Woman missing since Friday found dead in Vallejo attic

VALLEJO – A woman who had been missing since Friday, setting off a frantic search, was discovered dead inside the attic of a Vallejo home on Tuesday.

Police arrested Douglas Irwin Shaw of Vallejo, 41, on suspicion of killing 28-year-old Renia Lewis. A statement released by the Vallejo Police Department said Shaw confessed to the crime and was subsequently booked into Solano County jail. 

“He confessed to this shit, he had my niece in a wall,” Emmitt Lewis said in a Facebook video. 

Vallejo police said that Lewis was first reported missing on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol issued an Ebony Alert that said she had last been seen at 10 p.m. on Friday. News that she was missing spread rapidly through social media over the weekend.

Police said that there were indications Lewis had been seen in a home on 14th Street. Her family said that security camera footage from the nearby Safeway and her phone's location indicated she had been there.

The Vallejo police press release said officers entered the house on Sunday for a welfare check and searched rooms, closets, and places a person could hide, but found no sign of her.

Family and friends said they had gathered in the neighborhood on Tuesday to volunteer for an impromptu search party. 

The community search never began as police arrived before 2 p.m.  Police said that new information led them to obtain a search warrant for the house. Her family said her phone was thrown on the roof of a nearby building.

Police then blocked off the street. Renia Lewis’s cousin, Latoya Lewis, said that Vallejo police Sgt. Jarrett Tonn later addressed the large crowd of family and friends waiting anxiously by the police tape to say they had found Renia’s body in the house. Police said that they found her after discovering a concealed entry to the attic.

“She was hidden in a secret room or something,” said Renia’s aunt, Linda Lewis, “they had covered it up with sheetrock.”

The press release confirmed that upon the second search on Tuesday, officers found a female body in the attic. Shaw was arrested at his job later that night.

Lewis’s death marks the 14th homicide this year. 

“It’s her birthday next Monday, she would have been 29," said Latoya Lewis. “She never deserved any of this.”