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.

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

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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.

Parents: Track Students Who Leave School (11/3/94)
Honor Christina By Helping, Group Asks (11/3/94)
A Crisis Of The Spirit (11/4/94)
False Stories Stir Fears Of Parent Groups (11/4/94)
Rubin Outlines Mom's Defense (11/4/94)
Mom Begs For Forgiveness (11/4/94)
How Can You Abuse Or Murder Your Child? (11/4/94)
Every Case Is Not a Sham, Parents of Missing Kids Say (11/5/94)
Failure To Act May Be Felony (11/5/94)
Police Charge Christina's Mom (11/5/94)

PARENTS: TRACK STUDENTS WHO LEAVE SCHOOL
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 3, 1994
Author: MARILYN GARATEIX Herald Staff Writer

CHRISTINA HOLT'S DEATH PROVOKES ANGER, CONCERN

Horrified by the beating death of 7-year-old Christina Holt, some parents want tougher laws giving schools more power to track students who have withdrawn from Florida's public school system.
"There has got to be a better way," said Latha Krishnaiyer, legislative chairman of the Florida PTA, who has been flooded with calls and comments from parents sickened over Christina's death. "I have had a lot of parents come to me and ask this question: 'What can we do?' "

Police recovered Christina's body from a shallow grave in Tequesta, Fla., after her stepfather, Walter John Zile, led investigators to the site. Zile is in jail on charges of first- degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

Christina's mother, Pauline Zile, withdrew her from Jupiter Farms Elementary School on Oct. 7 and told school administrators they were leaving Florida. By that time, the little girl was already dead.

Although Christina's teachers followed up with phone calls -- unsuccessfully -- they could do very little because Florida's electronic tracking system picks up students only if another school requests records.

"At this point the school is not given the authority to do anything," Krishnaiyer said. "All they can do is call."

Krishnaiyer and other Broward parents are researching state laws and trying to develop solutions to present at the PTA's state convention in Orlando Nov. 17-19.

"Ninety-nine out of 100 times (the student) is going to the place the parent says, but one poor little child like Christina Holt is one too many," said Judy Sullivan, president of Broward County PTA.

The group realizes there are some tough questions to be answered: How long does a school wait before notifying someone about a withdrawn student? Who do they notify? Police, state health officials or someone else? What about private schools? What about parents' privacy?

"I have no illusion that it would be difficult to work out," Sullivan said. "But maybe some kind of maximum time frame that parents have to have their kids registered at another school."

Florida schools must keep students' records, even if no other school ever asks for them. Every district probably has some files of students they have never heard from again, state officials said. Especially if the student left the state or country.

"I'm sympathetic to the issue," said Bob Smith, a program specialist with the Florida Department of Education. "But I think anybody who's looking for answers has a considerable amount of studying to do."

Florida school officials already get a list of missing children from law enforcement and send it to each district.

Krishnaiyer said she realizes any solution would have to be balanced.

"On one hand I'm looking at, 'Are we infringing on rights to do this?' " she said. "On the other hand we are a child- advocacy organization."

But even if nothing is ever passed, the PTA wants people to pay more attention when students are withdrawn from school and disappear.

"We hope to save someone from injury or even bring a child back to school," Krishnaiyer said.

HONOR CHRISTINA BY HELPING, GROUP ASKS
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 3, 1994
Author: JUDY PLUNKETT EVANS Herald Staff Writer

People upset about the murder of Christina Holt should turn their anger into action by assisting in a new campaign to educate the public about child abuse and ways to prevent it, Palm Beach County's children services agency announced Wednesday.
The Children Services Council wants to print a brochure detailing where parents can go for help with their children or problems that might affect their children, such as a lack of money, food or shelter. The idea is to get help for parents before they take their problems out on their children, council vice chairman Don Middlebrooks said.

The brochures would go home from the hospital with every newborn and from school with every Palm Beach County student. They also would be available in stores, likely near checkout counters.

Middlebrooks also asked people to report any suspected abuse, something those around Christina did not do. Christina's stepfather, Walter John Zile, confessed last week to beating the 7-year-old to death Sept. 16 at their Singer Island motel apartment, but police say it was not the first time Zile had hit her.

After Christina's death, a family friend told police he had seen Zile beat the girl with a belt and then look at the welts he had caused. A neighbor also said he heard screams from the Zile apartment a couple of weeks before Christina was killed.
Neither incident was reported before Christina's death.

Al Coogler, chairman of the Economic Council, said people should take a neighborhood Crime Watch approach to child abuse -- keep an eye on neighbors and report suspected abuse. "It may not, 100 percent of the time, keep the problem at bay, but it has a better chance if we get the information out, and people take as much effort to protect children as they do their property," Coogler said.

