Kimberly Trenor Mother of "Baby Grace" Enters Plea.

[Tazzzz]

Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, DoB:8/9/1988
http://tribalmask.net/dreamin-demon/Baby-Grace-mom.jpg

Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 25, DoB:4/20/1983
http://tribalmask.net/dreamin-demon/Baby-Grace-dad.jpg

Riley Ann Sawyers better know as "Baby Grace"
http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/photo_servlet?contentId=5044563&version=1&locale=EN-US&subtype=MIMG&siteId=1016&isP16=true

Ohh yeah, good ole mommy spit out another baby, Thank God it was immediately taken from her. Hope they turned her plumming off after the birth.

Mother of 'Baby Grace' Enters Plea
HOUSTON (AP) -- A woman accused in the beating death of her 2-year-old daughter, widely known as "Baby Grace," has pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence but not guilty of capital murder on the eve of her trial.

Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 25, are accused of beating Riley Ann Sawyers to death July 25, 2007 in their Spring home. Trenor told police the child died after a disciplinary session veered out of control.

Trenor and Zeigler are each charged with capital murder and tampering with physical evidence. Trenor had moved with her daughter from Mentor, Ohio, to Texas in 2007 to be with Zeigler, whom she met online.

Trenor was arraigned before Galveston County District Judge David Garner on Tuesday, one day before jury selection was to begin. Zeigler is being tried separately and his trial date has not been set. The two remain in the Galveston County Jail in lieu of $850,000 bail each.

Riley's body was found in a box washed up on the shore of an island in Galveston Bay. Trenor said the couple hid the body in a shed for two months before dumping it in Galveston Bay where a fisherman later found the body inside a box. The West Galveston Bay island where the body was found has been officially named Riley's Island.

Galveston County District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk and Assistant District Attorney Kayla Allen will prosecute Trenor.

Defense attorney Tommy Stickler, referring to the extensive videotaped statements and signed affidavits that Trenor gave to sheriff's investigators after her arrest, said "It's about as factually an open case as you are going to get," in a story for Tuesday's online edition of the Houston Chronicle.

One of Zeigler's attorneys, Neal Davis III, said he will be watching the trial closely. Davis has questioned Trenor's version of events.

If convicted of evidence tampering, Trenor faces a penalty of from two to 20 years in prison.

Trenor gave birth to Shawn Trenor on June 26 at Mainland Medical Center while in custody. The baby boy was and given to Child Protective Services. The child was turned over to the mother's distant relatives in Dallas.
http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=8288568&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Affidavit: `Baby Grace' Was Beaten, Thrown Across Room
A Texas court document sheds more light on the killing of a 2-year-old born in Ohio.

The search warrant affidavit says the stepfather of Riley Ann Sawyers placed her body in a bathtub, covered her with a towel and shut the shower curtain so her mother wouldn't see.

It also says the girl had been beaten with leather belts, held under water, and grabbed by her hair and flung across a room.

Stepfather Royce Zeigler and mother Kimberly Trenor have been indicted on capital murder charges in the child's death on July 25th. Trenor had moved with her daughter from Mentor (Ohio) to Texas to be with Zeigler, whom she met online.

After the body washed ashore along Galveston Bay, investigators initially dubbed the girl "Baby Grace."

http://www.myfoxcleveland.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5340879&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

[AMINFH]

I dont have strong enough words for the disgust I hold for these babykillers. She looks like an angel in that photo. What could she (or ANY child) do to bring on such vile torture? Bet that bastard wouldnt dare try that on someone his own age/size. Kunt of a mother moved her child to hook up with this freak...obviously found her disposable enough to toss her in a box into the ocean and have another baby. Was it some sick thing like he wasnt her real dad, so kill her and have one of his own???

I hope Baby Grace gets her justice and these subhumans never see the light of day again. I pray that those distant relatives dont find the new sudden addition to thier lives a nusiance!

[DarkPrincess]

This case makes me ill.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

The child was turned over to the mother's distant relatives in Dallas.
This will probably sound awful, but if they are truly "distant relatives", I hope they were relatives that needed to adopt.

To me "distant relatives" is almost the same as "strangers". With so many waiting for adoption, I would prefer that the baby be placed with someone in need. I guess I'm into the thought of parents who are waiting more than parents because of "blood".

[Tazzzz]

Riley Ann Sawyers 2nd Birthday party.
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/09V2arI0hw0lA/610x.jpg

Here are some photo's from the funeral.

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/07k75L77BRbii/358x283.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/05mg0JT9Jn88b/610x.jpg
http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/09KZepxgxl3vx/340x.jpg

http://www.daylife.com/topic/Riley_Ann_Sawyers/photos/all/1

[DarkPrincess]

Those pictures made me cry. That tiny coffin... She was just a baby and they killed her and threw her away like trash. It breaks my heart.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/09KZepxgxl3vx/340x.jpg

In one small gesture, this woman showed far more love and compassion for Riley than her own mother ever did.

[Nell]

What gets me is that this whore let this piece of shit beat her child to death, THEN slept with him and concieved his baby. How could she? Just how could she? And then to give the new baby his last name!! It as if she is condoning what he did and still loves him. She should be raped with a chainsaw.

[Tazzzz]

What gets me is that this whore let this piece of shit beat her child to death, THEN slept with him and concieved his baby. How could she? Just how could she? And then to give the new baby his last name!! It as if she is condoning what he did and still loves him. She should be raped with a chainsaw.

My sister did the same thing after her boyfriend murdered her 3 year old, Even worse she fucked him in the damn prison visting room in front of every one. She had 2 kids from him that way. Fucking trailer trash bitch. She married him after the first one was born, draged the kids up every weekend. Happy little prison house family.

[Nell]

Well at least she has a brother who isn't a suckass, and your mamma has one reason to be proud Tazzzz.

[mpratt]

This case is even worse than you guys could imagine.. I will upload some more photo's of Miss Riley in a bit...

This was her first Halloween, photo was edited just to make it special for her..
http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/RileyButterfly.jpg

Riley, Love you lots baby girl...

~~ Proud Member of Riley's Circle of Friends~~

[mpratt]

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/MediumPic633518360718060993.jpg

[Kimberix]

She should be raped with a chainsaw.


Perfect!

[theskyisfalling]

Fry bitch! Fry!

[Morticia]

What is going on??? People killing their children and dumping them like garbage? Why does this keep happening? I'm guessing because the consequences for these people's actions is not severe enough, therefore we will continue to read about cases like this. Very sad.

[silvahalo68]

n the affidavit, Trenor describes how she and Zeigler beat the toddler with two leather belts and held her head under water in a bathtub on the morning of July 24. Trenor also said in the affivadit that Zeigler picked the child up by her hair and threw her across the room causing her head to slam against a tile floor.

After Sawyers died, Trenor said in the affidavit to the Sheriff's Office, Zeigler covered the child in a purple towel and the pair then went to a Wal-Mart to purchase items to hide and dispose of the body, including a blue plastic container, bleach, a shovel and latex gloves.

According to the affidavit, Trenor said Zeigler hid the container with the remains in a storage shed for two months before the pair tossed the container into the water off Galveston Causeway.

Meanwhile, Sawyers' father and grandmother publicly wept Monday as they demanded justice in the child's "heinous" death....
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=3912395&page=1

The rage I feel for these two can't be healthy. I wouldn't think twice in seeing both of these bastards killed in a public forum.
And you know this sweet baby girl endured far more than what occurred on that day of her death.
Little Riley has her mama's eyes, though Riley had the light of life and her mother, they just look dead. I pray she see's Riley every time she looks in the mirror and is forever haunted by the heinous way she killed her...beating her and disposing this angel out like trash. Hell's a waiting, oh, yes it is.

