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.

Pauline Zile In Court On Charges She Lied About Murder of Child (9/14/95)
Airport Kiosk To Aid Missing Children (10/27/95)
Record 427 Kids Taken Out Of Homes (10/31/95)
Airport's Electronic Kiosk Widens Missing Child Effort (10/31/95)
Pictures Of Hope (10/31/95)
Zile Won't Face Questioning in Husband's Case, Judge Rules (11/10/95)
Request Denied In Zile Case (11/10/95)
Reporters Subpoenaed (12/5/95)
Wishful Thinking For More Than Just Barbies (12/24/95)
1995: The Year In Quotes (12/31/95)

PAULINE ZILE IN COURT ON CHARGES SHE LIED ABOUT MURDER OF CHILD
Miami Herald, The (FL)
September 14, 1995
Author: Herald Staff

Pauline Zile, serving life in prison for her daughter's murder, listened tearfully to her own taped confession Wednesday as she returned to court to fight charges that she lied to police during the search for her child.
Zile, already convicted of murdering 7-year-old Christina Holt, faces misdemeanor charges of filing a false police report and obstructing justice.

The charges, filed by Broward County prosecutors, stem from the Palm Beach County woman's televised pleas for the safe return of the girl. Zile, 24, stood before television cameras, clutching a stuffed animal she said was Christina's favorite toy, and told reporters the girl had been abducted from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop on Oct. 22, 1994.

Police now say the child had been dead for a month or more, killed by Zile and her husband, John. John Zile is scheduled for trial on a first-degree murder charge in Palm Beach County in April.

Pauline Zile's life sentence could have an additional four years tacked on if she is convicted of the misdemeanor charges. During Wednesday's hearing, defense attorney Ellis Rubin tried to have the taped confessions of both Ziles ruled inadmissible, which would cripple the state's case.

Prosecutor Howard Scheinberg argued that the confessions show Pauline Zile deliberately deceived police, setting in motion a four-day hunt for the missing child.

Broward County Judge Ilona Holmes scheduled another court date for Oct. 6.

AIRPORT KIOSK TO AID MISSING CHILDREN
Sun-Sentinel
October 27, 1995

Bringing high-tech help to a not-so-new safety campaign, Florida's first "Electronic Milk Carton" kiosk will open on Monday at Palm Beach International Airport.

The display can broadcast photographs and information about missing children within hours of report being filed. The data is transmitted by modem from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The kiosk also incorporates touch-screen equipment and full-motion video.
The kiosk is dedicated to Christina Holt and the state's missing children. Holt, 7, was reported abducted, but her mother and stepfather were later charged in her murder.

The dedication ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. in the east end of the main terminal for arriving passengers.

RECORD 427 KIDS TAKEN OUT OF HOMES
The Palm Beach Post
October 31, 1995
Author: BETH REINHARD
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Believing lives were in danger, state officials removed more kids from their homes in Palm Beach County in the past year than ever before.

From June 1994 to July 1995, the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services took 427 children out of their homes - a 16 percent increase over the previous year - because officials thought they were abused, neglected or abandoned.
Among these children are a record number of babies who were shaken so hard they suffered brain damage.

HRS officials attributed the increase in family breakups to:

A 6 percent rise over the previous year in complaints to the state's child abuse hot line, (800) 96-ABUSE.

HRS investigators, doctors and technology getting better at detecting abuse.

Perhaps most important, rising awareness about child abuse, galvanized by the recent deaths of children whose parents were convicted of murder.

``People are more inclined to report abuse because they worry that the kid they know about could be the next A.J. Schwarz or Christina Holt,'' said Becky Walker, HRS program operations administrator for children and families.

Complicating the record numbers are some of the worst cases of abuse HRS has ever seen: a child whose mouth was taped shut and who developed cerebral palsy; a shaken baby who grew up retarded; siblings forced to watch each other have sex with their father.

``It's not just a matter of bumps and bruises anymore,'' said Sandra Owen, who heads the HRS division of children and families. ``We're looking at skull fractures, broken bones and burns.''

These severe abuses are leading to more criminal charges. Scott Cupp, an assistant state attorney who prosecutes crimes against children, said his jury trials will double this year to about 30.

