Christina's Story: Newspaper Articles

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Christina's Story - Newspaper Articles

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

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*In Loving Memory Of* Christina Diane Holt May 23, 1987 - September 16, 1994 "Beautiful Child who has found love from the angels...RIP..."	(Not her actual headstone)
These pages contain all of the articles from the Palm Beach Post and The Sun-Sentinel throughout the years.

Mother's Betrayal An Unspeakable Sin (11/7/94)
Grand Jury To Reconvene Today (11/7/94)
Tears For Strangers (11/7/94)
State Begins Steps To Take Custody Of Ziles' Two Sons (11/8/94)
Ziles Appear At Court Hearing On Custody Of Sons (11/8/94)
300 Protest Child Abuse, Urge Change (11/8/94)
Grand Jury Hears 6 Witnesses in Zile Case (11/8/94)
Pauline Zile Says She Will Fight To Keep Her Two Sons (11/9/94)
Grand Jury Hears Ziles Case Evidence (11/9/94)
Lawyers Defend 'Monsters' -- And Themselves (11/9/94)

MOTHER'S BETRAYAL AN UNSPEAKABLE SIN
Sun-Sentinel
November 7, 1994
Author: RAY RECCHI, Commentary

My wife has often said that she could not imagine any pain greater than that of losing one of our children. I agree.

But after the past week, we can only hope that that is not the case for Pauline Zile and Susan Smith. If there is any justice, they will suffer greater pain, not only for betraying their children, but for betraying motherhood, the rest of the country, and particularly all the frightened little children who will be lost or kidnapped from now on.

Both women knew their children were dead. Zile spent four nights in the same house where her daughter's broken body lay hidden in a closet. Then she helped her husband carry out an elaborate scheme to cover up the abomination he had committed. She cried on cue and begged the kidnapper to return 7-year-old Christina Holt.

Our hearts went out to her. And she stomped on them.

But even as the Ziles' sordid story unraveled, we sent out our hearts again, this time to Susan Smith, a young South Carolina mother who said a black man ordered her out of her car and drove away with her two little boys. She cried well, too.

A little humanity is eaten away

Once again, we prayed. Once again, it was all a lie. On Thursday, police pulled Smith's car out of a lake with the bodies of two children still inside. Smith reportedly confessed and was arrested for murder.

In a crime-riddled society where our sensibilities are battered daily by reports of unthinkably heinous acts, this one-two punch was the worst yet. That innocent, defenseless children should be killed is horrible. Sadly, however, the murder of children no longer surprises us. But that their mothers should be involved, then play on our emotions by pretending to be grief-stricken evokes an outrage that is beyond words.

As we mourn the deaths of those three children, we also mourn another loss of our collective innocence. Will we not be a little suspicious the next time a child disappears? Will as many people volunteer to look for as long and as hard?

Of course, some of us questioned the Ziles' story from the beginning. How could someone take your child from a bathroom stall adjacent to yours without you hearing or seeing a thing? But we wanted Pauline Zile to be telling the truth. So we believed her.

The excuses stop here

When the truth finally came out, I told my wife that I wouldn't be surprised if Susan Smith also was lying. What would a car-jacker want with two little boys? How could a mother simply get out of that car and let a criminal drive off with her kids? How could a mother save herself, knowing it could mean injury or death to her children?

On the very day that Smith was arrested, Pauline Zile's lawyer, Ellis Rubin, called a news conference to tell us she was mentally tormented by her husband and therefore should not be held accountable.

No! Even in this Age of Excuses in which nothing is anyone's fault, there is no acceptable excuse for what Zile or Smith did.

In a statement read by Rubin, Pauline Zile said, "I pray that everyone who ever knew and will know me will forgive me for not being a strong person and eventually will trust me again."

Not in a million years.

In fact, because of Zile and Smith, it's going to be more difficult for us to trust each other from now on.

Lifestyle Columnist Ray Recchi's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.

GRAND JURY TO RECONVENE TODAY
Sun-Sentinel
November 7, 1994
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

A Palm Beach County grand jury reconvenes today to hear witness testimony about the death of 7-year-old Christina Holt.

The grand jury, called in last week for a special one-day session, heard testimony from detectives investigating Christina's Sept. 16 death.
Today, the same grand jurors will begin hearing more evidence of how Christina died, of her burial in a sandy grave behind a Tequesta Kmart, and of the elaborate hoax police say her parents concocted to cover up her disappearance.

Prosecutors expect the grand jury inquiry to last more than a week before indictments are issued.

Christina's stepfather, John Zile, 32, is charged with first-degree murder and two counts of felony aggravated child abuse after confessing to the killing.