Middlebrooks said many people have expressed a desire to do something after Christina's death.

Those people could help by contributing time or money to this effort, to protect other children from abuse, Middlebrooks said.

"The events have coalesced a lot of our thinking," Middlebrooks said. "Each of us asks what can we do to keep this
from happening again."

The Tequesta Kmart store, only 100 feet from where Zile buried Christina, already is raising money to help other children, operations manager Betsy Williams said. Hundreds of people have visited the site where Christina's body was found on Friday, often stopping in the store to buy flowers or sympathy cards to leave at her grave.

On Wednesday, the store began selling small lavender satin ribbons for $1 each, and the money will go to the Center for Children in Crisis, an organization that counsels families.

For information on how to assist the Children Services Council, call (407) 655-1010 or attend a meeting to organize the printing and distribution of the brochure. The meeting will be at 4 p.m. Nov. 10 at the United Methodist Church of the Palm Beaches, 900 Brandywine Rd, West Palm Beach.
photo: Kmart employees Milly King and Betsy Williams
and Donna Hover make ribbons the store is selling to help kids (s).

A CRISIS OF THE SPIRIT
GOD'S LOVE ALLOWS THE FAITHFUL TO CONFRONT THE SUFFERING OF A CHILD.
The Palm Beach Post
November 4, 1994
Author: STEVE GUSHEE

God's love can help us confront unspeakable acts against our children

The death of a little girl has struck a chord of deep anguish in our community.
Seven-year-old Christina Holt is a symbol of a wrenching pain that threatens to overwhelm us. The abuse of our children is a crisis of the human

spirit. The talent and treasure of our society seems helpless to prevent the carnage of our young. This is not a problem easily addressed with new or increased social programming.

``We've come to a time when our children are less important than we are,'' said the Rev. Walter Arnold of First Presbyterian Church of North Palm Beach. ``Children were once seen as our heritage. Now they are a nuisance, and that is terribly, terribly sad.''

Many of us are overwhelmed by the realization that Christina seemed to be a wholly unloved child whose mother stood by as she died. Was her rejection by those she would normally look to for love worse than the beatings? Was death a welcome relief from the suffering of her spirit?

And is there a word from the Lord in the midst of such tragedy? Can communities of faith address Christina's broken spirit or her parents' demonic

one? The only solace the faithful have in confronting the world's evil is this: God is faithful in relationships when we are not. God makes covenants, and he keeps them. And nothing, not principalities or powers, not death or life, not stepfathers or frightened mothers, can separate God from his suffering children.

That is deceptively quiet assurance, but it is enough. It addresses our fundamental need to be valued and to be secure in a world in which there is no ultimate security.

The good news of the Bible is simply that God loves us - uncomplicated, radical and life-giving words too often compromised with conditions by the religious establishment. Had Christina's parents believed an iota of that, Christina would no doubt be a living, happy child today.

Biblical faith insists that Christina is OK now. She is free of the violent grasp of an uncaring, disinterested family and in the presence of the God who once gave her life and gives her life even now.

But, sadly, religious communities seem impotent to prevent such tragedies though they have the tools to do so. They have essentially no other purpose.

Communities of faith have failed their sole vocation - to tell people convincingly of a God who embraces his little ones. We have tragically failed the unloved Christinas of the world. And we have failed their parents as well.

But why so much evil, why any evil, in a world governed by a good and gracious God? Theologians agree that God does not cause evil, but few deny that an evil inclination lies dangerously near the surface in all of us.

``God gave us free will and God meant it,'' said Rabbi Howard Shapiro of Temple Israel in West Palm Beach. ``We can choose to be angels or to be

devils.'' The frightening reality is that her stepfather and mother, John and Pauline Zile, are not genetically unbalanced monsters. The frightening reality is that they are human beings - next-door neighbors - who have committed unspeakable acts of terror upon a helpless child.

``All of us are capable of this,'' said Arnold.

Fearful people prey upon the weak. They inflict horrendous injury upon children, women and the poor to slake their own inner terror.

And we all are afraid. We fear that we are not loved. We fear that, short of dominating and controlling others, we will not get the strokes we so desperately need. God weeps, the helpless suffer and chaos reigns.

Knowing God trusts us addresses that fear and will keep us from using - and abusing - others, but such faith is not a talisman to shield us from the world's evil. Quite the opposite. Faithful Jews have paid an enormous price to embrace their faith. And Christians have as their model one who, crucified as a political, religious nuisance, says follow me.

