BARRON, Wisconsin: A Wisconsin man was sentenced Friday to life in prison for kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and killing her parents after the girl told the judge she that wanted him “locked up forever” for trying to steal her.
Jake Patterson, 21, pleaded guilty in March to two counts of intentional homicide and one count of kidnapping. He admitted he broke into Jayme’s home in October, gunned down her parents, James and Denise Closs, made off with her and held her under a bed in his remote cabin for 88 days before she made a daring escape.
Jayme didn’t appear at Patterson’s sentencing hearing Friday, but a family attorney read her first public statements about her ordeal to Judge James Babler.
“He thought that he could own me but he was wrong. I was smarter,” the statement said. “I was brave and he was not. ... He thought he could make me like him, but he was wrong. ... For 88 days he tried to steal me and he didn’t care who he hurt or who he killed to do that. He should be locked up forever.”
The judge called Patterson the “embodiment of evil” before sentencing him to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of release on the homicide charges. He also ordered Patterson to serve 25 years in prison and 15 years of extended supervision on the kidnapping count.
“There’s no doubt in my mind you’re one of the most dangerous men to ever walk on this planet,” Babler said.
Patterson sat shaking his head during most of the hearing. Offered a chance to speak, he said he would do anything to take back what he did.
“I would die,” he said. “I would do absolutely anything ... to bring them back. I don’t care about me. I’m just so sorry. That’s all.”
The judge read statements that Patterson wrote in jail in which he said he had succumbed to fantasies about keeping a young girl and torturing and controlling her. He started looking for an opportunity to kidnap someone, even deciding he might want to take multiple girls and kill multiple families, according to the statements. Jayme was the first girl he saw after these thoughts entered his mind, he said.
Patterson’s attorneys, Richard Jones and Charles Glynn, told the judge that Patterson was isolated and that he overreacted to loneliness. They asked for leniency for Patterson, noting that he had pleaded guilty to spare Jayme and her family from a trial.
According to a criminal complaint, Patterson was driving to work in October when he spotted Jayme getting on a school bus near her rural home outside Barron, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Minneapolis. He decided then that “she was the girl he was going to take.”
District Attorney Brian Wright told the judge that Patterson traveled to the Closs home on two separate occasions to kidnap her but turned back because of activity at her house.
He finally drove to the house during the early morning hours of Oct. 15 dressed in black and carrying his father’s shotgun. He shot James Closs through a window in the front door, blasted the lock and moved inside.
He found the bathroom door locked. He broke the door down and discovered Jayme and her mother clinging to each other in the bathtub. He tied Jayme up with tape, then shot Denise Closs in the head as she sat next to her daughter.
He dragged Jayme through her father’s blood and out to his car. He threw her in the trunk and drove her to his cabin in Gordon in Douglas County, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northeast of Barron.
He kept her trapped under a bed using totes filled with weights and hit her with a curtain rod, Wright said.
“He kept her in constant fear, threatening her, telling her things would get worse,” Wright said.
Jayme finally escaped on Jan. 10 while Patterson was away. She flagged down a neighbor, who found someone to call police. Patterson was arrested minutes later as he returned to the cabin.
Patterson was also ordered to register as a sex offender, which under Wisconsin law may be required both for an actual sex offense or an attempted sexual offense. Details of Jayme’s time in captivity have not been released, and no charges were brought by prosecutors in the county where she was held.
Life in prison for 'evil' loner who kidnapped US teen, killed parents
Life in prison for 'evil' loner who kidnapped US teen, killed parents
- Details of Jayme’s time in captivity have not been released, and no charges were brought by prosecutors in the county where she was held
‘A unique place’: Foreigners visit post-war Afghanistan
- Decades of conflict made tourism extremely rare in Afghanistan, but most violence has now abated
- Yet visitors are confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant infrastructure
MAZAR-I-SHARIF: His soldier son toured Afghanistan with insurgents in his crosshairs, but American traveler Oscar Wells has a different objective — sight-seeing promoted by the Taliban’s fledgling tourism sector.
