A 13-year-old girl reported missing after her parents were found shot dead in their home in October has been found alive.
Jayme Closs sought help from residents of a remote rural area in northwestern Wisconsin on Thursday after fleeing captivity, according to reports. The Minneapolis Star Tribune says the schoolgirl was “bedraggled and malnourished”.
She had not been seen since 15 October, when police deputies responding to a disjointed 911 call from the Closs family found the front door kicked in at their home in Barron, Wisconsin.
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Inside, officers discovered the bodies of James Closs, 56, and his 46-year-old wife Denise, both of whom had been shot dead, but no trace of their teenage daughter.
Her disappearance triggered a massive manhunt, but her whereabouts remained a mystery until yesterday afternoon, when she approached a woman walking her dog near Gordon, 70 miles north of Barron, and asked for help.
The woman told the Star Tribune she was “pretty sure who the girl was” because “most everyone who lives in Wisconsin has seen Jayme’s photo on the news or on posters hung up by businesses”.
A 21-year-old local man was arrested in connection with the abduction just minutes after Jayme was found, Douglas County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.
Her aunt, Kelly Engelhardt, told Minneapolis TV station KARE 11 that this was the moment her family “prayed for every single day”.
She said officers had told the family that the teenager had been taken to hospital but did not appear to be injured, and added that Jayme was talking to FBI investigators.
“I honestly had faith. I figured if they hadn’t found her by now that the person that did this didn’t want her dead, so I had hope. Every day there was hope,” Engelhardt said. “We had too much love and support around us for us to give up.”
