Home --> AJ's Story --> AJ's Story: Newspaper Articles --> 1995 Page 3

A.J.'s Story - Newspaper Articles

The following links take you to various articles in AJ's story as it appeared in the South Florida media.

PLEASE DO NOT COPY THE INFORMATION ON THIS SITE BEFORE ASKING.

Thank you!

In Loving Memory Of Andrew James "A.J." Schwarz April 24,1983 - May 2,1993 "Beautiful Child who has found love from the angels...RIP..."
This page contains articles from the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel from the year 1995.

If you are interested in reading the FULL DETAILS of this case aside from what is posted here, please purchase "No One Can Hurt Him Anymore" by Carol J.Rothgeb and Scott H. Cupp. Mr. Cupp thinks it's the book that nobody will read...please show your support and show him that you care about AJ, too by ordering his book by clicking on the cover image below.

---

Jessica Schwarz Trial Ends, Judge to Rule (3/29/95)
Many Causes Possible in AJ's Death, Defense Says (3/29/95)
In Court (4/5/95)
Courting a Jury: Defense Lawyers Dress Defendant in Cloak of Innocence (4/9/95)
Guilty: 2 South Florida Women Were Convicted on Tuesday in The Murders of Their Children (4/12/95)
Justice System Should Be Harsh To Florida's Murderous Mothers (4/12/95)
Mothers' Day of Reckoning: Zile, Schwarz Guilty of Murders (4/12/95)
Verdicts Shatter Hope it Was All A Mistake (4/12/95)
Grand Juries Get Final Say on Murder Charge Specifics (4/12/95)
'This Mother Despised Her Child,' Judge Says of AJ's Stepmother (4/12/95)
Zile, Schwarz Child Death Cases Likely to Cary Same Penalties (4/13/95)

JESSICA SCHWARZ TRIAL ENDS; JUDGE TO RULE
Sun-Sentinel
March 29, 1995
MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

Jessica Schwarz's non-jury murder trial came to an end on Tuesday, but the judge will not issue a verdict until she can review all of the evidence.
Unlike a jury, which can announce verdicts without explaining how they are reached, a judge hearing a bench trial is required to explain the "findings of laws" used to determine guilt or innocence, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Karen L. Martin said on Tuesday at the end of the trial.
Martin must decide whether Schwarz, 40, is guilty of second-degree murder in the drowning of her 10-year-old stepson, Andrew "A.J." Schwarz, and of witness tampering.
Schwarz, serving 30 years for convictions last year of aggravated and felony child abuse offenses against A.J., faces a possible life sentence if convicted.
Tuesday's verdict delay frustrated A.J.'s biological mother, Eileen Soini-Schwarz, who has traveled from her Fort Lauderdale home each day to attend Jessica Schwarz's trial.
"I don't like it. All we have to do is wait," Soini-Schwarz said as she left the courthouse.
Martin said she will issue her ruling either in writing or during a scheduled court hearing.
Closing arguments began on Tuesday after Schwarz told the judge she would not testify.
Defense attorney Rendell Brown argued that the state's case was filled with reasonable doubt.
Because two medical examiners who testified said they were unable to conclusively say that A.J.'s death was a homicide, Brown said Schwarz could not be convicted of second-degree murder.
Brown vehemently dismissed the state's theory that Schwarz ordered A.J. to disrobe, then drowned him in the 4-foot pool.
"The will to live is too strong," Brown said, arguing that A.J. would have fought for his life. "When you do that, one is going to put scratches on the offender and there was no evidence of this [on Schwarz)."
But prosecutor Joe Marx argued that the circumstantial evidence was so strong it compelled the judge to convict Schwarz. He asked the judge to consider the relationship Schwarz had with A.J.
Marx cited the testimony of 16 neighbors and one of A.J.'s teachers, who each told of seeing Schwarz physically and emotionally abuse A.J.
The abuse, he said, ranged from Schwarz forcing A.J. to eat a cockroach and hitting him to forcing him to run through his neighborhood naked.
"There's no doubt this woman hated this little boy," Marx said. "Her treatment of Andrew Schwarz went beyond cruel, it was evil."
The fact that A.J. was found nude in the pool proves that Schwarz is the killer, Marx said. "That's the way she punished him. This is her trademark."

