GALVESTON, Texas, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Jury selection began Wednesday for a Texas woman who admits dumping her 2-year-old daughter's body in Galveston Bay but denies killing her.
Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 20, was arraigned Tuesday on a charge of capital murder, The Galveston County Daily News reported. She entered a guilty plea to tampering with physical evidence.
Trenor and her boyfriend, Royce Clyde Ziegler II, 25, are to be tried separately. Prosecutors say the pair smothered and drowned Riley Ann Sawyers at their home in Spring in July 2007, kept her body in a trunk outside for several weeks and then dumped it in Galveston Bay in a plastic container.
A fisherman found the body, and the girl, nicknamed "Baby Grace," was eventually identified by relatives.
So many jurors were called for the highly publicized trial that lines stretched outside the courthouse Wednesday morning, the Houston Chronicle reported. The newspaper said that officials expect to sift through 1,200 prospective jurors in batches of 250 a day.