Riley, there is no doubt you are in angel lighting up the heavens.
http://i37.tinypic.com/30ro9lc.jpg

[mpratt]

What makes this even worse is Sheryl, Riley's Grandma, wanted her. She didn't want to let her move out. Riley lived with Sheryl since the day she was born. Sheryl still cries to this day, wondering if Riley was screaming and crying for Grandma.. Could you imagine how that would haunt you everyday? The system sucks, her father Robert reported her missing.. They did everything right.. If you read where Royce said to have Kimberly tell them that CPS took Riley away for Sexual abuse!! Did they just say that? I can't imagine they would, I really think he may have.. She ws gone only 2 fucking months before they killed her.. I was told that she loved Riley so much, fromt he day she was born, she would show Riley off and be a good Mom, how can you let the penis do this stuff.. Before she moved he even sent gifts for Riley & her.. Was it just a fucking con?? OMG, my head hurts. Sorry all, I can go on & on about this..

[Dakota Valkyrie]

I hope the father's family bought the headstone because the thought of the mom saying "Beloved Daughter" makes me ill.

[mpratt]

Yes Robert, Sheryl, & Sheryls other son Ray purchased the headstone. That is why it says all three...It is beautiful in person... Just sad that Riley shouldn't have one at all...

[Peeperann]

Oh God, after looking at those pics i'm sitting her bawling all over again. That beautiful precious little gift that was treated and thrown out like trash.

I am praying to get the DP on this case. I want those two vile, despicable, evil creatures to die a most horrific and long lasting death.

Rest with God beautiful baby angel..............

[Tazzzz]

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/MediumPic633518360718060993.jpg

Thanks for posting this, I really like this headstone allot. Its a fitting tribute to this poor little girl. I believe there were many people who loved the heck out of her and at one time her poor excuse for a mother did as well. Its a real shame Riley had to pay the ultimate price for her mothers stupidity.



Rest in peace Riley

[ineedanap]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482742,00.html

Trenor's murder trial to start this week.

[Peeperann]

I hope the father's family bought the headstone because the thought of the mom saying "Beloved Daughter" makes me ill.

I was just thinking the same thing Dakota.


The rage I feel for these two can't be healthy. I wouldn't think twice in seeing both of these bastards killed in a public forum.

Me either Silva, and it's quite scary to me that I could cheerfully do it.

[ineedanap]

GALVESTON, Texas — A prosecutor told jurors that the toddler who came to be known as "Baby Grace" tried to stop the deadly discipline session by telling her mother she loved her.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483625,00.html

As if I wasn't heartsick enough over this case, I had to read this. I am heartbroken.

[Special2bme]

http://i359.photobucket.com/albums/oo35/Special2bme/0125091621_M_012509_baby14.jpghttp://i359.photobucket.com/albums/oo35/Special2bme/0125091621_M_012509_baby13.jpghttp://i359.photobucket.com/albums/oo35/Special2bme/0125091621_M_012509_baby12.jpghttp://i359.photobucket.com/albums/oo35/Special2bme/0125091621_M_012509_baby3.jpghttp://i359.photobucket.com/albums/oo35/Special2bme/0125091621_M_012509_baby2.jpg

How adorable she was. I can't imagine her saying to her mom I love you, to stop her from disciplining her and mom does nothing. That fucking cunt of a mother has a heart of ice. How could anyone look at their child especially when they are saying I love you and continue beating them. ARGH! She doesn't look happy in the pic with the white hat, wonder why.

[mpratt]

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/770761_m.jpg
http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/butterflydressjpg.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/swimming.jpg

http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/mpratt19/Yellow.jpg

Riley Ann Sawyers.. XOXOXOXOXO

[AMINFH]

Riley Ann Sawyers tried to stop her mother and stepfather from beating her to death by reaching out to her mother and saying, "I love you," assistant district attorney Kayla Allen told jurors earlier in the day during her opening statement.

OMFG

How horribly painfully sad- this poor poor baby in the process of being tortured to death reached out to the one person on this earth whose sole duty was to protect her and keep her from harm. Even in the midst of all this evilness she told her mother she loved her begging her to stop! FUCK I cant get out the sounds and images I can only imagine of that scene.

I hope those words haunt this vicious woman, and not comfort her in some demented way.

[Harley_Tech]

Baby Grace endured daylong torture session before death

05:04 PM CST on Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Associated Press
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/wfaa/09-01/0127grace.jpg Associated Press
Riley Ann Sawyers.

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090127_lj_galveston.b7bd44a.html

GALVESTON, Texas -- Jurors wept Tuesday as they heard a mother detail how an attempt to teach her 2-year-old daughter proper manners turned into a daylong torture session in which the toddler was beaten with belts, dunked in a bathtub of cold water and flung across a room so violently that she died from her injuries.
Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, told investigators in a videotaped statement that was played for jurors during the first day of her capital murder trial that she hit her daughter with a thick leather belt during a discipline session to teach Riley Ann Sawyers to say "please" and "yes, sir."
But she insisted it was her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, who became so enraged when the toddler didn't behave better that he hurled her several times across a room, ultimately fracturing her skull and killing her. Trenor said the force with which Zeigler threw Riley was so great that she was able to hear the impact of her body hitting the tile floor in their home.
However, prosecutor Kayla Allen told jurors that Trenor and Zeigler both took part in torturing Riley and both are responsible for her death. Trenor admitted to police that she pushed Riley's head underwater and hit her with the belt during the deadly discipline session.
Allen said after Riley was killed, the couple bought a plastic container, stuffed her beaten body inside and stored it in a shed for a month or two before dumping it in Galveston Bay. Riley was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators in October 2007 after they found her remains and worked to identify her.
"I said we have to get her to a hospital. (Zeigler) said, 'No we can't. We'll go to jail,"' Trenor said in the videotape, crying. "There came a point where she stopped breathing. He started doing CPR on the floor. He took her ... and handed her over to me. I could just feel her going cold."
At the defense table, Trenor's eyes teared up as she watched the videotape on a large screen. Several members of the seven-woman, five man jury wiped away tears.
Her attorney, Tommy Stickler Jr., said in his opening statement that Trenor never intended to kill her daughter and that things just "spun out of control."
But prosecutor Kayla Allen said that Trenor did nothing to save her daughter, not even when Riley told her mother "I love you" as she was being beaten.
"She dies right there in front of them and they do nothing to help her," Allen said.
In her videotaped statement, Trenor told police she and Riley moved to Spring, a suburb north of Houston, in June 2007 to be with Zeigler after she met him playing the online video game World of Warcraft.
Stickler portrayed Trenor as a scared 19-year-old girl who had moved to Texas from Ohio after being assaulted by Riley's biological father.
Stickler said Zeigler was her "knight in shining armor, her Texas cowboy."
Trenor said at first her new life in Texas was great. But then Zeigler became concerned that Riley wouldn't listen to adults or say "please" or "thank you." Zeigler had started disciplining Riley with a belt but Trenor said she was uncomfortable with that.
Trenor said that on July 25, 2007, Zeigler stayed home from work so they could discipline Riley.
She said that Riley screamed as they "disciplined" her all day. Trenor said that Zeigler at one point complained that his shoulder hurt from hitting Riley so much with the belt.
Stickler told jurors they could punish Trenor for the abuse but that they can't punish her for capital murder because she never intended to kill her daughter and she didn't cause the skull fractures that an autopsy concluded was the cause of death.
"I don't want to use the word accident, but this wasn't something that was intentional," he said.
Zeigler's attorney, Neal Davis III, has said Trenor was responsible for Riley's death. Zeigler will be tried later.
The toddler's remains were unidentified for weeks until an Ohio woman named Sheryl Sawyers saw an artist's sketch of the girl, believed it was her granddaughter Riley and called authorities.
Trenor could receive an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. The jury could also convict her of a lesser charge.
Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty against either her or Zeigler, 25, because they didn't think they could prove that the pair would be a future danger, a requirement for such a punishment.
In June 2008, Trenor gave birth to a boy, Shawn, while awaiting trial. The baby is living in the Dallas area with distant relatives of Trenor, who relinquished her parental rights. Zeigler has not relinquished his rights, child welfare officials said.
Trenor and Zeigler are being held in the Galveston County Jail under bonds of $850,000 each.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Quit it. I either have to quit reading this thread or learn to quit bawling.