Back To Top

MANY CAUSES POSSIBLE IN A.J.'S DEATH, DEFENSE SAYS
The Palm Beach Post
March 29, 1995
VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Andrew Schwarz could have drowned from any number of causes - from electrocution to a defective snorkel - the attorney for Andrew's stepmother said Tuesday.
Attorney Rendell Brown said those possibilities are far more likely than the scenario suggested by state prosecutors - that Jessica Schwarz drowned her stepson out of sheer hatred.
``We just need one reasonable hypothesis (for acquittal), and there are many here,'' Brown told Circuit Court Judge Karen Martin.
Schwarz is charged with second-degree murder in Andrew's death. ``A.J.,'' who was 10, was found naked in his family's backyard pool on May 2, 1993.
Prosecutors reminded Martin, who heard the case without a jury, that Schwarz, 40, of Lake Worth regularly demeaned and beat her stepson.
``It is clear she despised the boy,'' prosecutor Scott Cupp said.
Schwarz could receive a life sentence if Martin convicts her of murder. Martin will review written arguments in the case before ruling.

Back To Top

IN COURT
The Palm Beach Post
April 5, 1995

Circuit Judge Karen Martin will deliver a verdict in court next Tuesday in the state's case against Jessica Schwarz, who is charged with second-degree murder in the death of her 10-year-old stepson, Andrew, an official in the judge's office said Tuesday. Martin presided over the recent non-jury trial, in which Schwarz also was charged with child abuse and witness tampering. The judge dismissed the child abuse count, which involved Schwarz's daughter, Jackie. Schwarz was convicted at an earlier jury trial of abusing Andrew, also known as A.J., and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Back To Top

COURTING A JURY
DEFENSE LAWYERS DRESS DEFENDANT IN CLOAK OF INNOCENCE
Sun-Sentinel
April 9, 1995
STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

With cascading curls, and wearing a parade of pastel dresses and skirt sets, Pauline Zile was the picture of girlish innocence at her first-degree murder trial last week.
When former truck driver Jessica Schwarz went on trial for aggravated child abuse of her stepson, she cut a maternal figure in matronly flowered dresses and cardigan sweaters.
And out in California, O.J. Simpson in his somber, hand-tailored suits looks every bit as well-dressed as his high-priced attorneys.
Lawyers say that how a defendant is dressed in court could make the difference.
Ellis Rubin of Miami, one of Zile's attorneys, said dressing for a trial is much like dressing for a job interview. The difference is Pauline Zile is dressing for her life. Zile, 24, faces the death penalty if she is convicted of first-degree murder.
On the first day of jury selection, there was a mix-up, and Zile almost wore her jailhouse garb before the jury pool. Rather than dressing her in the size 6 women's suits offered by the Public Defender's Office, her mother, Paula Yingling, went on an emergency shopping trip.
When the jury pool was called to the courtroom, Zile had changed into a pristine white blouse with a white gingham skirt and white ballerina slippers.
Now, Yingling brings her daughter a trial outfit to the courthouse every morning.
Michael Dubiner, a West Palm Beach criminal defense lawyer who has been sitting in on Zile's trial, said Zile's courtroom attire hits just the right note.
