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.

Christina Buried In Maryland (12/4/94)
Hundreds Turn Out To Say Farewell To Christina Holt (12/4/94)
A Proper Burial (12/4/94)
Ziles' Attorney Receiving Hate Mail (12/8/94)
Jury Indicts Pair In Death Of Child ( 12/8/94)
Forum To Examine Child Abuse (12/11/94)
Briefly (12/14/94)
Records: Christina Had Behavior Problem (12/14/94)
Krischer Deposition Ruling Due (12/21/94)
Lawyer Barred From Questioning Krischer (12/22/94)

CHRISTINA BURIED IN MARYLAND
The Palm Beach Post
December 4, 1994
Author: LARRY LIPMAN
Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau

The families that gave Christina Holt away buried her Saturday on a gentle green slope beneath a light gray sky.

But they didn't bury their bitterness.
``I'll blame her for it. I'll always blame her for it,'' a teary-eyed Dorothy Money said as she was led away from the graveside by family members and friends.

Money, the 71-year-old great-grandmother who raised Christina until severe arthritis forced her to give up custody, was referring to Judith Holt, her step-daughter and Christina's grandmother.

It was Holt's decision in June to leave Christina in Riviera Beach with the girl's mother, Pauline Holt Zile, and stepfather, John Zile, that tore the family apart, pitting mother against daughter.

John Zile has admitted beating the 7-year-old until she went into convulsions, but claims her Sept. 16 death was unintentional. The Ziles didn't admit that Christina was dead until Oct. 28, after pretending she had been abducted from a Broward County flea market.

Throughout the funeral service and graveside ceremony, Dorothy Money and Judith Holt never spoke, never even looked at each other. It was as if there were two funerals for one child.

Dorothy Money had wanted Christina to be buried in a green velvet dress with white lace trim that she had bought for the child last winter. She had wanted to place Christina's small rag doll in the coffin.

``That was her little stuffed baby. She went to bed with that every night. She even took it to day care,'' Money said Friday.

Instead, Christina was buried in a blue flowered dress supplied by Judith Holt. Holt refused to talk to reporters and funeral home officials declined to discuss what, if anything, was placed in Christina's white casket.

The funeral was held in a small brick church in a rural town 40 miles from Washington.

Only the press corps was large. Outside the church and at the cemetery, a dozen photographers and television crews trained long lenses on the mourners while a half-dozen newspaper reporters sought to capture every moment of grief.

Inside the Poolesville Memorial United Methodist Church, Christina's casket was surrounded by baskets of flowers. A large wreath of red carnations shaped like a heart stood on one side; three pink balloons rose on the other. On a table behind the casket were two photographs of Christina.

`HARD TO BELIEVE'

\ Dorothy Money and her family entered the church first and sat in the pews on the far left side. While they entered, Judith Holt and her family sat in the driveway in her hot-purple pickup and waited. Then the Holts entered and sat in the pews on the far right side.

Between them stood the casket of the girl both had cared for. Neither woman looked at the casket.

Later, Frankie Holt - Christina's father and Judith's son - arrived with his new family. Frankie Holt relinquished custody of Christina to Dorothy Money when he and Pauline divorced, a few months after their daughter was born. Frankie Holt sat in a pew behind Judith Holt.

Promptly at 11 a.m., the choir began singing Cradle Me, Lord, In Your Arms of Love. Weeping could be heard throughout the church. Dorothy Money used a tissue to wipe her tears. Judith Holt stared straight ahead.

Then soloist Bill Harris, who had been Christina's music teacher at Poolesville Elementary School, sang Children of the Heavenly Father.

The Rev. Lewis McDonald began his eulogy by saying no minister could do a better job than the Scriptures and quoted Jesus saying: ``Let the little children come to me.''

McDonald, who was Judith Holt's pastor, said it was ``hard to believe that someone so full of life is dead.''

He called Christina an ``active, outgoing, bright-eyed child, loved by all. Already we miss her smile, her laughter. . . . Even harder to comprehend is the way she died - the brutal, horrible way she died.''

