Police: Iowa City child taken by non-custodial parent found in Indiana

A North Carolina woman is facing charges in Johnson County after police say she attempted to take her 11-year-old child — over whom she has no parental rights — from Iowa City to North Carolina.

Ronique Tiara Pittman, 36, is charged with violation of a custodial order by a relative. She was taken into custody early Monday in Indianapolis.

According to a criminal complaint, the child was reported missing at 8:24 p.m. Sunday Investigators learned that Pittman had admitted to the child’s father that she had taken the child out of state and intended to drive the child to North Carolina. Pittman is the biological mother of the child but a court terminated her parental rights in 2022.

The Iowa City Police Department contacted the Indiana State Patrol about 2 a.m. Monday to share information about the missing child and Pittman, thinking she would be traveling through Indiana on the way to North Carolina, according to a news release from the Indiana State Patrol.

At 2:39 a.m., an Indiana trooper found the vehicle that Pittman was driving — a 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix — at a gas station in Indianapolis just off Interstate 65. The 11-year-old was inside the car with two adults, the release states.

Pittman was taken into custody on an Iowa warrant and the child was transported to the Indiana State Police Post in Indianapolis and turned over to the Department of Child Services, to arrange for the child to be returned to the custodial parent.

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