GALVESTON — Legal scholars are weighing what strategies prosecutors and the defense might use when the trial of Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, begins Tuesday in the brutal killing of her 2-year-old daughter, Riley Ann Sawyers.
Trenor and Sawyers’ stepfather, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 25, are accused of throwing Sawyers to the floor, holding her mouth and nose against a pillow and holding her underwater on July 25, 2007, at the couple’s Spring home.
The couple is also accused of placing the child’s remains in a plastic container and throwing it over the Galveston Causeway the following month. A fisherman found the box and Sawyers’ remains Oct. 29 on an uninhabited island in Galveston Bay, and authorities named her Baby Grace until a relative helped identify the girl.
Prosecutors have declined to discuss the trial.
Trenor pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence but maintains her innocence of capital murder, her attorney, Tom Stickler, said.
Geoffrey Corn, associate professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston, speculated the defense could use Trenor’s guilty plea on the evidence tampering charge to help bolster her standing.
“If I had to guess, what the defense lawyer is setting up is that his client is not afraid to admit what she did wrong,” Corn said.
Zeigler’s name is among the 11 subpoenas filed by the defense as of Friday morning. The defense could try to pin the death on Zeigler, Corn said.
“I think it’s a hard sell,” Corn said, noting the defense would have to prove that the child’s death wasn’t foreseeable. “I don’t know what the government’s theory is on the cause of death. The defense could argue his conduct produced the fatal blow.”
Why is the state trying Trenor first?
“I imagine the state hopes to obtain evidence that could be used against the boyfriend by trying her first,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a criminal law professor at the University of Houston Law Center. “Maybe they’re more concerned with getting a conviction against him.”
Another theory, Corn said, is that once Trenor’s trial concludes, she could then testify against Zeigler, Corn said.
“Once she’s either convicted or acquitted, she can’t assert the privilege of self-incrimination,” Crow said. “They can force her to testify against him, and nothing she says can incriminate her.”
If the state feels Zeigler is the more culpable of the pair, trying Trenor first also gives the state a “dry run,” Corn said.
“They can find out what their weaknesses are before they put him on trial,” Corn said. “And another possibility is, who knows? Maybe they’ve got a deal with him.”
Neal Davis III, Zeigler’s attorney, said there has been no deal involving his client, whose trial date hasn’t been set.
Prosecutors aren’t seeking the death penalty, but a capital murder conviction caries a life sentence.
A jury of 12 is expected to be chosen Monday, and testimony in Trenor’s case is scheduled for Tuesday.