[Harley_Tech]

Quit it. I either have to quit reading this thread or learn to quit bawling.

I hear ya. I was searching for a totally unrelated story and hit on this.

R

[ineedanap]

I had to skip lunch today because I am afraid if I eat anything I am going to hurl. My stomach is just torn up. My God that poor baby girl. It doesn't help that I have one who will be 3 in April. I hate to even swat her butt.

RIP, sweet Riley.

[Ruby]

I found the update yesterday and I updated the front page story, and cried. Not many of the stories here make me cry. This one did.

[RaVen Blackehart]

In June 2008, Trenor gave birth to a boy, Shawn, while awaiting trial. The baby is living in the Dallas area with distant relatives of Trenor, who relinquished her parental rights. Zeigler has not relinquished his rights, child welfare officials said.

Can the state terminate his rights, especially if (when) he is found guilty?

[Special2bme]

GALVESTON, Texas — In her final hours, 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers screamed as she was whipped with leather belts that turned her skin black and blue and was dragged by her hair into a bathroom where her head was repeatedly dunked into a tub of cold water — all part of a discipline session to teach her manners, her mother said.

"It seemed like it went on and on," Riley's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, said in a videotaped statement she gave to police that was played Tuesday during the first day of her capital murder trial in Riley's death.

Click here for photos.

Prosecutors were set to question one of the investigators who took Trenor's statement — where she admitted taking part in Riley's beating but blamed the toddler's death on her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II — when her trial resumes on Wednesday.

Jurors wept Tuesday as they heard Trenor detail Riley's brutal death, which an autopsy concluded was caused by skull fractures.

Trenor, 20, said those fractures occurred after Zeigler, who became enraged when the toddler didn't learn to behave better, violently threw her several times across their family room, causing her to smack her head on the tile floor.

"I never meant for what happened to happen," Trenor said near the end of her more than four-hour statement.

However, prosecutor Kayla Allen told jurors that Trenor and Zeigler are both responsible for her death when they tried to discipline Riley on July 25, 2007. Trenor admitted to police that she pushed Riley's head underwater and hit her with the belt that day.

"You've got to know ... the result would be death from what they did to her," Allen said.

Allen said after Riley was killed, the couple bought a plastic container, stuffed her beaten body inside and stored it in a shed before dumping it in Galveston Bay. Riley was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators in October 2007 after they found her remains and worked to identify her.

At the defense table, Trenor's eyes teared up as she watched the videotape on a large screen. Several members of the jury of seven women and five men wiped away tears.

Trenor told police she and Riley moved from Mentor, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to Spring, a suburb north of Houston, in June 2007 to be with Zeigler after she met him playing the online video game World of Warcraft.

Trenor said at first her new life in Texas was great. But then Zeigler became upset Riley wouldn't listen to adults or say "please" or "thank you." The discipline session was his idea, she said.

Trenor's attorney, Tommy Stickler Jr., said in his opening statement that his client never intended to kill her daughter and that things just "spun out of control."

But Allen said that Trenor did nothing to save her daughter, not even when Riley told her mother "I love you" as she was being beaten.

Trenor said she and Zeigler fabricated a story that Riley had been taken away by officials with Child Protective Services in Ohio to explain her disappearance to relatives.

Riley's body, Trenor said, was kept in a container in a storage shed at their home until September 2007, when she and Zeigler drove to Galveston early one morning. They threw the container, which had partially been filled with cement, into the bay a day after they had unsuccessfully tried to bury it in a wooded area north of their home.

But the container did not sink, she said. A fisherman found it on a tiny island about a mile from shore the next month.

Trenor said Zeigler tried to commit suicide after Riley's death and wrote a note in which he said she was innocent "of the sins I committed."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484164,00.html

[Reyeye]

I with most of you guys here who have said this case is hard and makes me weep as well. I hate this mother, I HATE HER. If she truly thought he was going to far (well hello, flinging kids across the room head first into tile isn't exactly normal dicipline) she should have stopped him. period. I dont' care if he's bigger than her, I don't care if he hits hard. Your body between his and your child's. At any moment she could have scooped her baby girl up and flew out that door, into the street and raved like a mad woman until someone heard her and helped. She's a piece of shit. I can almost bet after all they did to her child, they went right back and parked their sorry asses in front of that computer and continued their sad lives playing wow. I bet he could handle the 2 year old getting in the way of his nightly raiding. Fuck him, and fuck her too!

That little girl was/is so precious. I look at her and instantly love her. Every toddler I see here has something that reminds me of mine, a nose, or the smile, the hair. But this case, it makes me wanna go on patrol you know? I'll get a fuckin reflective badge or sash and head to my local walmart and just patrol, ass kickins for all the baby beaters!

To Riley:
I know things were really scary, I know your mommy was supposed to help you. But it's okay now. She wont hurt you anymore, and there are so many people here that love you, have always loved you and will miss you so much. Keep smiling baby, you'll see your daddy and grammy again, and they have big hugs and kisses to give you.

[Tazzzz]

*****WARNING GRAPHIC DETAILS ******

Damn, pretty much Riley's last words was telling her mom she loved her. As the bitch is beating on her. Both of these Tard need to Rot in Hell for what they did to this poor little girl.



GALVESTON — An emotional, explicit story of the slaying of a 2-year-old girl named “Baby Grace” unfolded Tuesday, as prosecutors played her mother’s videotaped interview with sheriff’s investigators, detailing how the girl, who was beaten black and blue, died possibly in her mother’s arms after a disciplinary session.

In the Nov. 23, 2007, videotaped interview, Trenor, with her attorney Tom Stickler present, told Sgt. Mike Barry she moved with Sawyers from Menton, Ohio, to live with Zeigler in his Spring home to escape a turbulent living arrangement with her in-laws. The two met in an online Internet game and were married June 1.

The 2-year-old’s uncontrollable behavior, however, led Zeigler to stay home from work to ensure Trenor disciplined Sawyers to Zeigler’s satisfaction, Trenor told authorities.

Trenor provided DNA and hair samples, told authorities Sawyers was Baby Grace and throughout an emotional interview, described how Zeigler awoke for work at 6 a.m., called in sick and proceeded to spank Sawyers with a belt.

“He’d tried to stay out of it at first,” Trenor said of the discipline measures.

Prosecutor Kayla Allen, in her opening statement to the jury, said Sawyers acted like a normal 2-year-old, and asked the jury to convict Trenor of capital murder. Trenor pleaded not guilty to the charge, but guilty to tampering with evidence. A capital murder conviction results in an automatic life sentence.

‘We Needed To Break Her’

Trenor told Barry she couldn’t control Sawyers in public. She wouldn’t sit still, stay in her lap or mind in general. “He said we needed to break her,” Trenor told Barry of her recollection of a conversation with Zeigler. “When she’d ask for something and didn’t say ‘please’ and screamed, he’d shove her head in a pillow on the couch.” Zeigler told Trenor to run a cold bath, which she said she did.

“He said the next time she screams, we’ll take her into the bathtub, and of course she would scream with the way he was hitting her with that belt,” Trenor said. Trenor told Barry she too struck Sawyers with the belt. Zeigler picked up Sawyers by her hair and took her to the bathroom, Trenor said. Sawyers screamed.

“He wanted her to say a certain phrase, ‘Can I have some milk, please?’” Trenor said. “She screamed, he hit her with the belt and shoved her head underwater, and he wanted me to do it … and I found myself doing that.”

The session went “on and on and on,” Trenor told Barry, but at some point the beating stopped so Zeigler could give her some medicine and ice her bruises. “He said we’ve done enough for the day and just need to take care of her now and get the bruises down,” Trenor told Barry. “I thought it was over, but for some reason it started up again.”