But the biblical love story insists that from the brick pits of Israel's slavery in Egypt to the crucifixion of Jesus, God chooses to enter the very heart of the world's suffering - the exact place where human despair meets God's promise and hope is born. God suffers in the suffering of Christina

Holt. And it is the absolute conviction of the faithful that God can - and given our permission will - transform evil.

Something good, something healing, something life-giving can emerge from the worst that evil can do. Christina's sad life and her violent death have already begun to drive our community toward making a more child-friendly world. Some see God's Kingdom established on Earth. Others expect its rule in another realm. But all people of faith proclaim God's ultimate victory over

evil. A life-giving spirit of goodness does lie at the heart of this world, despite the evil so palpably present in the choices of John and Pauline Zile and their frightened ilk.

Love is possible. Little girls can grow up in joy and without fear.

Steve Gushee, the religion writer for The Palm Beach Post, is an Episcopal priest.

Floridians grieve for Christina

A public that seemed jaded after so many similar horrors has been ignited by the death of Christina Holt. Contributions are pouring in for her burial in Maryland. Down in Fort Lauderdale, callers have flooded the lines of radio station Y-100, which will hold a demonstration - Rally Around Our Children, Enough is Enough - Monday in Miami.

Money raised by the station will be sent to the Potomac Valley Bank in Bethesda, Md., where friends of Judith Holt have established a trust fund in her granddaughter's memory. Money not used for burial expenses will go the Adam Walsh Foundation. Donations may be sent to the bank at 4701 Sangamore Road, Bethesda, Md., 20818.

Closer to home, the Tequesta Kmart behind which Christina was buried is selling $1 lavender ribbons to benefit the Center for Children in Crisis. In the first five hours, 200 were sold.

FALSE STORIES STIR FEARS OF PARENT GROUPS
Sun-Sentinel
November 4, 1994
Author: ROBIN BENEDICK Staff Writer
Staff Writers Barbara Walsh, Marego Athans and Jim Di Paola contributed to this report.
Compiled by staff researcher Nancy Munro

The next time you hear that a child has been abducted, are you going to believe it?

Maybe. Maybe not.

After back-to-back phony abduction cases that riveted the nation the past two weeks, parents and advocates of dead or missing children are in a panic. They worry that people will not take them seriously and that police will find a parent's tale of a missing child less believable.

"This is very damaging for us," said Nancy McBride, director of the Adam Walsh Foundation in Palm Beach County. "It's a coincidence. These parents tried to divert attention away from themselves and it backfired."

Often, lies told by parents come back to haunt them.

On Thursday, a South Carolina mother who faked her two sons' kidnapping and appealed for help on TV was arrested when police pulled her submerged car from a lake and found the bodies of her toddlers in the back seat.

Closer to home, many South Floridians feel betrayed by the parents of 7-year-old Christina Holt. They concocted an elaborate tale of abduction before Christina's mother confessed that the child had been killed.

Christina's stepfather, Walter John Zile, was charged with beating her to death. Her mother, Pauline, who will face a grand jury on Monday, said the girl was kidnapped from a restroom at the busy Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop. The child had been killed on Sept. 16 and stashed in a closet for four days before she was buried in a shallow grave in northern Palm Beach County.

"It makes me feel disgusted that they played on the community," David Dougherty said.

Dougherty's 5-year-old daughter, Amanda, was found strangled in a canal near Boca Raton on Sept. 24. The child had vanished two days earlier from her North Lauderdale home.

Untruths told by parents also have a chilling effect on investigating child abuse, said Jim Towey, secretary of Florida's Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.

"Our system is built on the truthfulness of parents," he said. "The worst-case nightmares I have are where parents are wrongfully charged and tell us they're innocent. But here you have mothers that lied through their teeth. And what happens is it makes you all the more skeptical."

Julie Grosse, a coordinator for the Polly Klaas Foundation in Petaluma, Calif., worries that people now will be too quick to form opinions about parents who report a missing child.

"Being judgmental could jeopardize the safe return of a child," she said.

The foundation was formed in October 1993 in the name of the 12-year-old girl who was taken from her home by a stranger and murdered.

Some experts are concerned that -vol-unteers will no longer turn out in droves to help search for missing children after they see TV images of grieving, hysterical mothers begging for anyone with information to come forward.

In most cases, children are abducted by someone they know, and rarely do they wind up murdered, said Peter Banks, a director at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Arlington, Va. He said parents are always suspects because they are closest to the child.

RUBIN OUTLINES MOM'S DEFENSE
CONTROL BY SPOUSE WHO BEAT DAUGHTER CITED
Sun-Sentinel
November 4, 1994
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer
Staff Writer Jim Di Paola contributed to this report.

Flamboyant Miami attorney Ellis Rubin mapped out a defense for Pauline Zile in the death of her daughter on Thursday, and released a statement from her placing the blame on her husband, who is charged with murder.

