Man who kidnapped Jayme Closs and killed her parents pleads guilty
BARRON, Wis. _ Jake Patterson bowed his head and took a deep breath as his attorney leaned in and laid a hand on his shoulder.
Then he looked up at the judge sitting in front of him and, in a trembling voice, uttered the word all of Barron had long waited to hear.
"Guilty," he said three times, pleading to the brutal shotgun murders of James and Denise Closs in their Barron home and the kidnapping of their 13-year-old daughter, Jayme, in the dark of an October morning last fall.
In a dramatic hearing that lasted less than 20 minutes Wednesday in Barron County Circuit Court, Patterson, 21, admitted to the crimes that shocked this town of 3,400 residents some 90 miles from the Twin Cities.
As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped one count of armed burglary against him. They also agreed not to prosecute him for any crimes he may have committed in Douglas County, 70 miles north, where he kept Jayme prisoner for 88 days.
By pleading guilty, Patterson spared the Closs family a painful jury trial.
_ Minneapolis Star Tribune