Zeigler retrieved another belt, because the first one wasn’t thick enough, Trenor told Barry. “He hit her if she didn’t say what he wanted her to say,” Trenor said. “He said, ‘Mommy asked you a question.’ All he wanted her to say was, ‘yes, sir.’ She didn’t say it, and he hit her with the belt wherever her skin was exposed.”

Zeigler struck the child so much, he complained his shoulder was hurting, Trenor told Barry. He then returned a naked Sawyers to the tub filled halfway with cold water, she said. The discipline lasted until the afternoon, Trenor told Barry. The worst part was he drug her by the belt wrapped around her neck, Trenor said.

Zeigler bit Sawyers once on the arm, saying it was an accident, Trenor said. He also threw her to the floor with such force she heard something crack on the tile, Trenor said. Allen said the medical examiner’s office ruled Sawyers died of two skull fractures.

As the discipline continued, Sawyers spoke to her mother, Trenor told Barry.
“She said, ‘I love you,’” Trenor said. “He said she’s trying to trick you. At some point I was using the belt, and he said she’s saying that to control you and make you stop.”

After the initial blow to the ground, Zeigler forced her to the floor two more times, Trenor said. “It got to a point where she couldn’t stand up,” Trenor told Barry. “It looked like she didn’t have control of her legs anymore.”

Zeigler finally realized she wasn’t faking and gave her chewable ibuprofen, because Sawyers had a terrible problem taking the liquid version, Trenor said. She reacted each time she saw the orange liquid in the medicine bottle.

“There was no way you were getting that in her,” Trenor told Barry. “But it got to the point where she grabbed for that cup and put it up to her mouth.”

Sawyers had trouble chewing and swallowing, Trenor said. “I said we have to call 911 or go to the hospital,” Trenor told Barry.

“There’s something wrong, but he said: ‘No. We can’t do that, because we’ll go to jail.’” Zeigler brought Sawyers to Trenor to ensure she was still conscious, Trenor told Barry. “She stopped breathing,” Trenor said. “He did cardiopulmonary resuscitation — on the floor.”

With her heart still beating, Zeigler thought she wasn’t breathing, because the medicine was lodged in her throat, Trenor told Barry. Sawyers didn’t gag when he tried to clear her throat, she said. “He handed her to me, and I could feel her going cold,” Trenor said. “We had a heating pad on her, but it wasn’t helping. She stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating.”

The jury also heard Trenor tell Barry of the couple’s trip to Wal-Mart. Trenor said they took carts and paid separately in cash for the storage box, trash bags, bleach, shovel, link chain, clip, gloves and “bucket” of cement.

When the couple returned home, Zeigler took the supplies to the bathroom and told her to stay in the other room, Trenor told Barry. “He poured bleach all over her and down her throat and scrubbed her down,” Trenor told Barry. “He needed help and told me to hold the trash bag open.”

Trenor objected to putting Sawyers in the bag while naked, and insisted on dressing her. The process was difficult, because she was becoming stiff, Trenor said. With Sawyers wrapped in three bags, Zeigler made a mess trying to mix the cement, and when he poured it in the container, it didn’t fill to the top, Trenor said. Zeigler abandoned the cement plan, she told Barry.

Zeigler placed the container in an outside storage shed next to Sawyers’ bicycle, Trenor said, noting she didn’t know how long they left Sawyers’ body in the box.

The smell after a month or more of decomposition led them to try to dispose of it, Trenor said. The couple drove north, where Trenor said Zeigler found some unimproved land and tried to dig a grave. The makeshift burial would take to long, so they abandoned the idea, she said.

The following night, which the prosecution said was Aug. 18, 2007, the couple drove to Galveston. They went over the causeway and then drove north over the bridge and exited at Tiki Island.

Trenor said she drove to the railroad bridge and stayed in Zeigler’s truck as he tossed the container and Sawyers’ remains into the water. Trenor said she watched it float west under the causeway. “He said he should have drilled holes into the box to make it sink,” Trenor told Barry.

In the days that followed, after fisherman Robert Spinn of Bayou Vista found the body and news of the discovery spread, the couple tried overdosing on medication but survived, Trenor said.

http://www.khou.com/news/local/galveston/stories/khou090128_jj_baby-grace-video-mom.ff150d5.html

[sQuid]

^ wow i have a huge lump in my throat. The detail it gives about what happened... i can't imagine going though all that at such a young age.

i feel completely sick to my stomach and utter dispair surrounds me. it's probably not right to wish someone else harm because what would be the point but i am glad these two didn't die for i have hopes they die horrible deaths in prison at the hands of other inmates.

RIP baby grace

[Ninja0980]

At least baby Riley is at peace now, where she will suffer no more beatings.
As for the "mother" it's obvious she had no love for her child but she still could have shown that she had a small bit of humanity in her if she had simply plead guilty. Of course she didn't, because as in life, she has no feelings for her daughter whatsoever. Her daughter was just a burden in her stomach that became a burden to her when she was alive. Rest in peace little one.

[sanityslipping]

The details are absolutely horrifying. What would possess a mother to go along with this? Why would a man think a toddler needs to be broken, like a horse. Shit, you can't even treat horses like that! She was two years old. Her vocabulary wasn't completely developed yet. Most two year olds, you're lucky if you get them to tell you milk please, much less the can I have part. And to be beaten so savagely, for no other reason than being young. I hope, with every fiber in my body, that that god awful bitch excuse for a mother hears her baby's cries every night. The child loved her, and told her so, but it wasn't enough to save her.

RIP Precious Angel. I'm so sorry for your fate.

[Nell]

I honestly think these people get off on hurting kids. What other excuse is there for that kind of brutality?

[AussieMum]

OMG She was 2 years old!!!
That's how 2 year olds behave!! They say I love you because they do, not to trick you!!
Poor, poor, sweet darling Riley.
God I hope these scum never leave the grounds of the prison ever again.

[Special2bme]

GALVESTON, Texas — A mother accused of fatally beating her 2-year-old daughter fully participated in the discipline session that led to the toddler's death and never tried to stop it, a police investigator testified Wednesday.

Galveston County Sheriff's Sgt. Michael Barry told jurors that Kimberly Dawn Trenor whipped the toddler, Riley Ann Sawyers, with a belt and helped to repeatedly dunk her head in a bathtub of cold water. Riley died of three skull fractures she received when Trenor's husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, threw the child across the room, authorities said.

Trenor's lawyer has argued that the 20-year-old never intended to kill her daughter and that she was under the influence of her husband, who took the day off from work to have an all-day "discipline" session with Riley to teach her manners.

Barry testified that Trenor, in a long statement to police, never said she was forced to participate. But he also said Zeigler told investigators that Trenor was primarily responsible for Riley's death.

"I wasn't surprised by that," Barry said. "Each person is going to minimize their involvement. Each person is going to point the finger."

Wednesday morning's testimony was less gruesome than what the seven-woman, five-man jury heard on Tuesday, when the horrific details of the daylong discipline session came to light.

"It seemed like it went on and on," Trenor said in a more than four-hour videotaped statement she gave to police that was played during her capital murder trial. "I never meant for what happened to happen."

However, prosecutor Kayla Allen told jurors that Trenor and Zeigler are both responsible for her death when they tried to discipline Riley on July 25, 2007.

"You've got to know ... the result would be death from what they did to her," Allen said.

After Riley was killed, beaten so badly that Trenor said Zeigler complained of it making his shoulder sore, the couple bought a plastic container, partially filled it with cement, stuffed her beaten body inside and stored it in a shed. They tried to bury it in a wooded area north of their home, but when that failed, they dumped it in Galveston Bay in September. Riley was dubbed "Baby Grace" by investigators in October 2007 after they found her remains and worked to identify her.

But the container did not sink, she said. A fisherman found it on a tiny island about a mile from shore the next month.

