For the Top 13 “dedication” show, which aired about a month following the disappearance of teenager Jayme Closs after her parents were killed, The Voice‘s season 15 runner-up Chris Kroeze performed an emotional rendition of The Beatles’ “Let It Be.” The singer dedicated it to Jayme and her hometown of Barron, Wisconsin.
Chris, who grew up in Barron and still lives there, told People magazine that his goal at the time was to keep Jayme’s name in the news after media coverage of her Oct. 15 disappearance had waned.
“The headlines were no longer showing that story,” Chris told people. “People were asking the sheriff’s office how to help. They kept saying, ‘Do everything you can do to get the word out there.’ “
Last Thursday, Kroeze and the rest of the community were beyond relieved when Jayme turned up alive nearly three months after being kidnapped. Chris sent her a special homecoming message.
“Our family and community couldn’t be more excited and thankful that the MANY prayers for Jayme have been answered and that she has been found and is coming home! She couldn’t be coming home to a more supportive community!” Kroeze wrote on Facebook Friday.
“Everybody in the community did everything they could. I just happened to have some powerful tools available to me at the time,” Chris said. “Anyone else, you can pick anybody’s name out of the hat from the whole community and anybody would have done the same exact thing I did.”
The suspect in the kidnapping and killings is 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson, who was arrested last Thursday and is charged with two counts of first-degree homicide, one count of kidnapping and one count of armed burglary, according to a criminal complaint obtained by People.
The night she was abducted, Jayme’s parents, Denise, 46, and James Closs, 56, were found dead in their home in Barron.
“I’ve got young kids at home,” said Chris. “And everybody in the community was feeling the same thing. What the heck? This kind of stuff doesn’t happen anymore.”
Watch Chris Kroeze dedicate “Let it Be” to Jayme and his hometown, Barron.
