BARRON, Wis.—A man accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old Wisconsin girl, killing her parents and holding her captive in a cabin for three months is expected to enter a formal plea on March 27 when he appears in court for an arraignment.
Jake Patterson, 21, wrote in a letter to Minneapolis’ KARE-TV this month that he intends to plead guilty. His attorneys have not returned repeated messages seeking to confirm that he will do so at the arraignment in western Wisconsin. Prosecutors have said they won’t comment. Such hearings are typically procedural affairs, where charges are read to a defendant who enters a formal plea ahead of trial. Sometimes a judge enters a not-guilty plea on the person’s behalf.
Jayme told police that the night she was abducted, she was asleep in her room when the family dog started barking, the criminal complaint says. She woke her parents as a car came up the driveway.
She and her mother hid in the bathroom, clutching one another in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled shut. They heard Jayme’s father get shot as he went to the front door. Patterson then found Jayme. He told detectives he wrapped tape around her mouth and head, taped her hands behind her back and taped her ankles together, then shot her mother in the head.
During her time in captivity, Patterson forced Jayme to hide under a bed when he had friends over and penned her in with tote boxes and weights, warning that if she moved, “bad things could happen to her.” He also turned up the radio so visitors couldn’t hear her, according to the complaint.
Since her escape, Jayme has been living with an aunt in Barron, out of public view but for a handful of pictures showing a smiling Jayme posted to the aunt’s Facebook page.
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