``It's depressing in the short term, but in the long term, it means we're breaking the cycle before these kids turn out to be abusers themselves,'' Cupp said. ``The only way to do that is to take them out of their home.''

Once HRS takes a child away from a parent, it must prove ``probable cause'' of abuse or neglect to a judge within 24 hours. Then the child is either returned to the home, placed with relatives, or put in foster care.

Owen said HRS is sheltering the recent wave of abused children by persuading foster parents to take care of more children and taking advantage of the 12 new beds at Children's Place South in Boca Raton, a shelter for kids younger than 6.

``By the time someone leaves, someone else is coming in,'' said Nancy Lambrecht, executive director of the Children's Place.

While the number of foster homes is down over last year, more abusive parents are losing their parental rights, allowing more troubled kids to get adopted. The number of parental terminations increased from 76 in 1993-1994 to about 120 in the past year.

Now, HRS is facing the time of year when it receives the most abuse reports, triggered by the demands of the school year and holidays on violent parents.

``It's an anxious time,'' Walker said. ``I worry that we're not going to have enough places to put all these kids.''

AIRPORT'S ELECTRONIC KIOSK WIDENS MISSING-CHILD EFFORT
The Palm Beach Post
October 31, 1995
Author: JOUNICE L. NEALY
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

After whisking luggage off the revolving conveyor belt, people arriving at the Palm Beach International Airport can see a plea from an ``electronic milk carton.''

The Missing Child kiosk is a computer screen that shows pictures and information about 57 children reported missing in Florida and asks viewers for their help.
The kiosk, the first and only computerized kiosk in Florida, was dedicated Monday morning.

Nancy McBride, executive director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said the $7,500 kiosk was donated in memory of Christina Holt, who was reported missing Oct. 22, 1994 and found murdered about a week later.

McBride said the center's mission was to find Christina Holt, even though police later discovered the parents' story was a hoax. Her mother, Pauline Zile, was sentenced to life in prison for her part in the girl's death. John Zile, the girl's stepfather, is awaiting trial.

The kiosk uses touch-screen technology to start a short video that begins and ends with a collage of missing children and a speech by John Walsh, urging viewers to call a hotline if they have tips. When the video is not playing, the screen rotates pictures of those reported missing.

PICTURES OF HOPE
KIOSK SPREADS THE WORD ON MISSING CHILDREN.
Sun-Sentinel
October 31, 1995
Author: C. RON ALLEN Staff Writer

One year later, it stands, a beacon flashing the message that hope is still alive.

The brightly colored interactive kiosk installed on Monday in Palm Beach International Airport uses high-tech communications equipment to spread information on missing children, in hopes of reuniting them with their families.
The display, brainchild of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, is dedicated to Christina Holt, a 7-year-old Riviera Beach child reported missing but later found dead. "Today is exactly one year since Christina Holt was reported missing and found murdered," said Nancy A. McBride, executive director of the center's Florida branch. "I believe Christina was looking for a safe place in this world. It seems in her short life, she didn't find one. I'm hoping that this kiosk symbolizes that safe place."

The kiosk, dubbed an "electronic milk carton," is part of a nationwide campaign to put the user-friendly displays in high-traffic areas such as airports, train stations and malls.

At the touch of a screen, passers-by can get information about 41 missing children across the state. Among those featured: Katherine Lugo, 6, of Riviera Beach; William Francis Pelletiere, 4, of Boca Raton; Cassandra Jackson, of Fort Lauderdale; and Samuel James "Jimmy" Ryce, 9, of Miami.

The database eventually will include missing children nationwide.

The program lasts about three minutes and is narrated by John Walsh, a nationally known child advocate whose son, Adam, was abducted and murdered in 1981.

The kiosk also features an age-progression device, which changes photographs of children as they looked when they were abducted to show how they might look today. The kiosk will flash phone numbers to call if people see the children.

The kiosk, occupying space donated by the Palm Beach Cultural Council, was put near the airport's baggage claim area because that is a place most people pass and the only area available.

Palm Beach International is the nation's fourth airport to install an electronic milk carton, McBride said. The airport in Rochester, N.Y., has two, and National Airport in Washington and the airport in Manchester, N.H., have one apiece. Another kiosk is under consideration in St. Paul, Minn.

