Black Iowa Teen Who Killed Alleged Rapist Escaped Custody, According To Authorities [UPDATED]

Updated 11/9/22 at 12:20 p.m E.T: It was reported by The Associated Press on Wednesday that Pieper Lewis is back in custody and is currently being held in an Iowa jail:

“Pieper Lewis was booked into the Polk County Jail on Tuesday, said Polk County Sheriff Lt. Ryan Evans. Iowa Department of Corrections officers located her in Des Moines and took her into custody. ‘We would like to thank law enforcement and members of Iowa’s 5th Judicial District for their efforts to safely bring Ms. Lewis back into custody,’ corrections spokesman Nick Crawford said. She will be taken before Judge David Porter for a probation revocation hearing. A date had not yet been set as of Wednesday.”

Lewis left her Des Moines women’s shelter last week where she was serving probation. If her probation is revoked, she could face time in prison.

According to authorities in Iowa, 18-year-old sex trafficking victim Pieper Lewis escaped from a women’s facility where she was serving her probation sentence. Last year, she pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks.

Lewis was sentenced to five years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to Brooks’ family. A GoFundMe fund ultimately raised over $560,000 to cover the restitution and other needs Lewis may have had.

She was seen leaving Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines a little after 6:15 a.m. Friday. A probation violation report mentioned that Lewis’ GPS monitor was also cut off some time during the day. A warrant has been issued for her arrest.

It addition, the report reveals that Lewis received citations in the past for not always taking the direct bus route home or for receiving an unapproved private ride. KCCI shared that her probation report request that the original sentence be reinstated which means she could face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Lewis has stated that she was trafficked against her will to Brooks for sex multiple times and stabbed him to death. Before the violent altercation, she ran away from her mother in early 2020 in what the teen claimed was an abusive relationship.

Lewis wound up living with a 28-year-old Des Moines musician that she referred to as her “boyfriend.” She also claimed that he made her have sex with older men—including Brooks—in exchange for money. Lewis’s accused trafficker has not been charged.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the Des Moines Police Department were alerted to Lewis’s escape. Additionally, the Brooks family was made aware that a warrant is out for her arrest.