Jake Patterson hosted a Christmas party while Jayme Closs was imprisoned in the same house, sources say
Of all the coverups and lies Jake Patterson told the world in the past few months, one stands out as especially cruel.
He held a Christmas Day gathering for family members at "Patterson Retreat," the former family home that Patterson is accused of turning into a prison for 13-year-old Jayme Closs.
While the family marked the holiday, the houseguests had no idea that another person was there — the terrified girl Patterson was holding captive, forced to stay hidden under a twin bed, sources told reporters for the USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald wouldn't confirm the Christmas gathering, saying he wouldn't know whether such an event took place.
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But two law-enforcement sources separately said the visitors included two members of Patterson's immediate family and the people they were dating.
"The family was there," one source said. Patterson "told (Jayme) that if she made a noise or tried to escape, he would kill her."
The sources would only speak on the condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.
One source identified Patterson's father and sister as the family members who made the Christmas visit to the ramshackle house at 14166 S. Eau Claire Acres Circle in Gordon, a town of about 750 located about 70 miles north of Jayme's home town of Barron.
The second source confirmed that the investigation had found that those family members visited Patterson on Christmas.
There is no indication that any of the guests knew Jayme was imprisoned beneath the bed, the source said.
Jayme would endure another 16 days of captivity at the Gordon house before freeing herself and running from the home Jan. 10. She encountered a passer-by who took her to a neighbor's house and called the Douglas County Sheriff's Department.
Patterson had held the teen captive since gunning down her parents and dragging her from her family's rural Barron County home in the early morning of Oct. 15, according to a criminal complaint filed in Barron County Circuit Court.
He is charged with kidnapping, armed burglary and two counts of first-degree intentional homicide in the deaths of Jayme’s parents, James M. Closs, 56, and Denise J. Closs, 46. If convicted, he faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison.
Charges have yet to be filed in Douglas County. Those would include any crimes committed at the Gordon house.
Authorities say Patterson forced Jayme to hide beneath the bed when guests visited or when he left the house, surrounding it with containers so she couldn't be seen and weighing them down to keep her from escaping. He played music in the room when others were in the house to drown out any noise she might be making, the criminal complaint says.
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If she tried to move or made her presence known, Patterson told her something bad would happen, according to Jayme's statement to police.
The Christmas gathering was one of many examples of Patterson's bizarre behavior while harboring a missing teen sought for months by hundreds of law officers and whose face was on countless flyers and news stories. It contrasts with the planning he undertook after he decided to kidnap Jayme after seeing her at a school bus stop.
Patterson spun a web of lies while applying for at least one job in Superior, a 45-minute drive away.
He told potential employers he had spent months in the Marines when, actually, he washed out after five weeks.
He also fudged by two years the period in which he served in the Marines, apparently unaware that it's relatively easy to verify dates of military service.
He called himself an "honest and hardworking guy," yet made no mention of the string of recent jobs — at a turkey processing plant, a cheese factory and a wood pellet manufacturer — that lasted one or two days.
More: Jake Patterson targeted Jayme Closs after seeing her board school bus, complaint says
He also, according to the complaint, visited a grandparent in Superior for 12 hours during the time Closs was his captive.
To date, there's been no indication that family members had a clue about Patterson's secrets.
Jake Patterson's father, Patrick Patterson, dropped off a note for the Closs family last week at the Barron County Courthouse.
"All I care about right now is Jayme's family. I want to get them a note," he told CNN.
A grandfather, Jim Moyer, told ABC News that the family had no idea of what Jake was up to.
"Something went terribly wrong. ... We are absolutely heartbroken. It's wrenching to deal with," he said.
Patterson's defense attorneys have said more will be revealed about their client's behavior and motives as the case proceeds. They did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
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Some details of Patterson's planning have been revealed.
At the time of his arrest, he bragged to law officers that his meticulous planning for the murders and kidnapping — including painstaking steps to disguise his car, dressing in all black and shaving his head to avoid leaving DNA evidence — had paid off.
“The defendant stated he basically assumed he had gotten away with killing James and Denise and kidnapping (Jayme) since he hadn’t been caught for the first two weeks,” the criminal complaint says.
“The defendant stated he never would have been caught if he would have planned everything perfectly.”
When confronted by sheriff's deputies after Jayme escaped, Patterson did not lie.
“I know what this is about," he told deputies. "I did it."
More: After 88 days of horror, how Jayme Closs and her small town of Barron can heal
Follow Doug Schneider, James B. Nelson and Haley BeMiller on Twitter: @PGDougSchneider, @jamesbnelson and @haleybemiller
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Jake Patterson hosted a Christmas party while Jayme Closs was imprisoned in the same house, sources say