A local court in Wisconsin sentenced Jake Patterson to two terms of life imprisonment on Friday for kidnapping 13-year-old Jayme Closs and murdering her parents.
The judge described the convict as “one of the most dangerous men ever to walk this planet.”
Barron County Circuit Court Judge James Babler handed down Patterson a sentence with no possibility of release.
“Mr. Patterson, you initially murdered two innocent parents, parents trying to protect their daughter,” an emotional Babler said as he gave Patterson the maximum sentence possible in a state that does not have the death penalty.
He described the convict as “the embodiment of evil.”
Patterson, 21, in March admitted to committing the October killings and abduction in Barron County, Wisconsin, holding Closs for 88 days before her daring Jan. 10 escape.
Closs had a message for Patterson, who killed her parents only feet away from her.
“Jake Patterson took (my parents) away forever,” she said in a statement read by her attorney. “He can’t take away my freedom. I will always have my freedom and he will not.”
Closs now lives with her uncle and aunt in Barron, a community of 3,400 in northwest Wisconsin, where many helped police scour the countryside as part of a four-month, nationwide hunt for Jayme.
Patterson, with close-cropped hair and dressed in an orange prison uniform, sat with his head down most of the time in court. But he shook his head on two occasions. The first was when Barron County District Attorney Brian Wright said he remained a threat to Jayme. The second was when Babler said Patterson stated he had “fantasies about keeping a young girl prisoner, torturing her, and totally controlling her,” according to a report.
Patterson’s defense lawyer said “a lifetime of social isolation” led him to commit the crimes.
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