A teenage girl involved in a sex trafficking scheme is due to be sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty to killing her alleged rapist by stabbing him 30 times when she was 15.
Pieper Lewis, 17, will appear in court for killing Zachary Brooks, 37, on June 1, 2020 at a home in Des Moines, Iowa on Evergreen Ave. 1516, killed. Brooks allegedly raped Lewis multiple times before killing him.
Lewis killed her rapist with a knife lying on a nearby bedside table after raping her. The 17-year-old claimed the murder was not premeditated and that her actions were filled with “anger”. A day later she was arrested for murder.
“I didn’t want to have sex with Mr. Brooks,” Lewis wrote in a pleading. “I didn’t want to go to Mr. Brooks’ apartment, but I had no other place to go.”
She will appear in Polk County Criminal Court for sentencing on Wednesday morning, according to the Des Moines Register.
The victim has been in a jail cell since her arrest and graduated from high school in July. She pleaded guilty in 2021 to manslaughter and aggravated assault and faces decades in prison.
Lewis’ attorney Matthew Sheeley was not immediately available for comment.
Pieper Lewis, 17, will appear in court for the murder of Zachary Brooks, 37, on June 1, 2020 in Iowa. Lewis said she was a victim of sex trafficking
Zachary Brooks, 37, was stabbed 30 times by Lewis after being forced to sleep with him when she was 15, she said
The murder took place in a house in Des Moines, Iowa, on Evergreen Ave. 1516, instead. Lewis claims she was forced to have sex with Brooks
Lewis will appear in Polk County Criminal Court on Wednesday
At the time, Lewis was homeless, sleeping on the steps of the Oakview Terrace Apartment Complex. Her fractured relationship with the women who adopted her from foster care when she was 3 years old prompted her to flee.
She was allegedly taken in by a 40-year-old stranger who forced her to have sex with other men, her attorney said, according to the Des Moines Register. Lewis referred to him as her boyfriend.
Lewis said the man forced her to have sex right away and created a dating profile so she could sleep with men for money, according to court documents.
The unidentified man told the Des Moines Register the allegations against him were false, and Lewis never stayed with him.
Lewis later met Brooks at a party and was forced to stay with him. Brooks allegedly gave the minor alcohol and drugs before having sex with her a number of times while she was unconscious.
Lewis claimed on May 31, 2020, the day before she committed the crime, “her boyfriend” held her a knife and forced her to go to Brooks’ apartment.
Brooks reportedly planned to pay $50 in marijuana in exchange for having sex with Lewis.
When Lewis arrived at Brooks’ apartment, she was ordered to undress and pressured into drinking and smoking weed while the couple watched a movie.
“My first thought was that Mr. Brooks was drunk and would probably fall asleep while watching the film,” Lewis wrote in her pleading. “I figured that was the only way to stop him from having sex with me.”
Lewis fell asleep and woke up to Brooks raping her. She urged him to get out, but he didn’t listen. When he was done, she gathered her clothes and saw the knife on a nearby table.
She stabbed him 30 times in anger and left the scene in his car. His body was found by a maintenance man later that day.
Lewis said she was forced to go to Brooks’ house the day before she killed him. She said her “boyfriend,” a 40-year-old man, put a knife to her throat and forced her to walk
Brooks and Lewis were watching a movie when she fell asleep and woke up to him raping her. Enraged, she grabbed a knife nearby and stabbed him
She was arrested on June 2, 2020 for murder after police received a call the night of the incident claiming Brooks’ death was a suicide
Police were investigating the 17-year-old’s relationships with older men, according to court records.
Iowa law states that the legal age of consent for sex is 16. Those under the age of 13 cannot consent to sex, but those aged 14 and 15 can consent to sex within 48 months of their age.
The prosecutor said Lewis’ relationship with the 40-year-old man who took her in was a “perfect example of human trafficking.”
“There was clearly a power dynamic between her and [her boyfriend] where he used them to get what he wanted,” a spokesman for the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault told the Des Moines Register.
Tate Smith said the boyfriend manipulated Lewis by giving her a place to eat and love in order to sell her to other men.
Lewis was 15 when she was allegedly raped multiple times.
The night Brooks was killed in 2020, someone called authorities to report a suicide. Police later arrived and found the body but said it did not appear that he had killed himself, according to the KCCI.
News of the 15-year-old’s arrest went viral, but her identity was not released at the time.
Brooks’ body was found shortly after his assassination by an apartment worker
Police were investigating Lewis’ relationships with older men. Lewis (ABOVE) was 15 when she was allegedly raped, and Iowa law states the legal age of consent for sex is 16
State law requires those involved in an Iowa murder to pay the victims’ families $150,000. However, Lewis’ lawyers called for the law to be flouted because the 17-year-old was a crime victim.
Human trafficking cases are notoriously the most complex, and Lewis’ case will take some time to properly investigate, Des Moines Police Sgt. Paul Parizek said in November.
“In any criminal investigation, it can take time to gather the evidence needed to support a prosecution and meet criminal complaint filing standards,” Parizek told the Des Moines Register.
Legally, Brooks’ actions would have been a crime as well, since Lewis was a minor and had not consented.
