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.

How To Stop Child Abuse? (11/22/94)
State Right To Ask Death Penalty (11/22/94)
For Parents, This Is A Good Step (11/27/94)
To Alleviate Guilt, Public Sees Ziles As Monsters (11/27/94)
A Parent's Growing Worry: Losing Control (11/28/94)
Zile: 'She Just Kept Giving Us An Attitude' (11/29/94)
Warnings of Christina's Plight Didn't Register With Neighbors (11/29/94)
Wife's Bail Hearing Angers John Zile (11/29/94)
Court Papers Detail Abuse, Stress in Zile Home (11/29/94)
John Zile Yells At Wife In Hearing (11/29/94)

HOW TO STOP CHILD ABUSE?
The Palm Beach Post
November 22, 1994
Author: SUE WAIN

Q: During these past few weeks, there has been an absolute avalanche of cruelty to children.

I have seen reports of Christina Holt, whose mother and stepfather are charged with first-degree murder in her death. I also have seen reports of the woman in Union, S.C., who is charged in the drowning deaths of her two boys. How could she plan and carry through such an act of violence?

The people committing these acts have parents. Can't parents tell anymore whether their own children are sick or not? A person just doesn't get up one day and say, ``Oh, I think this is a good day to kill my children.''
Their parents - the grandparents of the murdered and abused children - must have seen some signs along the way. Have they lost all sense of morality? All sense of right and wrong? Why don't they either take the children or have the children taken away from the parents? Or simply try to protect the children somehow?

A: Your question is certainly one that has occurred to all of us. And further, we say if parents do not want their children, there are so many couples - loving ones - who do want children. Why not let those couples adopt?

One would say these people must be pretty sick and there must have been evidence of this along the way. I think the hardest thing as a parent must be to admit to yourself that your own child is pretty sick and could do his or her child permanent harm.

Maybe because you would feel responsible or maybe because it was hard enough bringing up your own child and you don't want to do it again.

Grandparents: Let's hear from you. Why does this happen? How can we prevent it?

If you have a question, write to: `Ask Sue Wain,' The Palm Beach Post, P.0. Box 24696, West Palm Beach, Fla. 33416-4700.

STATE RIGHT TO ASK DEATH PENALTY
Sun-Sentinel
November 22, 1994

It is chillingly appropriate that Pauline and John Zile will face the possibility of death in the electric chair if they are convicted of first-degree murder for killing 7-year-old Christina Holt.

The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office announced last week that prosecutors will seek the maximum punishment for the couple, each of whom faces one charge of first-degree murder and four charges of aggravated child abuse.
John Zile is accused of beating Christina, Pauline's daughter by a previous marriage, to death on Sept. 16 while the mother watched and declined to intervene. After the child's body was buried in a shallow grave, the two are alleged to have concocted a story that Christina had been abducted from a Broward County flea market.

State Attorney Barry Krischer's decision to seek the death penalty was not arrived at lightly. His office's capital felony review committee, composed of 10 experienced prosecutors, considered both mitigating and aggravating factors before voting for capital punishment. Prosecutors will contend Christina's death occurred as a result of felony child abuse.

Coming as it does in a national context of increasing mayhem against children, the Ziles'

trial will be closely watched. Its outcome could send a powerful warning to potentially abusive parents.

The state would prefer to try the Ziles at the same time, while defense attorneys are seeking separate trials. John Zile is represented by the Public Defender's Office but Pauline Zile is being represented by Miami attorney Ellis Rubin.

Rubin has asked that Pauline Zile be declared indigent so Palm Beach County taxpayers will be obliged to pay him to defend her. The County Attorney's Office should vigorously oppose this proposal.

The public defender is prohibited from representing two indigent defendants who may have conflicting interests in the outcome of a case, but that doesn't mean the county is required to hire Rubin as substitute defender. There already is a local lawyers' rotation procedure in place to fill court appointments of this type. If Pauline Zile is ruled indigent, she should be represented by the next lawyer on the rotation list.

FOR PARENTS, THIS IS A GOOD STEP
The Palm Beach Post
November 27, 1994

We have a desperate need to educate people about parenthood.

Millions of Americans who received back-of-the-hand upbringings themselves have no earthly idea how to raise their own kids. So we're seeing a sickening surge in child abuse and neglect, and in dead children: A.J. Schwarz, Christina Holt, Pauline Cone . . .
The first order of business is to get tougher about irresponsible childbearing. But for those who do become mothers and fathers, we should insist on a training course. Palm Beach County community schools offer a good one called STEP - Systematic Training for Effective Parenting.

James Rumble and Betty Lindner think every person responsible for a child should enroll. The Lake Worth neighbors have taken it twice and can't say enough about it.