Pauline Zile has not been charged, although Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer said earlier this week that a grand jury will review her role, possibly next week.
Rubin said he would use the control her husband, John Zile, held over her in her defense. "This case is going to be a combination of battered woman syndrome and child abuse," he said at a news conference staged in front of the State Attorney's Office in West Palm Beach at the end of the day.

Krischer could not be reached for comment. Riviera Beach Police Chief Jerry Poreba, whose department investigated the killing, would not comment about the statement late Thursday, except to say, "The best defense is a good offense."

Rubin said Pauline Zile went along with her husband's plan to cover up the death by staging an abduction at the Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale because John Zile told her she would be charged and faced a death penalty if she did not follow his plans, Rubin said.

"Every day, `the electric chair' were the three magic words that kept her in line," Rubin said.

In her statement, the mother of Christina Holt, 7, asked forgiveness.

"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," she said in a written statement.

"I will never forget seeing Christina on the living room floor, nor her laying on the bed [the night she was killed)."

Zile's statements were her first since she admitted the abduction was a hoax on Oct. 27. Rubin said he received the statement in the mail from her this week.

"I didn't tell her to write it," Rubin said.

Zile, 24, laid all blame on an abusive husband and expressed regret for not calling police on Sept. 16, the night John Zile beat her daughter. When Christina started screaming and vomiting, Zile put his hand over her mouth, according to a police affidavit.

She died minutes later.

The medical examiner has not determined cause of death.

Rubin said he was holding the news conference to respond to statements made to the media by Krischer that have, in Rubin's words, "throughly poisoned" potential jurors.

"This woman has been charged, tried and executed before the charges have been filed against her," Rubin said.

Krischer has said a grand jury next week could indict Pauline Zile on charges that range from felony murder, which carries a possible death sentence, to failing to protect a child, an abuse charge carrying a maximum five-year sentence.

Rubin said Krischer and police have failed to disclose that Pauline Zile is an epileptic whose husband used money for her medicine and food to feed his appetite for marijuana.

Rubin said John Zile had orchestrated a suicide pact with his wife but never intended to kill himself. Prosecutors said they had no evidence a suicide attempt took place.

On Thursday, Rubin said investigators from his office went to an orange grove in Martin County and found a garden hose used to funnel carbon monoxide fumes into the car, tin foil used to plug up holes to keep the fumes from escaping the car and a bottle of whiskey that John Zile had given to his wife to drink.

Rubin said police and investigators with the State Attorney's Office collected the items after being called to the orange grove.

Staff Writer Jim Di Paola contributed to this report.

PAULINE'S LETTER

The following is the text of a letter that defense attorney Ellis Rubin said Pauline Zile mailed to him this week:

Regrets:

1. Not knowing a lot was going on in the degree it was.

2. Not knowing he was being so rough when I wasn't home.

3. Not being able to confront John.

4. Not being able to walk out the door and call the cops that night.

5. Not knowing he scared the boys so much.

6. Not knowing his past was so bad.

I hope this will help other mothers come forward if their children are being beaten or punished to a bad extent.

I will never forget seeing Christina on the living room floor, nor her laying on the bed.

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.

If I could say anything to John now it would be:

1. Thanks for nothing.

2. I've now lost five children since I met you.

3. I've tried and worked so hard for my life and my children and now it's ruined.

4. You and God know the truth of all this and how you hurt me and our children so much.

5. I pray you have the guts to come clean and admit your wrongs.

6. Christina, Daniel, Chad and myself deserved a lot more.

7. I really thought you loved me, how can you treat somebody so bad that you say you love. How could you do something you knew was wrong towards all of us. Especially my dear Christina. If only I had the strength to walk out, like with Frankie [her first husband, Frank Holt).

8. My brain is like scrambled eggs thanks to you and your damn ultimatums. That car exhaust has fried my memory when I need it most.

MOM BEGS FOR FORGIVENESS
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 4, 1994
Author: DAVID KIDWELL Herald Staff Writer

Pauline Zile's attorney delivered an impassioned plea Thursday for forgiveness in the death of her 7-year-old daughter and offered more detail of her life of "mental torture and dominance" at the hands of her husband -- who confessed to the child's murder.
"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," Zile, 24, wrote in a statement read by attorney Ellis Rubin.

"If I could say anything to John now it would be: Thanks for nothing. . . . You and God know the truth of all this and how you hurt me and our children so much. . . . My brain is like scrambled eggs thanks to you and your damn ultimatums."

