Renia Lewis missing Vallejo, California woman found dead inside secret attic wall as Douglas Irwin Shaw is arrested after confessing to murdering her.
California authorities have arrested a man suspected of killing a missing Bay Area woman after she was found dead in an attic just days after she was reporting missing.
Renia Lewis, 28, of Vallejo was reported missing according to California Highway Patrol Ebony Alert after she was last seen on Friday.
Missing Vallejo woman found dead behind secret attic wall in hoarder home
Authorities discovered the missing woman behind a ‘concealed entry into the attic’ of a Vallejo home on Tuesday, according to the Vallejo Police Department.
Investigators first went to the house on Sunday because there ‘were indications’ Lewis had been there before she vanished, the department said.
But ‘a cursory search of all rooms, closets, and places a person could hide … found no signs of the missing woman.’
Detectives got a search warrant to return on Tuesday, when they found Lewis dead in the attic.
‘You would miss it because my baby girl was hidden behind a wall,’ a cousin, Latoya Lewis, told KTVU of the property that the family said looked like a hoarder’s home. ‘A secret wall they placed her behind.’
Douglas Irwin Shaw, 41, was arrested later that day at his place of work.
Shaw ‘provided a statement to detectives where he admitted being responsible for this heinous crime,’ the department said.
Body of Renia Lewis, 28, missing woman subject of Ebony Alert, found behind wall of home near 14th & Starr, family tells @bett_yu @KTVU. Suspect in custody, per @VallejoPd pic.twitter.com/XAep9lmTXY
— Henry K. Lee (@henrykleeKTVU) October 1, 2025
Police declined to state how Shaw was connected to the woman’s murder or the Vallejo residence where the victim’s body was found. The relationship between Lewis and Shaw was not immediately clear.
Leading up to the tragic discovery, Lewis family members had been searching the area on their own, finding the missing woman’s phone on the roof of a nearby school.
‘We all came to search for her, not knowing she was here in the wall — gone,’ her mother, Teri Lewis told KTVU.
Added the mother, ‘He needs to sit there and suffer for my daughter because she didn’t deserve this.’
Police to date declined to state the cause and manner of death and what led up to Shaw allegedly slaying Lewis.