Mr. Rumble, a construction company project manager, initially took the course for guidance with his 7-year-old son. He took it the second time because he gained so much personally about the dynamics of relationships.

``I loved it,'' he says. ``If I could, I'd get the owner of my company to recommend it to supervisors.''

Ms. Lindner, who works in customer service for Publix, signed up for STEP because of problems with her 8-year-old son. But she's delighted at how it's helped in her job.

``It shouldn't be called a parenting class,'' she says. ``It teaches you about life. You should take it for yourself, to motivate yourself. I wish I'd taken it years ago.''

She has a point about the name. Many people hesitate to admit they have a problem with a child. Perhaps it should be repackaged to stress the insights it offers about spouses and co-workers.

Last year, 17 STEP courses were offered to 320 participants at 14 Palm Beach County schools. That's a fraction of what we should be doing. But though schools send home fliers about the course with students, the response is poor.

Parent educator Judy Taylor teaches STEP and knows parents are interested. She hears that when they call for information. But she also hears what dampens their enthusiasm - no one to stay with the children, exhaustion after working all day (especially for single parents) and difficulty with transportation.

Some also feel embarrassment, and we need to get past that. Ms. Taylor thinks more people would take the course if they understood that it's mainly a simple way to create positive relationships. For information, call her at 434-7304.

``People tell me they use it with everyone,'' she says. ``The skills are based on mutual respect, and we don't have a lot of that these days. Everywhere you turn, you see negativism and cynicism.''

Yet STEP classes were cut back in recent years as the recession made state budget reductions necessary. The legislature should put that money back - and add some to increase classes.

That idea has plenty of supporters. Ken Hall of Adult, Vocational and Community Education would love to be able to offer more STEP courses. Bill Howden, a Pratt & Whitney executive and member of the county's Health and Human Services Board, would gladly lobby lawmakers for them.

``This course is not a trip to the woodshed,'' Mr. Howden says. ``It's what we were taught by doting grandmothers.''

Exactly. Parenting skills were once handed down from generation to generation like plowing and planting skills. More recently, in families with no grandparents nearby, parents have tried to teach by example, living responsible, caring lives.

But no one can deny that society's fabric has developed some dangerously threadbare spots. And while an eight-week course alone can't knit up such a raveled sleeve, doing nothing is no longer an option.

Fran Hathaway is an editorial writer for The Palm Beach Post.

TO ALLEVIATE GUILT, PUBLIC SEES ZILES AS MONSTERS
Sun-Sentinel
November 27, 1994
Author: MAREGO ATHANS Staff Writer

Until 7-year-old Christina Holt died, there was nothing remarkable about her parents.

Like millions of Americans, they struggled to raise a family, ate hot dog dinners in the living room and smacked their child when she misbehaved.
Like thousands of parents you never hear about, John Zile crossed the line one night. He hit stepdaughter Christina too hard, then covered her mouth so the neighbors wouldn't hear her cry, Zile told police. And neither he nor Christina's mother called for help when she stopped breathing.

Unlike most of those parents, John and Pauline Zile not only were charged with murder, but also became monsters in South Florida's collective mind.

"When I see him on TV, he looks like Charlie Manson, and Pauline looks like one of his followers," said Elliot Harris, a former friend of the Ziles.

Had the Ziles called for help, even too late to save Christina, she would have been another statistic. There were 63 Christinas in Florida in 1993, children who died as a result of abuse or neglect.

Instead, John and Pauline made themselves into a media phenomenon, digging their way into infamy with a series of acts each more macabre than the last.

And the public was all too willing to help.

"We want to see Zile as a monster because we don't want to see in him similarities to us, when we slap a child we adore," said Lynn Appleton, associate professor of sociology and social psychology at Florida Atlantic University. "It would be so comforting to think he was a monster from another planet. We wouldn't do anything like that. They can't be us."

The high school dropouts probably lacked the savvy to know they were building a tale too juicy for a competitive media market to resist. According to police: They stashed the body in a bedroom closet; brought the whole family to Home Depot to buy a shovel; buried Christina behind a Kmart; cried to the cameras with a phony abduction story; and, finally, botched their attempted suicide as the story unraveled.

Who needs fiction?

This was real life drama that even involved the audience; people grieved for swollen-eyed Pauline as she begged for her daughter's return, then wanted to stone both the Ziles when they 'fessed up to the truth.

The intrigue built as the case made its way to the courthouse. Ellis Rubin, the Miami attorney known for victimization defenses, showed up to portray Pauline Zile as an abused wife. Bob Calvert, a tabloid TV producer who became known during the William Kennedy Smith rape trial, said he had offered Pauline Zile $2,000 to sell her story.

If the story were a Carl Hiaasen or Tom Wolfe creation, we'd be laughing. But the reality was too sick even for satire.