IBM donated the software to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the center raised $7,500 to buy the multimedia equipment, McBride said.

The Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office is responsible for maintaining the kiosk, including electrical and phone on-line charges, she said.

"Anything we as people can do to protect our children - our most precious resources - [will promote) the legacy of help and hope on behalf of Florida's children," County Commissioner Carol Roberts said.

ZILE WON'T FACE QUESTIONING IN HUSBAND'S CASE, JUDGE RULES
Sun-Sentinel
November 10, 1995
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

A judge on Thursday refused to order Pauline Zile to submit to questioning by her husband's defense attorney, who wanted to ask her about a search and seizure waiver the couple signed last year.

Craig Wilson, defense attorney for John Zile, told Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger B. Colton that he needed to ask Pauline Zile about the waiver as part of his attempt to suppress some evidence seized from the couple's Singer Island apartment.
John Zile, 33, is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the September 1994 death of his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, 7. Pauline Zile, 25, has been convicted of the same charges.

Pauline Zile's attorney, Ellis Rubin, said that even if Colton ordered her to submit to questioning in John Zile's case, the answers she would give would not go beyond her name and address.

"She is not going to testify if I have anything to say or do about it," Rubin told Colton on Thursday.

Rubin said he is appealing Pauline Zile's convictions. She is serving a life sentence at the Jefferson Correctional Institution in Monticello.

"Any testimony she gave at this point could be used against her," if the case is overturned on appeal and a new trial is ordered, Rubin said.

A Palm Beach County jury convicted Pauline Zile in April, even though prosecutors said she did not inflict the blows that caused Christina to go into a seizure, collapse and die.

Prosecutors said John Zile beat Christina as his wife stood by and did nothing, then hid Christina's body in a closet in the apartment before burying her behind a department store in Tequesta.

The couple was charged on Oct. 27, 1994, several days after Pauline Zile told police that Christina had been abducted from a restroom at the Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale.

REQUEST DENIED IN ZILE CASE
MAN'S WIFE WON'T FACE QUESTIONING
Sun-Sentinel
November 10, 1995
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

A judge on Thursday refused to order Pauline Zile to submit to questioning by her husband's defense attorney, who wanted to ask her about a search and seizure waiver the couple signed last year.
Craig Wilson, defense attorney for John Zile, told Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger B. Colton that he needed to ask Pauline Zile about the waiver as part of his attempts to suppress some evidence seized from the couple's Singer Island apartment.

John Zile, 33, is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the September 1994 death of his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, 7. Pauline Zile, 25, has been convicted of the same charges.

Pauline Zile's attorney, Ellis Rubin, said that even if Colton ordered her to submit to questioning in John Zile's case, the answers she would give would not go beyond her name and address.

Rubin said he is appealing Pauline Zile's convictions. She is serving a life sentence at the Jefferson Correctional Institution in Monticello.

"Any testimony she gave at this point could be used against her," if the case is overturned on appeal and a new trial is ordered, Rubin said.

A Palm Beach County jury convicted Pauline Zile in April, even though prosecutors said she did not inflict the blows that caused Christina to go into a seizure, collapse and die.

Prosecutors said John Zile beat Christina as his wife stood by and did nothing, then hid Christina's body in a closet in the apartment before burying her behind a department store in Tequesta.

The couple was charged on Oct. 27, 1994.

John Zile is scheduled to go to trial on April 1.

REPORTERS SUBPOENAED
Sun-Sentinel
December 5, 1995
Author: Staff reports

John Zile's attorneys want to move Zile's trial for first-degree murder of his stepdaughter out of Palm Beach County and want to use newspaper reporters to help them do it.

Craig Wilson, Zile's court-appointed attorney, said at a hearing on Monday that the killing of Zile's stepdaughter Christina Holt, 7, received more publicity than the William Kennedy Smith rape case, and Zile cannot receive a fair trial locally. Wilson said he does not think they can pick an impartial jury in Palm Beach County.
Wilson subpoenaed reporters Phil Davis and Marego Athans from the Sun-Sentinel and The Palm Beach Post's Christine Stapleton to testify about the negative public perception of Zile, but the reporters' attorneys tried to block their testimony.

