Baby Grace has a name.

N&P: Discuss governments, nations, politics and recent related news here.

Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital

Post Reply
User avatar
Chardok
GET THE FUCK OFF MY OBSTACLE!
Posts: 8488
Joined: 2003-08-12 09:49am
Location: San Antonio

Baby Grace has a name.

Post by Chardok »

From here

As a parent, this breaks my heart.
CNN) -- The grandmother of 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers said she was devastated to learn she is probably the little girl now known as "Baby Grace."


Police believe 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers is "Baby Grace."
1 of 3 Police said Monday that they are "fairly confident" that Riley was the toddler whose body washed ashore in Texas last month.

Sheryl Sawyers said that it's "hard to think that I'll never see her again."

Sawyers broke down in tears repeatedly during the news conference in Ohio and clutched an Elmo doll she had planned to give Riley for Christmas.

Attorney Laura Depledge said the family was focused on bringing Riley back to Ohio for memorial services.

Depledge said the family also wants justice for the girl.

Riley's mother and a man identified as her boyfriend were arrested Saturday.

Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24, are accused of injuring a child and tampering with physical evidence, the sheriff's department said.

The couple lives in Spring, Texas, a Houston suburb about 75 miles north of Galveston, Texas. Previously, Riley and her mother had lived in Mentor, Ohio.

They reportedly told relatives that Riley was taken by social workers from Ohio in July.

Sawyers said it didn't make sense that authorities would remove the girl without an investigation.

"None of it made any sense," she said.

The family said they had not seen Riley since March.

As they await formal confirmation by DNA analysis, investigators now are focusing on what happened to "our girl," said Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo of the Galveston County Sheriff's Department. Watch how tips led to a name »

He asked anyone who knew the child or her family to help detectives reconstruct the events of Riley's short life.

The toddler's body, curled in a plastic storage container, was found October 29 by a fisherman. It had washed ashore on an island in Galveston Bay.


"That says it all: a little-bitty shoe," said Tuttoilmondo, holding up a child's pink and white sneaker at a news conference Monday.

Three weeks earlier, the investigator had held up the same shoe, asking he public for help identifying a child police dubbed "Baby Grace." Now she has a name: Riley Ann.

"She has a family. She has people who care for her," Tuttoilmondo said. "Be assured that a box in West Galveston Bay is not where she ended her life."

Investigators circulated composite sketches of a little girl wearing a pink skirt and matching top -- clothing authorities said she was wearing when she was found. The other sketch, a close-up rendering of the child's face, shows a fair-skinned toddler with long blond hair.

Tuttoilmondo said tips poured in from "around the world." Many of the callers said they knew a child who resembled the composite.

Investigators were able to track down more than 80 children referred to by the tipsters. But the whereabouts of another 22 toddlers is still unknown, he said.

"We still need the public's help because we still have 22 little girls with question marks by their names," Tuttoilmondo said.


The case has touched even jaded police officers, Tuttoilmondo said.

"Any way you look at it, we carry a piece of her with us, and we'll always carry a little piece of her with us," he said Monday
Image
User avatar
CaptainChewbacca
Browncoat Wookiee
Posts: 15746
Joined: 2003-05-06 02:36am
Location: Deep beneath Boatmurdered.

Post by CaptainChewbacca »

So, what the fuck?! A toddler was taken from her parents by the authorities, for some unknown and likely fabricated reason. Then, the authorities lose the kid and she ends up dead?

Am I reading this wrong? Because, it tends to make a whole lotta un-sense to my mind.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
ImageImage
User avatar
Big Phil
BANNED
Posts: 4555
Joined: 2004-10-15 02:18pm

Post by Big Phil »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So, what the fuck?! A toddler was taken from her parents by the authorities, for some unknown and likely fabricated reason. Then, the authorities lose the kid and she ends up dead?