At the defense table, Trenor teared up as she watched the videotape on a large screen. Several members of the jury of seven women and five men wiped away tears.

Trenor told police she and Riley moved from Mentor, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to Spring, a suburb north of Houston, in June 2007 to be with Zeigler after she met him playing the online video game World of Warcraft.

Trenor said she and Zeigler fabricated a story that Riley had been taken away by officials with Child Protective Services in Ohio to explain her disappearance to relatives.

Trenor said Zeigler tried to commit suicide after Riley's death and wrote a note in which he said she was innocent "of the sins I committed."

The toddler's remains were unidentified for weeks until an Ohio woman named Sheryl Sawyers saw an artist's sketch of the girl, believed it was her granddaughter Riley and called authorities.

Trenor could receive an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. The jury could also convict her of a lesser charge.

Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty against either her or Zeigler, 25, because they didn't think they could prove that the pair would be a future danger, a requirement for such a punishment.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,484509,00.html

[Ninja0980]

They couldn't prove the pair was a future danger?! If they beat and torture a two year old like that, what do you think they'll do to somebody else that ticks them off?

[Bamamomof2girls]

She was such a beautiful little girl. There is plenty of people in this world who would have loved her and been a real mom and protected her. She was a baby and they beat her to death over manners. I hope the first time she dosen't say yes maam to big Bertha she throws her across the jail cell into a wall. There should be laws that women like that cannot continue to breed.

[Special2bme]

GALVESTON, Texas -- Jurors in the trial of a mother accused of beating her 2-year-old daughter to death heard a recitation of a note in which Kim Trenor said she couldn’t live with herself after her child, Riley Ann Sawyers, died.

Galveston County Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Elias Cazares testified that investigators found a notebook containing a note expressing remorse for Riley’s death. Investigators found the note while searching the suburban Houston home of Trenor and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II.

The couple are both charged with capital murder, accused of torturing Riley to death in a daylong discipline session to teach her proper manners. Trenor is being tried this week. Zeigler will be tried later. Riley came to be known as Baby Grace in the weeks after her decomposed remains were found on an island in Galveston Bay.

The note, which prosecutors say Trenor wrote, says, “My heart is black, dead. I can’t live with myself without Riley.”

On Wednesday, jurors heard Trenor’s graphic, videotaped confession in which she detailed Zeigler’s role in Riley’s death.

Zeigler’s lawyers, Neal Davis III and Dee McWilliams, have since said Trenor was lying.

“You’re about to get the real story that will be published sometime soon to the jury,” McWilliams said. “I don’t think there will be any question the only person responsible for the death of Riley Sawyers is Kimberly Trenor. She acted alone.”

Although Trenor said Zeigler called in sick for work that day, Davis maintained his client’s innocence. He declined to discuss whether Zeigler helped dump Sawyers’ body. The men didn’t want to discuss evidence not yet presented by Galveston County District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk, they said.

Trenor blamed Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 25, for throwing 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers to the tile floor of their Spring home. Trenor told police she heard a crack from the first of three blows.

The medical examiner is expected to testify this week that Sawyers died July 25, 2007, of two skull fractures.
http://www.khou.com/news/local/galveston/stories/khou090129_tnt_baby-grace-trenor-liar.150f87cb.html

[Bamamomof2girls]

GALVESTON, Texas — It was a list of nine things that 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers' mother and stepfather wanted to teach the toddler born in Ohio to help her behave better.

The list, called "Rules for Riley," included such things as "being polite," "behaves in public," "toys stay in her room" and "listen to mom & me."

But as the capital murder trial of Riley's mom, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, resumes on Thursday, her attorneys will continue arguing before jurors that a discipline session to teach the child these behaviors spun out of control and their client never intended for her daughter to die as a result.

Galveston County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Elias Cazares testified Wednesday the list was written in a notebook found by authorities in the couple's home after they were arrested for the death of Riley, who police dubbed "Baby Grace." There was space for a 10th item on the list but it was left blank.


That is so sad, she was just a baby. You cannot teach a baby to keep their toys in their room by bouncing their head off walls.

[Unamused Cat]

Here is the grieving *rolls eyes* mom in court today.

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/gg107/snarkyphotos/trenorincourt.jpg
Kimberly Trenor is all smiles in court

[mpratt]

Warning: Kim's Trial, Day 3 ..... a note RZ wrote to his half brother


"As soon as this is done I'm divorcing that pain of a wife of mine," Royce Clyde Zeigler II wrote in a letter that was shown to jurors on Thursday. He sent the letter to his half brother after being arrested. "Also the irony is they have found that my wife is a sociopath and they still hold me on that bs story of hers."



Don't have a link, this is inside information for the trial........ I have much more I will post later, still fuming

[mpratt]

GALVESTON — The mother and stepfather of Riley Ann Sawyers were happy and playful at a company picnic shortly after the 2-year-old’s death, a witness testified today in the capital murder trial of Riley’s mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor.

Trenor, 20, and husband Royce Clyde Zeigler, 25, appeared to be lighthearted at the picnic on Aug. 4, 2007, less than two weeks after Riley died during a brutal disciplinary session, said Zeigler’s co-worker, Angelica Zenon.

“At any time, did these two people look like they were mourning the loss of a 2-year-old child?” Assistant Galveston County District Attorney Kayla Allen asked.

“No,” Zenon answered.

Trenor told investigators that her daughter was beaten to death on July 25, 2007 and her body was stuffed into a plastic box, which was kept in a storage room for two months.

She said Zeigler later tossed the box off a railroad bridge next to the Galveston Causeway. A fisherman discovered Riley’s decomposed body on Oct. 29, 2007, after the box washed up on an island in West Galveston Bay.

Allen showed the jury photos that Zenon took at the picnic, showing Trenor smiling and playfully pulling Zeigler’s baseball cap over his face.

Zenon said she was never friends with Zeigler, even though she shared a cubicle with him at the Emerson Process Management offices in Stafford, where Zeigler worked as a project scheduler.

“I didn’t like him,” Zenon said. “I thought he was creepy.”
She said she heard him speak on the phone to Trenor as many as five times a day.

“Once, he screamed at her for refusing to allow his mother in the house,” Zenon said. “It didn’t feel like he had control over her, because he kept on and on.”

The prosecution is trying to counter the idea put forward by the defense that Trenor was under Zeigler’s control.

Documents introduced into evidence on Thursday indicated that Zeigler wrote a suicide note absolving Trenor in Riley's death.

But the suicide note is contradicted by another letter calling her a sociopath.

“My wife, Kimberly Zeigler, is innocent,” Zeigler wrote. Yet, in a letter to a relative, he wrote, “Kim is lying,” and threatened to divorce her.

The prosecution has not indicated how the letters fit into its strategy.

Trenor, who also wrote a suicide note, told investigators in a videotaped statement that she and Zeigler killed Riley during a daylong ordeal in which the girl was beaten with belts, pushed face-first into a pillow, held under water and hurled onto a tile floor.

FBI handwriting expert Gabriel Watts told the jury of seven women and five men that the suicide notes were in notebooks discovered during a search of the couple’s home in Spring and a rented storage room in Tomball.

The actual writing was not found, but the FBI was able to lift the notes from impressions made by a pen as it pressed against the notebook paper, Watts said.

Trenor’s signed suicide note reads, “My heart is black dead. I can’t live with myself after Riley.”

Zeigler’s signed suicide note leaves everything to Trenor, who, it says, lived in fear of him. The note also says, “Also, my family can go burn in hell” for the “stress they have caused.”

Calls wife a sociopath
But a letter written to a relative reads, in part, “The story told on TV is all a lie,” referring to information in statements given to Galveston County sheriff’s investigators by Trenor.

In the letter, he threatens to divorce Trenor and said, “They have found that she is a sociopath.”

Trenor told investigators that Zeigler had attempted suicide by taking an overdose of blood pressure pills. “He would rather kill himself than go to jail,” she said.

