron County Circuit Court, the suspect said he knew what the stop was about. “I did it,” he said. Patterson is now in jail on a $5 million bail, charged with murder, kidnapping and armed burglary. He has not yet entered a plea. Meanwhile, Jayme has reunited with the family and others who never gave up hope for her recovery and is starting to rebuild her life after loss and trauma.<doc-sep>(Reuters) - A 13-year-old girl’s escape from a rural home where she was held captive for three months by a Wisconsin man charged with murdering her parents helped break the case and she should be treated as a hero, the local sheriff said on Friday. Jayme Closs is with her aunt after her rescue on Thursday and has been reunited with the rest of her family and her dog, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald told reporters. Thousands of volunteers and hundreds of law enforcement officers had searched the small town of Barron after Closs’ parents were found shot dead in their home in October, their front door blown open with a shotgun, their daughter gone. Closs was targeted by suspected kidnapper Jake Patterson, 21, who carefully planned her parents’ murder, even shaving his head to avoid leaving forensic evidence at the crime scene, Fitzgerald told reporters. “Jayme was the target,” said Fitzgerald. “The suspect had specific intentions to kidnap Jayme and went to great lengths to prepare to take her.” Relying on what Fitzgerald called “the will of a kid to survive,” a disheveled Closs escaped the house in the tiny town of Gordon where she had been held captive, about 60 miles (100 km) north of her home in Barron. Her captor was not at home when she managed to flee, Fitzgerald said. She was found by a woman walking her dog on Thursday afternoon. “Jayme is the hero in this case. She’s the one who helped us break this case,” Fitzgerald told reporters. Closs spoke to investigators on Friday after spending a night in the hospital for evaluation. Authorities did not offer any details about the conditions of her captivity or how she had managed to escape. ‘LOOKING FOR HER’ Less than 15 minutes after Closs’ rescue, Patterson was taken into custody after police pulled him over, based on Closs’ description of his vehicle. “The suspect was out looking for her when law enforcement made contact with him,” Fitzgerald told a news conference, adding police were not seeking any other suspects in the case at this time. Police are now trying to work out why Patterson targeted Closs. “We don’t believe there was a social media connection and are determining how he became aware of Jayme,” Fitzgerald said. “Nothing in this case shows the suspect knew anyone at the Closs home, or at any time had contact with anyone in the Closs family.” Slideshow ( 3 images ) Patterson, an unemployed resident of Gordon, was charged on Friday with kidnapping and with murdering James and Denise Closs with a shotgun. Their bodies were discovered on Oct. 15. He was being held in the Barron County jail, and it was not yet clear whether he had a lawyer. He faces an initial court hearing on Monday. Authorities have released few details about Patterson, who has no previous criminal record in Wisconsin. Slideshow ( 3 images ) Fitzgerald, the Barron County Sheriff, said Patterson grew up in Gordon and attended high school in the area. The president of the Jennie-O Turkey store in Barron, where James and Denise Closs had worked for decades, said Patterson had been an employee there for a single day three years ago. He quit the next day, saying he was moving, Steve Lykken said. “We are still mourning the loss of longtime Jennie-O family members Jim and Denise, but our entire team is celebrating with the community, and the world, that Jayme has been found,” Lykken said. The superintendent of the local school district, Jean Serum, described Patterson as a nice kid and member of his high school’s quiz bowl team. He graduated in 2015. INNER STRENGTH About 350 people under the age of 21 are kidnapped by strangers in the United States each year, according to FBI data. Those that survive months in captivity need inner strength and a great deal of luck, according to survivors and experts who have worked with such victims. Elizabeth Smart, who was held captive for nine months as a teenager after her 2002 abduction in Utah, posted a photo of Closs on Instagram, praising the “miracle” that she had been found. “No matter what may unfold in her story let’s all try to remember that this young woman has SURVIVED and whatever other details may surface the most important will still remain that she is alive,” Smart wrote.<doc-sep>
After 88 days in captivity, Jayme had a "good night sleep," her family said. New photos released Saturday of Jayme Closs, the 13-year-old Wisconsin girl who spent 88 days in captivity after being abducted by her parent's alleged killer, show her smiling and cuddling with her dogs and posing for a selfie with an aunt who had prayed for her safe return. Authorities said Jayme escaped Thursday from a cabin where she was being held by a man who allegedly kidnapped her in October, according to officials at the Barron County Sheriff's Department, who spearheaded the search for her. She was found in Gordon, Wisconsin, about 70 miles north of her hometown of Barron. After escaping, Jayme approached Jeanne Nutter, who was out walking her dog. Nutter told ABC News that Jayme looked disheveled, cold, thin and wearing shoes too large for her feet. "I need help," Jayme said in a soft voice, according to Nutter. "...I’m Jayme Closs, I don’t know where I’m at." Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, of Gordon, was arrested and charged with kidnapping the eighth-grader and killing her parents, Denise and James Closs, officials said. Patterson is expected to make his initial court appearance on the charges on Monday. Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said Patterson had specific intentions to kidnap Jayme, but it remains unclear how he became aware of the girl, Fitzgerald said. Investigators have yet to comment on what Jayme endured during her 88 days in captivity. Her family said Saturday that she is "full of big smiles today." "It will be a long road but we are family strong and we love this little girl so much!!" Smith wrote on Facebook. "We will do anything and everything!! My beloved sister Denise pooh and brother in law Jim can rest at peace and I keep assuring them Jayme is safe and we will make sure forever." Jayme's ordeal began on Oct. 15, when a 911 hangup call was placed from her home and a dispatcher reported hearing people yelling in the background. When sheriff's deputies went to the Closs family home, they found Denise Closs, 46, and her husband, James, 56, shot to death. Jayme was nowhere to be found and immediately investigators feared her parent's killer abducted her. A massive search for the girl was launched and thousands of volunteers helped comb the area near her rural home. A reward of $50,000 was offered for information on the girl's whereabouts. But in the end, Fitzgerald said, Jayme ended up saving herself. "It's amazing, the will of that 13-year-old girl to survive and escape," Fitzgerald said. "That comes from the hope and the prayers in this community and what everybody did."