Just when we thought we'd seen the Ziles stoop as low as we dared imagine, out poured more grotesque details: the Ziles had not only humiliated Christina in life but also in death.

While she lay in a 5-foot-deep grave, the Ziles told tales to cover up the crime: they told friends how unmanagable Christina was; how she had sexually molested their other children; that she had been sexually abused; that she urinated and defecated in her clothes and on the floor.

"[Pauline) didn't seem outraged and angry for Christina; she was angry at her," said Bridget McKinlay, a former co-worker of Pauline's.

Christina's parents wanted people to know her as a troubled little terror, a burden who was tearing their family apart.

Yes, real life monsters, we concluded.

But are they?

Marilyn Segal, a psychologist and dean of the Family & School Center at Nova University, calls this sort of play acting a natural human defense, common among parents whose children have died as a result of abuse.

The Ziles' little theater protected them, not from the law, but from the guilt that would otherwise destroy them, she said.

"There has to be this enormous turn-around because they can't go back and focus their energies on `why did I do it?'" she said. "The guilt would be overwhelming. They become non-human. They cut off the feeling, caring part of the self. If they didn't, it would be so painful they couldn't survive.

"The turning to the macabre, the focus on ridiculous detail, makes it all play acting," she said. "We're not real anymore. We're doing the part just as completely and perfectly as we can. ... They're not even lying because they're in a play."

The acts that seemed so bizarre to the layman ring perfectly logical to Appleton. Already isolated by a drifter's life, the Ziles watched their universe shrink further because of their "huge unsharable secret."They had a problem to solve, together and alone.

"I think they're solving it based on what they see on television," Appleton said. "Think about it: the drama of the child kidnapped, stashing the body in a closet. You can almost imagine them playing back the reruns of Murder She Wrote and trying to avoid the killers' mistakes."

As the Ziles await trial on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, the phrase Let them fry erupts often in conversations about the couple, from former colleagues and strangers alike.

Communities feel responsible for children who suffer, said George Rahaim Jr., a private psychologist who also works for the county's Child Protection Team. Seeing the Ziles as monsters, he says, is people's' way of expiating guilt.

"That's a way for folks to say, `Oh, this is a horrible thing, but it's not my problem,'" Rahaim said. "`It's only these aberrant bizarre individuals over there who do that. If we kill those people in the electric chair, the problem will go away.' It's a cheap, cheap approach.

"Child abuse will stop when everybody in the community feels like it's their responsibility to stop child abuse."

In Florida, there were 130,801 cases of child abuse recorded during the year that ended in June 1993, and experts think more went unreported. "What we have the tendency to do is make this a very unusual incident," Appleton said. "All that's unusual is the child died. Mostly they live, and they grow up and then they beat up their own children.

"These people are all too ordinary if you ask me. Most days to a sociologist there's nothing scarier than normalcy."

A PARENT'S GROWING WORRY: LOSING CONTROL
Sun-Sentinel
November 28, 1994
Author: DEBBIE CENZIPER Staff Writer

The kid is acting up again, doing the things kids do: whining and crying, beating up on the dog, pleading at least 18 times in the course of five minutes for a pair of high-top sneakers.

It's been a rough day at the office, the house is a pigsty, and you're not exactly feeling like the perfect parent right now.

And that's when it can happen, when stresses and strains can boil over in rage, unbridled and dangerous.

When parents just snap.
It can happen to anyone, South Florida's parenting experts say.

Not just to poor parents. Not just to young parents. Not just to parents who seem dangerous or evil.

But to people who love their children and couldn't fathom hurting them, and wind up doing just that because tempers flare and common sense gets lost in the heat of the moment.

"Many of us don't want to believe that under the right circumstances, at the right time, everybody has the potential of being a child abuser," said Nancy McBride, executive director of the Adam Walsh Center/Florida. "There is no one who is exempt from that."

With headlines screaming of child abuse, of adults beating or killing their children, area experts say parents who never before thought about issues of discipline and self-control are questioning their own limits.

What would it take, parents are asking, to become a Susan Smith or Walter John Zile? Or what about a Carlos Thomas Schenk, 24, who the Broward County Sheriff's Office says spanked his girlfriend's daughter, forced her to eat soap and Tabasco sauce and wedged her head-first beneath a waterbed mattress on Wednesday.

Seems extreme, maybe. Driving two toddlers into a lake and drowning them is not something most parents contemplate, even in the most aggravating or enraging situation.

Psychologists say people who are excessively cruel to children have severe mental problems and were possibly abused themselves as children.

Still, the questions remain. When is that fine line between discipline and child abuse crossed? How many spankings are too many? When does control turn to chaos?