Pauline Zile, 24, is charged with first-degree murder and one count of felony aggravated child abuse for failing to protect her child. Her arrest came on Friday after the Palm Beach County medical examiner identified Christina's body through fingerprint comparisons and declared the girl's death a homicide.

The cause of death has not been determined.

Prosecutors hope evidence will persuade the grand jury to indict the Ziles on felony murder, a form of first-degree murder that does not require the state to prove premeditation. The maximum penalty is the electric chair.

Under the state felony murder statute, one or more people can be charged in a killing if the death occurs during the commission of a felony. In this case, prosecutors say Christina was killed as a result of felony aggravated child abuse when John Zile beat the 44-pound girl and tried to muffle her screams, and Pauline Zile watched.

Witnesses named in police affidavits supporting the charges are expected to testify today. The affidavits outline testimony the grand jury is expected to hear.

John and Pauline Zile are not expected to testify, but prosecutors could present their statements to police and to the grand jurors.

Iola Mosely, John Zile's public defender, said on Sunday that she will advise her client not to testify before the grand jury. Ellis Rubin, Pauline Zile's defense attorney, said on Sunday he will not allow his client "to commit suicide" by testifying.

The Ziles' two sons, Daniel, 5, and Chad, 3, could testify, although their statements to police were videotaped and could be presented in lieu of testimony.

On Oct. 24, investigators interviewed both boys, who said their parents had beaten Christina many times and put her in the bathroom. During an interview three days later, Daniel told investigators Christina was "dead, dead" and that there was blood on Christina and blood on her bed.

Officials from Jupiter Farms Elementary School, where Christina attended less than two weeks of school, also may testify today about conflicting statements police say Pauline Zile made.

Karen Millette, a school office employee, has told police that Pauline Zile withdrew Christina from school on Oct. 7, saying her daughter was returning to live with relatives in Maryland.

Lydia Johnson, Christina's second-grade teacher, told investigators that Pauline Zile said Christina did not go to Maryland but was being taught at home.

Sandra Volheim, Daniel's teacher, said Pauline Zile told her Christina had gone to Maryland.

The Ziles' neighbors at the Sea Nymph apartments in Riviera Beach, where Christina was killed, also are expected to testify.

The most damaging testimony could come from Dale Ackerman, who corroborated parts of what John Zile told police.

Ackerman recalled hearing in mid-September a hitting sound and a young girl crying from inside the Ziles' apartment. She then heard a woman scream, "John that's enough, stop it," but the hitting sounds continued. Ackerman said the girl's crying suddenly stopped and a man was heard saying, "Wake up, wake up, I'm sorry."Ackerman saw the Ziles' bathroom light go on and heard running water.

In his statement to police, John Zile said he was disciplining Christina on Sept. 16 for "playing doctor" with her half brothers. As he scolded her, Christina soiled herself, enraging her stepfather. Zile said he beat her buttocks and hit her in the face. Christina went into a seizure, passed out and stopped breathing.

John Zile told police that attempts to revive Christina with CPR and placing her in a tub filled with water failed. He wrapped her body in sheets and a blanket and hid her in a closet until he could bury her.

Neighbor Holly Walsh is expected to testify that she saw Pauline Zile beat the child with a stick on two occasions.

Neighbor Linda Kauppinen is expected to testify that after not seeing the girl for eight weeks, she talked to Pauline. She said Pauline said Christina was "snotty, spoiled and too much to handle" and was sent back to Maryland.

Lonie Lindsey, an employee at the Amoco station in Riviera Beach, is expected to testify that Pauline Zile was alone in a car when she stopped at the station on the morning of Oct. 22, the day Pauline Zile reported Christina abducted from the Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale.

Betty Schultz, an employee at Home Depot in Palm Beach Gardens, is expected to tell grand jurors the Ziles, accompanied by their sons, bought a shovel, a blue tarp and a rose bush from the store.

TEARS FOR STRANGERS
IMPROMPTU MEMORIALS TO THE VICTIMS OF TRAGEDY ARE WAYS OF SAYING `WE'RE SORRY.'
Sun-Sentinel
November 7, 1994
Author: DEBBIE CENZIPER Staff Writer

They couldn't stop Walter John Zile the night he beat his stepdaughter to death with his bare hands.

They couldn't shout at the little girl's mother, "Help her! Help her!" while she watched her daughter die.
They couldn't save young Christina Holt, hug her or soothe her, because she died before most people knew there was a child to be saved.

So hundreds of strangers from across South Florida turned to the ditch where Christina's body was dumped, in a field behind some trash bins and a Kmart in Tequesta, to do something, anything, to honor the little girl who will never see her eighth birthday.

