BARRON, Wis. – Jennifer Smith hardly sleeps. Suzi Allard’s mind races all night. Steve Naiberg feels angry but doesn’t know who to be angry with yet.
As they prepare for the holidays, the three siblings of Denise Closs still have no clue who killed their sister and brother-in-law inside their home off Highway 8 last month.
And they still have no idea what happened to their niece, Jayme Closs, who remains missing after her disappearance triggered an AMBER Alert on Oct. 15.
“It’s like a nightmare that doesn’t end,” Smith said, sitting at the kitchen table with her brother and sister on the eve of Thanksgiving. “I can still feel she’s going to come home. My heart tells me. And I won’t give that up.”
Still, the siblings acknowledge feelings of frustration and desperation.
The Barron County Sheriff’s Department has received more than 2,000 tips in the case since mid-October, but none of the leads have produced any suspects so far. Smith, Allard and Naiberg have some gut feelings about what might have happened, but nothing concrete.
The family is simply at a loss: No suspects, no known motive, no sign of their niece.
"Just helpless,” Allard said. “Totally helpless.”
As the siblings told investigators, they cannot think of any scenario where someone would want to hurt their sister or her husband and daughter.
"I want to get to the answers,” Naiberg said. “But there’s nothing.”
To stay busy, the siblings have consumed themselves with finding Jayme. They continue to distribute bracelets, ribbons and T-shirts throughout western Wisconsin, and they’ve tried to circulate Jayme’s picture as far as possible. They hope renewed media attention will help keep the case in the public consciousness.
And they continue to wait for the one tip that blows the case wide open.
“Every day I’m just praying that we get that phone call that says, ‘We got something. We got something,” Allard said.
Until then, they worry around-the-clock about Jayme. They wonder where she is and who she may be with. Is she hungry? Is she warm? Is she safe?
That’s what the whole family will be thinking about as they gather around the kitchen table for Thanksgiving this year in Barron.
“It’s Thanksgiving. It’s hard. You feel like you can’t be thankful for anything but we are. I am thankful that we have the support, that we have our family by us,” Allard said. “We’re hoping we can bring Jayme home and let Denise and Jim rest in peace.”