`TAKEN MUCH TOO SOON'

\ ``Christina was taken from us much too soon. A precious, little life, but all seven years were a gift. She never really belonged to us in the first place,'' McDonald said.

Without directly mentioning Christina's history of living with the Moneys, the Holts and then the Ziles, McDonald said ``she was looking for home. In a way, more than most of us, she was desperately looking for home. . . . In some way, this Christmas, I think she will be more at home than she has ever been before.''

As the choir sang Jesus Loves Me, and Amazing Grace, the casket was wheeled from the church. Judith Holt and her family followed behind it. Dorothy Money and her family left a gap of about 20 feet and then, they too, followed.

The funeral cortege extended more than a mile.

At the cemetery at Parklawn Memorial Park in Rockville - 23 miles from Poolesville - where Judith Holt had long owned some burial plots, Frankie Holt sat in the center of a row of chairs, impassive behind dark sunglasses. Judith Holt stood to one side. Dorothy Money sat in a chair at the foot of the grave.

After a brief prayer, mourners placed roses and carnations on the casket. Judith Holt left to sit in her truck.

`OBVIOUSLY . . . A MISTAKE'

\ Then - the only time the Moneys and the Holts came together - Dorothy Money sat beside Frankie Holt and clasped his hand. When she started talking about Judith Holt, her family led her away.

After the Moneys left, Judith Holt returned to the graveside. She and Frankie embraced briefly. Then she stood holding another granddaughter, Denise Lahargoue, 4, as Christina's body was lowered. Frankie Holt stood to one side, his arms across his chest. He never approached the casket.

McDonald defended Judith Holt, who has borne much of the anger directed at her from her mother, son and sisters.

``She was a very loving grandmother,'' McDonald said to reporters, noting that Judith Holt didn't know her real mother's identity until she was 38 and sympathized with Christina's desire to know her own mother.

McDonald said Christina had called Judith Holt - collect - from Florida at least once from a pay telephone.

``Obviously, Judy made a mistake. She was trying to do something wonderful. . . . She may feel some remorse, she also feels forgiveness. She can live with this.''

HUNDREDS TURN OUT TO SAY FAREWELL TO CHRISTINA HOLT
7-YEAR-OLD LAID TO REST DURING MARYLAND RITES
Sun-Sentinel
December 4, 1994
Author: JILL YOUNG MILLER Washington Bureau

Christina Holt got a proper funeral at last.

Standing over the closed, white coffin holding the body of the 7-year-old, Christina's former minister tried to comfort hundreds of mourners on Saturday.
"It's hard to believe that someone so full of life is dead," said the Rev. Lewis McDonald, pastor of Memorial United Methodist Church in Poolesville, where Christina attended Sunday school before she moved to Florida.

"And already we miss her smile, her laughter and her enthusiasm. What's even harder to believe, and harder to comprehend, is the way she died. The brutal, violent way in which she died."

Friends and relatives of Christina in Maryland, where she was born and spent most of her life, are still reeling from the news that Christina's stepfather, John Zile, beat and killed her in mid-September and disposed of her body in a sandy grave behind a Kmart.

Adding to their hurt is the fact that Christina's mother lied to police and the media, saying she lost the girl at a Fort Lauderdale flea market.

"I've been asked, `What age will we be in heaven?'" McDonald told the nearly 300 mourners. "Sometimes I think we will be the age when on this Earth we were most fully alive. ... She died much too soon. She really did. But maybe she'll be a child in heaven."

Word travels fast in this rural town of 4,000, and some mourners had heard that Pauline Zile, Christina's 24-year-old mother, might try to get released from jail to attend the funeral.

"It's very similar to this Susan Smith thing," said Poolesville resident Diane Hayden, referring to the South Carolina woman who confessed last month to drowning her two sons.

"I think if they had released [Pauline Zile), she would have had to have full-time security."

Next to Hayden in the pew sat her 5-year-old daughter, Caroline, thumbing through a Bible. Caroline and Christina were friends.

"I explained to her that it's a church service and that she wouldn't be able to see Christina," Hayden said.