And they built her a shrine.

This is often the way society copes with tragedy today, experts say, a way to come to terms with senseless violence and deaths we cannot control.

Building makeshift memorials is sometimes the only thing left to do, the only way to cope with feelings of grief and helplessness and make sense of the world again.

They did it for the five college students murdered in Gainesville in the summer of 1990, spray-painting the names of the victims on a wall that borders the University of Florida campus.

They did it for 5-year-old Amanda Dougherty of North Lauderdale in September, building shrines near her home and at the site where investigators found her body, strangled in a shallow canal west of Boca Raton.

They did it for the five Broward teen-agers killed in a car crash two years ago by painting farewells that stretched almost half a mile on the pavement near the accident site on Lox Road north of the Broward-Palm Beach county line.

And they'll do doubt build one beside the Union, S.C., lake where Susan Smith told police she drove her two little boys, Alexander and Michael Smith, to their deaths.

"We build shrines because it's a way of reaching out to victims," says area psychologist Marvin Fredman. "And it's a way of empowering people who feel helpless. Here's a little girl that somebody hurt and killed. It awakens an anxiety in people that we can't control everything. People wind up saying, `Well, I've got to do something.' So they bring flowers, create a shrine. It's a way to cope with life events that are out of our control."

The makeshift memorials give communities that are normally splintered a place to gather to share grief and indignation, says Lynn Appleton, a sociology professor at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

"In less complex societies people had places to go where they shared grief," she says. "They went to a synagogue, a church, to town square. In our society, we lead such highly individualized lives, there is no place to go. That's what the shrines are, a place where we can feel that yes, we are part of some larger community, where we can check our sense of right and wrong."

Christina's shrine overflows with wooden crosses and trinkets, flowers and hand-written messages that have faded with rain and wind.

Mothers come with their children, holding hands and staring silently at the place where police found Christina's body late last month, buried by her stepfather who had tried to hide his crime.

"I had to come out here," says Tequesta resident Joyce Gartlend. "I've come to say a prayer for this child. And I wanted to see what all the good people had done building this for her. It's nice to know there are still kind people left in this world."

There are tears and bowed heads as visitors stare at the shrine; children solemnly bend down and leave McDonald's Happy Meal trinkets or a beloved teddy bear in tribute to Christina's memory.

"Christina: I wish you could've played at my house but now you're in God's House. L.U.V, Kalene," one child wrote on a wooden stake hammered into the ground.

"We would have taken you in a minute and made you part of our family. God bless you," wrote the Diaz family on a piece of legal paper.

In part, shrines like Christina's are built on a collective sense of guilt. Fredman calls it "survivor's guilt."

Even while Christina's body lay in the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office for the autopsy, parents were dressing their children in Power Ranger and Barney costumes for Halloween, getting ready to enjoy the day.

"Here is a little girl who was never given a chance to live her life, and you want to say to that girl, `We're sorry,'" Fredman says. "Some people will feel guilty that they've been allowed to live a fuller life and here is a little girl who was cut down young."

Christina died on Sept. 16 after a late-night fatal beating, her stepfather confessed to police.

Her mother, Pauline Zile, told police she watched but could not stop it.

The Ziles kept Christina's body in the bedroom closet of their Singer Island apartment for four days while John Zile scouted for a burial site.

A few weeks later, to cover their tracks, the Ziles told police Christina had disappeared from the Swap Shop in Fort Lauderdale, prompting a massive search. Their story unraveled several days after that when police found blood in the couple's apartment and talked to witnesses who said they saw John Zile beat Christina in the past.

John Zile has been charged with first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse. Pauline Zile has been charged with first-degree murder and one count of aggravated child abuse.

In the meantime, mourner after mourner stops by the memorial, a bedlam of bright colors and flying balloons in a grassy, empty field.

"There is so much tragedy around today," says Nancy McBride, executive director of the Adam Walsh Center/Florida, which works to prevent crimes against children. "The public doesn't know how to deal with it. That's why they're building these shrines, because it's the only tangible way to honor someone's memory."

STATE BEGINS STEPS TO TAKE CUSTODY OF ZILES' TWO SONS
The Palm Beach Post
November 8, 1994
Author: JENNY STALETOVICH and VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers

State workers began steps Monday to take away the young children of a couple accused of killing their daughter as grand jurors reconvened and continued hearing testimony in the murder cases against Pauline and John Zile.