She told them that she attempted suicide by taking sleeping pills.

Trenor also told investigators that when Zeigler learned she had told her attorney that Riley was Baby Grace, he put a pistol in her hand and pushed it into his chest, then asked her to pull the trigger.

Suicide note
Zeigler’s attorneys, Neal Davis III and Dee McWilliams of Houston, who were in the courtroom, said Trenor pressured their client into writing the suicide note.

Defense attorney Tommy Stickler Jr. of Alvin has portrayed Trenor as under Zeigler’s influence, an impression Trenor also gave in her 3 1/2-hour videotaped statement.

Trenor sobbed Wednesday when the tiny shirt, dress and tennis shoes found on Riley’s body were shown to the jury.

The clothing, which had been on Riley’s decomposing body for several months, was stained a dark brown.
Zeigler will be tried separately for capital murder, but no trial date has been set.



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6235840.html

[mpratt]

Both Grandma's (Royce's Mom & Sheryl Sawyers) testified against both of them... NOW SEE THAT IS WHAT A REAL MOTHER IS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mpratt]

GALVESTON, Texas — A man accused of joining his wife in the beating death of his two-year-old stepdaughter has repeatedly refused to answer questions from his wife's lawyers in her capital murder trial.

Outside the jury's presence, attorneys for Kimberly Dawn Trenor asked Royce Clyde Zeigler II three questions: whether he had stated in a note that his wife was innocent, whether he had told police he was asleep during the daylong attack and whether he told a relative that he was just like his father, who family members say hit his wives.

But each time, Zeigler invoked his 5th Amendment right not to incrimnate himself,

State District Judge David Garner ended the questioning, saying that it was obvious Zeigler wouldn't answer any questions.

Zeigler was to be the first defense witness on Monday. Earlier, the prosecution ended its case in the death of the girl who came to be known as Baby Grace until her remains were identified.


http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa090202_wz_babygrace.1119b37d.html

[tutkill]

That is such a honorable headstone for such a pretty little girl. One of my daughters is named Riley. This breaks my heart-I just had to hug my Riley and cry for the other Riley.

[tutkill]

A mother was convicted Monday of capital murder in the beating death of her 2-year-old daughter during a daylong discipline session in which the toddler was whipped with belts and flung across a room like a rag doll.

A jury deliberated less than two hours before convicting 20-year-old Kimberly Dawn Trenor in the death of Riley Ann Sawyers. Trenor did not seem to show any emotion after the verdict was read. The conviction brought an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. Jurors could have also convicted her of two lesser charges.

"Justice has been served today. Today it's about Riley. We were in that courtroom for Riley," Galveston County District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said after the verdict.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

automatic sentence of life in prison without parole
Just wanted to say it again.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

[...]
During closing arguments, prosecutors described Tenor as a liar who kept hitting the girl as the child pleaded for mercy. Earlier testimony showed Riley Ann told Trenor she loved her, in an apparent effort to stop the brutal beating.
[...]
Many of those investigators were in the courtroom Monday and they cried as the verdict was read.

“We all made a promise to that little girl ... that we would find the people responsible for her death and bring them to justice and we did,” said Galveston County Sheriff’s Sgt. Michael Barry, who right after the verdict was read left the courtroom and raised his fist in victory.
[...]
The jury foreman, Randall Rothschild, said jurors came back with a verdict fairly quickly because they felt the case was “pretty cut and dried.”

“It’s an emotional trial because of the victim,” Rothschild said as his eyes became teary. “That was hard to set aside (emotions) and stick to the facts. But we did and justice is served.”
[...]http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou090202_tnt_baby-grace-monday.1016c366.html

[nurseronda]

'Baby Grace' Mom Found Guilty of Capital Murder


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,487048,00.html

[chatdenuit]

Reading this just makes me want to go snuggle with my baby! Poor little Riley! I'm glad that mother is behind bars and won't be having any more babies!!!

[DrSmith]

Jury Selection Begins For Stepfather Of “Baby Grace”

Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday in the capital murder trial of the stepfather of a toddler whose remains were found in a container that washed ashore on an island in Galveston Bay two years ago.

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/66384307.html

GALVESTON (October 27, 2009)—Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday in Galveston in the capital murder trial of the stepfather of a toddler whom authorities named "Baby Grace" after her unidentified remains were discovered in 2007.

Royce Clyde Zeigler II of Spring and his wife Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 21, were both arrested and charged in the death of the abused toddler, who was killed during what prosecutors said was a violent discipline session.

In February, Trenor was convicted of capital murder in her daughter’s death and sentenced to life in prison.

The body of the 2-year-old girl, later identified as Riley Ann Sawyers, was discovered in October 2007 in a plastic box on an island in Galveston Bay.

News accounts of the search for the battered toddler’s identity eventually led to the discovery of some of her relatives in Mentor, Ohio.

They helped to identify the child.

Also a large article here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ike/galveston/6687398.html

from article:
"Trenor gave a videotaped statement to investigators that was used to convict her, saying Zeigler stayed home from work July 25, 2007, to make sure that Riley was properly disciplined.
An all-day disciplinary session that included whipping Riley with a belt, holding her head under bath water, pushing her face into a pillow and hurling her repeatedly onto a tile floor ended in her death, Trenor said. The medical examiner testified any one of three cracks found in her skull could have been fatal."

He missed work to stay home and beat a toddler?? WTF! I hope he rots in prison

[badfish76]

Thanks for posting an update on this. I have been waiting for round 2 of this fight for awhile now!

These "people" make me absolutely sick to do this to that beautiful baby! In one of her pictures she has on a shirt just like one my daughter had and outgrew.

They are both equally guilty. I think they both hurt her that day and I think Kimberly was a willing accomplice. 2 year olds are hellions but they are also precious and still babies! They are going to act that way!

It is a damn shame that they couldn't log out of WoW long enough to research what behavior is expected of a child that age!

My daughter is gonna be 5 Sunday and she never said (nor was she expected to say) "yes, sir" until she started taekwondo classes because it is more formal than at home! The really funny and cute part is she salutes the instructor every time she says it!! Shit, she even forgets to say please and thank you sometimes but I remind her and she says it and then we go on!

If I could be alone with either one of these things that have taken on human form I would just find myself going along with doing terrible things to them! I bet mom had been hitting this kid for awhile just not to this extreme. As he escalated the abuse that day she went along with it because she didn't know he wouldn't care how bad she beat the baby till she saw him doing it. Then it was okay for her to join in, in her mind. OH FUCKING SICK!!!!

I could go on and on about this case! It makes me so MAD and SAD!! I just can't wait to hear what kind of B.S. his defense tries to put on and I also can't wait for him to get his life without parole. Riley didn't get a second chance so fuck the both of them!

[biteme]

Jury Selection Begins For Stepfather Of “Baby Grace”



Also a large article here:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ike/galveston/6687398.html

from article:
"Trenor gave a videotaped statement to investigators that was used to convict her, saying Zeigler stayed home from work July 25, 2007, to make sure that Riley was properly disciplined.
An all-day disciplinary session that included whipping Riley with a belt, holding her head under bath water, pushing her face into a pillow and hurling her repeatedly onto a tile floor ended in her death, Trenor said. The medical examiner testified any one of three cracks found in her skull could have been fatal."

He missed work to stay home and beat a toddler?? WTF! I hope he rots in prison

Yeah! What a man, no one could ever get me to believe these sewer scum did not enjoy beating this child, these two things are sick sadist and enjoyed themselves by torturing, beating and killing this poor child, I sure hope there's a hell. Things like these deserve to suffer for eternity.

[ScribbleMuse]

My daughter's name is Rylie. I just came to sit down at the computer after fussing at her for not doing her chores and I'm trying not to cry in front of her now--she knows of the evil possible in the world but I do not want her to know details of this.

