ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — Court records show a Des Moines newspaper carrier helped save a woman caught in a sex trafficking ring. The Des Moines Register says one of its delivery workers, Lavon Franz, was on her paper route early the morning of July 28 in Ankeny when she saw a woman waving her arms on the side of the road. When Franz pulled over, the woman — who had no cellphone or ID — was crying and said she wanted to go back home to a small town about an hour northwest of Ankeny.
Franz took the woman to a convenience store, where an employee called police. Police arrested a 25-year-old woman from East Dubuque, Illinois, on suspicion of pimping and human trafficking. Police say Walters scheduled times for men to pay the rescued woman and others for sex at hotels in Ankeny.