Rubin, who refused to allow Pauline Zile to speak to reporters, read the statement amid a throng of television cameras and reporters as Zile and her mother Paula Yingling held one another on the steps of the Palm Beach County state attorney's office. Rubin called the 4:30 p.m. news conference to blast police and prosecutors for making his client "the most hated woman in the southeastern United States."

Less than two weeks ago, Zile's tearful appeals for the return of her missing daughter Christina Holt captivated South Florida. Her seemingly heartfelt pleas as she clutched what she said was Christina's favorite doll launched a nationwide search for an unknown abductor. Zile said the child disappeared from a restroom at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.

At the time, Pauline knew the girl had been dead and buried more than a month -- the victim of a deadly beating by the child's stepfather Walter John Zile.

Pauline now says she was asleep when the beating began and awoke to Christina's screams, but it was too late. In the statement, she says she regrets "not being able to confront John. . . . Not being able to walk out the door and call the cops that night."

Instead, Christina's body was stashed in a bedroom closet of their Riviera Beach motel apartment for almost four days while John Zile, 34, searched for a place to bury her.

John Zile is in Palm Beach County Jail, charged with first- degree murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse. A Palm Beach County grand jury reconvenes Monday, and will decide whether charges will be brought against Pauline Zile.

Rubin said Thursday he expects charges, and if there are, he will present a battered-woman defense, portraying John Zile as a manipulative tyrant who exercised a mental control over his emotionally weaker wife.

"This is not really a case of physical abuse," Rubin said. "But mental torture and dominance."

Rubin said the husband forced Pauline Zile to "hock everything they owned in order to get money for food for the children. Instead, he used it to feed his own appetite for marijuana."

Rubin also said Pauline Zile suffers from epileptic seizures, and John Zile took the money for her medicine to feed his drug habit. Rubin also accused John Zile of trying to kill Pauline Zile as their tale of child abduction began to fall apart.

"Dead ladies tell no tales," he said. Rubin said John Zile forced Pauline Zile to have an abortion after the birth of their two sons, age 3 and 5. Pauline gave up a fifth child -- born Oct. 4 -- for adoption.

After sticking to her story that Christina had been taken
from the Swap Shop for five days, Pauline caved late Oct. 27 after failing a lie detector test and being confronted with several inconsistencies in her story. Riviera Beach police then used her statement to persuade John Zile to take them to the burial site.

"All the time up until then, he (John Zile) kept telling her, if you don't go along with this, if you dare deviate from the plan, you're going to the electric chair," Rubin said. "Those two words -- electric chair -- came up every time she wavered."

The night before they confessed, Rubin said, John Zile convinced Pauline Zile they should commit suicide. They drove to a Martin County orange grove, where John Zile rigged a hose from the exhaust to the passenger compartment.

"He kept giving her whiskey and getting out of the car to check the hose," Rubin said. "He was trying to kill her." The attempt failed because they ran low on gas.

Rubin accused investigators of shrugging off the suicide/ murder plot, and said his own investigative team located and led police Wednesday to the site where the suicide attempt occurred.

"We found a crumpled note there that said, 'Call the police,' " Rubin said. They also found a half-empty bottle of whiskey. Rubin displayed photos of the scene at the news conference.

Rubin portrayed Pauline Zile as an innocent victim.

"If not for her statements to police, they would have never solved this crime," Rubin said. "No mother just stands there and lets her child be murdered in cold blood."

Pauline Zile's attorney Ellis Rubin read the following statement Thursday on the steps of the Palm Beach County state attorney's office. Zile, who wrote the statement, was at Rubin's side. Copies of the statement then were given to reporters. Zile's husband John is charged with the murder of Pauline's 7- year-old daughter, Christina Holt. The mother has not been charged. Her statement: Regrets:

1. Not knowing a lot was going on in the degree it was.

2. Not knowing he was being so rough when I wasn't home.

3. Not being able to confront John.

4. Not being able to walk out the door and call the cops that night.

5. Not knowing he scared the boys so much.

6. Not knowing his past was so bad.

I hope this will help other mothers come forward if their children are being beaten or punished to a bad extent.

I will never forget seeing Christina on the living room floor, nor her laying on the bed. 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.

If I could say anything to John now it would be:

1. Thanks for nothing.

2. I've now lost 5 children since I met you.

3. I've tried and worked so hard for my life and my children and now it's ruined.

4. You and God know the truth of all this and how you hurt me and our children so much.

5. I pray you have the guts to come clean and admit your wrongs.

6. Christina, Daniel, Chad and myself deserved a lot more.

8. My brain is like scrambled eggs thanks to you and your damn ultimatums. That car exhaust has fried my memory when I need it most.