“It is a unique place, it touches my heart,” the 65-year-old Indiana farmer told AFP, praising “its magnificent mountains” with “people living in the old way.”
Marvelling at the 15th century Blue Mosque in northern Mazar-i-Sharif, Wells is among a small but rising number of travelers coming to Afghanistan since the war’s end.
Decades of conflict made tourism extremely rare, and while most violence has now abated, visitors are confronted with extreme poverty, dilapidated cultural sites and scant hospitality infrastructure.
They holiday under the austere control of Taliban authorities, without consular support after most embassies were evacuated following the fall of the Western-backed government in 2021.
They must register with officials on arrival in each province, comply with a strict dress code and submit to searches at checkpoints by men armed with Kalashnikovs.
Islamic State attacks also still pose a potential threat in the country.
“The first thing your loved ones say is: ‘You’re crazy to go there!’” said French tourist Didier Goudant, a 57-year-old lawyer, of a country that Western governments warn against visiting.
Security concerns worried Nayuree Chainton, the 45-year-old Thai owner of a travel agency in Bangkok, who made a trip for six days recently with a group to test the waters.
“I feel safe despite the checkpoints in the cities,” she said, during a visit to a shrine in the capital Kabul.
The number of foreign tourists visiting Afghanistan rose 120 percent year-on-year in 2023, reaching nearly 5,200, according to official figures.
The Taliban government has yet to be officially recognized by any country — in part because of its heavy restrictions on women — but it has welcomed foreign tourism.
“Afghanistan’s enemies don’t present the country in a good light,” said information and culture minister Khairullah Khairkhwa.
“But if these people come and see what it’s really like... they will definitely share a good image of it,” he said.
But Wells and Goudant — on a trip with firm Untamed Borders, which also offers tours of Syria and Somalia — describe their visit as a way to connect with Afghanistan’s people.
Tourists “like us are curious and want to be in contact with the population, to try to help them a little” said Goudant, on his second trip, which included skiing in central Bamiyan province.
He said part of his visits is making donations to local groups, something he describes as “small-scale humanitarian work” in a country that has seen foreign aid drastically shrink since the Taliban takeover.
For Wells, there is a “sense of guilt for the departure” of US troops.
“I really felt we had a horrible exit, it created such a vacuum and disaster,” he said. “It’s good to help these people and keep relations.”
Untamed Borders brought around 100 tourists to Afghanistan last year, with a nine-day package starting in neighboring Pakistan costing $2,850.
The end of the fighting means tourists “can do more things,” said founder James Willcox.
“But on the other hand it is disruptive,” he added, noting a woman tour guide with the company fled to Italy after the Taliban return.
While the Taliban government has shut girls and women out of education, and much of public life, foreign women are granted greater freedoms.
For solo traveler Stefanie Meier, a 53-year-old American, who spent a month traveling from Kabul to Kandahar via Bamiyan and Herat in the west, it was a “bittersweet experience.”
“I have been able to meet people I never thought I would meet, who told me about their life,” she said, adding that she didn’t face any issues as a woman on her own.
She experienced “disbelief that people have to live like this,” she added. “The poverty, there are no jobs, women not being able to go to school, no future for them.”
With little by way of official information, tourists band together on social media and messaging apps to trade tips.
While two airlines serve Afghanistan’s major cities, backpackers prefer the bus, and don’t shy away from the 20-hour journey from Kabul to Herat.
An active WhatsApp group named Afghanistan Travel Experience brings together over 600 people from places as far flung as Mexico, India and Italy who are already in the country or on their way out.
They pepper the group with questions, such as one from user Alberto asking if it is “haram” (not allowed) to travel with a dog, or if it’s a problem to have visible tattoos.
Another, Soo, asked: “Is there a co-working space in Mazar?”