In a brief hearing, John Zile's attorney said Zile would fight to keep his two young sons. Pauline Zile will appear in court today, her attorney said.
State health workers investigated Pauline Zile, 24, in 1989 for allegations of child abuse, but investigators could not find proof of abuse, a source said. The department of Health and Rehabilitative Services could not confirm the 1989 investigation because they destroy records of abuse allegations that do not prove true.

HRS officials also said that if the couple's two sons, ages 3 and 5, are taken away, they would try first to place them with other family members.

``We look to keep the family together. So in situations where there is termination of parental rights, we look for past relationships children have had,'' said HRS spokeswoman Beth Owen. ``We give preference to people who have established relationships or are relational to the child or siblings.''

Grand jurors will continue to meet on the case, reviewing testimony in the slaying of 7-year-old Christina Holt.

John Zile, 32, Holt's stepfather, told police on Oct. 27 that he killed the girl on Sept. 16, hid her body in a closet for nearly four days and then buried her behind a Tequesta shopping center, according to arrest papers. John Zile's confession came after his wife failed a lie detector test, then told police her husband killed the girl, police said.

Police charged Pauline Zile with murder and child abuse last week after collecting evidence they say showed she beat the girl, too.

Prosecutors aren't sure whether jurors will decide on indictments before next week.

``We want to make sure we get both of them and those aren't necessarily the same witnesses,'' State Attorney Barry Krischer said. Today's testimony will come from witnesses other than police officers, he said.

Prosecutors also are waiting for Medical Examiner James Benz to sign off on his report explaining the specific cause of Christina's death, Krischer said. Benz also is expected to testify before the grand jury.

ZILES APPEAR AT COURT HEARING ON CUSTODY OF SONS
JOHN ZILE ADAMANT ABOUT KEEPING PARENTAL RIGHTS; GRAND JURY HEARS MORE WITNESSES
Sun-Sentinel
November 8, 1994
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer
Staff writers Mike Folks and Jill Young Miller contributed to this report.

As a grand jury considered whether to indict Pauline and John Zile in the murder of their daughter, the couple appeared in another courtroom on Monday as the state tried to take away their two sons.
Both shackled and heavily guarded, they saw each other for the first time since Oct. 27, when their concocted tale of daughter Christina Holt's kidnapping fell apart.

The Ziles - who weeks ago pledged to die together in a suicide pact - hardly glanced at each other at the hearing on whether their sons Daniel, 5, and Chad, 3, should be put up for adoption.

The process is expected to take three to four months, and includes a trial.

The state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services is asking a judge to find the Ziles unfit parents based on the September beating and killing of Christina, 7, Pauline Zile's daughter from a previous marriage.

John and Pauline Zile are charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death.

The state does not have to show that the boys were abused or mistreated. It is enough if the victim was a sibling, HRS spokeswoman Beth Owen said.

John Zile, 32, said on Monday he would fight to remain the boys' father.

"I'll never give up my sons willingly. I love them very much," he said. "They've never had any harm done to them. Never."

But John Zile has admitted harming Christina. He told police on Oct. 27 that he hit his stepdaughter on the face and buttocks until the 44-pound girl collapsed into convulsions and suffocated. Pauline Zile and their two sons were in the room.

Instead of calling an ambulance, the couple tried to revive Christina in the bathtub. They were afraid to call for help because Christina's bruises from previous beatings would raise suspicion, John Zile said. After she died, they hid her body in a closet for four days until John Zile buried her in a sandy, vacant lot behind a Tequesta Kmart.

Pauline Zile, 24, did not have a lawyer at Monday's hearing and plans to return today to discuss whether she will fight the HRS action.

If the boys are put up for adoption, family members would get priority. But it was unclear if any relatives would take in Chad and Daniel.

"No, no we're not," John Zile's father, Charles, said from his home in Maryland.

The boys are together in a temporary foster home; if they are adopted, they will remain together, said HRS' Owen.

Until Monday's hearing, Pauline Zile had been flanked by her mother, Paula Yingling, at every appearance.

But Yingling had to make an appearance of her own on Monday.

For several hours, Yingling was questioned before the grand jury.

She left the grand jury room in tears, leaning into the arm of an investigator for the State Attorney's Office. Asked if she still stood by her daughter, Yingling sobbed and said she could not comment.

Dale Ackerman was also among the half-dozen witnesses appearing at the closed grand jury proceedings on Monday. Ackerman, a neighbor to the Ziles at their Singer Island apartment complex, has told police she may have overheard Christina's killing and the Ziles' frantic attempts to revive the girl on Sept. 16.

Three Broward County sheriff's deputies and one other neighbor also appeared on Monday before the grand jury, which will hear from more witnesses today.

