Baby Grace
The remains were positively identified through DNA testing on November 30, 2007.
Home life of parents
Riley's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, a tenth grade student at Mentor High School, became pregnant with Riley at age 16. Trenor, Sawyers and Riley had lived with Sawyers' mother Sheryl and her mother.
It was also during this time that Robert developed another relationship with a woman named Catherine Priester. The two would later marry and have a son together.
Later, in October 2006, alleging abuse and having filed domestic violence charges Trenor left with her daughter and "disappeared". Trenor had left Ohio for the Spring area in Harris County, Texas, to marry Royce Clyde Zeigler, II.
The two had met on the online game World of Warcraft, and they married on June 1, 2007 in Texas. Zeigler believed Riley should be disciplined to say "Sir" and "Ma'am", and that corporal punishment was the only effective method.
Believing that Trenor was not properly administering the beatings herself, Zeigler took over.
Death
According to a videotaped confession and signed affidavit from Trenor, on July 24, 2007, she and Zeigler beat Riley with two leather belts and held her head underwater in the bathtub. She also said Zeigler picked her daughter up by her hair, threw her across the room, which caused her to slam her head into the tile floor. Finally Riley, black and blue from the beating, was unable to stand when ordered to do so.
When they realized Riley was dead, Trenor and Zeigler went to Wal-Mart, bought a plastic Sterilite storage container, wrapped Riley in garbage bags, and stuffed her dead body inside the container. They kept the container in a storage shed for approximately two months before dumping it into Galveston Bay, where it was discovered by local fisherman Robert Wayne Spinn on October 29, 2007.
A coroner discovered skull fractures and the investigation proceeded as a homicide.
Shortly before Thanksgiving, Zeigler attempted suicide by overdosing on blood pressure medication and anti-depressants. He left a suicide note stating, "My wife is innocent of the sins I committed." Trenor and Zeigler eventually took responsibility for Riley Ann's death, initially charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence.