Police found Shamiah Allen wounded after a 911 call from a North Side San Antonio complex.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A fatal shooting reported from a North Side apartment in late 2023 ended in April with a 38-year prison sentence for Donevyn Bowie, the man accused of killing his girlfriend, Shamiah Allen.
The sentence tied together a fast-moving police response, a domestic argument and a murder case that was already in trial before it ended by plea. Officers were dispatched shortly after 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 15, 2023, to the Ridgeline at Rogers Ranch Apartments in the 3200 block of North Loop 1604 West. By April 20, 2026, Bowie, 25, had been sentenced in Bexar County’s 290th Criminal District Court for Allen’s death.
The first public account of the case centered on the emergency response. Police were sent to the apartment complex after a report of a shooting. Some local reports said Bowie called 911 and admitted he had shot Allen. Officers arrived and found Allen, 21, with gunshot wounds. KENS reported she was pronounced dead at the scene, while other accounts said she was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead there. The official public summaries agree on the core point: Allen was shot at the apartment, and Bowie was arrested after remaining at or surrendering near the scene.
Prosecutors later described the moments before the shooting as a domestic argument over finances. The Bexar County District Attorney’s Office said Bowie and Allen were involved in a heated dispute at a North Side apartment when Bowie shot her twice in the head while she was in a bathtub. Bowie later told investigators the shooting was accidental, according to reports based on the district attorney’s release. District Attorney Joe Gonzales said the case reflected “a moment of anger” that took a life and said the sentence showed accountability for domestic violence.
The case did not go quietly from arrest to sentence. County court records showed a trial began April 6, 2026, before Judge Jennifer Peña. Two weeks later, the case ended with a plea agreement and a 38-year prison term. Local reports differed on whether the plea was described as guilty or no contest, but they agreed the plea stopped the trial before a jury reached a verdict. Under Texas law, a murder conviction can bring five to 99 years or life in prison. Bowie’s sentence placed him well above the minimum but short of a life term.
Allen’s identity was confirmed by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office. Her obituary identified her as Shamiah Shanae Allen, born May 30, 2002, and from Atlanta, Georgia. It said she died Dec. 15, 2023, in San Antonio and that services were to be held in Jonesboro, Georgia. Those details gave the case a path beyond Bexar County, connecting the apartment where police found her to family and community ties in Georgia. Public accounts did not include a full family statement from the sentencing hearing. The Ridgeline at Rogers Ranch Apartments became the fixed point in the case because nearly every public summary returned to the same address: the 3200 block of North Loop 1604 West. The complex is near the Shavano Park area and the busy northern edge of San Antonio, where apartments sit close to major roads and retail corridors. The killing happened inside a private residence, not in a parking lot or roadway. That detail shaped the way prosecutors framed the case as domestic violence rather than a random shooting.
The Dec. 15 shooting also landed on a night when San Antonio police were handling several gunfire calls. KSAT reported that the killing was one of six shootings police responded to in less than two and a half hours. The broader run of calls placed the case within a violent night across the city, but it did not blur the specific allegations against Bowie. Prosecutors said the fatal shots came after an argument over money. Police said Bowie was the person taken into custody. The court sentence later fixed the punishment at 38 years.
Several details remained outside the public record after the plea. Reports did not disclose the type of gun used, the full sequence of the argument or the exact wording of Bowie’s statement to investigators. They also did not say whether prosecutors had opened their full case to jurors before the plea or what witness testimony had already been heard. The plea removed the need for a jury decision, but it also limited the public airing of evidence that often occurs in a completed murder trial.
Gonzales’s statement after sentencing was the clearest official reaction released to the public. He called the killing senseless and linked the sentence to justice for domestic violence victims. No public statement from Bowie was included in the main reports on the sentence. No public statement from Allen’s family was included in the accounts reviewed. The result, in the public record, is a case told mostly through police response details, court entries, the medical examiner’s identification and the district attorney’s description of the argument.
Donevyn Bowie now faces the prison term ordered April 20. Any later filings would appear in the court record, but the murder case’s central question has been resolved by the plea and sentence. As of May 17, 2026, the next milestone was Bowie’s continued processing into state custody under the 38-year judgment.
Author note: Last updated May 17, 2026.