Am I reading this wrong? Because, it tends to make a whole lotta un-sense to my mind.
You're reading it wrong - the mother and boyfriend told relatives that social workers had taken the baby; that was not true. Mom and boyfriend are accused of killing the daughter and dumping the body, presumably somewhere that ended up washing her body ashore.
In Brazil they say that Pele was the best, but Garrincha was better
User avatar
The Duchess of Zeon
Gözde
Posts: 14566
Joined: 2002-09-18 01:06am
Location: Exiled in the Pale of Settlement.

Post by The Duchess of Zeon »

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So, what the fuck?! A toddler was taken from her parents by the authorities, for some unknown and likely fabricated reason. Then, the authorities lose the kid and she ends up dead?

Am I reading this wrong? Because, it tends to make a whole lotta un-sense to my mind.
You are reading this so laughably wrong that we should go back through your school transcripts and change any passing grades in reading comprehension to F's. The mother of the child murdered her, along with her boyfriend, or at least that's what the police believe. Their pathetic attempt at an alibi was that she had been taken by CPS in Ohio.
The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. -- Wikipedia's No Original Research policy page.

In 1966 the Soviets find something on the dark side of the Moon. In 2104 they come back. -- Red Banner / White Star, a nBSG continuation story. Updated to Chapter 4.0 -- 14 January 2013.
User avatar
Chardok
GET THE FUCK OFF MY OBSTACLE!
Posts: 8488
Joined: 2003-08-12 09:49am
Location: San Antonio

Post by Chardok »

SancheztheWhaler wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote:So, what the fuck?! A toddler was taken from her parents by the authorities, for some unknown and likely fabricated reason. Then, the authorities lose the kid and she ends up dead?

Am I reading this wrong? Because, it tends to make a whole lotta un-sense to my mind.
You're reading it wrong - the mother and boyfriend told relatives that social workers had taken the baby; that was not true. Mom and boyfriend are accused of killing the daughter and dumping the body, presumably somewhere that ended up washing her body ashore.
Correction: The plastic container in which the murdering fuck (Whoever it was) Stuffed her body washed ashore. Situations like this, when I see them in the news make me go "Yeah, good one, God."

Wonder why it is that I identify with one murdered child and not 100,000 dead in a tsunami?
Image
User avatar
Ritterin Sophia
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5496
Joined: 2006-07-25 09:32am

Post by Ritterin Sophia »

Chardok wrote:Wonder why it is that I identify with one murdered child and not 100,000 dead in a tsunami?
Some of the things Stalin has been quoted as saying have a measure of truth in them, no matter how sad it is.
A Certain Clique, HAB, The Chroniclers
User avatar
Fingolfin_Noldor
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 11834
Joined: 2006-05-15 10:36am
Location: At the Helm of the HAB Star Dreadnaught Star Fist

Post by Fingolfin_Noldor »

General Schatten wrote:
Chardok wrote:Wonder why it is that I identify with one murdered child and not 100,000 dead in a tsunami?
Some of the things Stalin has been quoted as saying have a measure of truth in them, no matter how sad it is.
"A single death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic."
Image
STGOD: Byzantine Empire
Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you.
Kreia
User avatar
Sriad
Sith Devotee
Posts: 3028
Joined: 2002-12-02 09:59pm
Location: Colorado

Post by Sriad »

General Schatten wrote:
Chardok wrote:Wonder why it is that I identify with one murdered child and not 100,000 dead in a tsunami?
Some of the things Stalin has been quoted as saying have a measure of truth in them, no matter how sad it is.
(true)
I've read about actual studies that find most people tend to abstractify tragedies when they involve about 8 or more people.

(personal supposition)
It may be evolutionary: a problem that could kill one person may well be a problem that with two people could be solved, and you'd have two safe people. On the other hand, a crisis that kills 40 people could probably kill a 41st and our lizard brain decides "fuck this."

Applied: if a toddler drowns in a river, a fit adult could probably have saved them. If 100,000 Indonesians die in a tsunami, I would have died too.

