MENTOR, Ohio -- The family of a missing Mentor girl whose remains are believed to have been found in Texas were tearful as they spoke to the media Monday during an emotional news conference.

A Texas sheriff said that he is fairly confident a body found in Galveston Bay is that of 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers, who came to Texas earlier this year.

The girl was named "Baby Grace" after she was discovered in a box washed up on the shore Oct. 29. She died from a fractured skull.

"We have worked tirelessly and will continue to work tirelessly on the investigation," said Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo of the Galveston County Sheriff's Department.

Riley's family received a personal visit on Sunday from a Texas sheriff's deputy and an FBI agent.

"We have carried a piece of her with us. We will always carry a piece of her with us," said Tuttoilmondo. "She is our little girl. She has a family and people who care for her."

They are a still awaiting DNA test results for official confirmation on her identity.

Their trip came one day after the girl's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, 19, and her husband, Royce Clyde Zeigler II, 24, were arrested in the case.

No motive was released in the case.

"We simply wanted to ensure personal notice and continue with the investigation of this tragic death," Galveston County District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said of the investigators' Sunday trip to Ohio.

Trenor and Zeigler reportedly told relatives that Riley was taken in July by someone claiming to be an Ohio social worker. But they never told police she was missing, Tuttoilmondo said.

After a police search of their home, they were arrested early Saturday and charged with injury to a child and tampering with evidence, Tuttoilmondo said. The couple remain in custody on bonds of $350,000 each.

The girl's grandmother, Sheryl Sawyers, said Monday that she hopes the charges against the couple are upgraded to reflect the child's death. "She's not just injured. She's dead," Sawyers said at a Mentor, Ohio, news conference.

Sawyers, occasionally wiping away tears, said she still wanted an answer to the question of a motive. "I want to know why," she said.

The Sawyers' family attorney Laura DePledge said the family was not yet ready to talk about the girl, who would have turned 3 on March 11.

"We didn't know Baby Grace was going to be Riley. ... We talked about whether this would be an end of a chapter or the beginning of a new chapter," DePledge said. "None of us imagined anything this horrible. Never, ever."

She said the family now looks toward prosecution of those responsible for the death and takes comfort in knowing that the girl is "resting peacefully and is no longer subject to abuse."

DePledge said Trenor and Sawyers' son, Robert Sawyers, also of Mentor, were high school sweethearts.

Sheryl Sawyers called Texas authorities to see if a missing-person report had been filed in Riley's case. She had seen reports of the discovery of the 2- or 3-year-old girl in a plastic storage bin Oct. 29. When she saw a sketch of Baby Grace, she thought it may be her granddaughter.

"Could somebody go check to see that she's OK?" Sawyers said she asked police. "Then I get the call saying that she says she doesn't have the baby."

Tuttoilmondo declined to say what was found in the home of Trenor and Zeigler, about 20 miles north of Houston, or what the couple may have said about Riley's disappearance.

Ray Sawyers of Mentor, the child's grandfather, said Sunday that authorities had asked his family not to comment.

Sheryl Sawyers said her son, Robert Sawyers, and Kimberly Trenor had Riley while they were teenagers and that the three of them lived with her in Mentor for about two years. Zeigler sent expensive gifts to Trenor while she still lived with Robert Sawyers, the child's grandmother said.

Last week, authorities said the families of eight missing children from all over the United States were being asked to provide DNA samples. Tuttoilmondo said they were selected from 110 cases of missing children who matched a description of the girl being called "Baby Grace." The child was described as being 2 or 3.