The Medical Examiner's office has not ruled on the cause of Christina's death. Christina's funeral will be further delayed because her mother's attorney, Ellis Rubin, has requested that the body be kept after the official autopsy to allow his experts to perform their own examination.

Since their hoax unraveled that Christina was whisked away by a stranger at a flea market restroom west of Fort Lauderdale, the Ziles appear to have turned against each other. In the courtroom on Monday, John Zile glared at his wife while she vacantly looked ahead or bowed her head.

Asked if he had anything to say to his wife, he said, "Yeah, stop telling lies about me."

Pauline Zile, through her attorney, has portrayed herself as a passive, emotionally imprisoned women who was helpless to defend her daughter against her husband. She claimed she was as much a victim as her daughter.

"I've tried and worked so hard for my life and my children, and now it's ruined," Zile said in a letter released to the media last week. "You [John Zile) and God know the truth of all this and how you hurt me and my children so much."

Then, John Zile lashed out in a jailhouse interview. His wife was a strong-willed, manipulative woman who witnessed the whole thing and had a sound night's sleep after the killing while he had insomnia for three days, he said.

He blamed his stepdaughter for enraging him, saying the child acted sexually with his sons and had a history of sexual abuse while she lived with her paternal family in Maryland. Christina's grandmother brought her to Florida in June to live with her mother.

In the interview, John Zile said the death was an accident, that Christina was an epileptic and went into a seizure.

But a principal at the Maryland school Christina attended denied that she was epileptic, and relatives of the girl, friends and family in Maryland were outraged by John Zile's story, saying it was self-serving and filled with lies.

"This guy is claiming that his murder victim was sexually abused here in Montgomery County. We have no record of that, and personally I think he's full of s---, so if you want to print that I don't care," said Sgt. Harry Geehreng, spokesman for the Montgomery County, Maryland Police Department.

300 PROTEST CHILD ABUSE, URGE CHANGE
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 8, 1994
Author: GRACE LIM Herald Staff Writer

Six-year-old Stephanie Suarez wore a sign that read: "We love U Christina, Michael, Alex, Ashton."

There was no need to explain those names. South Florida, and the rest of the nation, had watched the unfolding of the kids' tragedies of murder and abuse.
About 300 people, many of them parents with young children, gathered Monday morning at the steps of the Dade County Courthouse for a rally to protest child abuse. The event was sponsored by radio station Y-100 (WHYI FM).

Stephanie, a first-grader at Oliver Hoover Elementary School, skipped class to join the rally with her mother. "I wish that everybody in the world would take care of the kids," the girl said.

Stephanie's mother Shawn Suarez sacrificed her college midterms to show her support.

"It's an important lesson to learn," said Suarez, a senior studying accounting at Florida International University. "She can tell her classmates that if any of them are being abused, that there is somebody out there who cares about them, and that they can speak out."

The rally was the brainchild of the radio station's general manager, David Ross, and morning drive-time radio personalities Bobby Mitchell and Footy.

Mitchell said the murders of 7-year-old Christina Holt, 3- year-old Michael Smith and 14-month-old Alex Smith have outraged the community.

Mitchell said he hopes the rally will send a message to lawmakers that the justice system needs to speed up its method of dealing with child abusers and murderers who have confessed or have been convicted.

"Enough is enough," said Patricia Smith, who lives in Carol City. Her 17-year-old son Robert R. Keene Jr. was killed July 23, shot twice in the chest in front of a friend's house.

"Something has to be done for the children, the murdered ones, the abused ones," Smith said. "My son was murdered. I want to see justice done."

Cindy Eckman, a nurse at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said she sees many victims of child abuse. She brought her 19-month- old daughter Bre Ann to the rally. "It just breaks my heart," she said. "All they want is love. That is all they want.

"They reach out to the nurses, and you can see that they are trying to figure out, 'What did I do that was so wrong?' "

GRAND JURY HEARS 6 WITNESSES IN ZILE CASE
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 8, 1994
Author: JUDY PLUNKETT EVANS Herald Staff Writer

A neighbor who told police she heard hitting and crying on the night 7-year-old Christina Holt was killed was one of six witnesses who testified Monday before a Palm Beach County grand jury.
Dale Ackerman, who lived next to John and Pauline Zile at their Singer Island motel apartment, has said she heard hitting and a young girl crying inside the Zile apartment. Although her grand jury testimony is confidential, Ackerman has told police she heard a woman say, "John, that's enough. John, stop it."

Ackerman's statement contradicts what Pauline Zile has said about her involvement in the deadly beating -- that she awoke to find her husband beating Christina too late to stop the assault. It also contradicts John Zile's assertion that his wife did nothing to stop him.