Just another tendency to be aware of, and struggle to overcome in humanity's post-cave existence.
User avatar
Singular Intellect
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 2392
Joined: 2006-09-19 03:12pm
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Post by Singular Intellect »

Chardok wrote:Wonder why it is that I identify with one murdered child and not 100,000 dead in a tsunami?
Personally, I suspect it has something to do with people and their own personal circle of loved ones.

It's easy to for a human mind to imagine and empathize about a lost individual, picturing them as part of your immediate group of loved ones. However that just doesn't work when dealing with larger numbers.
User avatar
Civil War Man
NERRRRRDS!!!
Posts: 3790
Joined: 2005-01-28 03:54am

Post by Civil War Man »

Sriad wrote:(true)
I've read about actual studies that find most people tend to abstractify tragedies when they involve about 8 or more people.
Well, the human mind does have trouble visualizing numbers after a certain point. Depending on the person, IIRC, somewhere between 5 and 9 or so, they start visualizing them as groups of smaller numbers.
User avatar
The Spartan
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4406
Joined: 2005-03-12 05:56pm
Location: Houston

Post by The Spartan »

Update. It gets worse.
MSNBC.com wrote:Cops: Mom admits torturing 'Baby Grace'
Mother reportedly tells police she, stepfather beat 2-year-old to death
The Associated Press
updated 8:08 p.m. CT, Mon., Nov. 26, 2007
GALVESTON, Texas - A woman believed to be the mother of a 2-year-old whose body was found in Galveston Bay told police she and the girl’s stepfather beat and tortured the child to death, court documents show.

The details, in a statement Kimberly Dawn Trenor gave to police, paint a chilling picture of the last days of the girl investigators called “Baby Grace” as they worked for weeks to learn her identity.

Investigators are awaiting DNA test results but said Monday they are “fairly confident” that the body a fisherman found in a plastic box Oct. 29 is that of Riley Ann Sawyers. Trenor, 19, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, were in custody on charges of hurting the girl.

“It was a few weeks ago I held up this little shoe and asked, ’Who is Baby Grace? Who does this belong to?”’ sheriff’s Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo said at a news conference. “We’re now fairly confident we know the answer to that.”

An autopsy revealed three skull fractures, but the cause of death has not been determined.

Tuttoilmondo said he could not discuss details of the little girl’s death, but Trenor said in her police statement, first reported by Houston television station KTRK, that she and Zeigler, 24, killed her July 24.

The girl was beaten with leather belts, had her head held underwater in a bathtub and then was thrown across a room, her head slamming into a tile floor, Trenor said in the document. She said they kept the body in a storage shed for one to two months before they put it in a plastic bin and dumped it into Galveston Bay.

Trenor’s attorney, Tom Stickler, said she has cooperated with authorities. He declined to comment about her statement to investigators.

'No doubt' on ID
“But from what she said, there is no doubt that the girl found is Riley Sawyers,” Stickler said.

Trenor and Zeigler were arrested early Saturday and charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence, Tuttoilmondo said. Bail was set at $350,000 each. The couple’s next court appearance was expected to be scheduled on Tuesday.

Wendell Odom, Zeigler’s attorney, declined to comment on the case except to say Zeigler grew up in Spring, about 75 miles north of Galveston, and works as an instrument technician in the oil industry.

Trenor and Zeigler met a couple of years ago playing an online game, World of Warcraft, and she moved with her daughter from suburban Cleveland to Spring in June, Stickler said.

Riley’s paternal grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, hadn’t seen her granddaughter in months when she saw a police sketch of “Baby Grace.” Thinking it might be Riley, she called authorities in Texas.

'Resting peacefully'
In Mentor, Ohio, on Monday, Sawyers wiped away tears at a news conference and held up the Elmo doll she had already bought Riley for Christmas.