HOW CAN YOU ABUSE OR MURDER YOUR CHILD?
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 4, 1994
Author: ANA VECIANA SUAREZ Herald Columnist

It is the most heinous of crimes. We read about it, we watch it on TV, we listen to it on the radio driving home, and we gasp in horror. Their little faces, peering from blurred family snapshots, haunt us, and we feel disgusted, angry, fearful, helpless in the cocoon of our lives.
A parent murders the person who trusts him the most -- an innocent child. And we want to know: Who would do such a thing? And how could they?

In the past few days, we have been bombarded with terrifying tales of family life gone terribly awry, of parent- child bonds fractured in ways that seem inconceivable.

Police say Christina Holt, a pigtailed, baby-toothed 7- year-old living in Riviera Beach, was beaten and smothered by her stepfather for playing "doctor" with her two half-brothers, common behavior for any child that age. For a month, Christina's stepfather and mother later told police, they told no one what really happened, concocting an elaborate story that she had disappeared while at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop with her mother. They eventually broke down after police poked holes in their story.

Across Palm Beach County, in Royal Palm Beach, Dayton Boykin, a cherubic-faced 5-month-old, was strangled. His teenage mother confessed. She also confessed to killing another child almost a year ago, a baby she was baby-sitting for friends. Her admission came as a shock to her husband and in-laws. "She just snapped, I guess," the husband said. "Nobody knew."

Christina and Dayton are the latest tragedies in a world that often seems besieged by bad news, bad parents, bad neighborhoods, bad schools. Their deaths make shocking headlines, but they are not alone. At least three children a day die from abuse and neglect around the country, according to experts. In Florida alone, there were 63 deaths last year. Ninety percent of the cases nationwide involved children under a year old.

We don't need to look very far to find other chilling examples.

In 1989, 2-year-old Bradley McGee of Lakeland died after his stepfather repeatedly dunked him, head first, into a toilet as punishment for soiling his pants. Police said his mother also smacked him with pillows as he staggered down the hall.

In 1991, Lazaro Figueroa, 3, nicknamed Baby Lollipops, was found under a bush in Miami Beach, beaten to death. His mother and her lover were convicted of the crime.

Last year, Andrew "A.J." Schwarz, 10, was found dead in the family pool in Lantana, naked and covered with bruises. His stepmother has been convicted of child abuse. She still faces trial for second-degree murder.

A few months after that incident, another boy, 4-year-old Tommy Bush, died from a vicious beating in Opa-locka. His mother and her boyfriend have been charged in his death.

These children's hellish existence ended brutally, but thousands of others are sentenced to lives of abuse and neglect, to beatings at the hands of people ill-prepared for the daunting task of rasing kids.

What demons, we ask as we distance ourselves from those inhumane actions, lurk in these people's heads?

For decades, experts have searched for the answers. And the answers they find don't always provide us much solace or hope.

Many abusive parents are people struggling economically and psychologically, adults barely able to take care of themselves, let alone to handle the rigors of child-raising.

Others were abused children themselves. Dayton Boykin's mother, 19-year-old Clover Boykin, told police that she strangled her son after she awoke from a nightmare in which her father was chasing her for sex. She said she had been sexually and physically abused by her father and her mother's boyfriend as a child, and that, when she awoke and saw Dayton in bed with her, she thought it was her father.

We like to believe -- we want to believe -- that, with the proper environment, therapy and a lot of love, abused children can put the nightmares of their past behind them. You can if you want to badly enough, we say again and again.

Yet we are reminded constantly that those who overcome are few and far between. Those who are haunted and scarred for life, on the other hand, fill our jails, perpetuate the abuse they suffered themselves or, at best, barely eke out an existence.

The first years of a child's life are the foundation of the future. It's during this time that they learn to love, to trust, to compromise, to deal with problems in nonviolent ways. Children who are slapped, pinched, burned or molested never learn the comfort of a caress in times of trouble, never hear the soothing rhythm of a lullaby after a nightmare.

What they learn is quite the opposite: the excruciating pain of an adult's fist to a tender belly, the unseen rip to the heart of berating words, the betrayal of trust when Papa slithers into bed with them.

Childhood is a resource too precious to be squandered, one that once wasted can rarely be recovered. We must stop thinking that raising a child is like housebreaking a puppy, something you can do alone, in a month, with the help of a booklet.

Child-rearing is demanding work that requires incredible time and effort, and even more incredible amounts of patience. And it requires, too, that all of society -- employers, media, neighbors, government, churches and synagogues -- make children their first priority, whatever the cost.

A bad start in life leaves an enduring legacy of impairment. Don't let any fairy tale convince you otherwise.