Said another little girl, whose father did not want her name published, "She's going to be an angel!" Family members - including Christina's father, Frankie Holt, who wore a black hat and dark sunglasses throughout the 11 a.m. service - sat in pews in the front.

Holt, 28, a sheet-metal worker who recently told the Sun-Sentinel he had hoped to gain custody of Christina, sobbed as he left the church.

There is a rift in Christina's family, with her paternal grandmother Judy Holt on one side and her paternal great-grandmother Dorothy Money on the other, so the Holts sat on one side of the church, and the Moneys sat on the other.

The women do not speak to each other, although Holt is Money's adopted daughter. Money, an arthritic retired waitress, is furious at Holt, a hairdresser, for taking Christina to Florida in June to be reunited with Pauline Zile, who gave up Christina as an infant.

"I don't believe in people delivering children to be killed," Dorothy Money said last week.

Holt repeatedly has declined to be interviewed.

McDonald, Holt's minister, told reporters that Holt, who was Christina's legal guardian, is a loving grandmother who wanted Christina to know her own mother - partly because Holt didn't know her own biological mother until she was in her late 30s.

"Obviously, Judy made a mistake," he said. He has tried to comfort her. "I tell her she's not God."

In October, police exhumed Christina's body from its makeshift grave in Tequesta, but it remained at the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office while experts examined it. Her body was flown home to Maryland last week.

After the funeral service at the red-brick church, mourners slowly drove about 20 miles from Poolesville to Parklawn Memorial Park cemetery in Rockville, Md. The procession of about 75 cars followed Christina's pale gray hearse through rural Maryland.

At the cemetery, in the weak autumn light, the minister said, "Everlasting God, we know that we hurt today because we loved yesterday."

Weeping family members and friends set pink roses and carnations on Christina's casket.

Then, as the mourners dispersed, Christina was lowered, gently, into the ground.

A PROPER BURIAL
HUNDREDS OF TOWNSFOLK GRIEVE FOR THEIR YOUNG FRIEND
Miami Herald, The (FL)
December 4, 1994
Author: DAVID KIDWELL Herald Staff Writer

Christina Holt was buried Saturday afternoon for the second time, ending a bizarre drama that traumatized South Florida, where she died, and this small country town, where she grew up.
This time, the 7-year-old girl lay in a child-sized, gold- trimmed casket draped with pink bouquets, surrounded by hundreds of friends and relatives and lavished with prayers and tears.

The setting could not be more removed from the sandy lot behind a Tequesta Kmart a thousand miles away, where her stepfather dumped her body -- wrapped in a tent secured with duct tape -- into a hastily dug hole.

"She never liked to travel. She hated long drives in the car," said Brenda Money, an aunt whom Christina nicknamed Dude. "She was always asking, 'When are we going to get there?' and driving everyone crazy. I just want to keep telling her she's finally there," Money said.

Pastor Lewis McDonald delivered the eulogy after a 15- member choir in blue robes harmonized Amazing Grace in front of a huge golden pipe organ. More than 250 mourners crowded into the United Methodist Church for the funeral.

"It's hard to believe someone so full of life is dead," McDonald said. "This active, outgoing, bright-eyed precious little girl is with us no more.

"What's even harder to believe and harder to comprehend is the brutal way she died," he said. "Instead of being angry, be glad we had her at all. She never really belonged to us in the first place. Christina will laugh again, and so will you."

The story of Christina's disappearance and death transfixed South Florida and the nation for more than a week in October, after her mother, Pauline Zile, faked hysteria and told police and reporters that someone had abducted her child from a restroom at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.

It took police five days to wrench the truth from Pauline, 24, and her husband, John Zile, 32. Christina, who had just come
from Maryland to live with her mother in June, had been dead for more than a month.

The couple is accused in the beating death of the girl Sept. 16. Her body was stashed in their Riviera Beach motel apartment for four days. Later, the couple concocted the scheme of child abduction to cover the crime.

Both are in jail. Both are charged with first-degree murder. Pauline's requests to attend the funeral were refused.

But aside from the media frenzy and the loss of Christina, the case has taken another toll on her family. Her paternal grandmother's decision -- to take Christina to Florida in June to live with her mother -- has ripped the family apart.

