GALVESTON -- A Galveston County jury found Royce Clyde Ziegler II guilty of capital murder Friday for the brutal beating death of his 2-year-old stepdaughter.
The world first knew the victim, Riley Ann Sawyers, as Baby Grace when her remains washed ashore on an island near Galveston.
The jury of nine men and three women, some of whom were wiping away tears during closing arguments, began deliberations at 11:30Friday morning.
In two hours of emotional closing arguments, prosecutors implored the jury to convict Zeigler in the death of his stepdaughter, 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers.They called him a monster who exploded July 25, 2007, in a rage of violence while his defense attorneys called him guilty only of tampering with evidence in a murder perpetrated only by his wife.
He had the motive, the intent, and he had all the pressures of the world on him to the point he was walking way, District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk told the jury of Zeigler s admission that he would often try to leave their home if the stress of dealing with Riley got him too upset. And he took care of business that day with Riley.
Sistrunk removed his own belt, slapped a courtroom table several times to illustrate the hours of discipline investigators say ended with Riley s death from three skull fractures. The last two photographs he showed the jury inlcuded a smiling picture of the 2-year-old taken on her grandmother s back porch in Ohio. He held that picture in one hand while displaying an autopsy photo of her fractured skull in the other.
Riley went through hell that day over a period of hours. Riley was traumatized, not this defendant, he said pointing at Zeigler. You know what happened, he said to the jury. You know how child abuse happens.
His self-serving lies and his pathetic attempt to get away with this murder, that s why he came up with all these lies, Sistrunk said. The man can sit in front of his family and friends and lie to them because he knows he s guilty of murder.
But with his voice quivering at the beginning of his address to the jury, defense attorney Dee Mc Williams said that prosecutors have a substantial case of Zeigler tampering with evidence in his admitted involvement in disposing of the little girl s body. But in his opinion that is all prosecutors have.
This man no more killed that child than the man in the moon, he said. But I know how all this looks. I know how horrible it is.
The defense conceded from the beginning that Zeigler and his wife Kimberly Trenor-Zeigler worked together in the elaborate attempt to dispose of the body. They kept her body in a blue storage container at their home in Spring for several weeks before dumping the body inside a blue container into Galveston Bay. Both offered numerous different lies to friends and coworkers about what had happened to the girl including a concocted story about her alleged abduction by a CPS worker from Ohio. After the body was found October 29, 2007 on a small island in Galveston s West Bay, Trenor confessed but Zeigler offered investigators several different versions of what happened. At first he said he knew nothing about the girls death, then admitted he helped dispose of the body, but insisted that Trenor killed the child.
McWilliams implored the jury to see that evidence and that web of lies as Zeigler s attempt to cover up and the crime and protect his wife.
When the lynch mob is gathering pitchforks and torches in hand ready to march down to the jail, it s not easy to say wait a minute and say what is the evidence this person has done that we re gonna kill him for, McWilliams said.
The person who did this they tried and convicted of capital murder and she s sitting in prison right now, McWilliams said of Kimberly Trenor. She was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole last February.
Zeigler does not face the death penalty. Prosecutors and members of Riley s family agreed before both trials that they would seek life in prison without parole.
The jury, however, is also allowed to consider finding Zeigler guilty of a lesser offense, manslaughter, if they do not believe had had a direct hand in Riley s death as prosecutors seek to prove. But Zeigler can still be found guilty of capital murder if the jury believes he was a knowing and willing party to her death even if the jury doesn t believe his hand delivered the fatal blows.
You re looking at the face of a man who killed a child, Sistrunk said in his closing argument. And since that day in July he s been focused on doing just one thing, getting away with the murder of Riley Ann Sawyers.