"The parents that I see become, from all of this, in many ways almost phobic to losing control when they are disciplining their children," said William Dorfman, a Tamarac-based clinical psychologist who counsels families. "If there is any good that came out of all of this, I think there are more people who will seek help, realize that, `Gee, I can lose control and this is what can happen.'"

There were 130,801 cases of child abuse reported in Florida from July 1, 1992, to June 30, 1993, according to the most recent statistics available.

Nearly 9,000 of those cases occurred in Broward County and 7,000 in Palm Beach County, about 12 percent of the total. The two counties are home to nearly 16 percent of the state's population.

Sixty-three children died in Florida in 1993 from neglect or abuse. In the past three months alone, South Floridians have heard horror stories about one child abuse case after another.

Christina Holt, 7, of Riviera Beach, choked to death in September during a late-night beating by her stepfather. Her mother watched, and police say the two then concocted a kidnapping story to cover up the crime.

Dayton Boykin, an infant from Royal Palm Beach, was strangled by his mother, Clover, in October as he lay in her bed, police say. Clover Boykin is also accused of killing a friend's child, 9-month-old Kayla Basante, a year ago.

In the latest case, Schenk saw an aggravated child abuse charge upgraded to first-degree murder on Saturday shortly after 4-year-old Sasha Gibbons died about 5:30 p.m. at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.

Deputies said Sasha's death came several days after the child was disciplined at her home near Pompano Beach for cursing at Schenk. Deputies said Schenk, Sasha's mother's boyfriend, bound the child in a comforter, then wedged her beneath a water bed mattress until she could no longer breathe, as punishment for uttering the profanity.

"Rich or poor, people are abusive when they have issues that cause them to go over the edge," Dorfman said. "People sometimes see their own inadequacies in their children, deal with their own rage at the world through their children, and hurt them. Most of us, though, have limits and can manage our feelings."

One way to do that, experts say, is through parenting classes.

Tens of thousands of South Florida parents take the classes, which teach busy people how to be successful mothers and fathers.

"There are no rules or regulations or permits on how to become a parent. It's just this natural thing that you're allowed to do," said Mark Mendel, president of the Association for Education of Young Children in Palm Beach County.

"In the past, life was very different," Mendel said. "Mom was at home. Dad only worked until 5 p.m. and then he came home and put on his slippers. Today, there are more strains on the family, and parents need to learn how to do the job. Personally, parenting is the most difficult job I have. It needs to be done well and needs 100 percent of my effort. And I don't always have 100 percent of me to give."

Besides parenting classes, books, teachers, guidance counselors, child care centers and social service agencies can all offer advice.

But the bottom line is patience, experts say, and never letting anything overtake the bond between parent and child.

ZILE: `SHE JUST KEPT GIVING US AN ATTITUDE'
The Palm Beach Post
November 29, 1994
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

John Zile showed his short temper in court on Monday, screaming threats at his wife and sitting stone-faced as a hushed courtroom listened to the tape of his emotionless description of his little stepdaughter's death.

Zile's outburst and his dispassionate taped confession were the latest installments in the tragic death of 7-year-old Christina Holt, whose pajama-clad body was buried behind a Tequesta shopping center after three months of alleged abuse.
Hundreds of pages of police records released on Monday show that Christina's final weeks were spent isolated in a bedroom of her family's tiny Singer Island apartment. Kept home from school and banished to her bedroom when her parents thought she wasn't telling the truth about abuse she suffered in Maryland, the girl spent hours writing, ``I will not lie.''

When she soiled her pants because she was too afraid to leave the bedroom, Zile said he hit her. Neighbors listened to Christina's cries through the thin walls of the apartment. One friend said he watched Zile hit the girl with a belt.

No one called police or reported the incidents to the state Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

One neighbor, who says she regrets not getting involved, said she heard John Zile telling Christina their family life would be idyllic if she would just behave herself.

``He said, `If you'll be a good girl - don't lie, don't cheat in school - everything will be great,'' neighbor Dayle Ackerman recalled. ``I'll take you places. I'll buy you things. Life will be great for you. But if we catch you lying one more time, I`m gonna beat the ---out of you.' ''

Other details made public in court papers released Monday:

Ackerman told police she heard a man say: ``Wake up, wake up, please wake up. . . . Oh my God, what did I do?'' between 8-8:30 a.m. on Sept. 16, the Friday Christina died. Zile, in his hourlong confession given after authorities found her body, said Christina died shortly after midnight the same day.

Pauline Zile complained about her daughter's behavior a month after Christina came to live with them in June. In a letter to her father in Maryland, Pauline wrote: ``Christina was dropped off here when school got out with no notice . . . boy, were we shocked. She gets in trouble every other day, she lies to us all the time and thinks she is the boss. What's next, I don't know!''

John and Pauline Zile were obsessed with Christina's claim that she was abused by family members in Maryland, where she had lived since birth. The couple told friends they knew she was lying, and they cross-examined her incessantly about the abuse.