I've sometimes had problems sticking to my faith, and even though stories like this turn others totally away from religion, it helps bolster my faith. There is absolutely no punishment on earth that would cover these people and their stained existence and what they've done to such a beautiful child. Nothing I can even attempt to imagine makes me feel that justice would truly be satisfied. So therefore I have to believe in God, and know that He is outraged and hates this evil also, and that Hell will punish them with worse ways than I can ever imagine. My religion does not teaches me that I should not wish people to hell, but I will have to willingly sin with full knowledge of doing so, because I want these people to burn for eternity in never-ending agony--hopefully along side the other evil spawn who torture the most helpless and innocent, whether the the victims be an hour old or 100 years old.

[Roy]

If the selfish bitch let the father have custody the child, she would still be alive. These scumbags deserve worse than hell :angry: Someone get me a gun, i'll kill them myself.

[donegaveup]

I hope every night when this soul-less bitch lays herself down on the hard prison cot she dares not to close her eyes for fear of what the other inmates may do to her while she sleeps. I hope that if she does fall asleep the spirits of murdered children visit her, screaming and howling until she is forced awake, drowning in her own fear. I hope she begins to hallucinate from lack of sleep and sees the walls of her cell come alive with the sights and sounds of tortured children. Lastly, I hope she is in a tiered prison and that some extra large female inmate throws her off the highest tier to teach her some manners. I hope she lives through it though, only so these things can keep happening to her, again, and again and again. Putting her through the same agony, torture and fear that little Riley went through would be true justice in this case.

[badfish76]

GALVESTON, Texas — A man accused of murdering his 2-year-old stepdaughter put her body in the trash and dumped in it the Galveston Bay — but he didn't kill her, his lawyer told jurors on Wednesday.

Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 26, is charged with capital murder in the death 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, whose body was discovered in a plastic box on an island in the bay in 2007.

Before her remains were identified, Riley was called "Baby Grace" until news accounts helped relatives in Ohio recognize and identify her.

Zeigler's wife and Riley's mother, 21-year-old Kimberly Dawn Trenor, in February was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors allege that the couple beat the child and threw her to a tile floor, which fractured her skull.

During Wednesday's opening statements, defense attorney Neal Davis III said his client walked into the family's home in Spring, a Houston suburb, to find his wife with her unconscious child in July 2007.

"He put her in a trash bag and in another container and put it in the bay," Davis told jurors.

"There is not one iota of evidence that Royce Zeigler knowingly, intentionally or in any way caused the death of Riley Sawyers," Davis said. "He is not only not guilty, he is innocent."

But Galveston County prosecutor Kayla Allen told jurors that Zeigler lied repeatedly to investigators, giving them conflicting statements on the girl's death.

"Royce Clyde Zeigler and Kimberly lied to everyone they could lie to," Allen said. "They lied to their family, co-workers and police over and over."

Prosecutors showed the Galveston County jury, made up of nine men and three women, video of Zeigler admitting to dumping the child's body in Galveston Bay, the Galveston County Daily News reported.

After their arrests, Trenor and Zeigler offered contradictory statements. Trenor said in a videotaped statement that Zeigler stayed home from work July 25, 2007, to make sure Riley was properly disciplined. She said she and Zeigler beat Riley with a belt, held her head under bath water and smothered her with a pillow.

Zeigler, in his first interview, said Riley disappeared after an Ohio welfare worker snatched her from his home. He abandoned the story in his second interview. Asked repeatedly during the first interview if Riley was Baby Grace, Zeigler said, "I swear to God I do not know that." In his second interview, he acknowledged that Riley was Baby Grace.

An autopsy determined that the child died of two skull fractures. Prosecutors have said Trenor and Zeigler beat Riley with belts, dunked her head in cold bath water and threw her onto a tile floor, fracturing her skull and causing her death.

"You'll see at the end of the trial Royce Zeigler is full of nothing but lies, and that he and his wife murdered Riley Ann Sawyers," Allen said.

As with Trenor, Galveston County prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty for Zeigler.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570225,00.html?test=latestnews

Suuuuure.

[scorpiogirl]

http://salem-news.com/stimg/november262007/riley_sawyers310.jpg

Rest in peace beautiful child. I'm so sorry they treated you so badly.

[skeptik]

What a little cherub she was. I so desperately want a little girl. How can you expect a two year old to even comprehend what they demanded of her? A two year old is a BABY. Innocent creatures are not to be "broken." I swear to Gawd they need to hand out "Don't Shoot the Dog" in the medicaid office. So many things can be taught through the use of positive reinforcement. All punishing someone or something does is erode trust, if you ask my crazy ass.

I want to curb her mother and that filthy fucking stepfather. How's that for some breaking? I want to hear her teeth break off on the concrete.

[Echo]

Why? Just why? I will never understand.

Those two are monsters. If I have EVER read a death penalty case. This is it.

[badfish76]

At least the shitbag mother admitted her part in it unlike the male creature in this case.

[Echo]

At least the shitbag mother admitted her part in it unlike the male creature in this case.

I really want them to die.(I am anti-dp) They don't deserve to live. That is one of the worst cases I have ever read about. I cried and I don't cry easily. Thinking of that little angel trying to stop the beating by telling her mother "I love you" makes me crazy.

It seriously makes me want to beat the ever loving shit out of that woman.

[ScribbleMuse]

"He put her in a trash bag and in another container and put it in the bay," Davis told jurors.

"There is not one iota of evidence that Royce Zeigler knowingly, intentionally or in any way caused the death of Riley Sawyers," Davis said. "He is not only not guilty, he is innocent."

This thing that calls himself a lawyer is subhuman also. I understand the need for defense attorneys, so I don't immediately consider them all scum. However, the ones who spin this bullshit make me sick and I wish that there was some code or law that barred such bull from being used in any case... Admitting this thing did everything BUT the final action that took Riley's life? Saying that sure he beat the shit out of her every day, threw her, tried drowning her, etc, but he never "knowingly or intentionally" caused her death? Admitting that he took this child's body and put it in a bag and plastic tote, and dumped it like trash--after ruining this child and destroying her. They admit that he at least knew of and allowed/did not stop abuse--even if he did not kill Riley directly, if he knew she was abused then he did knowingly allow her to die, but that's not even a possible defense because this motherfucker has already been proven to have beaten and actively participate in Riley's prolonged torture murder.

I don't even see how people even consider saying these things, much less carrying out and entering them into public record and think that they're a possible defense. Fucking idiots, and I'm glad that they're so stupid because I have to be confident that the jury will realize how ridiculous this "defense" is and sentence him even harder for having the balls to agree with the decision to say "yes, I beat her, tortured her, planned torture that I directed her mother to do, hit her until my arm ached, and then beat her some more because my arm ached, and then I bought a plastic cheap tote, threw her body in there, and let her rot a couple months. After that, we took the tote out to some lake and dumped her in. However, I did not kill her! I'm innocent!"

I hope he burns. I hope that they are only allowed enough protection in prison to make sure they're not killed and instead must be saved from every beating before death, healed in a substandard infirmary, and be returned to the GP again and again.

This is only the latest example of a defense that seems to consider valid innocence if someone beats the crap out of someone else, even if that person is less than 3 feet tall and 20 pounds, and the perp is a 6+ feet tall 200+ pound man. It's not even reasonable to say that anyone would NOT know or understand that stomping, throwing, beating, drowning, slapping, kicking, or starving a child would cause death. I can't even swallow because I'm so angry at the fucking NERVE to say this jackass is innocent because he did not actually have his hands on her body as she took her last breath.

[MadeaBecBec]

And testified this morning!
The container was found Oct. 29, 2007, by fisherman Robert Spinn of Bayou Vista.

Spinn told the jury Thursday he was fishing for flounder when he happened upon an island just southwest of Harborwalk Marina in Hitchcock.

Using a beam of light to navigate his boat, he saw an overturned, blue, plastic container that had apparently washed up on the island. Spinn rolled it over and heard a thud.