John Zile has told police he hit Christina several times, until she went into convulsions and died Sept. 16. He then wrapped her body in a blue tarp and buried her four days later in a wooded area, behind the Tequesta Kmart.

Both Ziles have been arrested and charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. However, they cannot be tried on those charges if the grand jury does not return an indictment against them. Jurors are expected to hear testimony much of this week, State Attorney Barry Krischer said.

"We've got to make sure we have enough evidence to get both of them, and those are not necessarily the same witnesses," Krischer said.

Pauline Zile's mother, Paula Yingling of Jensen Beach, also testified Monday. Yingling refused to talk to reporters, except to say she supports her daughter. Police do not believe Yingling knew about Christina's death or her daughter's efforts to cover the death by reporting that Christina had disappeared from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.

Four other witnesses also testified Monday, including another neighbor and three Broward County sheriff's deputies who investigated Christina's disappearance and, later, her death.

While the grand jury heard testimony about Christina's death, the state's social service agency took the Ziles to court Monday to terminate their parental rights to their other two children. Daniel and Chad Zile, 5 and 3, respectively, have been in foster care since their father was arrested Oct. 27.

The state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services has filed a petition to terminate the Ziles' parental rights, based on Christina's death. Monday's hearing was an arraignment, a chance for the parents to ask for a trial on their custodial rights.

John Zile is fighting the state's attempt to take away his children. His wife did not have an attorney to handle this case until Monday, when the court appointed one, so she will have another arraignment hearing.

PAULINE ZILE SAYS SHE WILL FIGHT TO KEEP HER 2 SONS
The Palm Beach Post
November 9, 1994
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

As the grand jury heard testimony on Tuesday about her daughter's death, Pauline Zile told a judge she intends to fight state efforts to terminate her parental rights, according to a court-appointed attorney assigned to the case.

Pauline Zile, handcuffed and shackled, said nothing as she left the courtroom surrounded by deputies and bailiffs.
The hearing was closed to the public.

Pauline and John Zile's sons, David, 5, and Chad, 3, have been living in a foster home since John Zile was charged with first-degree murder on Oct. 27.

Pauline Zile was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse on Nov. 4.

The grand jury heard testimony from several detectives and Dr. James Benz, the county medical examiner.

Benz would not comment on his testimony but said he had not completed his report.

Christina Holt's body was badly decomposed but showed no sign of sexual abuse, Benz said.

The Zile children, who told police they had seen the couple beat Christina, will not testify before the grand jury, State Attorney Barry Krischer said. The grand jury is expected to issue its report in the case on Thursday.

``I've never seen this kind of community uproar related to any other case,'' said Krischer, whose office has received calls and letters about Christina's murder.

``The community is united.''

GRAND JURY HEARS ZILES CASE EVIDENCE
Sun-Sentinel
November 9, 1994
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer
Staff writers Jim Di Paola and Marego Athans contributed to this report.

A cigar box filled with crime scene photos and tapes of John Zile's statement to police were among the evidence presented on Tuesday to the grand jury reviewing Christina Holt's death.

The investigation wrapped up late Tuesday after all evidence in the death of the 7-year-old girl had been presented to the 18-member panel, said Mike Edmondson, spokesman for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office. The grand jury report is expected to be released on Thursday.
Medical Examiner James Benz and investigators from the Riviera Beach Police Department and State Attorney's Office appeared before the panel on Tuesday.

As he left the grand jury room, Benz said there were signs of bruises on Christina's body but there was no evidence of sexual abuse.

Benz has not released the autopsy report on how Christina died, but the death was ruled a homicide and she appeared to have suffocated, his investigators have said.

Christina's parents, John and Pauline Zile, each face charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the girl's death.

John Zile, 32, confessed to police his stepdaughter fell into convulsions and stopped breathing after he beat her on Sept. 16. The girl's mother, Pauline Zile, 24, is accused of standing idly by during the beating. Under state law, a parent who does not protect a child from abuse is as guilty as the abuser.

The grand jury had requested to hear more witnesses in the Zile case today, but prosecutors were able to present all their evidence on Tuesday.

The panel's apparent concern over the evidence did not mean the state's attempt to have the Ziles indicted on first-degree murder charges was in trouble, State Attorney Barry Krischer said.

The Ziles will not go free if the grand jury chooses not to indict the couple on first-degree murder charges, he said.

"We're bound by the grand jury, but our office can file any charge except for first-degree murder," Krischer said.

The grand jury report is not expected until Thursday because the panel is reviewing two other murder cases, including that of Clover Boykin, a Boynton Beach women accused of killing two infants, including her own.

