BARRON, Wisc. — The mom of Jayme Closs’ accused kidnapper is devastated by her son’s alleged crimes, the woman’s neighbor told The Post on Tuesday.

“She is totally distraught,” said a neighbor, who lives across the street from Jake Thomas Patterson’s remarried mom, school bus driver Deborah Frey, in the 285-person town of Haugen, Wisconsin.

In a chilling coincidence, Frey drives a bus for the local Rice Lake School District, other residents said.

Patterson, 21, confessed to authorities that he first spotted 13-year-old Jayme at her school bus stop — and immediately “knew that was the girl he was going to take,” according to court papers. He never had any previous connection with her, officials said.

The failed wannabe Marine and cheese factory worker went on to murder Jayme’s parents as they tried to protect her and then held the teen hostage for 88 days under his bed in a remote cabin before she escaped last week, authorities have said.

The neighbor said he has received several “distraught” text messages from Frey in the past few days.

“It’s going to take a while for her to deal,” the neighbor said.

He said Frey, who remarried just two months ago, is “afraid” of all the attention from the case.

But he said the tiny town has rallied around her by dropping off flowers outside the home where she lives with her new husband and Labradors.

No one answered the Freys’ door Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the Saputo Cheese Factory — where Patterson worked in nearby Almena for only two days before spotting Jayme and quitting to allegedly concoct his evil plot — said the suspect simply stopped coming to work.

Saputo spokeswoman Sandy Vassiadis told The Post that Patterson was placed at the cheese-manufacturing facility by a temp agency.

He was making blue cheese at the plant, she said.

Then “on his drive to the cheese factory on one of the two mornings he worked there, he stopped behind a school bus on US Hwy. 8 where he watched [Jayme] get on a school bus,” prompting him to begin targeting her, according to court documents.

Prosecutors have declined to say exactly when Patterson first spotted Jayme, but Vassiadis said he worked at the factory Oct. 3 and 4 and then didn’t show up Oct. 5 and beyond.

“He was a no-show,” the rep said.

Patterson is accused of kidnapping Jayme from her home Oct. 15 — meaning he would have allegedly pulled together his heinous plot in less than two weeks.

Of Patterson’s behavior at the cheese factory, Vassiadis said, “It was such a short time, there was nothing to notice.”