Spinn used pliers to open the bags. He said he knew something inside was dead.

“I felt around with my hands until I felt something hard,” Spinn said. “I opened up the other end of the bag and there happened to be a shoe.”

Spinn called his wife and then 911. Investigators spent the next 26 days trying to learn the name of the girl they called Baby Grace.

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=b9da79e828cbb722

I cry, everytime I hear Rileys name, or any Rileys name, I think of her and her precious sweetness and in her dying breath,Riley whispered " I love you" Oh! I'm bawling now.... So sorry Riley Sawyers, so very sorry!

[buggysmommy]

I cry practically every time my daughter says "I yuv you, Mommy"

How this woman could not have fallen to her knees and scooped that baby up after she reached out for her, is beyond my reach. I can't even fathom the idea of my baby crying in pain-from pain that was inflicted in front of my face or even by me. I get physically ill even trying to imagine it...

I hate these people in the most heinous of ways...I wish nothing but death upon them...

[donegaveup]

Seeing the picture of Riley makes this story worse. She was a cherub, a sweet faced little angel who was born into a hell that no living being should ever have to endure, except of course those who commit such acts themselves.

I reckon a belt should be fastened around Zeigler's neck and he should be drug into court like that every morning. You know to "break him." They might get to the truth that way. A video of that would be lovely and I would watch it over and over. Hell, I'd enjoy seeing that so much I'd have a fucking orgasam.

[BreakTheSilence]

The worst torture anyone could come up with would be too good for these animals. That precious girl was born into a life of suffering, misery and an egg donor who didn't value to the gift she was given. May she and this jackass Ziegler suffer a beating a day as long as they both live. They're nothing but wastes of human skin and oxygen.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Baby Grace’s stepfather, in a suicide note authorities said was penned in his handwriting, claims his wife’s innocence and that he is guilty of past sins, testimony in his capital murder trial revealed Tuesday.

Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 26, who is accused in the July 25, 2007, killing of his 2-year-old stepdaughter Riley Ann Sawyers, wrote the suicide note and then took several pills one week before his arrest in November 2007.

Zeigler’s note doesn’t say what he is guilty of or what his wife is innocent of. His defense team claims the letter is not an admission of guilt in Sawyers’ death and yet another attempt by him to protect his wife, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 21.
[...]

Two suicide notes were lifted from impressions on underlying pages of a notebook, Watts, a forensic document examiner, said. Investigators found the notebook in the couple’s bedroom.

The whereabouts of the original suicide notes are unknown, but Watts lifted impressions from underlying pages of the notebook using technology at an FBI lab, he testified.
[...]

“I take my own life because of guilt for past sins … which I have confessed before I took my life,” Zeigler wrote. “My wife Kimberly Zeigler is innocent … lived in fear with because of what I would do to her.”

Some words were difficult, if not impossible to read, because of the difficulty of lifting impressions from underlying pages, the FBI expert said.

Zeigler also wrote that his family could “go burn in hell for their stress they have caused, so I … take my own life.”

The FBI also lifted Trenor’s suicide note, however the defense believes she made no attempt on her life.

“My heart is black dead,” Trenor wrote. “There is nothing left. I can’t live with myself after Riley.”

Watts also testified the couple wrote together “Rules for Riley,” a series of nine disciplinary measures intended to teach the toddler to be polite, to go to bed at a certain hour and to pick up her toys.
[...]http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=508cffeb73081968

[Bay]

Fuck him and his pathetic suicide attempt.

[this is going badly]

Fuck him and his pathetic suicide attempt.

Why is it that these baby killers never seem to be able to kill themselves? "Attempted suicide"? To scared of the pain? What candy ass, chicken shit losers.

[ScribbleMuse]

Yup. Not man enough to truly kill any adult, even themselves. But they have no problems brutally beating babies to death, especially since those babies have no choice but to stand with wide open arms, saying that they love their abusers... and the really shitty part? It's a true love, not just an understandable way to survive, but they truly and openly love these fucks.

I want these two to die and can't help using the cliche that a quick death is way too good though.

[badfish76]

Jury: Zeigler guilty of killing Baby Grace

By Chris Paschenko
The Daily News

Published November 6, 2009
A jury Friday found Royce Clyde Zeigler II guilty of capital murder in the death of 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, the toddler who became known to world as Baby Grace.

A jury of nine men and three women deliberated four hours and 15 minutes before reaching the unanimous verdict.

Barring a successful automatic appeal, Zeigler, 26, will spend the rest of his life in prison.

The jury in Judge David Garner’s 10th District Court began at 11:15 a.m. Friday deliberating Zeigler’s fate.

Lack of evidence?

In closing arguments, defense attorneys said no evidence connected Zigler to the toddler’s death. His attorneys asked the jury to acquit him of capital murder.

Prosecutors, however, asked the jurors to use “common sense” when considering all the facts and to convict Zeigler of capital murder in the July 25, 2007 murder.

Zeigler and his wife, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 21, disposed of as much evidence as possible to distance themselves from Sawyers’ murder, Galveston County Criminal District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said.

Trenor was convicted Feb. 2 of capital murder and sentenced to life without parole for killing her daughter. Sawyers died of injuries from three skull fractures, testimony revealed. Sistrunk said the injuries occurred during a daylong disciplinary session that went bad.

List of lies

Sistrunk gave the jury a list of lies told by Zeigler to friends, family and co-workers, which the jury heard during eight days of testimony.

Nellie Zeigler, Royce Zeigler’s mother, last saw Sawyers July 23, 2007, and when she asked about the toddler, the couple first told relatives that Sawyers was with a friend. They then presented a fake Ohio child protective services letter saying the agency took Sawyers.

“The worst of all was that grandmother Sheryl Sawyers paid somebody to come kidnap her,” Sistrunk said.

Zeigler admitted to authorities he stored Sawyers’ body in a box in his carport for weeks and then dumped her body in Galveston Bay. A fisherman found her decomposed body Oct. 29, 2007, and sheriff’s investigators called the girl Baby Grace until learning her identity 26 days later.

“They’re asking you to put this kid in jail for the rest of his life,” Dena Fisher, one of Zeigler’s defense attorneys, said. “They’ve got evidence of tampering with evidence but don’t have the smoking gun.”

The killer had already been tried and convicted of capital murder and was sitting in prison, said Dee McWilliams, another of Zeigler’s attorneys, in reference to Trenor.

‘I had my beliefs’

McWilliams showed the jury a transcript of his questioning of FBI Special Agent Don C. Gay, who was present during a videotaped interview with Zeigler.

“I had my beliefs,” Gay told McWilliams of whether he knew if Zeigler killed Sawyers.

McWilliams then asked Gay if he had evidence that linked Zeigler to the crime.

“At that point, no,” Gay answered.

12 pounds of ‘rotting flesh’

Sistrunk blamed the lack of evidence on Zeigler and Trenor.

“This defendant and his wife left us a bucket and rotting flesh,” Sistrunk said. “Twelve pounds of it.”

“It’s what murderers do,” Sistrunk said of disposing evidence. “It’s what killers do.”

http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=c17e2e35c07b6422

Too bad they didn't both get the death penalty!

RIP Riley. You now have all the justice this world can give you.

[ineedanap]

Sistrunk said the injuries occurred during a daylong disciplinary session that went bad.

As if a day long disciplinary session could have a positive outcome???!!!

I can't wrap my mind around it. I am sick thinking of it. Poor Riley. Begging for her life to her MOTHER. She was 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[badfish76]

It is a sick and sad thing that happened to that beautiful baby.

I just wanted to let you all know that he got his life in prison. Only took the jurors 4 hours and 15 min. too.

My hope is that he is put in PC with the boys that are dropping out of gangs and that they go OG on his ass.

[Chaindrive]

She was a beautiful baby; she would have been a beautiful teen, and then a beautiful woman.

Fuck this shit.