Law&Crime Sidebar - Missing Woman's Remains Hidden in Hoarder Home

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

A missing woman, a hoarder-style home, and a hidden attic wall where her body was found. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber dives into a chilling confession and the lingering questions surrounding the disappearance and death of 28-year-old Renia Lewis, whose case shook Vallejo, California. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber and Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Alex Payne break down the investigation, the search for answers by her family, and the arrest of a suspect with no clear connection to Renia.PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. How does a missing woman's body go undiscovered in a house that police had already searched? Well, I'll tell you the answer, a hidden attic wall. And now, police say, a man has confessed to her murder. Why did he do it? That's the question. We are going to break down this chilling case, the search,

the apparent confession, the mystery that still remains, and we're going to do it all with the chief deputy of a sheriff's department. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. If this sounds like something out of a crime

thriller or a horror movie, that's because it almost doesn't feel real. That's the problem. You have a missing woman. You have a hoarder-style home. You have a hidden attic wall. And then her body found in the very same house that police had already searched just days before. This is the story of 28-year-old Renea Lewis, whose disappearance in death shook Vallejo,

California last month. According to police, Renea Lewis, described by her family as vibrant and family-oriented, was last seen Friday night, September 26, 2025 at around 9 p.m. She lived in Berkeley, which is about 25 miles southwest, but often visited Vileo to see friends and relatives. Renea's mother, Terry Lewis, says that she messaged her daughter on that Friday, but got no response. Now, at the time, she just assumed that Renea had, you know, put her phone into do not disturb mode, something that she says she did often when she was going to sleep. But by Sunday, September 28th, after still not hearing from her, her family got very worried.

Terry used the Light 360 app, saw her daughter's last known location as being near 14th Street in Vallejo. So quite alarmed, the family filed the missing person. person's report with the police that same day. Officers immediately entered Renia into the missing person's database. They also searched a home on 14th Street after learning there were signs that she had been there before vanishing. According to a release from Vallejo police, quote, officers entered the residence to conduct a welfare check and a cursory search of all rooms, closets, and places a person could hide but found no signs of the missing woman. So her family, who was desperate for answers, they didn't just wait for police. They loved.

launched their own search. They retraced her last known steps using location data. And that is when they stumbled onto something deeply unsettling. Renia's phone. Apparently, it was found on a roof. Yeah, it wasn't dropped on a sidewalk. It wasn't left behind in a car. So this set off alarm bells. How did it get there? What did it mean for her disappearance? Well, by Monday, the search intensified after Vallejo police requested an ebony search. This is a California notification system to help locate missing black youth and women. So the California Highway Patrol, they approved the alert. The FBI also joined the investigation. This lent resources, expertise, but Reni was still missing. Tuesday, September 20th, detectives returned to that home that they initially searched on 14th Street,

and according to the press release, this time, they had a search warrant based on new information. What they ended up finding was chilling. According to the release, during this search, they discovered a concealed entry into the attic. Officers searched the attic and located the remains of a deceased female inside that is suspected of being the missing woman. And officials were able to confirm that this was indeed the missing woman, Renea Lewis. Her cousin Latoya Lewis told local outlet KTVU you would miss it because my baby girl was hidden behind a wall, a secret wall they placed her behind. KTVU also reports that family members told them that Renea was dismembered. The remains were hidden inside of a detached unit in the backyard of the home.

Now, we wanted to bring this case to you, and the reason that we can do that is because of the support that we get from Morgan and Morgan, America's largest injury law firm, our sponsor. This is a firm with over 1,000 attorneys. You know why they're so big? Because they win a lot. They have recovered over $25 billion for more than 500,000 clients. Think about that. In the past few months, a client in Florida received $12 million after the insurance company

offered just $350,000 out in Pennsylvania. A client was awarded $26 million. That is 40 times the insurer's $650,000 offer. Another client in Pennsylvania received $29 million after being offered only $500,000. And even if you think your case isn't worth millions of dollars, why not start a claim and fight for what you deserve. Morgan and Morgan makes it so simple. You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar by clicking the link below or scanning the QR code on screen. Now, as for the home itself, relatives said that it looked like a hoarder house. It was messy.

It was cluttered. There were people coming and going. Neighbors described it as kind of like a junkyard. It was almost abandoned at times. And after finding Rania, police made an arrest in this case. Okay. But here's the thing about it. Here's the thing about this arrest. Mysteriously, this suspect apparently didn't live at this house. His relationship to Rania isn't even clear. So we're going to get into that. We're going to break it down. But first, a lot more to talk about.