The couple was in court Monday because Ellis Rubin, Pauline Zile's attorney, had asked a judge to set bail for her, arguing that prosecutors had no evidence that she participated in her daughter's death. The judge did not rule. Because they are codefendants, they always appear in court at the same time.

To rebut Rubin's claim, prosecutors played Zile's hourlong confession. Zile did not cry or express remorse for Christina's death during his confession. He described Christina's death as an accident brought on by her refusal to tell the truth and obey him.

Police began taping Zile's statement at 3:28 a.m. on Oct. 28 - several hours after Zile led them to Christina's grave. Zile waived his Miranda Rights and gave police a chilling account of Christina's final weeks.

NIGHT OF DEATH RECOUNTED

According to his confession, Zile became increasingly angry with Christina after he found the girl with one of Zile's young sons in a closet. The boy had his pants down.

Zile wanted to know who had taught the girl about sex. At first, Christina denied that anyone had molested her. Finally, she told several stories naming several men. Zile, infuriated, wanted to know the truth.

``She just kept giving us an attitude,'' Zile said. ``She kept lying about things.''

The night Christina died, Zile again tried questioning her about her claims of sexual abuse. Christina again soiled her pants.

``At that time I was hot after her because she had done that,'' Zile said. ``After she had taken a bath, she came back out and then I asked her about why she did that. And she said she felt like it, and that is when I smacked her butt.''

According to Zile:

``She didn't holler out, but she was crying, and she was starting to whine and I did put her hands on her mouth . . . to keep her quiet because it was late at night for one, and two of my kids were asleep and I didn't want them to see anything that was going on.''

Christina became dizzy and looked like she was having a fit, Zile said. Through her clenched teeth, Zile tried to resuscitate the girl. Pauline Zile got her husband some smelling salts.

``At that time I was pretty much in a frantic state. My wife was in a frantic state also,'' Zile said. ``I listened to her heart again, I heard no heartbeat and you know, was pushing on the chest again and again and it was just (to) no avail.''

Zile then put the girl in a tub of cold water, hoping it would revive her.

``I mean, my wife was there helping,'' Zile said. ``We were trying to tell her, please wake up, please, I mean. . . .''

COUPLE LIE TO THEIR SONS

Zile realized that if they called 911 someone would see the bruises on her body.

``My reasoning behind it was she had bruises on her buttocks. She had cracked lips. She had the bruise on the side of her face. I looked like, I mean, I just didn't know what to do. I, I was thinking of my family, I was thinking of myself. We were horrified. We loved Christina very much. She was having some problems and things did get out of hand. . . .''

Zile said he felt like ``my whole life, much less my family's life, would have been totally torn apart.''

Zile then put Christina's body on her bed.

``I laid her on the bed like she was going to sleep . . . and put her head on the pillow, with the blanket up over her.

``And in the morning I went in there and it was a pretty horrible thing to see. Rigor mortis had definitely . . . I basically knew she was dead at that time it was a definite that she was dead. . . . I wrapped her up, you know, like a blue blanket and a sheet and I placed her in the closet and put a couple more little blankets on top to protect my son from seeing any part of it and I closed the door.''

The Ziles spent the weekend lying to their two young sons and keeping them out of the bedroom. Zile began scouring the county for burial sites.

``I wanted to find a place, you know, nice enough for her to make a, to make a decent burial type situation, as crazy as it sounds,'' Zile said. On Sept. 19, he found a spot behind a shopping center in Tequesta.

``There was a foul smell starting to come up out of the closet. At that time I was lighting incense to keep my kids from - I just wanted my kids not to know, smell, see anything about it to traumatize them at all.''

That night, after he watched Monday Night Football, Zile went to the site and began digging.

``So, I went out there. It was pouring down rain, and I dug and I dug in about 45 minutes. I dug it as deep as I could so that there would (be) no animals or anything like that.

``I went home and at this time I was very upset because I know what was getting ready to happen and I went to sleep,'' Zile said. ``I set my alarm. I woke up at 2:30. I then took her out of the closet.''

He put the girl's body in the trunk of his Cadillac and drove to the grave.

``I picked her up and carried her over there, and I laid her in the grave. And then I filled it in. And then I said a little prayer for her and smoothed everything out as best I could and I got in my car and left.''

Two weeks later, on Oct. 4, Pauline gave birth to the couple's third son. They gave the baby up for adoption to a family that had been paying them about $200 a month during part of Pauline's pregnancy. Zile said little about his wife's condition or the adoption during his confession and gave police the wrong birth date of the child.

The couple continued lying about Christina.