The grandmother, Judy Holt, and her own adoptive mother, Dorothy Money, haven't spoken since Christina first left Maryland. The two sides of the feuding family sat on opposite ends of the church Saturday. Attempts by family members to reconcile at the grave site were rebuffed.

"I'm sorry, I blame her. I blame her," a weeping Dorothy Money told family members. After a 20-mile drive to the cemetery and a brief grave-site service, Christina was buried at 1:45 p.m. in a family plot at the Parklawn Memorial Park in Rockville, Md.

Her natural father, Frank Holt, and grandmother, Judy Holt, lingered with family for a while. The Holt family has maintained its silence throughout the ordeal.

"I'll miss her," Judy Holt said after the service.

Christina was born and lived in or near Poolesville most of her life. After the breakup of her parents shortly after her birth, she went to live with her paternal great-grandparents, Dorothy and Ray Money.

Christina's aunt, Brenda, lives with them. Christina knew them as Mimi, Ray Ray and Dude. They knew Christina as Teenie Weenie. There she prospered through her first five years. Friends and family describe Christina as an outgoing and talkative girl, a bit spoiled but never selfish.

She was just learning to blow bubble gum and looked forward to school. "She loved to read," said Brenda Money, 28. "She could read better than I could sometimes."

"Mimi and Ray Ray were absolutely crazy about that girl." said Dawn Harcum, 35, a day-care teacher who taught Christina until the time she left for Florida. "They were overprotective sometimes. She used to bring her umbrellas in the middle of the day if it started raining. They used to keep her home in the winter because of the cold."

No one in Poolesville remembers ever seeing the types of behavior problems that John and Pauline Zile described to police. According to the Ziles, Christina constantly lied, went to the bathroom in her underwear and on the floor and sexually fondled Zile's 3-year-old son.

"That's not the little girl I knew," said Emma Ridgeway, Christina's summer school teacher.

"No way," Harcum said. "If she was acting that way, it was
because she was frightened of something. Something must have petrified her."

Harcum laughed as she described the worst thing she ever did in day care. "She just got new glasses, and she hated them,"
Harcum said. "One day they turned up broken."

Harcum said she is angry at media reports that suggest no one wanted Christina. "That's all a bunch of lies, everyone wanted her," Harcum said. "As much as Mimi and Ray Ray loved her, Judy loved her just as much.

"I remember every Monday, Judy would bring Christina, and they'd have on matching warm-ups from the Washington Redskins. They were great together."

Harcum said the decision to move Christina took weeks and that Christina was excited about it.

"I remember the last day she gave us all hugs and came around for seconds," Harcum said. "I told her it might be a long time before we saw her again. She said, 'Don't be silly, Miss
Dawn, I'll be back to visit.' "

Harcum said that on Oct. 22, the day Pauline first reported Christina missing, she ran into Judy Holt at a town picnic, and they had a long talk about the situation.

"Of course, we hadn't heard anything yet," Harcum said. "Judy told me she had talked to Christina on the telephone and everything seemed all right. She was sad because she was afraid that by giving Christina her mother that she had lost her own."

The next day, Poolesville got word that Christina was missing.

"Maybe Christina will stay a child in heaven," the Rev. McDonald said Saturday. "That would be beautiful.

"Christina was desperately looking for home. Even more than the rest of us, she was looking for home. I have to believe she's found it."

ZILES' ATTORNEYS RECEIVING HATE MAIL
The Palm Beach Post
December 8, 1994
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Attorneys for John and Pauline Zile have received hate mail and threatening phone calls since they began representing the Singer Island couple accused of killing 7-year-old Christina Holt.
``I haven't seen any letters that say, `Hey, wait a minute, before we hang her, let's have a trial,''' said Ellis Rubin, Pauline Zile's attorney. ``This undoubtedly is the most unpopular case I can remember handling.''

For Rubin, threats and hate mail are nothing new. In 1991 Rubin found a fake bomb on the steps in front of his Miami office. A bomb squad removed the package that contained a triggering mechanism but no gunpowder.

