GALVESTON - Riley Ann Sawyers, the 2-year-old girl missing from Spring is Baby Grace, the girl found dead in a plastic storage bin in West Galveston Bay nearly a month ago, Galveston County Sheriff¹s office officials said Sunday.

Chief Deputy Freddy Poor said that while investigators were sure enough about the match to inform the child’s next of kin, only DNA testing, which still was pending, could provide a positive match.    

Meanwhile, the child’s mother and stepfather are being held in the Galveston County Jail charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence, according to jail clerks.

Both have been held on bonds of $350,000 each since Friday, when officers searched their home.

Investigators searched the couple’s house in the 6800 block of Ennis Lane in Spring on Friday evening, Chief Deputy Freddy Poor confirmed.

Detectives and agents of the FBI went to Ohio this weekend to inform the child’s father and paternal relatives, Poor said.

Poor said information about the arrests wasn’t release sooner because the girl’s family had not been notified.

“It was only appropriate to bring the news to them personally,” he said.

Kimberly Trenor and Royce Zeigler have reportedly told family members that Riley Sawyers was taken in July by someone claiming to be an Ohio social worker.

The Galveston County Daily News

Baby Grace and Riley Ann Sawyers

The incident was not reported to police.

But Riley’s paternal grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, said no one in the family’s hometown has seen the girl.

Sheryl Sawyers said that her son, Robert Sawyers, and Kimberly Trenor had Riley Sawyers while they were teenagers. The couple and her granddaughter lived at Sheryl Sawyer’s home for about two years, she said.

Earlier this year, Trenor started talking to Royce Zeigler, who she met online, Sheryl Sawyers said.

Zeigler sent expensive gifts to Trenor while she still lived with Sawyers, Sawyers said.

Trenor moved to Spring to marry him in late May or early June, Sawyers said.

The Galveston County Daily News

Riley Ann Sawyers

She hasn’t seen or heard from her granddaughter since, she said.

When news of Galveston officer’s gruesome finding in October reached Ohio, Sawyers said she called the Harris County Sheriff’s Office to see whether a missing-person report had been filed in Spring. Once she saw the sketch of Baby Grace, she called Galveston County.

Poor said more information, such as what officers found at the house and when Riley Sawyers was identified as the likely match, would be released Monday during the news conference.

Officers took DNA samples from Robert Sawyers last week. They were attempting to get a DNA sample from Kimberly Trenor but it was not certain whether she had given one.

The Galveston County Daily News

Riley Ann Sawyers

Test results on DNA can take up to three weeks.

The Sawyers’ DNA sample is one of at least nine sets of parents tested to see if it matches the remains.

A fisherman found the girl on Oct. 29 inside the storage bin ashore a small island.

Medical examiners later said the girl, estimated to be between 2 and 3 years old, had been dead at least two weeks. She suffered at least one skull fracture.

Sheryl Sawyers told the Daily News last week that she hoped Trenor was merely hiding the girl so she could keep custody of her.

“That’s my heart, my granddaughter,” she said.