Lang
8/19/25
Iowa City Police have arrested a convicted felon they say absconded from Hope House for the second time in two years.
61-year-old Tracy Ayers was booked into the Johnson County Jail just before 6:30 Monday night. The Iowa Department of Corrections says Ayers signed out of the Holiday Road facility just before 6:00 on the morning of August 6th to work at Peterson Metal in Coralville. Ayers had a listed return time of 5 p.m., but he never came back. Four phone calls to Ayers made over the next hour went unanswered, and a voicemail was left that told him he needed to return by 7. When that also didn’t happen, Ayers was placed on escape status.
An Iowa City Police officer found Ayers at the Town & Campus Apartments on Arthur Street just after 5:45 Monday night. Upon his arrest, he reportedly had a clear glass pipe used for smoking methamphetamine in his pants pocket.
Ayers faces new charges of Absence From Custody and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia. If convicted on both counts, he faces a maximum of 13 months in jail.
Ayers was sentenced to Hope House last year after reaching a plea deal on charges of 2nd Degree Theft and four counts of 3rd Degree Burglary of a Motor Vehicle. He absconded from Hope House in May of last year. He was found two months later near the intersection of First and Muscatine Avenues in Iowa City…also allegedly while in possession of a meth pipe. Ayers was given a 30-day jail sentence and fined $430.