Rubin has not reported any of the Zile hate letters or phone calls to police.

``I've had a lot in my time,'' Rubin said. ``Anybody who's going to do something isn't going to call.''

The assistant public defenders representing John Zile also have received hate mail and will use the letters to try to prove that John Zile cannot get a fair trial in Palm Beach County.

However, Rubin does not intend to make public the letters he has received, saying he already has plenty of evidence to prove the community's hatred toward Pauline Zile.

``There have been plenty of editorials and letters to the editor asking that she be executed without a trial,'' Rubin said.

Pauline Zile has also received hate mail at the Palm Beach County Jail but Rubin declined to comment on the contents.

Detectives found Christina's body buried behind a Tequesta shopping center. John Zile told police that Christina went into convulsions while he was hitting her on Sept. 16 and died. He said he hid her body in a bedroom closet for three days before burying her.

Several weeks after Christina's death the Zile's staged Christina's kidnapping at a Broward county flea market.

``Let me tell you why she's so hated, because she deceived the public,'' Rubin said.

JURY INDICTS PAIR IN DEATH OF CHILD
COUPLE FACE FIRST-DEGREE MURDER COUNTS
Sun-Sentinel
December 8, 1994
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH and JOSE LUIS SANCHEZ Jr. Staff Writers
Staff Writer C. Ron Allen contributed to this report.

A Lake Worth couple who ran a state-licensed foster home were indicted on Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse involving their adoptive and foster children.
Timothy and Paulette Cone are accused of killing their adopted daughter, Pauline Cone, on Nov. 10. The 2-year-old was asphyxiated when a plywood lid attached to the top of her crib fell on her neck, prosecutors said.

Two of the aggravated child abuse charges accuse the Cones of caging their adopted daughters, including Pauline. Pauline and her adoptive sister, Deana, 3 1/2, were kept in the same 3 by 4-foot covered crib.

The third aggravated child abuse charge involves allegations that the Cones failed to protect from injury a 17-year-old mentally handicapped girl who was placed with them for foster care.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said on Wednesday the case is not over.

"The investigation is ongoing into any unlawful conduct of others involved in the case, including employees of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services," Cupp said.

All three of the children came to the Cone house through HRS. The Cones adopted Pauline and Deana, who were born to cocaine-addicted mothers, through HRS.

Defense attorneys for the Cones also pointed fingers at HRS, saying the agency could have prevented Pauline's death.

Paulette Cone's attorney, Jack Goldberger of West Palm Beach, said the couple got in touch with HRS two months before their daughter's death to request a special crib cover to prevent the toddlers from crawling out of their bed.

"This is a tragic accident," Goldberger said. "They have been trying to get an appropriate crib from HRS. They improvised as best they could."

Timothy Cone's attorney, Jeffrey Harris, said, "Certainly HRS should share some of the responsibility."

HRS spokeswoman Beth Owen said on Wednesday the agency could not comment because the case involves an ongoing criminal investigation.

The Cones, who have been licensed by HRS as foster parents since 1991, estimated they have cared for as many as 65 foster children.

HRS approved them as foster parents and relicensed them each year since 1991 despite Timothy Cone's two drunken driving arrests and at least 27 police visits to the Cone house for such problems as drunkenness and fighting.

The Cones received as much as $1,100 a month from taxpayers for taking care of a single child with physical or mental disabilities. The Cones were authorized to care for up to three foster children at one time, but because of a shortage of foster homes, they sometimes had as many as six, records show.

The Cones' lawyers said the Cones are devastated, first over the loss of their daughter and now the murder charges.

The couple face the death penalty or life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder. Both Cones remained in jail without bail on Wednesday.

"Mrs. Cone is in terrible shape," Goldberger said. "I'm having problems communicating with her. I think she's unbalanced right now. She's just lost her child, and to have the power of the state come down on you and charge you with murder would make the stablest person unbalanced."

Timothy Cone is taking the situation more stoically, his attorney said.

Harris said the grand jury may have been emotionally swayed to indict the Cones on murder charges because of a recent spate of child killings in Palm Beach County.