EVERY CASE IS NOT A SHAM, PARENTS OF MISSING KIDS SAY
The Palm Beach Post
November 5, 1994
Author: SCOTT SHIFREL
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Parents of the most well-known missing children in Florida appealed to the public Friday not to turn its back on missing children because of recent faked abductions in South Carolina and Palm Beach County.

``We all feel betrayed,'' said Patrick Sessions, whose daughter Tiffany has been missing for more than five years. ``They're hurting the search for other people.''
Tiffany Sessions was 20 when she disappeared in 1989 from an apartment near the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Finding children must remain a priority, he and two other parents said at a news conference sponsored by the Adam Walsh Center in the wake of the slayings of Susan Smith's two young boys in Union, S.C., and Christina Holt.

Smith, who was arrested Thursday in connection with the deaths of her children, and Pauline Zile, who was arrested Friday on suspicion of murdering her daughter Christina, both are accused of concocting elaborate abduction

stories. ``I think she's a despicable human being,'' Sessions said of Zile. ``I hope they fry her.''

Other parents of missing children also were shocked.

``I cried my heart out because it brought it all back,'' said Linda Parsons in an interview from home. Her daughter Andrea has been missing from Port Salerno since July 1993. Andrea was 10 when she was last seen near Commerce and Seward avenues in Port Salerno.

``When I heard what happened, it made me sick to my stomach,'' Parsons

said. Parents of missing children also are angered by the stories because they often are suspected at first, Sessions said.

``The minute Tiffany disappeared, everybody started to look at me,'' he

said. Also at the Fort Lauderdale conference were Francis Moya, whose daughter, Katherine Lugo, 5, disappeared from their Riviera Beach home Jan. 8; and Luis Melendi of Miami, whose daughter, Shannon Melendi, 20, has been missing since March 26 from her part-time job as a score keeper at a softball field near Emory University in Atlanta.

``We don't want the public to think that every case is a sham,'' said Nancy McBride of the Adam Walsh Center.

Calls to the center about other missing children haven't slowed since the recent revelations, McBride said.

Parents have concocted coverups before, but that hasn't deterred intense public attention and help when children are missing, the center's founder, John Walsh, said from New York.

``I truly believe that the media and the public understand,'' he said.

FAILURE TO ACT MAY BE FELONY
The Palm Beach Post
November 5, 1994
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Detectives say Pauline Zile watched and did not stop the fatal beating of her daughter.

In Florida, failing to protect a child is just as wrong as beating the child yourself.
``One can willfully omit or neglect to do something that results in unnecessary or unjustifiable pain and suffering just as one can willfully commit an act that produces the same result,'' the Florida Supreme Court ruled in 1992. The ruling was made in a case involving a Panhandle evangelist who starved to death a 4-year-old girl whom she believed was possessed.

Prosecutors will likely rely on that case to prove Pauline Zile is guilty of aggravated child abuse and was a ``principal'' or ``accomplice'' in the murder of her 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt.

State Attorney Barry Krischer declined to discuss prosecution strategy on Friday. But much of the legal legwork lies ahead.

To its victims, murder is murder. But to prosecutors, there are two kinds of first-degree murder: premeditated and felony.

Premeditated first-degree murder means the killer ``consciously decided'' to kill. The planning can take months, minutes or a split second, but the intent to kill ``must be formed before the killing.''

Prosecutors probably won't take that tack in the Ziles' case. John Zile, Christina's stepfather, has told police he did not intend to kill the child. Instead, prosecutors are expected to argue that the Ziles are guilty of felony first-degree murder: A crime was committed, and Christina was killed.

To tie Pauline Zile to the murder, prosecutors could argue that:

By failing to stop her husband, Pauline Zile enabled him to commit a crime. That makes her a ``principal.'' Under the law, she would be treated ``as if she had done all of the things'' that her husband did. Prosecutors also would have to prove that she knew what was going to happen, participated or ``did something'' to help commit the crime.

Because Pauline Zile watched the attack, she is guilty of aggravated child abuse, and Christina died during that abuse. Under Florida's felony murder law, accomplices are as guilty as the actual killer if the murder occurred during a felony.

Staff librarians Michelle Quigley and Barbara Gellis Shapiro contributed to this report.

POLICE CHARGE CHRISTINA'S MOM
The Palm Beach Post
November 5, 1994
Author: JENNY STALETOVICH
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

If Christina Holt cried for her mother's help the night she died, mother paid no heed.

The woman who claimed to be as victimized as her daughter by a husband already charged with Christina's murder, took an active part in her daughter's abuse, neighbors and the couple's young children said. In an arrest affidavit used Friday to charge Pauline Zile with murder and child abuse, investigators pieced together a picture of the girl's last days that sickened even seasoned investigators.
Zile and her husband, John, beat the girl together, then took their young sons with them to buy a shovel to bury the girl, investigators say.

