Jane Devin

Acting on a tip from her paternal grandmother, the identity of “Baby Grace”, whose body was discovered in a storage bin that washed up on the shores of Galveston Bay last month, has now been positively identified as two year old Riley Ann Sawyers, formerly of Cleveland, Ohio.

In a disturbing affidavit, Riley’s mother, Kimberly Trenor details how she and boyfriend Royce Zeigler tortured and killed her child on July 24, 2007, and then went shopping at Walmart to buy items needed to hide the murdered girl, including bleach, garbage bags, cement, a shovel and a storage bin. The couple kept Riley’s body in their garage for “one or two months” before deciding to throw the bin containing the child’s corpse into the Galveston Causeway.  The bin containing Riley’s body was discovered on October 29th by a local fisherman.

Both Zeigler and Trenor are in custody in Galveston County, with bail set at $100,000 and $250,000 respectively. In an apparent suicide attempt before his arrest, Zeigler left a note exonerating Trenor of any wrongdoing, saying “My wife is innocent of the sins I committed.” (A legal marriage between Trenor and Zeigler has not yet been verified).

According to the affidavit, it was Zeigler’s idea to forge a document from the State of Ohio’s social services department which would accuse him of sexually abusing Riley Sawyers, resulting in the mother’s lost custody. Trenor manufactured the document from Zeigler’s laptop computer, using it to explain Riley’s disappearance to family and then Texas officials. The story was quickly proven false and Trenor, who was represented during questioning by an attorney, finally confessed.

LINKS:

Probable Cause Affadavit for Kimberly Dawn Trenor

CNN NEWS STORY