I want to bring on a special guest. Let me bring back on to Sidebar. Chief Deputy Alex Payne of the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's good to see you again. You're welcome. Good to see you. So from your perspective, okay, let's start here.

What are the most significant initial challenges for law enforcement when a missing adult is reported, especially when the last known location is a private residence. Well, first of all, it's tough because as an adult, it's different. You can legally be missing. As an adult, you don't have to tell people where you're at, what you're doing, or anything like that. So there could be a lapse in time, which makes it unlike Amber Alerts, things of that nature, of juveniles where once that young person goes missing, usually the reporting is immediate,

the action is immediate. And we do that because we have a better chance of finding them. Like I said, as an adult in most states, it's not illegal to be so-called missing because you don't really have to tell people again, you know, what you're doing, where you're going, or where you're going to be. So that initially makes it difficult. Then once the police actually get enough information, enough time goes by, maybe there's some exigent circumstance that, you know, tweaks the interest of law enforcement enough to say, hey, this isn't just somebody who, you know, just went away without telling anybody. There may be something criminal here. There may be something that is dangerous to that person here. then things start moving quicker.

And let me ask you about this search, because based on the timeline, the police, they acted very quickly. They entered the home for a welfare check. They did what's called a cursory search within a day or two of the report. In your experience, what is the standard protocol when you do an initial search of a house or residence? What are its limitations? Well, you're looking for human beings, number one. You know, stand up human beings, places human beings could be. So that's all you're there to look for.

You're not looking, searching like for drugs, weapons, things of that nature. So you're looking for people. In this particular case, the thing that makes it very difficult is that the way they describe the residents as a hoarder type residence. And that's a whole another environment, brother. I can tell you, well, quickly, I'll give an example. I had a case very similar to this, a call that I went on. as a young officer, went on a welfare check, elderly female. I looked inside the house.

Nice neighborhood. Brick home. Couldn't see anything in the front. I really couldn't see through, but I did notice that there was a lot of stuff like piled in. I finally got to a couple of windows that could see what was actually in there. And this place was literally loaded with refuse, garbage, you name it, wrappers, trash bags, newspapers, nearly to the ceiling.

And there were paths that were cut through the stuff that you could have, you would literally have to turn sideways and sidestep your way through. I got around to the back of the house, was looking through the rear window of the kitchen door. And this is early morning, and a glint of sunlight just kind of caught my eye. And the glint came off a ring that was attached to a hand. The hand was sticking out of the refuse. And I thought, and I had to sit and look at it for a while because, you know, I'm thinking, is this a mannequin? Is this?

And finally, is it? No, that's actually a real hand. Long story short, got the fire department over there. We had to break in to get through all the garbage and all that. But this lady had literally been coming down one of those paths, had a heart attack, and fell into the refuse and was almost completely buried by it. We'd have never found her until we started getting all that stuff out of there if I just hadn't seen her hand sticking out of the garbage. So that's the kind of environment you're dealing with when people say a hoarder home or a hoarder environment, it's horrible. I mean, that is horrifying to say the least, but it kind of highlights a point in this case, right?

You know, police, they search the home. They apparently don't find anything. Days later, with a warrant, they find Renea's body in a concealed attic, you know, when you're talking about this. So in other words, you're not surprised by that detail. Even if you have seasoned, trained officers looking through a house like this, it is possible that they might miss, you know, an entry to an attic or some other detail. This is not uncommon. Oh, no, no. I mean, you've, it's an environment that is just total 180 from a, you know, a normal human being walking around here probably in the environment that they live in.

And just trust me, it's the worst, if you're going to look for something, a search, that's the worst possible environment you could ever be searching. And just picture yourself going down to a major dump and looking for whatever, you know, some kind of little article, and here you go. You know, here's your area. And you're looking at this massive pile of refuse. And so all that refuse could hide attic entrances. They could hide closet doors.

they could hide it's it's quite the undertaking and the other thing and i and i don't say this to be uncaring or but the a body a deteriorating body is a horrible horrible odor and it could even be masked somewhat in that particular environment so when you hear this cousin stating that rania was is, quote, hidden behind a wall, a secret wall they placed her behind. You talk about the smell. You talk about the concealment. Does it imply, I mean, it seems that it implies intentional concealment by someone. But when you're talking about an initial clean search of the house, then you find the body in this hidden space.

