Vallejo Police Department
The corpse of slaughtered Renia Lewis was discovered stashed behind a secret wall in a hoarder-like home in California — hours after an earlier search by cops at the same residence came up empty, investigators say.
Now, the Vallejo Police Department states they’ve arrested Douglas Irwin Shaw, 41, and charged him with murdering the 28-year-old with a knife after he allegedly confessed to her killing.
Renia’s relatives say information from a tracking app on her phone, which was ultimately located on a roof in Vallejo, Calif., suggested she was near the junk-filled building where her body was found.
Police add there were “indications” the victim had been at the home prior to her disappearance.
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The Vallejo PD says they had conducted a “cursory search of all rooms, closets, and places a person could hide” and “found no signs of the missing woman.” But after obtaining new information and a search warrant lawmen say they discovered Renia dead in an attic behind a “concealed entry” — two days after she was reported missing — and that Shaw “provided a statement to detectives where he admitted being responsible for this heinous crime.”
“We all came to search for her, not knowing she was here in the wall — gone,” says Renia’s grieving mom, Teri, according to New York Post. “What did she do to you for you to kill her, and then put her in a wall?”
Police say the relationship between Renia and Shaw is still unclear — and that he did not live at the residence where her body was discovered.
Shaw is being held without bail and as of press time has not yet entered a plea.