But prosecutors have a different view.

"When the evidence is presented, it will become painfully evident that this isn't just a case of parents trying to keep children in bed," said Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office.

At the Palm Beach County Jail, the Cones on Wednesday joined John and Pauline Zile and Clover Boykin, who are all accused of killing their children.

The Ziles, of Singer Island, are accused of first-degree murder in the death of Christina Holt, 7, who died after a beating by her stepfather, prosecutors say. Boykin, of Royal Palm Beach, is accused of killing two infants, including her son.

"I don't know what was in the grand jury's mind," Harris said. "I wish the people who had heard this case had been a different group than the one who heard the Zile case. Common sense tells you there's a momentum building within this grand jury because of these horrendous cases and the Cones have been caught up in it."

FORUM TO EXAMINE CHILD ABUSE
Sun-Sentinel
December 11, 1994
Author: DAMON ADAMS Staff Writer

Moved by the deaths of 7-year-old Christina Holt and other children at the hands of their parents, Jewish leaders want to fight child abuse.

Several Jewish organizations are scheduled to participate in a forum called "Children As Victims: A Jewish Community Response," from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Temple Kol Ami, 8200 Peters Road, Plantation.
"Parents of young children need direction," said Bill Rothschild, executive director of Jewish Family Service of Broward County. "We're trying to give some perspective on the problem."

The Hollywood-based Jewish Family Service organized the forum to help people recognize signs of abuse, Rothschild said. Law enforcement officials, social workers and clergy will address how to cope with the problem, he said.

Jewish community centers, temples and educational organizations plan to take part in the forum.

At the end of the session, participants will meet in small groups.

"The focus is primarily on education and prevention," said Marjorie Epstein-Aloni, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Broward County.

"This is a way to talk about the problems and get word out to the community," she said.

Organizers want the gathering to trigger more discussions.

"We hope it's the beginning of an ongoing dialogue," Rothschild said.

Rabbi Norman Lipson agreed.

"It's a problem that's always been there and we need to do something," said Lipson, spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Hollywood.

The forum is free and open to the public. For more information, call Jewish Family Service at 966-0956.

BRIEFLY
The Palm Beach Post
December 14, 1994

WEST PALM BEACH

School records of Christina Holt released Tuesday show she was a satisfactory first-grader who had trouble following directions and maintaining self-control in class. Christina, 7, whose mother and stepfather are accused of her murder, was diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder and was taking medication for it.

RECORDS: CHRISTINA HAD BEHAVIOR PROBLEM
Sun-Sentinel
December 14, 1994
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Christina Holt was a hyperactive student described as "out of control" by one of her teachers, and she took medication during lunch at school to calm her down, the child's Maryland school records show.

The records released on Tuesday by the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office support some of the claims by her mother and stepfather, John and Pauline Zile, that the child was difficult to manage.
The Ziles are being held in the county jail on charges of first-degree murder as well as four counts of aggravated child abuse.

After initially reporting Christina as missing, the Ziles confessed to police that the girl died during a September beating by John Zile. Pauline Zile helped her husband cover up the death and reported her daughter was kidnapped.

In the records released on Tuesday, an undated note to Christina's paternal grandmother, Judy Holt, is filled with an elementary school teacher's frustration in trying to make the child behave.

"I have tried to be patient with her, but it is not working. I have tried time out, stern looks and stern talks. We need to meet and discuss this behavior. If you have any ways of dealing with her that work, please share them with me," the teacher at Poolsville, Md., Elementary School wrote.

In February, Judy Holt authorized Maryland school officials to give the child Ritalin, a medication used on hyperactive children, at lunch every day, the records showed.

Her grade reports, before and after the medication was used, say Christina excelled at completing her homework and performed satisfactorily in most other areas except those involving behavior. Teachers consistently marked her unsatisfactory in exercising self-control and following instructions.

Christina disrupted class by getting out of her seat, talking out of turn and running across the room, the teacher's note to Holt said. The girl also refused to acknowledge the authority of her teacher and bus driver, flatly saying "No" when asked to behave herself.