Does it point more strongly towards a perpetrator who was there during the first search, actively deceived others? I mean, again, hidden behind the wall is significant. No. It could. I mean, evidently, it does show me that there's some extra effort, you know, to absolutely, you know, conceal this poor victim. And, yeah, I mean, these, the people that do to this kind of stuff, you know, I mean, it's, it's, you know, we've talked about this before. They're just evil. They'll go to any length necessary to hide evidence in these types of crime. So that, that, that, that, that's, you know, that. doesn't surprise me. The evidence, the discovery of the phone, the victim's phone on a roof, that was a dramatic turn in this investigation. And it was found, not by law enforcement, it's found by the family. So two things, A, what do you take away from the fact that that's apparently

where the phone was found? And is it typical that family members or the community or friends who may be active in a search actually discover something and then hand it off to law enforcement? No, as far as the latter question, the community, I've been involved in, I don't know how many over the years, but on searches for, you know, people, you know, in the community that have gone missing young, adults, elderly folks, people with mental issues, mental health issues, mental health struggles that might be going on, the community plays a great part and assists. law enforcement in searches for for these types of individuals so that doesn't surprise me at all what i find interesting is you know is how's that phone get on the roof you know what's the relationship between this young lady and you know this individual who you know at a minimum knew of the existence of this place that he that he put her body even though he may not have lived there but uh to me that's uh the intriguing part well let's talk about this now okay so you had

this other cousin, Jakeem Green, who told ABC 7 that the family believes Renea was brought to the house against her will, saying if she was to see the condition of the house, she is not coming in willingly. She is not going to do that. So I feel like she was either drugged or under some type of influence. So on the same day that police discovered Renea's body, they made an arrest in the case. Police say that their investigation led them to 41-year-old Douglas Irwin Shaw. He was arrested at his workplace, of all places, the Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. This is an amusement park of Laos, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Now, KTVU reports that he worked there as a mechanic. Shaw was booked into the Solano County Jail and suspicion of murder, but I will

tell you, there is some confusion about where he actually lived. The house where Renia's body was found had been apparently boarded up for a long time. Neighbors told ABC 7, and Shaw may have been living in the outbuilding behind it. But home records, reviewed by KTV, you reveal that his address was actually on Pomona Avenue in Vallejo, which is apparently walking distance from where Renea's body was found. What do you make of that? The arrest of Douglas Shaw on the same day the body was found, there's a question of where he lived, that's just strange to start with.

Well, evidently, law enforcement has some pretty strong evidence of some. fairly tight ties between this victim and the suspect. Now, what that may be, I have no idea, but obviously it sounds it didn't take him very long to put two and two together in this particular case. Do you think he was under surveillance? I mean, they pick him up at work without incident. Do you think they were tracking him for a while? Could have been. You know, that's one possibility. But, you know, what I would go back to is, you know, what initially linked, you know, law enforcement to this particular guy. Now, this guy

having knowledge of his neighborhood, it sounds like, you know, since this house is probably close to where he grew up. You know, it's, you know,

that could be common knowledge within the neighborhood that you've got this old dumpy house or what have you or he lived in the back shed. He's just looking for a convenient place to get rid of the evidence of what he's done.

And he picked, you know, the best spot to him. And that would make it most difficult for law enforcement to find. But fortunately, evidently, you know, in this case, there was a quick, strong tie made between this suspect and the victim. And from a tactical point of view, to make the arrest in a public place

versus, let's say, a private residence, why do, why does law enforcement do that? Flight risk, number one, you know, they, the only time, like, you know, we would do that if, and extreme danger, you know, they believe this individual poses an extreme danger to the public, if not apprehended immediately. That would be the primary reason. The secondary reason would be that they have some knowledge, belief that if this individual caught any wind of law enforcement after, they'd leave. Now, I'm still confused as to what the relationship is, right?

What was the nature of the relationship, if any, between Doug? and Renea Lewis. This obviously could be a circumstance where we've seen before where complete strangers could kill, but from an investigative standpoint, I'm assuming he did this, from an investigative standpoint, how do you piece together the connection, especially if it wasn't immediately obvious to family or friends, what that connection was? Well, I find right there just right off top of my head, the phone would be interesting because I'm sure that family would share that phone with law enforcement. They would use that. And the first thing, And, of course, now these days that we're going to go through our social media posts and any of our social media activity, there could have been things within that phone that led law enforcement directly to this individual.

