Fox Valley child safety advocate reacts to Closs escape

The escape of Jayme Closs comes as a huge relief to Jay Breyer, who spent 25 years running an organization in the Fox Valley that provided support to families with missing kids.

Breyer said, "She waited until she had the opportunity and she took the opportunity. She got safe, and that's a hero."

Breyer has an understanding of what the Closs family went through after the loss of his own niece, Amy, who was just 2 years old at the time she was abducted and murdered in 1991 in what's now Fox Crossing.

"I hope that the negative people don't weigh on her and her family. You know, 'Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that?' When you're in that situation, young adults like Elizabeth Smart and Jessyca Mullenberg will tell you, 'We did what we had to do,' and for Jayme, she did that," said Breyer.

Breyer retired a couple years ago after he launched two different organizations aimed at helping families of missing children.

During that time he assisted in a number of high-profile disappearances and others involving runaways.

If anything, the rescue of Closs he says, now gives others hope too.

"That's the magic word, 'hope.' I was asked today how big of a window is there to recover a missing person, is it an hour, five hours, two days, three days, and I think it's as long as hope prevails. When we stop thinking, stop looking, stop caring, that's when we turn the wrong corner," Breyer told Action 2 News Friday afternoon.