Child was tortured and beaten, records claim

GALVESTON — The little girl known worldwide as “Baby Grace” was tortured and beaten to death by her mother and stepfather, who then hid her body in a shed for more than a month before dumping it in Galveston Bay, according to affidavits used by investigators to obtain arrest warrants.

Investigators called the death of 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, whom they identified Sunday as the likely match for the remains found nearly a month ago, a “series of tragic events.”

In an interview, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, of Spring, told investigators that she and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler, 24, beat her daughter with two leather belts the morning of July 24, an affidavit says.

They also held her head underwater in the bathtub and Zeigler picked her up by her hair and threw her across the room, slamming her head into tile floor, the affidavit says.

An autopsy on Oct. 30 found that the child had three skull fractures on the back of her head.

The pair also smothered the girl by pushing her face into a pillow in her room and into the cushions of a couch, the affidavit says.

Trenor told investigators that, during the beating, her husband gave the girl child’s pain medication and covered her with a purple towel after she was dead, the affidavit says.

That night, the couple went to a Wal-Mart and bought the blue plastic storage container that would wash ashore on an uninhabited island in West Galveston Bay three months later, the affidavit says.

The plastic bin with the child entombed inside was kept in a storage shed in the backyard of their Spring home for one to two months, the affidavit says.

The couple took the remains in their car and tossed them into the water near the Galveston Causeway, the affidavit says.

On Oct. 29, a fisherman found the plastic bin with the little girl inside.

DNA testing is under way to determine whether Riley Sawyers’ parents match up with the remains of the girl.

The test results will be “forensic proof” of the conclusion that investigators’ facts back up, sheriff’s office spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo said.

The Next Step

Despite the statements given to officers, Tuttoilmondo said officers still have much to investigate.

“We want to know what happened from the day she was born,” Tuttoilmondo said. “Did she have friends? Did she play outside? What happened to her to get her to this?”

Piecing together what exactly happened could take time, he said.

Almost all of the investigators at the sheriff’s office are on the streets working on the case, Tuttoilmondo said.

What evidence they gather will be presented to a grand jury.

The charges presented could include capital murder, because the investigation involves the death of a child less than 6 years old, District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said.

Sistrunk said Galveston County would keep the case, even though the death allegedly occurred in Harris County, because of the extensive work Galveston sheriff’s deputies did.

If no more charges are filed, the couple could still face life in prison. Injury to a child resulting in death is punishable by five years in prison to life.

The Investigation

The details of what led investigators to conclude Sawyers was killed and what evidence allowed them to arrest the girl’s mother and stepfather were not released.

Trenor’s attorney, Tom Stickler, said his client willingly went to the sheriff’s office to give her statement on Friday.

She and Zeigler were charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence the next day. They’re being held on bonds of $350,000 each.
Officers have been investigating Trenor and Zeigler since Nov. 7, when the girl’s paternal grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, called the sheriff’s office after she saw a sketch of Baby Grace.

Deputies were observing their Spring home in the 7800 block of Enns Lane Friday night and followed a man leaving the house before executing a search warrant early Saturday morning, Tuttoilmondo confirmed.

What officers found at the home wasn’t made public.

The Ohio Letter

The girl’s grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, told The Daily News last week that Trenor told family members and investigators that someone claiming to be an Ohio social worker took her daughter in late July.

Trenor didn’t report the incident to police.

That story was created by Zeigler, the affidavit says. Trenor told investigators that Zeigler told her to write a fake letter from the Ohio Department of Children’s Services saying that her daughter would be taken out of custody because of allegations of sexual abuse, the affidavit says.

The Move To Texas

Trenor moved from her hometown of Mentor, Ohio, to Spring the first week of June so she could marry Zeigler, her attorney said.

The couple met online while playing the internet game World of Warcraft, he said.

After they met, Zeigler sent Trenor expensive gifts and sent the little girl presents, Sheryl Sawyers said.

Trenor and Riley’s father, Robert Sawyers, had the baby while they were still in high school.

They raised the girl in Sheryl Sawyers’ home for about two years until they broke up. Zeigler, a 2002 graduate of Klein High School in Spring, is an Emerson Process Management contractor at Shell Oil’s Deer Park plant, his attorney, Wendell Odom, said.

Trenor didn’t have a job while she lived in Spring and if she worked when she lived in Ohio isn’t certain, Stickler said.

An Emotional End

The district attorney’s office has not yet decided when the girl’s remains will be released to the family, Sistrunk said.

“She’s still our little girl,” Tuttoilmondo said. “She now has a family who will make sure a box in Galveston Bay is not where she ends up.”

A second memorial service for Baby Grace planned for Dec. 2 won’t take place, volunteers said.

“Luckily, we don’t need to ask who she is anymore,” said Dawn Davis, a senior case manager with the Laura Recovery Center.

The hundreds of tips the case elicited reunited between 80 and 90 families, Tuttoilmondo said. Still, 22 girls haven’t been found yet. The sheriff’s office still needs the public’s help on identifying those girls, too, Tuttoilmondo said.