J'sCochins
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Identify Baby GraceI got an email from Birdhill asking me to post this and I was happy to do it.
I just converted the file to a jpg.
Hope she is identified soon. God Bless her.
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judymae
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Me too. This is horrible.
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Cheri
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I posted a thread about this in the hope faith joy forum. They are having a memorial for her.
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judymae
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I just heard on the news that they have arrested baby Grace's mother and stepfather for her murder. They haven't given much info on it yet. I will update if I see more.
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judymae
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Her name was Riley Ann. They are from Spring, Tx. The parents said they didn't have custody of her that Child protective services had previously taken her away from them.
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Cheri
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Yeah when I heard that mom's story, something didn't jell.
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Cheri
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Mom of girl who may be Baby Grace arrested
By HARVEY RICE
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
RESOURCES
Officials believe they've identified Baby Grace GALVESTON — Nearly a month after the body of a little girl was discovered in a plastic box on a sand bar in West Galveston Bay, authorities investigating the case known as "Baby Grace" have arrested the mother of a 2-year-old Spring girl reported missing and the woman's husband.
Investigators on Sunday tentatively identified Baby Grace as Riley Ann Sawyers. A positive identification is pending DNA analysis, according to a statement from Galveston County Sheriff's spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo.
The girl's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24, both of Spring, are charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence. Both were being held in the Galveston County Jail on $350,000 bail after their arrests Saturday.
A Nov. 7 tip led investigators to the couple's home, which was searched, the statement said. Sheriff's detectives and FBI agents were interviewing people Sunday as part of the investigation.
"There is still a tremendous amount of investigation that needs to be done," Tuttoilmondo said.
Riley was one of eight missing children whose families were asked to provide DNA samples last week.
Riley's father, Robert Sawyers, of Painesville, Ohio, gave DNA samples Wednesday that will be compared with Baby Grace's DNA. Tuttoilmondo declined to say whether Trenor gave DNA samples.
Baby Grace's DNA results were expected to be ready early this week, but it will take two to three weeks to analyze the samples from Sawyers, Tuttoilmondo has said.
Kimberly Trenor's father, Randolph Trenor of Mentor, Ohio, doubted that his daughter could have harmed her child. "She's not the type of person who would do something like that," Trenor said Sunday.
A relative at the Mentor, Ohio, home of Riley's grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, said that the family had been advised by the FBI not to speak with the media and referred all questions to an attorney, who did not immediately return calls. Robert Sawyers also did not immediately return phone calls Sunday.
Called after seeing sketch
In an interview last week, Sheryl Sawyers, 47, said she phoned investigators after seeing an artist's sketch of Baby Grace on the Internet soon after the body was discovered by a fisherman Oct. 29.
Kimberly Trenor told investigators that an Ohio protective services official had taken the child, according to Sheryl Sawyers. The grandmother said she did not believe that an Ohio official would travel to Texas, where they have no jurisdiction.
Texas CPS spokeswoman Gwen Carter said the agency has no records of any interaction with Trenor, Zeigler or any complaints regarding their address.
"But it sounds like the child disappeared just after moving here, and we don't believe that there are any other children in the family," Carter said.
Sheryl Sawyers said she last saw Trenor on June 6 at an Ohio hearing to enforce visitation rights for her son. They were unaware then that Trenor had married Zeigler on June 1 and moved to Texas.
Trenor, who turned 19 in August, was 16 when she gave birth to Riley and moved in with the Sawyers. "I treated her like my daughter," Sheryl Sawyers said.
Trenor was 18 when she and Riley moved out of the Sawyerses' house in May this year, Sheryl Sawyers said.
Internet romance
After moving out, Trenor met Zeigler on the Internet while playing an online game, World of Warcraft, Sheryl Sawyers said. They spoke for hours on the phone and Zeigler sent her a diamond necklace.
Zeigler told her he was a Shell Oil project manager who traveled around the country, according to Sheryl Sawyers.
Sheryl Sawyers disapproved of the Internet romance, causing a rift in her relationship with Trenor. "I said, if you want to be foolish with your own life, that's one thing, but think about your 2-year-old daughter."
A court order prevented Trenor and Robert Sawyers from being together, Sheryl Sawyers said, so she was designated to pick up Riley on her son's visitation days. She said Trenor never made Riley available for visitation.
The Sawyerses discovered through their attorney in July that Riley's mother was living in Texas.
After Baby Grace's body was discovered last month, Sheryl Sawyers saw an artist's rendering on the Internet and phoned the Galveston County Sheriff's Office.
"Could somebody go check to see that she's OK?" Sawyers asked. "Then I get the call saying that she says she doesn't have the baby."
In the Woodbriar subdivision where Trenor and Zeigler briefly lived, Orville Orr recalls when he welcomed the couple and offered to help unload their things.
They thanked him, but otherwise said very little, the 77-year-old said Sunday. Right away he noticed the curly-haired little girl and told them: "That's a mighty cute little girl."
She smiled at him, he said, then took a few steps toward him, stopped and then ran back beside her mother.
In the months that followed, Orr and his wife, Faye, rarely saw the couple or the little girl, they said. Nor did they ever see her play outside her patio home, across the street on a cul de sac in the 6800 block of Enns.
The next time Orr laid eyes on her was when her photograph was broadcast in news reports beside the composite sketch of Baby Grace.
"That's the little girl," he told his wife.
Emotional response
Now he can't make sense of the news that his little neighbor could be Baby Grace. "I'm just devastated," Orr said.
The FBI last week offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to Baby Grace's identity. Normally rewards are only offered for information leading to arrest and conviction.
The story of Baby Grace tugged at the hearts of law enforcement officers and the community. Texas EquuSearch erected a 4-foot wooden cross Nov. 4 near the site where the body was found, bearing the words, "In loving memory of Baby Grace."
Staff reporters Rosanna Ruiz and Jennifer Leahy contributed
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judymae
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Isn't this just horrible? I'm glad that they have hopefully found the parents. We will just have to wait and see. Sounds like they are guilty to me though.
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judymae
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As of today the news says that Riley Anns mother and stepfather have admitted to killing her. So sad.
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Cheri
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Yes and wouldn't you know that the media published how they killed her. Death sentence is too good for these animals.
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judymae
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There are some things that we shouldn't hear. It is horrible.
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Cheri
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Yep yep
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