Chris Simon, one of the attorneys representing the reporters, said at the hearing that journalists may be forced to testify only when they were an actual witness to the crime, not just when they write about it.

She said the articles themselves are sufficient to show the amount of publicity the case received.

Circuit Judge Roger Colton postponed a decision on Monday on whether the reporters should be required to testify.

WISHFUL THINKING FOR MORE THAN JUST BARBIES
Sun-Sentinel
December 24, 1995
Author: JOHN GROGAN

Dear Santa:

Well, tonight is Christmas Eve and I'm just now sitting down to write you my list.

I know it's a little late, but, as usual, I'm running behind schedule. Christmas is supposed to be the season of joy; for me it's more or less the season of raised blood pressure. I couldn't write my wish list until I mailed the Christmas cards, and I couldn't mail the Christmas cards until we shot the family portrait and ... well, you get the idea.

Like all the other procrastinators, I was out shopping last night and I've got to tell you, Santa, I didn't see a whole lot of good tidings. One lady stomped on my foot trying to beat me into the checkout line.
Sometimes it seems that the spirit of Christmas has gotten lost in the rat race.

It started out simply enough with a birth in a manger and somehow mutated along the way into the most crass and commercial of all holidays. Christmas is now about Barbies and espresso makers and big-screen televisions.

It's about spending $60 for a tree that two months ago was part of the living world and two weeks from now will be lying on a curb with millions of others waiting to clog a landfill. Just think, Santa, if we each spent $60 to plant a tree instead of chopping one down.

First wish: a little sanity

And that brings me to the first thing I want to ask for, Santa: a little more sanity in the world. A little more courtesy; a little less selfishness. A little less me and a little more us. I know that's a tall order, but if anyone can fill it, it's you, Santa.

You're probably asking, "Where am I supposed to start?" Maybe it's best to start small. Just a whispered message in each of our ears tonight, something like: "Calm down. Smile at the next person you meet."

And to all those lead-foot drivers you might add, "Take it easy out there before you kill somebody."

I hope I'm not being greedy, but that's not all I want, oh bearded one.

I want Congress and the president to stop shouting and start talking. I want them to work for all Americans, not just those with deep pockets at election time.

I want them to balance the budget but not on the backs of the poor, the weak, the old, the helpless.

I want corporations, in their quest to maximize profits, to remember their workers are human beings with families, not widgets.

I was reading the other day that the rich keep growing richer as the poor get poorer, and that the great middle class, that bulwark of democracy - folks like you and me, Santa - is slipping rung by rung down the ladder.

America's richest 1 percent now holds 40 percent of the nation's wealth, double the rate of 20 years ago. Can you work on that?

Can you keep us from becoming another Third World country where the gulf between rich and poor is so wide the wealthy cower behind bars in fear of the desperate masses?

Judging by the proliferation of gated and guarded communities across this land, we're well on our way.

And while you're at it, please tell Newt Gingrich that tax breaks for the wealthy aren't what this country needs right now.

Parenting without shackles

Santa, you probably heard about the judge in South Carolina who ordered a mother shackled to her teen-age daughter to keep the girl out of trouble. Let's add that to the list, too: parenting skills that don't require locks, chains and court orders.

Maybe you can help scientists beat AIDS before too many more bright, young lives are snuffed out.

And maybe you can wrap your strong arms around each and every child in the world, Santa, so what happened to Jimmy Ryce and Christina Holt and A.J. Schwarz and Michael and Alex Smith and all the other lost innocents won't ever happen again.

I know I'm a dreamer, Santa, but isn't that your job, to make dreams come true?

Gary Stein is on vacation. His column will resume when he returns. John Grogan is the Sun-Sentinel's Palm Beach County local columnist.

1995: THE YEAR IN QUOTES
Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
December 31, 1995

``I want them to beat her to death for what she put Christina through. She never was a mother to that child.''

- Dorothy Money, the paternal great-grandmother who raised Christina Holt, after Christina's mother, Pauline Zile, was sentenced in June to life without parole for helping her husband, John Zile, beat the 7-year-old to death and concoct a story that she was abducted.