NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) – Surveillance video, phone records, and testimony from a friend and sister-in-law painted a strong case at Friday’s preliminary hearing against Adrian Lewis, 49, in the presumed death of his wife Shanita Eure-Lewis.
Lewis is charged with first-degree murder and a felony gun charge, although his wife has never been found. Eure-Lewis was never heard from after July 17.
The first witness for the Commonwealth in a nearly five-hour hearing was Mitchell Foreman, who said he and his wife were close friends with the Lewises and attended Gethsemane Baptist Church together.
Foreman and Lewis’s sister-in-law Deidra Eure told the court similar stories about Lewis’s behavior in the months and weeks leading up to his wife’s disappearance.
They said Lewis threatened several times to kill his wife Shanita because he thought she was having an affair. However, there was no evidence presented of any affair.
Foreman testified that Lewis had made a threat to kill his wife if he caught her cheating in front of several friends at a Christmas party twelve months ago.
In fact, Foreman testified that Lewis told him that he was cheating on his wife Shanita. When Foreman said “You can’t expect her to be faithful if you’re cheating on her,” Lewis allegedly responded, “I’m from the street, and I handle things the street way”.
Earlier the day Eure-Lewis was last seen, she attended an 8 A.M. service at Gethsemane Baptist Church where she was an active member and church clerk. Foreman testified that during the service he received a text from her, in all CAPS, “OMG, he cloned my phone”, referring to her husband.
Newport News police detectives told the court that Lewis had done web searches in the days leading up to and immediately after his wife’s disappearance, such as “would shooting someone in the back of the head paralyze them? What’s the sentence for murder in Virginia? And would a gunshot wound to the head cause pain?”
Lewis had said that his neighbor had shot his dog and that’s where the blood on the passenger seat of his Chevy Silverado came from. But police testified that the blood matched samples of Eure-Lewis.
Several witnesses also testified that Lewis said he was having marital problems and had threatened to kill his wife on multiple occasions. Police also testified that they found a .380 caliber cartridge casing near the windshield wipers of Lewis’s truck.
Surveillance video shows Shanita Eure Lewis alive at 9:34 the morning of July 17, getting into the Chevy truck with her husband.
But six minutes later in a Little Caesars parking lot, Lewis is wiping the inside of the passenger door with his wife’s legs visible on the passenger seat, motionless. She was wearing the same light-colored pantsuit she wore to church that Sunday morning, which had been visible on church surveillance video at 8:18 a.m.
Darrell Witts does vehicle detailing and said Lewis was a regular customer. Witts told the court Lewis brought the truck to him that day, where he found a jelly-like substance and blood on the passenger seat, as well as blood on the passenger door threshold. Witts said Lewis told him the reason for the blood was that a neighbor had shot his dog.
About four hours later, surveillance video from a Chesapeake pawn shop shows Lewis holding two phones and selling several pieces of his wife’s jewelry. Foreman and Eure-Lewis’ sister both testified they received text messages from Eure-Lewis’ phone that day, but based on the content of the messages, neither believed it was actually Eure-Lewis who was sending them.
Darrell Witts does vehicle detailing and said Lewis was a regular customer. Witts told the court Lewis brought the truck to him that day, where he found a jelly-like substance and blood on the passenger seat, as well as blood on the passenger door threshold. Witts said Lewis told him the reason for the blood was that a neighbor had shot his dog.
Witts then rode with Lewis to Norfolk International Airport, and returned the truck to the Relax Inn where Witts was staying. Police seized the truck from that location later that day.
A Newport News Police forensic tech testified that tests done on the passenger side of the Silverado revealed “numerous areas of blood”.
That same afternoon July 17, Lewis called Foreman and told him, “It’s over. Watch the boys for me. I’m spending the rest of my life in Mexico. She admitted to cheating on me,” according to Foreman, but he also said he did not believe what Lewis was telling him.
Eure-Lewis’ sister Deidra Eure testified that the couple had been together about 17 years, and had two sons, ages 14 and 13.
Eure described her frantic search for her sister after several hours had passed without any contact, which Eure said was highly out of the ordinary. She said Eure-Lewis had mentioned earlier that month that she wanted a divorce from Lewis, but didn’t elaborate why. Eure said her sister had recently brought a locked gun case to their mother’s house, saying her husband had been “acting crazy and was trying to kill himself”.
But because the gun case was locked, it’s unclear whether Eure-Lewis had removed all of the guns from the home on South Avenue where they lived.
Eure confirmed that two pair of shoes and a brown purse recovered from a dumpster had belonged to her sister.
A Newport News police detective described how multiple searches in Newport News, Chesapeake and Portsmouth found no trace of Eure-Lewis, saying they have never found her, her phone, or any evidence that she is still alive. Phone records indicated in the weeks prior to her disappearance, Shanita Eure-Lewis made as many as 106 phone calls a day. After July 17, there had been none, according to the detective.
Federal authorities arrested Lewis early the next morning, July 18, at Dulles International Airport. He had another web search: “Can police track your phone?” as they were tracking his phone. He was trying to board a flight to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Another search from Lewis’s phone: “Does Jamaica have extradition?”