So that would be the first thing that would come to my mind. You know, other than that, again, law enforcement were pretty much like sponges out here. We're at the mercy of information or the lack thereof. And so we depend a lot on the community, the public, to provide us. with information, and then we sort through that information and go where the information takes us. And so if you're just looking at this particular case, you know, where would one of the places that information would come from, it would be that phone. Other than that, then family members, of course, who maybe, you know, had the information

that, you know, she was involved or had made this acquaintance of this particular suspect who ended up killing her. Well, there is one more thing I have to mention. It's being reported that police say Shaw confessed, that he confessed to killing Runea. Now, even with that apparent omission, we the public, we still don't know further details about the motive, about a connection. A, a suspect apparently confessing that is often seen as like the holy grail of an investigation, sure defense attorneys can come in and say, was it coerced, you know, where were the circumstances of it? What was exactly said? Was there a language barrier?

But talk to me about that. I mean, obviously you weren't part of this investigation. Why do you see suspects, you know, potentially or allegedly confess in these kinds of cases? How does that affect the investigation? And you imagine you still have to corroborate it, right? Because there could be false confessions. Someone might just say they did it when they really didn't do it. Absolutely.

Yeah, you have to cooperate everything. But a confession is always good. And it's been my experience. They do it for several reasons. Number one, just to get it off their chest. You know, it actually, at some point, people can be, at the time the crime was committed under emotional duress, they'll have, you know, great hate, great anger, great this, great, that after time goes by and they start to calm down. They literally some of them have a semi-conscious, and when confronted, they're almost glad they get caught and they confess. There's one reason.

I've also seen others that confessed it because they want to brag about it, you know, so there's the other end of that's. spectrum. So there's various reasons, but regardless of the reason why, when that information comes out of that suspect's mouth, yes, it's law enforcement's job to corroborate that. We either have to prove or disprove that particular admission. Now, Chief Deputy Payton, there's something else that I want to talk to you about. It's pretty disturbing. So apparently, this killing marks the 14th homicide of 2025 in Vallejo alone. So from a command level viewpoint, what does that number tell you? Well, obviously violent crime, especially homicide, is on the rise. Not something that you want to see, but it's a problem, unfortunately, that a lot of cities across this country are

facing and have some of them been facing it for a while. And it's just a, it's a sad state of affairs, you know, all across the country where, you know, this type of homicides, especially. especially. This lack of dignity for human life rears its head far, far too often than most everybody would agree. I don't know what the answer is. You know, like it, you know, we're going to have to wake up, you know, as a society and find that dignity, that reverence for life again. Does it, does it put a strain on the police department on their investigative resource in some ways. Is that a sign of it too? When you start getting numbers that begin to overwhelm your capacity to deal diligently with each

individual case, then yes. And I can tell you right now, that's the case in some cities right now. And I'll give you an indicator. And I'm not, I won't mention the city. When you have a large police department that literally has to break down its shootings into two categories. And I give you this example. They literally have a unit, a group of people, a group of investigators that do nothing but non-fatal shootings. Yeah. And then they have a separate group that does the fatal shootings or the homicides. That's being overwhelmed.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Now, on Thursday, Shaw was arraigned. He was officially charged with murder. KRON4 reviewed charging documents, which reportedly indicated that Shaw said he killed Reneo with a knife. KTVU reports he didn't enter a plea on Thursday. But then you have an ex-girlfriend of Shaw's who apparently spoke with KTVU saying that when she had met him, when they both worked at Six Flags, eventually she had to get a restraining order taken out against him in 2023. Exact reason, unknown, but that's quite a detail to say the least. And for Rineas family, the discovery of her remains was absolutely devastating.

Lovelins told reporters that she had been in Vallejo to visit family. They don't know how she could have ended up in this apparent house of horrors. Her mother, Terry Lewis, said she collapsed when detectives told her the news. She told KTVU. On our way from Stockton, I was praying, I just prayed, God, please don't let it be her. Please don't let it be. and he didn't answer my prayer. Renia's loved ones remember her

as someone full of life, who loved cooking, being with family. Her cousin Latoya told KTVU I'm hurt. You would never thought you would be outposting flyers and it would be your own family member. My stomach was in knots. Police Chief Jason Toss summed up the department's reaction saying this was a heartbreaking, senseless act of violence

that has no place in our community. I am proud of our officers and detectives for making an arrest and solving this case. Above all, our thoughts are with the decedent's family, during this incredibly difficult time. Alex Payne, thank you so much for taking the time. It was really good seeing you. Yes, sir. Good seeing you.

And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.