Pieper Lewis Bio – Pieper Lewis Wiki
Pieper Lewis was charged with killing Zachary Brooks in the early hours of June 1, 2020, when she was 15 years old. Brooks, 37, of Des Moines allegedly raped her multiple times in the weeks before Lewis killed him following another alleged assault, according to court records.
AGE:
Pieper Lewis is 17 years old
DETAIL OF INCIDENCE:
Pieper Lewis pleaded guilty in June 2021 to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks.
The teen is sentenced Wednesday in a Polk County Courtroom in Des Moines.
Pieper allegedly stabbed Brooks 30 times in the chest, arms and groin after he allegedly sexually assaulted her multiple times in the days leading up to the killing, the Des Moines Register reported, citing court documents.
According to Pieper’s plea agreement obtained by PEOPLE, the teen, who was 15 at the time, said she ran away from home three times between January and March 2020 before she started sleeping in the hallway of a building in Des Moines.
In a statement she made as part of her plea agreement, Pieper said she briefly stayed with a man in the building but left after he became “verbally, physically and sexually abusive towards me shortly after I moved into his apartment.”
Pieper said she then moved in with another man who lived across the hall and lived with him from mid-April until her arrest on June 2, 2020. Pieper said shortly after she moved in, the man created a dating profile for her and put it on a dating website.
“[The man] would then arrange for me to have sex with men for money,” Pieper said in her statement.
She said she was introduced to Brooks in May of 2020 and stayed with him for three days, alleging that he sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions during that time.
She said she was forced to return to Brooks’ apartment after the man she was staying with “wanted me to go to Mr Brooks’s apartment to get marijuana.”
“He told me I needed to ‘turn that trick’ to ‘get us some weed,'” she said.
Pieper said when she refused to go, the man “grabbed a knife from the kitchen counter and pressed it against my neck. … He cut my neck with the knife, and this frightened me. When I agreed to meet with Mr Brooks, [the man] removed the knife from my throat.”
According to Pieper, Brooks picked her up in a parking lot on May 31 and brought her back to his apartment, where she alleges he forced her to drink vodka and smoke pot before he sexually assaulted her.
After the alleged attack, Pieper said Brooks fell asleep. But as she was getting ready to leave, she saw a knife with a black sheath on his nightstand.
“I suddenly realized that Mr Brooks had raped me yet again and was overcome with rage,” she said, according to her statement. “Without thinking, I immediately grabbed the knife from his nightstand and began stabbing him.”
Pieper was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
According to the Register, the age of consent in Iowa is 16.
The Register reported that Pieper recently graduated from high school while being held in juvenile detention.
Her attorneys could not be reached for comment, nor could the Polk County prosecutor’s office. According to the Register, prosecutors have never disputed the claims that Pieper was the victim of sex trafficking and sexual assault.
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