The man charged with kidnapping Jayme Closs applied for a warehouse job at a liquor distributor in Superior, Wisconsin, just hours before the 13-year-old escaped from captivity, a manager at Saratoga Liquor Company told CNN.
“I’m an honest and hardworking guy,” Jake Patterson wrote in the “Skills” section of a resume received by the company just after noon on January 10. “Not much work experience but I show up to work and am a quick learner.”
The criminal complaint released by Barron County District Attorney’s office contains little about what happened between the kidnapping on October 15 and Jayme’s escape after 88 days.
The resume was received by the company just after noon on January 10. That same day, Patterson, 21, told Jayme that he was leaving for a few hours. As he did for much of her captivity, he put her under his bed and blocked her in with several weights and totes before he left.
This time, though, Jayme pushed aside the weights and fled to safety, according to the criminal complaint. Just after 4 p.m., police received a call from a neighbor in Gordon, Wisconsin, saying that Jayme had escaped and was alive and well, ending a three-month search for the girl.
Patterson was arrested that same day, and confessed to kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents, James and Denise Closs, according to the criminal complaint.
What the resume says
The resume itself lists three examples of Patterson’s work experience. It states that he worked as a laborer from April to November 2018, that he worked at the Marine Corps Boot Camp in San Diego, California, from April to December 2017, and that he was a “production worker” from October 2016 to January 2017.
Marine Corps service records obtained by CNN give Patterson’s dates of service as September 14, 2015, to October 20, 2015.
The resume also says he had a high school diploma from Northwood High School in Minong, Wisconsin.
Sensitive information has been obscured by the company he applied to.
According to the manager of Saratoga Liquor Company, who declined to be identified, the company reviewed the application on Friday morning after news had broken of Jayme’s escape. The manager made the connection when he read that the applicant, Jake Patterson, was from Gordon, Wisconsin.
“I knew for sure it was the same kid,” the manager said.
The manager said that the company called Douglas and Barron County Sheriff’s offices as soon as they realized who the application was from. Someone from the Douglas County Sheriff ‘s Office then came by to pick the application up in person.
Patterson was applying for a night warehouse position at the wholesaler.
Patterson’s resume does not include his most recent job at the Saputo Cheese manufacturing facility, where he worked as a temporary employee for two days, the company said. He did not show up for his third day of work, so the company ended the assignment, spokeswoman Sandy Vassiadis said.
While driving to work on one of those two days, Patterson saw Jayme Closs get onto a school bus, and “he knew that was the girl he was going to take,” according to the criminal complaint.
Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald declined knowledge of this specific employment application, and CNN has reached out to Douglas County Sheriff’s Office for comment.