Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
‘I’m Sorry Jayme! For Everything’: Jayme Closs Kidnap Suspect Offers Up Bubble-Lettered Apology
“I can’t believe I did this,” Jake Patterson writes in a letter to a local news station, describing his reasons for allegedly abducting the teen as "not black and white."
The Wisconsin man accused of kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs after killing her parents and holding her captive for nearly three months has penned a letter to a local reporter in which he expressed remorse for his actions.
Jake Thomas Patterson, 21, has been charged with two counts of first-degree homicide and one count each of kidnapping and armed burglary stemming from the Oct. 15 attack on the Closs home during which he allegedly gunned down James and Denise Closs before abducting their teen daughter.
Authorities say Patterson has already revealed many of the details of events during interviews detailed in a criminal complaint obtained by Oxygen.com earlier this year but he attempted to offer even more explanations in a letter he wrote to KARE11 in Minneapolis. The letter was a response to one sent to him by a reporter at the station asking questions about the kidnapping and his decision to confess.
"Hi, IDK [I don't know] if I'll actually send this,” the letter started off, according to KARE11.
He attributed his apparent decision to confess to trying to protect Jayme from more pain.
“I tried to give them everything [...] (wasn’t completely honest) so they didn’t have to interview Jayme,” he allegedly wrote. “They did anyways and hurt her more for no reason.”
He allegedly said he plans to plead guilty and that he wants “Jayme and her relatives to know that. Don’t want them to worry about a trial.”
Patterson had no prior links to Closs and allegedly told police he decided to abduct her after spotting her getting on a school bus. As for why he decided to alleged kidnap the teen, he couldn’t really offer any concrete answers.
“It’s not black and white,” he allegedly wrote, adding that the reasons for it were “complicated” and possibly rooted in the fact that he was “pissed.” He said he has “huge amounts” of regret for the actions and noted, “I can’t believe I did this.”
As for what would have happened if Jayme didn’t escape the remote cabin where he held her captive he allegedly wrote, “Won’t say. It was really stupid though looking back.”
On the back of the note, he allegedly wrote in childish bubble letters, “I’m Sorry Jayme! For everything.”
And then, in non-bubble letters: “I know it doesn’t mean much.”
He also allegedly refuted claims by law enforcement that he planned the kidnapping thoroughly.
In a criminal complaint, obtained by Oxygen.com, Barron County prosecutors said Patterson "stated he put quite a bit of thought into the details of how he was going to abduct” Closs, referencing a series of decisions he allegedly made prior to the attack: buying a mask, changing license plates on the car he used and shaving his head to avoid leaving hair samples at the scene.
“The cops say I planned this thoroughly, and that I said that,” Patterson wrote in the letter, according to KARE11. “They’re really good at twisting your words around, put them in different spots, straight up lie. Little mad about that. Trying to cover up their mistakes I guess. This was mostly on impulse.”
Since her heroic escape, Closs has been reunited with family in Wisconsin and last month was pictured enjoying a steak with her grandfather.
Patterson is due to be arraigned on March 27.
