GALVESTON, Texas -- A couple accused of beating the woman's 2-year-old daughter to death and dumping the body out to sea wrote suicide notes expressing remorse, witnesses in the woman's capital murder trial testified Thursday.

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Slideshow: Remembering Riley Ann Sawyers

Slideshow Of 'Baby Grace'

Slideshow: Trial Of Kimberly Trenor, Mother Of 'Baby Grace'

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An FBI handwriting expert said he was able to lift the impression of the suicide notes from an underlying sheet of a notebook seized from the suburban Houston home of Kimberly Dawn Trenor and Royce Clyde Zeigler II.

Both have been charged with capital murder in the death of Riley Ann Sawyers. Zeigler was the toddler's stepfather and will be tried later. Trenor, 20, is on trial this week.

Gabriel Watts, an FBI forensic document examiner, told jurors the suicide notes were written on the same page.

Trenor's brief note read: "My heart is black dead. There is nothing left. I can't live with myself after Riley. I go to be."

Zeigler's note, said he was taking his life "because of guilt for past sins which I have confessed ... My wife, Kimberly Zeigler, is innocent and lived in fear because of thought of what I would do to her."

Neither Trenor nor Zeigler in their notes directly said they were responsible for Riley's death.

Prosecutors say Trenor and Zeigler beat Riley, pushed her head in a bathtub filled with cold water and ultimately threw her across a room, fracturing her skull during a daylong discipline session on July 25, 2007, designed to teach her proper manners.

Tommy Stickler, Trenor's attorney, has argued his client never intended to kill her daughter.

Zeigler's defense attorneys, who have been attending the trial and blame Trenor for Riley's death, said Trenor coerced Zeigler into writing the suicide note.

They said Zeigler tried to commit suicide under tremendouse emotional stress and fear.

"He was terrified about the situation he was in after Kim killed her child," said attorney E. Dee McWilliams.

In a videotaped statement to police, Trenor admitted she whipped Riley with a belt and held her head underwater but that it was Zeigler who threw the toddler across the family room, fracturing her skull. She also said she tried taking some pills in a suicide attempt.

After Riley was killed, the couple bought a plastic container, partially filled it with cement, stuffed her beaten body inside and stored it in a shed at their home before dumping the remains 70 miles away in Galveston Bay in September 2007, according to authorities.

Watts also told jurors that Trenor and Zeigler also wrote a list of nine things that Riley needed to learn. It was discovered in a storage unit the pair rented.

The list, called "Rules for Riley," included such things as "being polite," "behaves in public," "toys stay in her room" and "listen to mom & me." There was space for a 10th item on the list but it was left blank.

Watts said Zeigler wrote the first six items on the list and Trenor wrote the other three.

Trenor and Zeigler met playing an online video game and married in June 2007 after Trenor moved with her daughter from Mentor, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, to Spring, a suburb north of Houston.

Riley was dubbed "Baby Grace" while investigators worked to identify her decomposed remains.

The toddler's identity was a mystery for weeks until Riley's paternal grandmother in Ohio, Sheryl Sawyers, saw an artist's sketch of the girl and told authorities in Texas she thought it was her granddaughter.

The call from Sheryl Sawyers led authorities to Zeigler and Trenor, who had invented a story that Riley had been taken away by child welfare officials in Ohio.

Trenor could receive an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. The jury could also convict her of a lesser charge.

Prosecutors declined to seek the death penalty against either her or Zeigler, 25, because they didn't think they could prove that the pair would be a future danger, a requirement for such a punishment.

Trenor and Zeigler are being held in the Galveston County Jail under bonds of $850,000 each.

Rules for Riley

Note: Nos. 1-6 were handwritten by Zeigler and 7-9 written by Trenor. The list is verbatim.

being polite
Listen to mom & me
sleep @ 8 pm
nap @ 2 pm
toys stay in her room
puts toys back where she go em
behaves in public
never alone in our room
chocolate/cake or treats only as a reward
(the number 10 was written in, but nothing was written beside it)

Suicide Notes

To Whom It May Concern

I Royce Zeigler II leave my property to Kimberly Tenor Zeigler my wife. I take my own life because of guilt for past sins which I have confessed before I took my life. My wife Kimberly Zeigler is innocent and lived in fear … because of thought of what I would do to her. Also my family can go burn in hell for their stress that they’ve caused. So here I take my own life.

Sincerely,
Royce Zeigler II

On the same page, Trenor wrote the following.

My heart is black dead. I can't live with myself after Riley. I go to be.

Kimberly Zeigler

Court Documents:

Probable Cause Affidavit For Kimberly Dawn Trenor
Probable Cause Affidavit For Royce Zeigler II