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Mystery in a Small Town: A Quiet Couple Shot Dead, Their Daughter Missing

James and Denise Closs, who had worked at the Jennie-O turkey plant for years,
were found dead. Their daughter, Jayme, vanished. And a town is on edge.

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CreditCreditTim Gruber for The New York Times

By Sarah Maslin NirPhotographs by Tim Gruber

Nov. 5, 2018

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BARRON, Wis. — Cows and corn and silence stretch out on either side of
Highway 8, beyond the Jennie-O turkey plant and 10 churches that serve this town
of just over 3,400. So when James and Denise Closs, a quiet couple who had lived
in town for decades, were found shot to death in their taupe house last month,
residents were stunned. It was an agonizing loss of two lives, but also of a way of
life.

Front doors are being locked. F.B.I. agents have descended. Yet after three weeks,
residents are left with a terrifying mystery that goes beyond the shocking deaths:
Not only have the authorities publicly identified no suspect, no murder weapon and
no motive, but the Closses’ 13-year-old daughter, Jayme, has been missing ever
since.

“We have a double murder and a missing 13-year-old girl, there’s not much more
to tell than that — and that’s the frustration,” said Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald of
Barron County, whose force of 78 ballooned at one point with 200 federal, state
and local law officers joining an intensive, round-the-clock hunt.
More than 2,100 tips have turned up nothing. Law enforcement officials have
turned a courtroom in a municipal building on the outskirts of town, about 90 miles
northeast of the Twin Cities, into a nerve center for the investigation. Thousands of
volunteer searchers have combed cornfields and cow pastures. And still nothing —
no clues and no Jayme.

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“We have exhausted every lead,” Sheriff Fitzgerald said. “There is no stone that
has been unturned.”

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The home of Mr. and Mrs. Closs, where they were found dead.

At just past 1 a.m. local time on Oct. 15, a 911 call came in to the sheriff’s office.
No one spoke, but muffled shouting could be heard. The police traced the call to
Denise Closs’s cellphone, and arrived at the house on Highway 8 four minutes
later. They found the front door open and the couple dead. Mr. Closs’s body was in
the doorway; his wife’s, inside the house. According to the sheriff, evidence
indicated that Jayme was home at the time of the attack, though he would not
describe the evidence. When deputies arrived, though, only Jayme’s dog, Molly,
was there.

An Amber Alert was issued for Jayme, and in the weeks that have followed, her
name has shot to the top of the F.B.I.’s missing persons list. The agency has
expanded its search nationwide, classifying her as “missing and endangered.” She
is not a suspect in the case, according to the sheriff.
“Her body hasn’t been recovered, so there is no reason to say she is not alive,” the
sheriff said. “That’s where you build your hope from.”

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Jayme likes jazz dancing, ice-skating and volleyball at Riverview Middle School,
where she is an eighth grader, social media accounts show. She adores shopping
and Starbucks Frappuccinos, her aunt, Jennifer Smith, said during a news
conference on Oct. 25. Ms. Smith clutched Molly, the dog, as she made an
impassioned plea, addressing her niece as if she might be watching.

“Molly is sleeping in one of your sweatshirts,” her aunt said.

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Mr. Closs, 56, and Mrs. Closs, 46, worked at the Jennie-O plant for 27 years,
according to an obituary posted on the website of the Rausch and Steel Funeral
Home. It read: “James loved the Green Bay Packers and the Wisconsin Badgers
and getting into conversations on the ‘glory days’ of his high school sports career.
Denise loved working with her flowers, feeding her birds, she loved angels and
helping everyone, any way she could.”

Mrs. Closs taught religious school at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in a nearby town,
Cameron. “She was the planner for her family, a birthday, or a marriage, she
makes everything happen,” said the Rev. Balaraju Policetty, who gave eulogies at
the couple’s funeral. “Your heart breaks,” Father Policetty said.

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Around Barron, where Jayme’s sunny face and strawberry hair peers out from
checkout counters from Duane’s Collision Repair Center to Dollar General,
endless speculation has filled the void of hard information.

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An undated photo of Jayme Closs, released by the Barron County Sheriff’s


Department.

CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images

Over cups of black coffee and fudge-covered mini doughnuts, a group of welders
who meet for breakfast daily at the A&W truck stop traded theories on a recent
morning. At night, patrons sipped Spotted Cow ale and threw out hunches at ER
Bar: Maybe there was a boyfriend? Maybe it was a hit? Maybe it was an inside
job?

“Something like this makes you sketchy about everyone,” said Lisa Kosbab, 25,
who works in a group home, as she sat at the bar.

In the past decade, there have been a total of four killings in Barron County,
according to the sheriff. Barron is the kind of town where screen doors are left
unlatched in summer; in winter, few lock their front doors. Those days are over,
several residents said.

“It’s the not knowing,” said Kelle Jenderny, 48, as she stood at the Holiday gas
station on Day 17 of Jayme’s disappearance. Down the street, black lettering on a
white billboard spelled out “Bring Jayme Home.”

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Downtown Barron.

Since the murders, Ms. Jenderny said she spent $700 on a new alarm system and
new outdoor lights that stay on all night. Her 8-year-old son now sleeps with her
older son, 13. “He’s afraid to use the bathroom at night,” Ms. Jenderny said.

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Longtime residents like the Closses have been joined in Barron over the last
decade by refugees, many of them Somalis, who were drawn by jobs cleaning
cages and slaughtering birds at the Jennie-O plant. These days, according to the
mayor’s office, about 20 percent of residents have Somali heritage.

Not long after the killings and Jayme’s disappearance, members of the Somali
community delivered trays of East African food to the sheriff’s office; the food
was part of a flood of meals donated by residents and businesses to the officials
working on the case.

“When we see in the U.S.A. the same things that we had back in our home, you
fear,” said Kaltuma Hassan, 44, who was born in Somalia. She sat in the cafe she
owns, Amin Restaurant, sharing dinner from a communal bowl with two of her
children. “What if my children are next?”

As she spoke, her daughter, Najma Rashid, 10, stopped eating, clutched her
stomach and cried out. “I’m scared!” she said. Her mother grabbed her hands. “I’m
here for you.”
The investigation itself has fueled the unease here, several people said. Residents
obsessively check the sheriff’s Facebook page for updates. Early on, the
department asked residents to watch their neighbors for suspicious behavior.
“People may act differently shortly after committing a violent act,” one post read.

Last week, a local man, Kyle Jaenke-Annis, was arrested inside the Closses’ house;
officials said he had taken clothing, including underwear, that belonged to Jayme,
but they also said he had been cleared of involvement in the killings and
disappearance.

In recent days, the operation scaled down some; many federal and state agents who
had filled local motels headed home.

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Inside the sheriff’s headquarters, an office is being converted into a permanent


operations center where local and outside law enforcement will continue working
on the Closs case. “They’re not giving up,” Sheriff Fitzgerald said, adding that the
number of tips wasn’t enough to keep so many officers here.

“I go to bed every night hoping my phone rings in the night saying, ‘We have
her.’”

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