Baby Grace beaten to death with belt by mother and stepfather

When a sketch of the child was released by police, Riley's grandmother called Galveston police as she had not seen her granddaughter in several months. The child’s mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, and stepfather, Royce Zeigler, were arrested Saturday on charges of injury to a child and tampering with physical evidence. Trenor left Ohio in May to be with Zeigler. She and Riley’s father, Robert Sawyers, had agreed he would have visitation rights.

Police say Trenor has admitted she and Ziegler beat the 2-year-old with a leather belt, picked her up by her hair and threw her across the room. She also said they held Riley underwater in the bathtub.  

Trenor said after Riley died, she and Zeigler went to Wal-Mart and bought the plastic storage container, a shovel, concrete mix and other supplies. They put the child in the container and left it in a storage shed for nearly two months before dumping it in the Galveston Causeway.

Police say Riley “gave a voluntary statement on video with her attorney present in which she describes her involvement, with Royce Zeigler, in the physical abuse, death and disposal of the remains of her daughter, Riley Ann Sawyers.”

Riley’s body washed ashore in Galveston Bay on October 29. A fisherman found her body after opening the plastic storage container. Police named her Baby Grace after being unable to identify her. They released a sketch of Baby Grace hoping the public could help identify her.

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