Earlier on Tuesday, Pauline Zile appeared before a judge in a closed hearing on her other two children.

The state is trying to take away the two boys - Daniel, 5, and Chad, 3, who are both in a temporary foster home - and put them up for adoption. Pauline Zile, through court-appointed attorney Diane Duval, contested the state's attempt to sever her parental rights in a closed hearing.

John Zile contested the state's request in a Monday hearing.

Family members will receive preference in any adoption of the children, but so far, relatives have not stepped forward. The boys' paternal grandfather, Charles Zile, said he and his wife were not seeking to adopt their grandsons.

Their maternal grandmother, Paula Yingling, referred questions to her daughter's attorney. Asked if she was trying to find her grandsons a home or would take them in herself, Yingling said, "We've got lots of things going on."

The Ziles do not have money to hire attorneys and most of their legal defense will be paid by taxpayers. Both of the Ziles received court-appointed attorneys, paid by county taxpayers, in the case involving their sons.

In the criminal case, Pauline Zile has a private attorney, Ellis Rubin, and John Zile has an assistant public defender.

Rubin said that Pauline Zile's family is paying him a flat fee for his work but would not say how much.

Court records showed John Zile made $320 a week as a cook.

LAWYERS DEFEND `MONSTERS' - AND THEMSELVES
TAKING UNPOPULAR CASES NECESSARY, BUT SOME DRAW LINE AT CHILD KILLERS
Sun-Sentinel
November 9, 1994
Author: TREVOR JENSEN and MIKE FOLKS Staff Writers
Staff Writer John Hughes contributed to this report.
Sun-Sentinel Research/ NANCY MUNRO

When the crime is more horrible than can be imagined and all voices seem to be calling for the suspect's head - these are the moments some criminal defense attorneys live for.
"The more people criticize, the more people condemn me, the more I know I'm right," said Ellis Rubin, attorney for the Riviera Beach woman accused of murdering her daughter. "I really take these cases because they are the ultimate challenge."

Rubin stood on the steps of the Palm Beach County Courthouse last week and became a lone voice defending Pauline Zile, who with her husband is charged with first-degree murder in the death of her daughter, Christina.

The Miami attorney's office was immediately hit with dozens of hate calls and angry letters.

"You've got to be experienced at it, because a beginning attorney is going to be devastated by it," said Rubin, who has defended clients in more than 300 first-degree murder trials during his career.

Criminal defense attorneys don't win many friends with their work.

Defying authority and bucking the odds are among the reasons several attorneys gave for enjoying the defense of clients whom an emotional public would rather put away without even a trial.

The latest spate of child murders, however, has given even veteran defense attorneys pause.

James E. Coleman worked for almost three years to keep serial killer Ted Bundy out of Florida's electric chair, where many thought the man who killed as many as 26 women belonged.

But while no stranger to unpopular causes, he said he could not stomach defending the country's monsters of the moment, John and Pauline Zile, or Susan Smith of South Carolina.

"I think I would find it very difficult to represent a parent who killed his own child," Coleman said. "As a parent, you couldn't understand it."

If the comments of everyday people are any indication, the level of hatred toward Smith and the Ziles is even more intense than any directed at the country's most notorious serial killers.

Police say Christina Holt was beaten and smothered by her stepfather, John Zile. The Ziles kept the body in their apartment for four days before he buried it.

Police say Susan Smith confessed to driving her two boys, ages 3 years and 14 months, into a lake before claiming they were abducted.

About the only people speaking on behalf of the alleged killers have been their attorneys.

Attorneys are quick to note that, under the U.S. Constitution, the most heinous criminal is just as deserving of a defense as the guy next door charged with drunken driving.

Rubin, a Miami attorney with an extensive portfolio of high-profile cases, said that Pauline Zile's family is paying him a flat fee for his work but would not say how much.

He scoffed at the notion he took the case for the publicity.

"If you think this case has done me or my practice any good, you're living on Mars," Rubin said. "I have lost other clients, appointments have been canceled. My family is outraged that I'm taking this."

Rubin said Ted Bundy tried to hire him before his trial in the late 1970s but that he turned him down because his daughter was a student at Florida State University, where Bundy was charged with murdering two sorority sisters.

Coleman, who took the Bundy case on appeal in 1986, said that he never saw the demonic killer portrayed in the media. Like several attorneys interviewed, Coleman said he tries to understand his clients, attempting to delve into their psyche to get at a possible motive.

He said he is not sure that is possible in the Ziles and Smith cases.

"With Ted Bundy, I could explain his crimes. They were the product of his mental illness," Coleman said. "Parents who abuse babies - that to me is one of those crimes that needs to be severely dealt with."

