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CROCKETT — It took a quarter-century after 21-year-old Priscilla Lewis was brutally beaten and drowned inside a pizza restaurant bathroom before a suspect was arrested and charged.

Now, court records reveal that the suspect, 52-year-old Danny Lamont Hamilton, was the one who inserted himself into the police investigation 15 years ago, when he wrote a series of erratic letters to homicide investigators in Contra Costa County.

One letter was a confession. Two others blamed a man named “Paul” for Lewis’ killing and offered assistance in solving it, according to police.

Lewis’ brutal 1996 slaying shook the quiet Crockett community and led to decades of speculation as to who could have been responsible. Police developed numerous theories and possible suspects, from passers-by to locals, while Lewis’ loved ones tried to keep the case alive in the public’s memory. In 2019, her friends and family held a vigil outside the pizza restaurant where she was killed.

It was a DNA match in 2021 from a piece of Lewis’ bra that finally linked Hamilton to the crime, according to court records. Hamilton was serving a sentence of 295 years to life in RJ Donovan Correctional facility in San Diego, and had been in prison since 2002, when he was arrested and charged with murdering Lewis.

Hamilton has pleaded not guilty. A trial date has not yet been set.

In court records, investigators said they were initially unable to gather a DNA sample from Lewis’ killer at the crime scene, which was a restroom in the basement of Four Corners Pizza in Crockett. Lewis had worked at the restaurant and frequented the area, but didn’t like going to the bathroom alone and would walk to nearby Toot’s Tavern instead. So investigators believe her killer dragged her down to the men’s room, attempted to pull off her clothing, and drowned her in the toilet when she fought back.

In 2015, new advances in DNA gathering allowed authorities to collect a sample from a small piece of Lewis’ clothing, but the sample was too small to be used to search the state’s DNA database, known as CODIS. However, lab technicians told investigators that if a suspect ever surfaced, they could test the sample against his or her DNA.

As it turned out, Hamilton had been trying to insert himself into the case since 2006. The first letter came in to Contra Costa homicide investigators in April of that year, and simply stated he knew who killed Lewis. He followed it up with another letter four months later, stating a person named “Paul” had told him that Lewis’ murder was supposed to be a kidnap for ransom that went south.

Finally, in December 2006, Hamilton reportedly wrote the Sheriff’s office one last time.

“My friends have given me permission to tell you the truth,” he wrote, according to police. “I killed Patricia (sic) Lewis in 1995 at a Crockett/Rodeo city resturant (sic) and left her in the mens room.”

Police attempted to interview Hamilton, but he declined and requested an attorney, according to court records. They visited him again in 2020: That time, he allegedly said he didn’t remember writing the letters, but recognized his own handwriting and signatures at the bottom.

The Siskiyou Daily News reported that Hamilton’s 295-year prison sentence stems from kidnapping and rape convictions with two victims in separate incidents, one of whom he kidnapped and forced into marriage. Police said in court records Hamilton was classified as a sexually violent predator: Even if he is released from prison, he could be held indefinitely in a hospital until he’s deemed no longer at risk of sexually assaulting another person.

Hamilton remains in the Contra Costa County jail system, where he’s being held without bail.

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