| Riley Ann Sawyers | |
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 Riley Ann Sawyers |
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| Born | March 11, 2005 Mentor, Ohio |
| Died | July 24, 2007 (aged 2) Harris County, Texas |
Riley Ann Sawyers (March 11, 2005 - July 24, 2007), known in the press as Baby Grace, was a girl from Mentor, Ohio who was beaten to death and whose body was subsequently discovered in Galveston Bay, at which point police began a nationwide effort to identify her.[1] Searchers called the unidentified victim "Baby Grace" until Riley's grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, called police after seeing a composite sketch. The remains were positively identified through DNA testing on November 30, 2007.[2][3]
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Riley Ann Sawyers was born to Robert Thomas Sawyers and Kimberly Dawn Trenor at Geauga Regional Hospital in Mentor, Ohio. Trenor was a sophomore at Mentor High School, and became pregnant at age 16. Robert Sawyers was former student at Mentor High School, but had dropped out. The family lived with Robert's mother Sheryl and her mother in Mentor, where Sheryl was Riley's primary caregiver. It was also during this time that Robert began having an affair with a woman named Catherine Priester. The two would later marry and have a son together.
Later, in October 2006, alleging abuse and having filed domestic violence charges, Trenor left with her daughter and "disappeared".[4][5] Trenor had left Ohio for Spring, Texas, to marry Royce Clyde Zeigler, Jr. The two had met on the online game World of Warcraft[6], and they married on June 1, 2007 in Spring. Zeigler believed Riley should be disciplined to say "Sir" and "Ma'am", and that corporal punishment was the best means of disciplining a child. Believing that Trenor was not properly administering the beatings herself, Zeigler took over.[5]
According to a videotaped confession and signed affidavit from Trenor, on July 24, 2007, she and Zeigler beat Riley with two leather belts and held her head underwater in the bathtub. She also said Zeigler picked her daughter up by her hair, threw her across the room, which caused her to slam her head into the tile floor.[4] Finally Riley, black and blue from the beating, was unable to stand when ordered to do so. “She didn’t have control of her legs,” Trenor said. When they realized Riley was dead, Trenor and Zeigler went to Wal-Mart, bought a plastic Sterilite storage container, wrapped Riley in garbage bags, and stuffed her dead body inside the container. They kept the container in a storage shed for approximately two months before dumping it into Galveston Bay, where it was discovered by local fisherman Robert Wayne Spinn on October 29, 2007. A coroner discovered skull fractures and the investigation proceeded as a homicide.[1]
Shortly before Thanksgiving in 2007, Zeigler attempted suicide by overdosing on blood pressure medication and anti-depressants. He left a suicide note stating, "My wife is innocent of the sins I committed." Trenor and Zeigler eventually took responsibility for Riley Ann's death, initially charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence. Trenor said that the death was accidental—"a case of discipline that went too far." However, he later claimed during his trial that he was in another room of the house when Riley had died, so could not have been guilty.[7]
On January 14, 2008, the cremated remains of Riley Ann Sawyers were turned over to her family in Ohio, after a Texas judge ruled that samples taken during the autopsy would be sufficient evidence for trial.[8]
Trenor was convicted of capital murder on February 2, 2009. It took the jury 90 minutes to reach a verdict. Trenor was given a life sentence without possibility of parole.[9]
Zeigler also faced charges of capital murder as well as evidence tampering. On November 6, 2009, he was convicted of capital murder and received an automatic sentence of life imprisonment, as the state did not seek the death penalty.[7]
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