``Well, we had sat around for a couple days because we knew we were gonna have to do something. We were gonna have to explain why she wasn't around, why she wasn't in school and we wanted to save ourselves and our family and also her family, her relatives, the anguish of knowing the truth,'' Zile said.

When friends came over the Ziles pretended that Christina was in her room. They would fix snacks for her and pretend to check on her, telling friends that she was doing her school work.

The Ziles then decided to stage Christina's kidnapping from a Broward County flea market. Several days before, Zile told a friend that Pauline and Christina were going to have a special day.

``It was a mother-daughter day out, a mother-daughter bonding day, which they really needed and all,'' Chad Brannon recalled Zile telling him. ``I mean, they were gonna go by the beach, you know, and just have fun and all.''

Zile once wiped tears from his eyes as he listened to the tape on Monday. But he became enraged when Rubin began reading a letter that Pauline had written about Zile.

``All I see is a bunch of lies!'' Zile shouted at her. ``You better come clean. I just want to stop these lies.''

Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp cited Zile for contempt, then recessed the hearing. Zile, saying he had nothing to lose because he had already been cited for contempt, continued. Pauline Zile's statement to police has not been released yet.

``Tell the truth! You want to send me to the chair!'' Zile shouted. ``Tell the ---damn truth.''

Deputies tried to calm down Zile in a small room adjacent to the courtroom but he persisted. On his way out of court, Zile turned to his wife, who was in tears, and sarcastically said: ``Thanks for the letters, all your concern and love. The end.''

WARNINGS OF CHRISTINA'S PLIGHT DIDN'T REGISTER WITH NEIGHBORS
The Palm Beach Post
November 29, 1994
Author: JENNY STALETOVICH
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

As Christina Holt's small world became more and more violent, neighbors and friends caught glimpses of her suffering but never imagined how terrible her life had become, according to hundreds of pages of court documents released Monday.

Neighbors at the small Singer Island apartment complex heard screams and beatings. One even heard what she suspects were Christina's last cries.
``I was in my bathroom and I was listening at the door,'' neighbor Dayle Ackerman told police a week after John Zile confessed to killing his stepdaughter during a disciplinary beating on Sept. 16. ``I should have called police and I regret it.''

Instead, Ackerman told her mother, who called the landlord. The landlord said he knocked on John and Pauline Zile's door within the hour, but nothing looked out of the ordinary so he left, records show. More than a month passed before police learned what happened.

Residents of the seasonal apartment complex - who rent by the month or week - came and went without paying much attention to Apartment 3. But after the couple's abduction ruse fell apart and the girl's murder surfaced, they recalled events that in retrospect were eerie warnings.

More than a week after Christina's death, Sharon Levesque and Helen Kurynka remember Pauline Zile walking into a Singer Island bar selling videotapes her daughter had brought with her when she moved from her grandmother's in Maryland.

Zile told Kurynka she didn't have room to store the tapes. Levesque bought four, including Charlotte's Web and The Wizard of Oz.

On another night, John Zile sat drinking a beer with neighbor Steve Wait and mentioned that Christina had been sexually abused in Maryland.

``I could tell right off by the way he talked that he disliked this child very much,'' Wait told police. ``He said it was lies. . . . She's just doing nothing but trying to be an instigator to cause problems with them.''

When John Zile caught Christina fondling one of his sons in a closet, he told Wait he beat her.

Pauline Zile later mentioned the abuse to Kurynka, who worked with Pauline for two years at a Singer Island restaurant. Kurynka suggested Pauline take her daughter to a doctor.

``When I told her that, she just kind of looked at me,'' Kurynka said.

Pauline said Christina lied about the abuse and was ``spoiled rotten.''

Except for mentioning Christina's abuse, the couple rarely spoke of Christina to neighbors. Neighbor Linda Kauppinen remembered talking with Pauline as they did laundry after she moved in Sept. 5. Kauppinen had never seen Christina but when her young son asked if he could play with the Ziles' boys in their apartment, Pauline said her daughter was sick with the flu. Kauppinen didn't notice any little girl's clothes in Pauline's laundry, but thought nothing of it.

Neighbor Michelle Lynn Boettcher recalled seeing the couple's sons playing outside 30 or 40 times since July, but never Christina.

Oddly, Ackerman never saw the Ziles until they appeared on television, but heard what may have been the beating that ended Christina's life.

The timing of the attack she described is contrary to what John Zile told police. Ackerman said she heard what she thinks was the fatal beating on the morning of Sept. 16; Zile told police Christina died that night.

Ackerman also recalled hearing Pauline Zile beat her daughter weeks earlier.

``At one time I did hear (Pauline) yelling at Christina because she wouldn't get up for school and then she didn't want her to wear what (Christina) wanted to wear and I could hear her hitting her.''

Every time Pauline landed a blow, Ackerman told police, Christina yelled ``Mommy, Mommy.''