"She looks about as innocent as you can get," Dubiner said.
Appearances are especially important when the defendant doesn't testify, Dubiner said, because the image is all the jury has to go on.
Zile's attorneys did not put on a defense and Zile did not take the stand.
"I always instruct my clients not only how to dress, but how to act in front of the jury. Pauline has been doing great. She always gets up when the jury comes in. That's very good," Dubiner said.
Fort Lauderdale lawyer Hilliard Moldof said clothing tips for female clients are more complicated than for men because with a woman, there is the issue of sexuality.
"You want high collars, nothing too tight, nothing too short," Moldof said. "With the guys, you tell them to cover the tattoos, get rid of the earrings and don't overdress."
While O.J. Simpson appears to be overdressed by most criminal defendant standards, Moldof said, Simpson is a special case.
"Everyone already had this image of O.J. Simpson; he's a former athlete pulling down a million dollars, a classy guy. He almost blends right in at the defense table. Now, what Johnny Cochran wears, I don't get," Moldof said.
Moldof and Michael Salnick of West Palm Beach were the lawyers of choice when judge's son Gregory Mounts was charged with armed home invasion robbery.
During his trial, Mounts wore pastel crew neck sweaters and white turtlenecks that made him look like Beaver's brother, Wally Cleaver, from the television show Leave it to Beaver, on a date. The jury acquitted him on all counts.
Salnick said it's no secret he videotapes his clients to show them what they look like to the jury.
"I ask them, do you believe that person; do you think that person looks sleazy?" Salnick said.
Salnick recalled one heart-stopping moment when one of his clients came to the first day of trial for sexual battery of a child dressed in a black suit and shirt, white necktie and funky shoes.
"I told him: `You know what, you look like a child molester. He got angry with me, but I told him, `You pay me a lot of money to tell you the truth,'" Salnick said.
The man's wife rushed out during the lunch break to buy more conventional attire, Salnick said, and the jury acquitted him.
When Jessica Schwarz, 40, went on trial for aggravated child abuse of her stepson, who was found drowned, jurors saw a rosy-cheek matronly mother in floral print dresses and cardigan sweaters rather than the cursing, former truck driver depicted by her neighbors.
Jurors in Schwarz's case found her attire fitting.
"I think the clothing was pretty much her," said Schwarz juror Diane Melvin. "I couldn't picture her wearing makeup; the lipstick seemed kind of dark."
That jury convicted Schwarz of six of the seven counts of child abuse. She is still awaiting a verdict on a second-degree murder charge.
Salnick said defendants are not the only people in court who dress for the jury. Prosecutors take just as much care in picking out clothing for victims.
He cross-examined one victim who was the very image of a virginal, church-going young lady by showing the jury a photograph of the woman in a tank top with copious amounts of cleavage, Salnick said.
"I have seen both defendants and female victims dressed up like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms or Shirley Temple. You have to be careful with that because a jury can see through it," he said.