“It’s hard to think that I’ll never see her again,” she said.

The Sawyers family’s attorney, Laura DePledge, said they take comfort in knowing that the girl is “resting peacefully and is no longer subject to abuse.”

DePledge said Trenor and Sawyers’ son, Robert Sawyers, also of Mentor, had been high school sweethearts. Sheryl Sawyers said she has not seen Riley since the girl and Trenor moved to Texas.

Robert Sawyers, who works in an auto-parts store, was never married to Trenor but lived with her and their daughter in his parents’ home for about two years. He and Trenor split up after March 31, when he was charged with domestic violence against her.

DePledge said there was insufficient evidence to support the charge, which was reduced to disorderly conduct. Robert Sawyers is now married and has a 3-month-old son.

Riley “had a very big imagination for such a little girl,” he said of his daughter. “She could play with anything and have fun with it.”

Tuttoilmondo said Trenor had told relatives that someone claiming to be a social worker from Ohio took the girl in July.

Tuttoilmondo said investigators became emotionally involved in determining the little girl’s identity.

“Any way you look at it, we carry a piece of her with us and will always carry a little piece of her with us,” he said. “She’s still our little girl.”
They didn't just kill her. They made her suffer.
The Gentleman from Texas abstains. Discourteously.
Image
PRFYNAFBTFC-Vice Admiral: MFS Masturbating Walrus :: Omine subtilite Odobenus rosmarus masturbari
Soy un perdedor.
"WHO POOPED IN A NORMAL ROOM?!"-Commander William T. Riker
User avatar
Lagmonster
Master Control Program
Master Control Program
Posts: 7719
Joined: 2002-07-04 09:53am
Location: Ottawa, Canada

Post by Lagmonster »

People who beat babies to death are right at the bottom of the human barrel. I don't think you can fix someone who can beat up their own baby girl; as much as it will probably pain the grandparents, these people are clearly broken and are good candidates for execution.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
User avatar
tim31
Sith Devotee
Posts: 3388
Joined: 2006-10-18 03:32am
Location: Tasmania, Australia

Post by tim31 »

Chardok wrote:Wonder why it is that I identify with one murdered child and not 100,000 dead in a tsunami?
Second line in your OP. That's how it is for me.
lol, opsec doesn't apply to fanfiction. -Aaron

PRFYNAFBTFC
CAPTAIN OF MFS SAMMY HAGAR
ImageImage
User avatar
CaptainChewbacca
Browncoat Wookiee
Posts: 15746
Joined: 2003-05-06 02:36am
Location: Deep beneath Boatmurdered.

Post by CaptainChewbacca »

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:
CaptainChewbacca wrote:So, what the fuck?! A toddler was taken from her parents by the authorities, for some unknown and likely fabricated reason. Then, the authorities lose the kid and she ends up dead?

Am I reading this wrong? Because, it tends to make a whole lotta un-sense to my mind.
You are reading this so laughably wrong that we should go back through your school transcripts and change any passing grades in reading comprehension to F's. The mother of the child murdered her, along with her boyfriend, or at least that's what the police believe. Their pathetic attempt at an alibi was that she had been taken by CPS in Ohio.
Hey now, usually I'm pretty good at this stuff. Thanks for clarifying, to both you and Sanchez.
Stuart: The only problem is, I'm losing track of which universe I'm in.
You kinda look like Jesus. With a lightsaber.- Peregrin Toker
ImageImage
Adrian Laguna
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4736
Joined: 2005-05-18 01:31am

Post by Adrian Laguna »

Lagmonster wrote:I don't think you can fix someone who can beat up their own baby girl; as much as it will probably pain the grandparents, these people are clearly broken and are good candidates for execution.
According to the statements given, it was the mother's boyfriend who did the murdering. Thus, it's wasn't his he was beating up. Your statement about him not being fixable are right on the money, though. This guy isn't going to have a pleasant time in prison.
Post Reply