The note was similar to an exasperated letter written by Pauline Zile a month after she was reunited with her daughter in Florida.

"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.

Christina came to live with the Ziles in Singer Island in June, after living with relatives in Maryland most of her life.

KRISCHER DEPOSITION RULING DUE
The Palm Beach Post
December 21, 1994
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Ellis Rubin, attorney for Pauline Zile, has some questions and he wants State Attorney Barry Krischer to answer them.

Rubin, who unsuccessfully tried to get Krischer's office removed from the Zile case, has subpoenaed Krischer. At a court hearing today, Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp will decide whether Krischer must give a deposition in the case on Thursday.
Chief Assistant State Attorney Kenneth Selvig has filed court papers asking a judge to bar Rubin from questioning Krischer.

Krischer was at the Riviera Beach Police Department on Oct. 27 when detectives questioned John and Pauline Zile about the death of Pauline Zile's 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt.

John Zile led police to Christina's grave behind a Tequesta shopping center after detectives told him that his wife had described his role in Christina's death on Sept. 16.

Pauline Zile was given immunity for her statement. Despite the immunity, prosecutors charged her with first-degree murder after independently verifying her statement with new evidence.

In her statement, released Tuesday, Pauline Zile could not recall why there was so much blood found in the family's Singer Island apartment.

``Blood just does not come out of a person's body unless there is some abuse to it,'' the detective said.

``I, I know that,'' Pauline Zile said, crying.

She initially told police it could have been ``chapped lips'' then admitted she had seen blood coming from her daughter's mouth.

Pauline Zile said she initially didn't want to know where her daughter was buried. Later, she changed her mind.

``I'd like to go and get her and give her a decent burial,'' Pauline Zile said. When asked why she didn't call police or 911, she said, ``I didn't have the guts to.''

John Zile told police the couple hid Christina's body in a closet for four days before he buried her. Later, the couple concocted Christina's kidnapping from a Broward County flea market to cover for her death.

``We were both in on it,'' Pauline Zile said. ``We both had to know exactly the story.''

LAWYER BARRED FROM QUESTIONING KRISCHER
The Palm Beach Post
December 22, 1994
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

For now, State Attorney Barry Krischer won't have to answer the questions of Ellis Rubin - attorney for Pauline Zile - but Rubin vowed to renew his efforts to question the county's top prosecutor about his role in the investigation of Christina Holt's death.

``Mr. Krischer was present at the taking of Pauline's statement,'' Rubin said. ``I know exactly what his participation was and so does he.''
Krischer did not attend a hearing on Wednesday at which Chief Assistant State Attorney Kenneth Selvig asked a judge to bar Rubin from questioning Krischer. Initially, Selvig told the judge that Krischer ``was not a witness to this statement and did not participate in it.''

Later, Selvig said that Krischer was in the room during some of Pauline Zile's confession but ``at no point interrogated Pauline Zile.'' Pauline Zile rolled her eyes and shook her head when Selvig described Krischer's role in questioning her.

Pauline and John Zile face a first-degree murder charge in the Sept. 16 death of Pauline Zile's 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt. John Zile told police that the girl began choking after he hit her several times. The couple hid her body in the closet of their Singer Island apartment for four days before John Zile buried her behind a Tequesta shopping center. Later, they tried to stage Christina's kidnapping from a Broward county flea market.

Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp barred Rubin from questioning Krischer but said he could subpoena Krischer again if he learns from detectives that Krischer was involved in taking Pauline Zile's statement.

Pauline Zile's statement released on Tuesday gave few details about Krischer's alleged role in the case. In most taped confessions, detectives take special care in reading Miranda rights to the suspect and reciting the time and place of the confession along with who is present.

The 30-page confession released by prosecutors on Tuesday begins in the middle of a sentence and refers to the person questioning Pauline Zile only as ``male.''

Michael Edmondson, spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, said prosecutors released only part of the confession because that was all that was on the tape given to them by the Riviera Beach detectives who handled the investigation.

Rubin was suspicious and said he had never before received only a portion of a confession.

``There's a reason why they're doing this. The truth will come out and it will surprise a lot of people,'' Rubin said.