Teen who went missing after parents killed found alive
A 13-year-old girl who went missing when her parents were shot dead in their home has been found alive after three months.
Jayme Closs, from northwest Wisconsin, went missing in October after her parents were killed.
The Barron County Sheriff’s Department said on its Facebook page that Jayme has been located and that a suspect was taken into custody.
Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said the sheriff’s office in Douglas County, about 110 kilometres north of Barron County, located the girl.
A suspect was apprehended a short time later. The statement did not say where Jayme was found or give any further information about the suspect.
The sheriff’s office plans to hold a news conference Friday morning to discuss the case.
Jayme has been missing since her parents, James and Denise Closs, were found shot to death on October 15 at the family’s home near Barron.
Investigators said Jayme was quickly ruled out as a suspect.
Detectives pursued thousands of tips, watched dozens of surveillance videos and conducted numerous searches in the effort to find Jayme.
Some tips led officials to recruit 2000 volunteers for a massive ground search on October 23.
Mr Fitzgerald said in November that he kept similar cases in the back of his mind as he worked to find Jayme, including the abduction of Elizabeth Smart, who was taken from her Salt Lake City home in 2002 when she was 14-years-old.
She was rescued nine months later with the help of two witnesses who recognised her abductors from an “America’s Most Wanted” episode.
“I have a gut feeling she’s (Jayme’s) still alive. I’ve always been a glass half-full kind of guy,” Mr Fitzgerald said at the time.
Barron Mayor Ron Fladten says he hasn’t heard any details about Jayme’s discovery but says knowing she’s been found is “unbelievable”.
“It’s like taking a big black cloud in the sky and getting rid of it and the sun comes out again,” he said.