Back To Top

GUILTY
TWO SOUTH FLORIDA WOMEN WERE CONVICTED ON TUESDAY IN THE MURDERS OF CHILDREN. PAULINE ZILE FACES THE ELECTRIC CHAIR IN THE DEATH OF HER 7-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER. JESSICA SCHWARZ FACES LIFE IN PRISON FOR KILLING HER STEPSON. HE WAS 10.
Sun-Sentinel
April 12, 1995
MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

Jessica Schwarz was found guilty on Tuesday of murdering her stepson by a judge who said it was clear how Schwarz felt about the 10-year-old boy.
"The record is complete with testimony that this mother despised this child," Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Karen L. Martin said.
Martin, who presided over Schwarz's non-jury trial last month, also ruled the former truck driver guilty of witness tampering.
Schwarz, 40, appeared stunned when she heard Martin's guilty verdict for second-degree murder in the drowning death of her stepson, Andrew "A.J."Schwarz.
But A.J.'s biological mother, Ilene Soini-Schwarz of Fort Lauderdale, wept at the verdicts.
"[Schwarz) doesn't deserve to get away with what she did," Soini-Schwarz said. "My son did not ask for that. She had no right to do what she did to my son."
Schwarz, already serving 30 years for her convictions last year on four counts of aggravated child abuse and two counts of felony child abuse against A.J., faces life in prison on the murder conviction. No sentencing date has been set.
Testimony before Martin focused on two years of abuse against A.J., with neighbors and teachers describing how Schwarz forced A.J. to run naked through his neighborhood, how she hit and belittled the boy and forced him to eat a cockroach.
Martin recalled the "chilling and frightening" testimony of one of Schwarz's neighbors, who tearfully told about how Schwarz threatened to kill the boy.
"It wasn't anything I've heard a mother say before," Laura Perryman testified. "I've heard mothers in the grocery store say, `I'm going to kill that kid if he does something else.' That was always in jest, but it didn't sound like that.
"I told her she didn't mean it. The more I tried to reason with her, the more adamant she was that she was going to kill him," she said.
Schwarz's motive was clear, Judge Martin said on Tuesday.
"A.J. was becoming a bigger and bigger problem to his stepmother," Martin said, noting that neighbors had filed complaints with the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services after seeing the boy with black eyes or seeing Schwarz physically abusing him.
On May 2, 1993, A.J.'s naked body was found in 4 feet of water in the above-ground pool at the Schwarz home west of Lantana.
Although two medical examiners who testified were unable to positively classify A.J.'s death as a homicide, Martin ruled it so, citing more than 30 bruises on the boy's body.
Injuries to A.J.'s head and behind his ears show that he died after he was knocked unconscious and placed in the pool to cover up the abuse or was held under water until he drowned, Martin said.
A.J.'s death was intentional, Martin said, dismissing several theories posed by the defense to explain how A.J. might have died accidentally.
During the latest trial, defense attorney Rendell Brown maintained A.J. sneaked out and went swimming in the nude so that his parents would not discover wet clothes.
But Martin said it was unlikely that A.J. would have taken a midnight swim in the nude given that witnesses testified Schwarz had forced him to disrobe as punishment on several occasions.
Schwarz's demeanor on the day that A.J. died was telling. "[Police) described the mother's reaction as cool, unmoved. She was cleaning the house. She was not at her son's side," Martin said.
A.J.'s father, David "Bear" Schwarz, was never charged in his son's death. In the months after his wife's arrest, David Schwarz moved from the area and his location is unknown.
On the witness-tampering charge, Martin said there was sufficient evidence to convict Jessica Schwarz. She mentioned a police security videotape that captured Schwarz telling her daughter, Jackie, 4, not to talk to investigators. That act, Martin said, showed Schwarz intended to force her daughter to withhold information.
After the verdicts, prosecutor Scott Cupp summed up Schwarz's demeanor as she heard she had been convicted of killing her stepson.
"I think her attitude speaks for itself. She's just a wicked person," he said.

Back To Top

JUSTICE SYSTEM SHOULD BE HARSH TO FLORIDA'S MURDEROUS MOTHERS
Sun-Sentinel
April 12, 1995

The two South Florida women whose names have become virtually synonymous with the contemporary epidemic of criminally negligent parenthood both experienced the wrath of an outraged society Tuesday.
Within the space of a few hours in separate Palm Beach County courtrooms, Pauline Zile and Jessica Schwarz were found guilty of murder in the deaths of their children.
A Circuit Court jury convicted Zile of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse for failing to prevent last September's slaying of her 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt.
Only hours earlier, Judge Karen L. Martin had found Jessica Schwarz guilty of second-degree murder in the 1993 drowning of her 10-year-old stepson, A.J.
Schwarz, who had waived her right to a second trial by jury, already is serving a 30-year sentence for a 1994 conviction of aggravated child abuse.
Zile faces the possibility of death in the electric chair in the sentencing phase of the trial before the same jury that convicted her.
Schwarz could be sentenced to life in prison in May.
Zile's husband John, who will be tried separately in August, also could be subject to the death penalty if he is convicted of first-degree murder in Christina's death.
The harsh judgments rendered and the severe penalties facing the two women accurately reflect the wave of public revulsion that swept South Florida after the shocking revelations of their lethal brand of mothering.
Zile made national headlines when she originally claimed that Christina had been abducted from a Broward County flea market, setting off an intense regional search for the little girl.
Within days, it was learned that Christina already had been dead for weeks, allegedly killed by her stepfather in a brutal disciplinary beating and buried behind a shopping center in northern Palm Beach County.
The mother, whose statements assisted police in solving the case, was charged with failing to stop the beating and participating in the attempted coverup.
The message of the Zile and Schwarz verdicts is clear: Their unthinkable acts constitute an affront to civilized society and the justice system is determined to offer them no more mercy than they granted to their innocent victims.

