People want Jayme Closs to receive $50,000 reward; it might not happen

Jan 18, 2019

By Herb Scribner

The couple who called 911 about finding Jayme Closs have a request: Give the girl the $50,000 reward.

What’s going on: Closs, a 13-year-old girl from Wisconsin, went missing back in October 2018. She recently turned up in Gordon, Wisconsin, on Jan. 10 by approaching Jeanne Nutter, who was walking her dog at the time. Nutter brought Closs to her neighbor’s house, Peter and Kristin Kasinskas, who called 911 saying Closs had returned home.

Reward: Authorities don’t know what to do with the $50,000 reward. Peter Kasinskas wants Closs to receive it since “she got herself out” of danger, he told the Associated Press.

The FBI and the Jennie-O Turkey Store each contributed $25,000 to the reward, which is still currently under review, USA Today reports.

Authorities are deciding whether to offer the reward money to anyone since Closs was found alive, CNN reports.

But Closs’ heroics are not lost on authorities: “Jayme was the hero in the case. Jayme was the champion that finally said enough is enough,” Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said. “We can’t be more proud of Jayme.”

Fitzgerald said he will work with the FBI to discuss the reward and where it ends up, according to CNN.

How she escaped: According to CNN, Closs was kept in captivity for three months after she was kidnapped by Jake Patterson, who confessed to killing Closs’ parents. She said to investigators that “she was often forced under her captor’s bed and blocked in by weights.”

One day last week, Patterson left the home for hours so Closs “pushed aside the weights blocking her, put on a pair of his oversize shoes and ran outside the home.” That’s when she found Nutter.

Read more: As The New York Times reported this week, Patterson eluded those living in Gordon, Wisconsin, often hiding in plain sight.