Defense attorneys said they often can't afford and rarely are allowed to be choosy about their clients. Attorneys many times are appointed by judges to criminal cases because the defendants have no money.

Florida Bar rules prevent attorneys from declining appointment to cases unless "the client or the cause is so repugnant to the lawyer as to be likely to impair the client-lawyer relationship or the lawyer's ability to represent the client."

The public's view of attorneys is mixed. They rank among the top five in a 1989 survey by the National Opinion Research Center. But a 1994 Gallup poll ranked attorneys 17th among 26 professions in terms of honesty and ethics, between newspaper reporters and stockbrokers.

Worrying about being liked is not good for business.

"The best lawyers I knew growing up didn't have a lot of friends. They were loners," said veteran Fort Lauderdale attorney Peter Giacoma.

Giacoma represented Richard Hamlin, a man accused in 1992 of smothering his girlfriend's 2-month old daughter, then stuffing the tiny corpse in a cheap suitcase and tossing it into a pond off Interstate 95 near Deerfield Beach.

The case outraged everybody who read about it, but Giacoma met Hamlin, found a likable enough guy whose life was messed up by drugs, and saw the case as a professional challenge.

"When you go to court for a guy who stole a million dollars, jurors think, `Boy, I wish I had a million dollars,'" Giacoma said. "With [cases like Hamlin and Zile), you don't have a friend in the room."

Hamlin insisted he was innocent of killing the baby, pointing to his girlfriend, Laurel Mitich. She said he did it.

Hamlin eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is serving a 12-year prison sentence. The baby's mother pleaded guilty to being an accessory to the crime and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Public rage over a notorious sex abuse case erupted last month in a courthouse hallway.

Attorney Jack Fleischman's client was a former Boy Scout leader convicted of sexually abusing teen-age boys in Loxahatchee and sentenced to six life terms plus 265 years.

A stepfather of one of the victims berated Fleischman after the sentencing.

"Why would you even defend him? Why would you even want a guy like that on the street?" the stepfather yelled, pointing at Fleischman. "You don't have children right now. In 10 or 15 years, he might come and see your son. You're worse than he is."

Fleischman said this week that he understood the stepfather's anger, but he said it's difficult for him to see why the rage is directed at him.

"If a victim or a victim's family ever finds themselves in a legal situation where they were accused of a serious crime, they would be entitled to, and I assume would want, an aggressive defense," Fleischman said.

Most attorneys said that defending acts most find indefensible is part of the oath they took after law school.

Gerald Boyle of Milwaukee was hired to defend Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 16 people in that city, often cooking and eating his victims' body parts.

"I'm not a hero, but I try very hard not [to be) a coward," Boyle said. "Walking away from that would have been a cowardly act."

Boyle said even the Dahmer case was not as emotionally taxing as representing child killers.

"The roughest, the worst, the toughest are the killing of youngsters," Boyle said.

Unpopular with the jury? "Unpopular with the world," he said.

"You don't go into these cases looking to win," Boyle said. "It's a matter of controlling the case."

Boyle said he also tries to figure out his clients. With Dahmer, he said the conclusion was easily reached.

"I think he's crazy. I think he's crazy then. I think he's crazy now," Boyle said. "The person who kills someone in their family, they're really a different breed of cat.

"It's impossible to understand. You never come to an understanding."

Several attorneys said that accused criminals are almost never as hateful as portrayed in the media.

"Nobody is inherently evil. It's never that way, no matter how despicable someone appears in print," said veteran Fort Lauderdale attorney Richard Garfield. "Usually, when you meet them, they're not in the process of strangling somebody, and they have some redeeming feature."

Harris Lowenthal, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who regularly defends men accused of molesting children, said dealing with the criminal element does require a certain amount of distance and rationalization.

"You get used to it, like a surgeon who pukes the first time," Lowenthal said.

After that, it's the attorney's job to look at the evidence and make sure prosecutors have proved their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

"If the state is able to prove my client guilty," Lowenthal said, "then he's a monster."

Not proven guilty - but already labeled a monster - is Frank Beltran, charged with sodomizing his 3-month-old son in Fort Lauderdale recently.

Assistant Broward Public Defender Randall Haas was assigned to Beltran's case. Walking to the jail to meet Beltran the day after his arrest, Haas passed by a crowd with picket signs and hangman's nooses to protest his client: "My gut feeling was it's pretty repulsive," Haas said. "[The angry protesters) are executing the guy based on what they read in the paper. To me, that's as bad as committing the crime."

Staff Writer John Hughes contributed to this report.