Back To Top

MOTHERS' DAY OF RECKONING
ZILE, SCHWARZ GUILTY OF MURDERS
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Christina Holt was beaten so badly just before she died that she went into convulsions and began to choke. As her screams intensified, her mother stood passively by, letting it happen as she had before.
Andrew Schwarz, after suffering months of abuse, died much the same way - beaten, then drowned by the stepmother who had made his last months a waking nightmare.
On Tuesday, both women - Pauline Zile and Jessica Schwarz - were convicted of murder.
The two cases were shockingly similar in the depth of cruelty inflicted on their young victims.
Pauline Zile, convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, and Jessica Schwarz, convicted by a judge of second-degree murder and witness tampering, sat dry-eyed through descriptions of their children's deaths.
But both women cried after their convictions, Zile in the courtroom and Schwarz as she was driven back to jail.
People with a professional or personal stake in the cases were unforgiving.
``She's a wicked person,'' prosecutor Scott Cupp said of Schwarz. Cupp was the lead prosecutor in both cases.
``She deserves what she gets,'' Brenda Money, who helped raise Christina, said of Zile. ``Basically, my family would like to see her get a death sentence.''
Schwarz faces a possible life term for 10-year-old A.J.'s May 1993 death. Prosecutor Joe Marx hailed her conviction as a fitting final chapter to ``the horror story'' of humiliation and physical torture inflicted by Schwarz.
``There's no understanding it,'' A.J.'s grandmother, Gladys Soini, said after Schwarz's conviction. ``Even an animal protects and looks after its own.''

Back To Top

VERDICTS SHATTER HOPE IT WAS ALL A MISTAKE
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
EMILY J. MINOR

Tuesday was one of those anticlimactic days. One of those days you hope will bring solace, but doesn't.
Because now, we are absurdly and forever linked to two women we detest.
In the past months, we have learned the details of the miserable lives, and horrible deaths, of A.J. Schwarz and Christina Holt.
And for months we have wondered how - if - Jessica Schwarz and Pauline Zile could deliver such incredible suffering. Could a stepmother actually hold a boy's head underwater with such force that she left bruises behind his ears? Could a mother stand by as her 7-year-old daughter is beaten to death, then only hours later try to pawn the child's videotapes?
Oh, we knew the answers. But until the verdicts, we could still hope, however bleakly, that these mothers might prove incapable of such atrocities.
Now, any such hope has passed. A judge and a jury have found them both guilty of murder. And we are forced to live with Jessica Schwarz and Pauline Zile.
It is hard not to compare these two mothers.
Zile, looking soft and pretty - and, yes, innocent - after her trial make-over. Schwarz, cold and crass and never abandoning her jail-issued blues.
Their pretenses are different, but they are the same. They both put their children through hell. They both are evil.
If they had been found not guilty, we would be outraged. But our memories of them would have eventually faded and vanished, just as they probably would have.
Now, they will be forced upon us again and again. We will learn of their court appeals, their requests from remote prison cells - a hairbrush, a mirror, a different cell.
We will be forced to remember. We should remember, of course. But it would be easier to forget.
Each time a child dies and a parent is accused, we will think about A.J.'s humiliation. Forced to go naked and eat from a plate next to cat litter, his spirit - and then his life - cruelly stolen from him. And if a child is abducted by a stranger, we will recall Pauline Zile - her believable tears and frightening plea for the return of the daughter she knew was dead. We will wonder: Is this parent lying, too?
When Scott Cupp, the prosecutor in each of the cases, heard the first guilty verdict Tuesday - for Jessica Schwarz - he wearily laid his head on the courtroom table, his eyes brimming with tears.
Outside the courtroom, the tears finally falling, Cupp said: ``Maybe now, A.J. has peace.''
But he doesn't. He never did.
And now, because of two mothers we have grown to hate, neither do we.