Bus plunges off a bridge in South Africa, killing 45 people; 8-year-old child is lone survivor
- Authorities said the bus carrying worshippers was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
The only survivor of the crash was an 8-year-old child, who was receiving medical attention, according to authorities in the northern province of Limpopo. They said the child was seriously injured.
The Limpopo provincial government said the bus veered off the Mmamatlakala bridge and plunged 50 meters (164 feet) into a ravine before busting into flames.
Search operations were ongoing, the provincial government said, but many bodies were burned beyond recognition and still trapped inside the vehicle.
Authorities said they believe the bus was traveling from the neighboring country of Botswana to the town of Moria, which hosts a popular Easter pilgrimage. They said it appeared that the driver lost control and was one of the dead.
Minister of Transport Sindisiwe Chikunga was in Limpopo province for a road safety campaign and changed plans to visit the crash scene, the national Department of Transport said. She said there was an investigation underway into the cause of the crash and offered her condolences to the families of the victims.
The South African government often warns of the danger of road accidents during the Easter holidays, which is a particularly busy and dangerous time for road travel. More than 200 people died in road crashes during the Easter weekend last year.
The Zionist Christian Church has its headquarters in Moria and its Easter pilgrimage attracts hundreds of thousands of people from across South Africa and neighboring countries. This year is the first time the Easter pilgrimage to Moria is set to go ahead since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Macron says G20 must agree before inviting Putin to summit
BRASILIA: French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that members of the G20 would have to agree before Russian leader Vladimir Putin is invited to attend the group’s summit in Brazil in November.
“The meaning of this club is that there must be consensus with the 19 others. That will be a job for Brazilian diplomacy,” he said during a joint press conference in Brasilia with his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
If such a meeting can be “useful, it must be done,” Macron said, though he warned division on the matter could scuttle any Russian invitation.
Brazil, the current chair of the G20 group — which represents 80 percent of the global economy — has opposed the US-led drive to isolate and punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western countries share some of the blame for the war.
Putin missed last year’s G20 summit in the Indian capital New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
In September 2023, Lula said there was “no way” that Putin would be arrested if he attended the Rio de Janeiro summit.
Shortly after, he backtracked and said that it would be up to the justice system to decide on Putin’s eventual arrest and not his government.
Biden, Trump provide campaign split-screen with dueling NYC events
WASHINGTON: Joe Biden and Donald Trump were on the campaign trail in New York on Thursday as the Democratic president prepared to host a star-studded fundraiser and his Republican predecessor and 2024 rival paid tribute to a fallen police officer.
Trump made a short statement after attending the wake of police officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot and killed on Monday during a traffic stop.
“We have to stop it. We have to get back to law and order,” said the 77-year-old billionaire, who refrained from criticizing his 81-year-old rival directly.
Trump’s entourage contrasted his solemn trip with a lavish fundraiser Biden will headline later alongside former Democratic presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, which organizers say has reaped an eye-watering $25 million.
“President Trump will be honoring the legacy of Officer Diller and paying respects to his family, friends, and the NYPD,” said the Republican’s spokesman Steven Cheung.
“Meanwhile, the Three Stooges — Biden, Obama, and Clinton — will be at a glitzy fundraiser in the city with their elitist, out-of-touch celebrity benefactors.”
The White House said Biden had called New York Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday to offer his condolences over Diller’s killing.
The Democrat has not been in contact with the officer’s family but “grieves” with them, his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said, adding that the president “has stood with law enforcement his entire career and continues to stand with them.”
Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that Biden was “deeply grateful for the sacrifices police officers make to keep our communities safe.”
Biden’s fundraiser will feature a debate between the three Democratic leaders, hosted by late-night TV comic Stephen Colbert.
Singers Lizzo and Queen Latifah, among others, will perform at the event, to be held at Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan in front of 5,000 people.
The star-studded fundraiser is the first event of its kind to feature the three Democratic presidents.
According to NBC News, guests can pay $100,000 for a photo with the trio.
