Op-Ed: The case of Riley Ann Sawyers is not over

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This case was brought to the attention of the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office, TX., October 29, 2007 when a (pdf file) fisherman reported that he found human remains in a storage container on a remote island near the West Bay area.

Officers responding to the report indeed did find the remains of a small female child. A (pdf file) preliminary autopsy found she was about 2-3 years old from dental records and that she had three skull fractures but they did not confirm her cause of death.

A police forensic artist was called in to sketch what the little girl may have looked like along with what she had been wearing when she was found. These sketches and her general description with the clothing and shoes was then released to the public in an effort to help the authorities identify her.

Many people stepped forward after seeing the heartfelt press releases that Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo of the GCSO issued regarding this case. Some of his comments are shown on the Baby Grace website.

I don’t often make an appeal of emotion, choosing to stick with the facts of cases as we should. However, a case such as this draws out emotions in all that touch it – even us cynical old cops. I ask that you “buck the system” and include the emotions you, like me, are experiencing in looking at this case as a parent, a child, one who has children as part of your life, or just as a human being. The emotion in this case is strong – likely stronger than many I’ve seen in my 20+ years in this business, and we need your help to make this case break.

You must admit this case tugs at your heartstrings, just like it does mine. I hide behind the facade of the stoic cop – and you behind your “just the facts” media approach. It’s going to take more than “just the facts” to make this one work, and I appeal to your sense of humanity to give this case a face – and a heart.

This Baby Grace website is just one of the many that was created to help pass the information along the web to as many people as was possible to help find her identity and what happened to her.

A woman named Sheryl Sawyers of Ohio saw the artist rendition of the child on the Internet and was struck with how much the child looked like her very own granddaughter whom she had not seen or had contact with since June 6 in an Ohio courtroom while she and her son, Riley's father, Robert Sawyers, were trying to get his visitation rights enforced.

Soon thereafter the mother, Kimberly Trenor, moved to Spring, TX., to be with her new husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler, whom she had married June 1, 2007 after they met on the Internet.

Sheryl was moved to contact the Galveston Sheriff's Department to ask that her granddaughter be checked on and then she received the frightening news her granddaughter was not to be found as reported on chron.com

"Could somebody go check to see that she's OK?" she asked. "Then I get the call saying that she says she doesn't have the baby."

Kimberly Trenor told the police when they arrived to check on the child's welfare an elaborate story that her daughter had been taken away from her in July by a protective services official from Ohio.

She then went so far as to having her attorney give the police a document that was supposed to have been of a child welfare removal order stating that Riley was removed from the home due to accusations of sexual abuse by her new stepfather Royce Ziegler.

Kimberly's initial story was found to be false along with the documents. She has admitted to writing out the false order on a spiral notebook that was later found in the home, before writing it up and printing it out on her husbands home computer. Though she also now says she was coerced by her husband to write this false document.

The mother, Kimberly Trenor is know known to have submitted her version of the death of little Riley Ann in a statement to police. This supposed co-operation came, of course, after initial lies and deception was uncovered.

Her statement indicated Trenor participated in the cruel torture of her own child and lying about it since July 24, the day she says her daughter died as a result of abuse and torture.

As CNN reports, "Before dying, 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers was beaten with belts, picked up by her hair, thrown across the room and held under water, according to an affidavit from the Galveston County Sheriff's Office."

So we are now to totally believe her side of the story? That her new husband was the one who threw the child, and that was what finally killed the her? This coming after she admitted her part in the beating of her own child with a belt as well as holding her head underwater. Then after, she reportedly went shopping with her husband to get supplies to dispose of the body.

What part of Trenor 's story is just more elaborate lies? Is it the part where supposedly it was the husband who threw her child? Or is it the part where the husband, Royce Zeigler, was supposed to give Riley pain medication for her injuries but instead, as Kimberly says, he tried to kill himself?

The police have the job of sifting through these stories to find the truth of the matter but so far only one side has been told -- the mother's.

Does the husband have his own version of these events? If so, they have not been released and we have only heard from a mother who has been shown to be a deceptive liar already.

Are we to somehow feel sympathy for either of these people? I personally don't think so, as a child has died after being tortured and my only hope is that those guilty pay for their crimes to the fullest extent of the law.

Baby Grace can now be buried under her true name, Riley Ann Sawyers. She can be mourned by those who loved her and by the many whose lives she touched.

For now though, the case is not over, instead a new stage begins -- finding justice.

Note: this story had been edited with more information added.