Back To Top

GRAND JURIES GET FINAL SAY ON MURDER CHARGE SPECIFICS
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A mother who never touches her dying child is charged with first-degree murder and may face the electric chair, while a stepmother accused of holding her stepson's head under water is charged only with second-degree murder.
Why?
``There's a simple explanation,'' said Chief Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks. ``Both cases were presented to the grand jury and it was their call.''
Separate grand juries listened to the evidence against Pauline Zile and Jessica Schwarz. In Schwarz's case, the grand jury opted for a second-degree murder charge. For Pauline Zile, the jurors chose first-degree felony murder.
``Contrary to what people think, we do not control the grand jury,'' Zacks said. ``We instruct them on the law and present the evidence to them and they decide what charges, if any, should be filed.''
The grand jury reviews all homicides in Palm Beach County. Prosecutors provide the legal definitions for a variety of crimes, ranging from manslaughter to first-degree murder.
Prosecutors say they do not recommend or lobby for a particular charge. However, it is prosecutors - not the grand jury - who decide whether to seek the death penalty.
In Pauline Zile's case, grand jurors opted for first-degree felony murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse charges. Those charges required prosecutors to prove that by failing to protect her daughter, Christina Holt, from her husband, John Zile, she was guilty of aggravated child abuse.
In addition, prosecutors needed to prove that Pauline Zile's ``acting by not acting'' made her a principal in the girl's murder.
The grand jury selected second-degree murder for Jessica Schwarz, believing there was enough evidence to prove that Schwarz caused the death of her stepson, A.J. Schwarz ``by an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life.''
``It's really apples and oranges,'' said Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, who prosecuted both cases. ``The bottom line is, they're both looking at a lot of time.''
Jack Goldberger, a defense attorney representing Paulette Cone, another mother charged with first-degree murder, wonders whether politics and media pressure play a role in the grand jury's decision.
``The grand jury does what the state attorney's office wants it to,'' Goldberger said. ``If they had wanted to indict Pauline Zile or Paulette Cone for second-degree murder they could have.''

Back To Top

'THIS MOTHER DESPISED HER CHILD,' JUDGE SAYS OF A.J.'S STEPMOTHER
Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
April 12, 1995
VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A judge methodically eliminated every other ``remotely possible'' explanation for the death of 10-year-old Andrew Schwarz before convicting the boy's stepmother Tuesday of second-degree murder.
``The record is replete with testimony that this mother despised her child,'' Circuit Judge Karen Martin said in delivering her verdict in the state's case against Jessica Schwarz.
Schwarz, already serving 30 years for subjecting her stepson to a variety of humiliating emotional abuses, could receive a life sentence for the murder conviction. She showed no reaction to the verdict.
``Her attitude speaks for itself,'' prosecutor Scott Cupp said. ``She's a wicked person.''
Martin also convicted Schwarz of witness tampering for ordering her 4-year-old daughter not to talk to investigators about A.J.'s death.
Andrew, also known as ``A.J.,'' was found naked in his family's backyard pool in Lake Worth on May 2, 1993. His stepmother was indicted on second-degree murder and child abuse charges five months later.
Defense attorney Rendell Brown offered a variety of possible scenarios to explain A.J.'s drowning - from cramps during a late-night swim to a defective snorkel.
Martin rejected each hypothesis as ``remotely possible but not reasonable,'' noting that fresh bruises on A.J.'s head and face suggested his killer beat him unconscious, then threw him into the pool, or forcibly held his head underwater until he drowned.
``All those scratches and bruises could not be explained by accident,'' said Martin, who presided over the nonjury trial.
Cupp and prosecutor Joe Marx hailed the conviction as a fitting final chapter to ``the horror story'' that defined A.J.'s life after he moved to Lake Worth to live with his father, David ``Bear'' Schwarz and his stepmother.
Jessica Schwarz developed an inexplicable hostility for the boy that intensified over time into abject hatred, according to testimony at the two trials.
Her abusive behavior effectively transformed her stepson into a house slave whose psyche was so badly damaged by his stepmother's increasingly brutal emotional and physical abuse that his IQ dropped significantly, witnesses testified.
In reaching her verdict, Martin relied heavily on testimony from psychologist George Rahim Jr., who stated unequivocally that A.J. would never have gone swimming naked in the middle of the night. Rahim's certainty on that point was critical to the state's case, since it undermined almost every defense theory on A.J.'s death.
The judge also cited ``chilling and frightening testimony'' that Jessica Schwarz stated with matter-of-fact deliberation, more than a year before A.J.'s death, that she would kill him.
By the time A.J. died, Martin said, he had become a serious problem for his stepmother because neighbors were regularly reporting signs of his abuse to state health officials. Martin also referred to medical testimony that A.J.'s head injuries were serious enough to have killed him if he hadn't drowned first.
Brown said he declined to call Schwarz to the stand because he felt prosecutors had not presented a convincing case.
``She wanted to take the stand,'' he said. ``I didn't think it was merited, given the state's case.''
Schwarz did testify in her own defense at the earlier abuse trial, but her cold, emotionless performance on the stand was not viewed as helpful to her case.
A.J.'s natural mother, Ilene Soini, whose own reportedly cruel and neglectful treatment of A.J. was a key element of Schwarz's defense at the abuse trial, said Schwarz deserves the maximum sentence.
``That way she has to live and suffer the rest of her life like A.J. did,'' Soini said.