“The numbers don’t lie: today’s event is a massive show of force and a true reflection of the momentum to reelect the Biden-Harris ticket,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, the campaign’s chief fundraiser, said in a statement, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris.
He contends that Biden will raise more money in one evening than Trump did in the entire month of February.
Biden has better-stocked campaign coffers than his Republican opponent, who is using some of the funds raised from his supporters for legal expenses in the multiple lawsuits he is facing.
Trump’s trial for allegedly covering up 2016 hush money payments to a porn star when he was running for his first term in office begins in New York on April 15.
He devotes much of his campaign rhetoric to attacking illegal immigration and criticizing his Democratic rival for being lax on policing.
But the Republican, who faces 88 felony counts for a wide variety of alleged criminality, is also a harsh critic of law enforcement, regularly accusing the FBI of pursuing a politically motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Lula, Macron find common ground, despite Ukraine shadow
BRASILIA: French President Emmanuel Macron and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday displayed their unity on major global issues, while skirting differences on the war in Ukraine.
Macron wrapped up his three-day tour of the Latin American giant with a solemn, but warm, trip to the presidential palace in the modernist capital Brasilia.
The French leader paid tribute to “the spirit of resistance” of Lula’s government for “restoring democracy” after a crowd of extreme-right supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro stormed the seats of power in the city in January 2023.
Lula hailed a relationship between the two countries as one that created “a bridge between the global South and the developed world.”
While the two men firmly reset the frosty ties of the Bolsonaro years, they retain deep differences over the war in Ukraine, a subject which only briefly reared its head.
While France and the West support Kyiv wholeheartedly, Lula has in the past said that Ukraine and Russia share responsibility over the conflict and has refused to isolate Moscow.
Responding to a question from a journalist, Macron said that Brazil, as the current chair of the G20, could invite Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to a summit in Rio de Janeiro in November if other members agreed.
“The meaning of this club is that there must be consensus with the 19 others. That will be a job for Brazilian diplomacy,” he said.
If such a meeting can be “useful, it must be done,” Macron said.
Lula responded only that “diversity” must be accepted in organizations like the G20.
Putin missed last year’s G20 summit in the Indian capital New Delhi, avoiding possible political opprobrium and any risk of criminal detention under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.
In September 2023, Lula said there was “no way” that Putin would be arrested if he attended the Rio de Janeiro summit.
Shortly after, he backtracked and said that it would be up to the justice system to decide on Putin’s eventual arrest and not his government.
Lula’s only remarks on the conflict were that “the two stubborn” leaders will “have to get along,” referring to Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
However, he highlighted that Ukraine was not Brazil’s priority, and turned to a crisis in his own neighborhood, that he and Macron agreed upon: Venezuela.
Both leaders condemned the exclusion of the main opposition coalition’s chosen candidate, Corina Yoris, 80, from July 28 elections.
“We very firmly condemn the exclusion of a serious and credible candidate from this process,” Macron said.
Lula described the situation as “serious” and said there was “no legal or political explanation for banning an opponent from being a candidate.”
“I told Maduro that the most important thing to restore normality in Venezuela was to avoid any problems in the electoral process, that the elections be held in the most democratic way possible.”
From the protection of the Amazon to cooperation in the building of submarines and economic ties, the two leaders showed off the broad Franco-Brazilian partnership over the three-day visit.
Macron and Lula also brushed over tensions about the long-delayed EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, which Brazil has pushed for and France has blocked.
Macron blasted the deal as “a really bad agreement” and said it should be buried in favor of a new one that “is responsible from a development, climate and biodiversity point of view.”
Lula said he was “very calm” and noted only that Brazil “does not negotiate with France” but with the EU.
The two leaders’ close relationship was highlighted by a warm meeting in the Amazon, in which they were pictured beaming and clasping hands, to the delight of Brazilians who spawned a raft of memes comparing the images to a wedding album.