WIFE'S BAIL HEARING ANGERS JOHN ZILE
PAULINE ZILE BLAMES HUSBAND ALONE FOR CHILD'S DEATH
Sun-Sentinel
November 29, 1994
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

John Zile went from tears to fury on Monday at a bail hearing for his wife that was more about his actions than his wife's.

Zile, 32, did not join his wife's motion to be released from jail pending their trials for first-degree murder, but his taped confession in the death of 7-year-old Christina Holt was the key evidence used by prosecutors to show that Pauline Zile, 24, should not be released from jail.
The state could not use Pauline Zile's statement to police because State Attorney Barry Krischer had given her immunity with regard to the statement being used against her.

At the Palm Beach County Courthouse in West Palm Beach, John Zile wept quietly, consoled by his assistant public defender who handed him tissues, as the state played the confession detailing the fatal beating of his stepdaughter in September.

But his face contorted in contempt and then rage as his wife's attorney, Ellis Rubin, tried to lay all responsibility for the child's death on John Zile and away from his client.

Rubin was referring to a letter Pauline Zile wrote titled "Regrets" that castigates her husband for ruining her life as well as their children's. Pauline Zile portrays herself in the letter as blameless except for her blindness to her husband's faults and her failure to do anything to stop his violence.

Pointing at his wife sitting at the other end of the jury box, John Zile screamed at her. "Tell them the truth," John Zile yelled, as deputies rushed to restrain him. "You want to get your ass out of here, you want to send me to the death chair because you want to get your ass out of here. You better come clean. Tell them the ... truth."

As deputies hauled him out of the courtroom, he gave his wife one more parting shot: "I appreciate your love and concern for me - the end."

John Zile was not present for the rest of the hearing, which ended without a decision on whether Pauline Zile should be freed on bail. Rubin did not specify an amount that should be set for bail, saying that could be decided later if the judge agrees to their motion.

John Zile now faces contempt of court charges, punishable by up to five months and 29 days in jail, in addition to first-degree murder and four counts of aggravated child abuse for his stepdaughter's death. Both Ziles face the death penalty. Pauline Zile also is charged with first-degree murder and four counts of aggravated child abuse.

Rubin argued that Pauline Zile should be released because the state does not have any evidence she beat the girl or was involved in her daughter's death. Rubin put on two witnesses, including family friend Chad Brannon, who said he never saw Pauline Zile strike Christina although he once had to stop John Zile from going too far in beating the girl.

But Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan said Pauline Zile, under the law, was duty-bound as the child's mother to step in by reporting the abuse and calling police, especially when there was a pattern of beatings.

Duggan said there was even a case in which a stepfather was convicted of third-degree murder even though he wasn't present when his wife beat her child to death.

In his confession, John Zile said he asked his wife whether she wanted to call police.

"I told her that night that it happened, `If you want to go call the police on me, go ahead, you know, it's up to you.' And at that time, she decided that she wanted also to keep our family together and just let me do what I was gonna do," John Zile told police.

PAPERS DETAIL ABUSE, STRESS IN ZILE HOME
Sun-Sentinel
November 29, 1994
Author: MAREGO ATHANS Education Writer

Christina Holt had been in Florida only a month or so when her mother, Pauline Zile, wrote a letter complaining about the daughter she had waited so long to raise.

"She is a handful. She gets in trouble every other day, she lies to us all the time and thinks she's the boss," Pauline Zile wrote to her father and his wife on July 23, nearly two months before the child's death.
"She has spent a lot of time in the room writing `I will not lie' a few hundred times so far, and still she lies. What's next, I don't know! She is very spoiled and not used to being in a family on a tight budget!"

The letter was amid an inch-thick stack of documents released on Monday by the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office, papers that detail a pattern of abuse and mounting stress in the Zile household.

A Medical Examiner's report has ruled the cause of death "asphyxia due to multiple blunt traumatic injuries" and reveals six bruises on Christina's head and face, eight on her legs, and more on her arms, buttocks and hand.

Christina's body, 44 pounds in life, had decomposed to 23 pounds when her body was unearthed six weeks after her death. The body was expected to be released to relatives on Monday.

Pauline Zile and her husband John Zile are charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. Police say John Zile killed the child after beating her and covering her mouth to muffle her cries; Pauline Zile did not call for help, but instead helped John Zile cover up the crime by staging a phony kidnapping story.

John Zile's confession and witnesses' statements paint an image of a child who may have had trouble adjusting to a new home, but whose parents had no idea how to help.

Christina came to live with the Ziles in Singer Island in June, after living with relatives in Maryland most of her life. Relatives have said that the child's grandmother, Judy Holt, dropped her off because mother and daughter wanted to be reunited.