Back To Top

ZILE, SCHWARZ CHILD DEATH CASES LIKELY TO CARRY SAME PENALTIES
Sun-Sentinel
April 13, 1995
STEPHANIE SMITH and MIKE FOLKS
Staff Writers

Pauline Zile stood idly by during the beating of her daughter that ended the child's life, and now she faces the death penalty after her first-degree murder conviction on Tuesday.
Jessica Schwarz relentlessly tortured her stepson for two years until she drowned him by knocking him unconscious or holding him under water. She faces a maximum of life in prison after her second-degree murder conviction on the same day.
Two mothers, two children dead, two different charges and convictions.
Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, head of the crimes against children unit, presented both cases before grand juries and prosecuted both women. While the charges and convictions are different, the punishment will most likely be the same, Cupp said on Wednesday.
"What people don't seem to understand is they're both going to be serving life in prison," he said.
Still, why was Schwarz indicted for second-degree murder while Zile was charged with first-degree murder?
"Everybody believes the State Attorney's Office controls grand juries, but grand juries come back with higher or lower charges than what you asked for, and you don't know why they do what they do because it's all secret," Cupp said.
Schwarz's attorney, Rendell Brown, doesn't believe that. Prosecutors always push for the highest charge they can get with a grand jury, Brown said on Wednesday.
"They had no evidence of anything, but they had a dead child," Brown said of the death of A.J. Schwarz, 10, on May 2, 1993.
"If [prosecutors) believed what she was convicted of, the grand jury would have come back with first-degree murder," Brown said.
The major obstacle for the prosecution in A.J.'s death was the autopsy. Palm Beach County Medical Examiner James Benz said he could not be certain the boy's death was a homicide. Without a homicide, how can you have a murder? Brown argued in court.
"We went into that with the chief medical examiner in Palm Beach County as a defense witness," Cupp said.
Cupp got a second opinion from a medical examiner from Atlanta, who testified he could not scientifically attest the death was a homicide, but his personal thoughts were that it was. More than 30 bruises covered A.J.'s body, and he was found drowned in a waist-high, above-ground swimming pool.
Then comes the next question: Why was A.J.'s biological father David "Bear" Schwarz not criminally charged for his failure to protect his son, as Zile was in the death of her daughter, Christina Holt, 7?
"Bear was never there," Cupp said of the long-haul truck driver. "That would have been a difficult case as a test case because everybody agreed Bear wasn't around and he didn't know. Some witnesses indicated he didn't seem to want to know, but saying he should have known and proving that he did know are two different things."
Also, the father may have had a legitimate battered spouse defense, because police reports indicated his wife attacked him, Cupp said.
The first-degree murder conviction of Zile may be a legal landmark, said Ryan Rainey, senior attorney for the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse in Alexandria, Va.
"I don't think it's happened before, a conviction for first-degree murder for omission, failing to act," Rainey said. "I think this is the test case that's been building up for the last couple of years. The facts were heinous enough to reach that threshold with a jury for a murder conviction."
The laws to find parents or guardians criminally responsible for not protecting their children have been around for years, Rainey said, but prosecutors who have tried to use them have been mostly unsuccessful in getting convictions.
John Zile, who will go to trial in August, said on Wednesday his wife should not have been found guilty of murder.
"My wife is not a murderer," he said outside a hearing to decide visitation with their two remaining children, Daniel, 6, and Chad, 3, who are in state custody.
"She just had a bad lawyer. I feel sorry for my wife. She will win on appeal," he said.

Back To Top