Photo: Courtesy of Jennifer Halvorson
It was a joyous moment and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
For relatives ofJayme Closs, three months of agony ended last Friday, the moment the Wisconsin teen — abducted back in October after witnessing the fatal shootings of her parents and held captive untilher escape last week— stepped through the front door of the house of her aunt, Jennifer Smith.
“Everyone was in tears,” Jayme’s cousin, Lindsey Smith, tells PEOPLE. “Jayme walked through the door with my mom and dad. Most of our family was sitting in my parents’ house. Jayme walked around. She had a smile on her face and she gave every person a hug. Everyone was in tears of happiness.”
Going forward, Jayme, 13,will be living with her aunt in a room of her own.
“We’re just pretty excited,” Lindsey Smith, 22, says. “We set up Jayme’s room that day before she got home.”
Smith says Jayme is “doing pretty good” since escaping her kidnapper Thursday, but is “still in shock that she’s back home. She’s nothing but smiles. I think it’s just going to be a one-day-at-a-time thing — figure things out as we go. Just make sure she has what she needs.”
There are also signs with messages of hope. There’s one emblazoned with the words “I love you” while another reads “Do not let your heart be troubled.”
“One sign says, ‘I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you hope and a future,'” Smith, a corrections officer, tells PEOPLE.
For Jayme’s first meal back, the family ate on “meat and cheese,” Smith says. “We just had snacks and meat and cheese. That was shortly after Jayme had got there.”
The Barron County Sheriff’s Office revealed Friday they have charged21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson of Gordonwith two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and one of kidnapping.
The suspect, who is unemployed, was not on the radar of investigators and had no criminal history in Wisconsin, authorities said at a Friday press conference. He is currently in the Barron County Jail and police are not looking for additional suspects.
Police allege that Oct. 15 of last year, Patterson fatally shot Jayme’s parents — James, 56, and Denise Closs, 46 — inside a home in Barron and abducted Jayme.
At this point, Jayme has not opened up to relatives about what she endured during her ordeal, but Smith says the teen seems “happy to be back” and reunited with her dog, Molly.
“I think this is really something,” Smith reflects. “It’s bizarre. We’re just going to take one day at a time.”
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Smith says her mother intends to find a professional counselor for Jayme and tend to any other needs she may have.
“And we’ll figure out the rest as we go,” she says.
Patterson is due in court Monday to enter a plea. His public defenders, Charles Glynn and Richard Jones, issued a joint statement on the allegations, according to local media reports.
“This is a very tragic situation,” reads the statement. “There is a substantial amount of information, interest, and emotion involved in this case. Mr. Patterson’s legal team will be relying on the integrity of our judicial system to ensure that everyone’s rights are protected and respected.”
PEOPLE has reached out to the two lawyers for additional comment.
source: people.com