But Pauline and John Zile were unprepared, according to court documents. The couple and their two boys were already squeezed into a tiny apartment, and a third baby was on the way.

"Christina was dropped off here ... with no notice and no phone call," Pauline wrote in the letter to her father, David Yingling, and his wife Helen. "Boy were we shocked. We weren't ready for that."

Soon after, the trouble started:

-- John Zile told police he began beating Christina after he caught her sexually molesting his 3-year-old son. He said Christina chronically told lies about how she had been sexually abused by relatives in Maryland, and repeatedly defecated in her clothes and on the floor;

-- Neighbors said they heard children screaming and being hit in the apartment;

-- Neighbor Dayle Ackerman said she heard Pauline Zile hitting Christina, and Christina yelling "Mommy, Mommy," then she heard Pauline yell a series of expletives, then, "You're gonna [expletive) wear what I tell you."

-- Neighbor Steve Wait told police that John Zile "had an attitude" about Christina. "I could tell right off by the way he talked that he disliked this child very much," he said.

JOHN ZILE YELLS AT WIFE IN HEARING
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 29, 1994
Author: JUDY PLUNKETT EVANS Herald Staff Writer

A Riviera Beach man accused of killing his 7-year-old stepdaughter was hauled out of court in handcuffs Monday after yelling obscenities at his wife, who also is charged in the girl's murder.
John and Pauline Zile, charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of Christina Holt, were in court because Pauline Zile's attorney had requested a bond hearing. Both Ziles have been held without bond since their arrests.

John Zile has told police he beat Christina until the girl
went into convulsions and died Sept. 16. Prosecutors said Monday that Pauline Zile is charged because she watched the beating and did not help Christina or report the abuse. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both Ziles.

Pauline Zile's attorney Ellis Rubin was reading from a letter his client wrote to her husband when John Zile began screaming and cursing his wife.

In the letter, she said she had lost five children since she met him. Christina had died, their two sons had been taken away by the state after Chris-tina's death, a fourth child was given up for adoption three weeks after Chris-tina's death, and Pauline Zile said she also had had an abortion.

After Rubin read the part about the children, John Zile turned to his wife, seated 10 feet away. With his legs chained, he leaped from his seat and began yelling at her.

"I see a bunch of lies, that's what I see," he shouted. "You better get me out of here. I can't listen to this anymore. You better come f------ clean."

After John Zile used the obscenity, Palm Beach Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp declared him in contempt of court. "I'm in contempt of court, what have I got to lose?" Zile responded, and he continued yelling at his wife.

"Tell them the g------ truth," he said. "You want to send me to the death chair because you want to f------ lie."

Even after he was handcuffed and surrounded by deputies, Zile continued screaming at his wife. When Rapp ordered him removed from the courtroom, he yelled to her, "I appreciate your love and concern for me. The end." Throughout the outburst, which lasted about two minutes, Pauline Zile looked at the floor and did not respond.

John Zile's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Iola Mosley, said later that she was not sure what he meant by asking his wife to "come clean."

"Certainly he's very worked up about what he heard in court," Mosley said.

Rubin used the outburst to argue that John Zile controlled his wife, and that she could do little to stop him the night Christina was killed. Rubin said Pauline Zile, who has been held since her arrest on Nov. 4, should be released pending her trial.

"This mother did whatever she could at the time," Rubin said. "There is no testimony by anybody that she inflicted any punishment on that little girl that night while (Christina) was being abused by her father."

Rapp said he will rule later on the bond issue. He also said he will hold a hearing to sentence John Zile for contempt of court. John Zile could be sentenced to almost six months in jail on the charge, his attorney said.

Rapp said Monday that Christina's body can be released to her grandparents in Maryland. The body has been at the medical examiner's office since it was unearthed Oct. 28. John Zile told Riviera Beach police that he buried Christina behind the Tequesta Kmart four days after she died. He and his wife then concocted a story about the girl being abducted from the Swap Shop in Fort Lauderdale, the stepfather confessed.

According to evidence released during Monday's hearing, the Palm Beach County medical examiner found that Christina died of asphyxia, caused by multiple blunt trauma. The report also stated that she had several large bruises on her head, and that her upper lip was cut. Both buttocks were bruised, and areas on her arms and legs were discolored, according to the report.

Details about John Zile's search for a place to bury Christina also were released in the transcript of his confession, taken on Oct. 28. A tape of the confession was played in court Monday.

Zile told police he kept Christina's body in a closet while he sought a place to bury her.

"I wanted to find a place, you know, nice enough for her to make a, to make a decent burial-type situation, as crazy as it sounds," he said in his confession.

John Zile said he dug the grave after watching Monday Night Football and returned a few hours later with the body. He put his head in his hands as he listened to his confession in court.

"We were horrified," he told police. "We loved Christina very much."