``Momma and Dada beat Christina's butt lots of times and put her in the bathroom,'' the couple's 5-year-old son told investigators.

Zile's arrest comes one day after she pleaded for forgiveness, claiming she lived a life of ``mental torture'' under John Zile's twisted dominance. John Zile, 32, was charged with Christina's murder Oct. 27 after Pauline Zile, 24, said he killed the girl Sept. 16, holding a towel over her mouth to muffle her screams, then hid her body in a closet for nearly four days while he searched for a remote place to bury her.

Pauline Zile later said she slept through the beating on a nearby sofa.

But John Zile told detectives during an interview Friday that his wife played as much a role in Christina's beatings as he did.

``He said that he wasn't the only one beating the kid and that he told her when he was giving the discipline alone, he didn't want to be the only one. She wanted him to do all the disciplining (but) he told her he was tired of being the heavy hand,'' an investigator said.

Pauline Zile insisted her husband terrified her into submission.

Helpless to fight him, Zile said she helped cover the murder and complied with an elaborate abduction scam she put into action Oct. 22 at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop, sobbing to television cameras that her daughter had been taken from a flea market bathroom.

That was not the picture remembered by Linda Kauppinen when she talked to her neighbor in September.

``Pauline (said) that her daughter Christina was a snotty, spoiled child and she was too much to handle, so they sent her back up north to live with Grandma,'' Kauppinen told investigators.

Nor did the Home Depot clerk who sold a shovel, tarp and rose bush to the couple remember grief.

In striking up a conversation with Zile, the clerk, Betty Schultze, noticed her two young sons and that she was pregnant. ``You've got your work cut out for you,'' Schultze said.

``Lady, you don't know how true everything you're saying really is,'' Zile replied, according to the arrest affidavit.

Following John Zile's arrest last week, investigators struggled to piece together a case to charge Pauline.

Investigators could not use Pauline Zile's statement that triggered John Zile's confession because she was given limited immunity.

STATEMENTS REVIEWED

Because there were holes in Pauline Zile's account of her role in the case, detectives interviewed new witnesses - Schultze and two neighbors - and they reviewed statements taken from the couple's two sons before John Zile was

charged. On Oct. 7, nearly three weeks after her daughter's death, Pauline Zile visited Christina's school in Jupiter and told officials the girl had returned to Maryland. But when Christina's teacher called to ask why the girl had only been in school for four days since August, Zile said she was being taught at home.

When investigators began questioning neighbors, they learned she had not been seen in a month.

Then on Oct. 24, two days after Pauline Zile reported the disappearance, investigators questioned an attendant at a Riviera Beach Amoco station where Pauline Zile stopped before going to the flea market. Christina was not with Pauline Zile, the attendant said.

They became more confused when they questioned the couple's sons early on Oct. 27 - before either parent had admitted Christina was dead.

The 5-year-old ``stated that he lives with Dada, Mama, (and the 3-year-old son) but that Christina does not live with them anymore. (He) further stated that Christina is ``dead, dead'' and that there is blood on Christina and blood on the bed. (He) said `Mama and Christina are in the water.' ''

POLICE TALK TO NEIGHBORS

Investigators also talked to neighbor Holly Walsh. Walsh remembered seeing Pauline Zile twice beat her 3-year-old son with a stick. One time, she felt the beating was so severe, she asked whether it was necessary.

Walsh said on other nights, she heard the children being beaten in the Zile apartment below her.

When the couple met with detectives after their sons were questioned, Pauline Zile took a lie detector test and failed. Under pressure from her mother, Zile confessed to detectives that her husband grew angry while questioning Christina about sexual activity and beat her to death.

The exact cause of death is still under investigation by the medical examiner's office. But investigator Tony Mead said Friday they suspect the girl was asphyxiated.

``I don't think we're going to get any closer than to asphyxiation homicide. But that's for the doctor to rule,'' he said.

On Thursday, the medical examiner confirmed the body found buried 5 1/2 feet deep in sugar sand behind a Tequesta shopping center was Christina. With the confirmation, authorities were able to obtain an arrest warrant for Pauline Zile.

Early Friday morning, police surprised Zile outside her attorney's Stuart office, where a private investigator had taken her.

Later in the day, Ellis Rubin - known for representing notorious clients with unorthodox defenses - held a news conference outside his Miami office and railed at state prosecutors, saying the confession of a South Carolina woman charged with killing her two sons late Thursday triggered Pauline Zile's arrest. Rubin insisted Zile was no less a victim than her daughter.

Staff Writers Christine Stapleton, Jill Taylor and John Fernandez contributed to this report.