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.

Briefly (3/20/95)
Lawyer Uses Zile's Note To Challenge Indictment (3/24/95)
Rubin: Dismiss P. Zile (3/24/95)
Senate's Crime-Fighters Will Create More Crime (3/25/95)
Pauline Zile Trial To Begin Today (3/27/95)
Zile Jury Selection Delayed To Assess Evidence (3/28/95)
Prosecution Loses Round in Zile Trial (3/28/95)
Zile Trial Jury Pool Rapidly Dwindling (3/28/95)
Immunity Decision May Get Zile Off (3/29/95)
Zile Jury Selection Continues (3/29/95)

BRIEFLY
The Palm Beach Post
March 20, 1995

Pauline Zile, in jail awaiting trial on first-degree murder and child abuse charges in the death of her daughter, Christina Holt, was moved to the jail's medical ward around 7:30 p.m. Sunday, deputies said. Anne Evans, an investigator for Zile's attorney, Ellis Rubin, said Zile had been complaining of stomach problems last week.

LAWYER USES ZILE'S NOTE TO CHALLENGE INDICTMENT
The Palm Beach Post
March 24, 1995
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

John Zile pleaded with his wife in November not to abandon their marriage and to ``stand together'' with him to face charges that the couple murdered 7-year-old Christina Holt.

``According to your lawyer, I'm a monster,'' Zile wrote his wife, Pauline, on Nov. 14 from his jail cell. ``You know I've been nothing but a loving faithfull (sic) husband and father. . . . Have you completely turned on me!''
In the letter, Zile repeats his assertions that the Sept. 16 death of Christina, his stepdaughter and Pauline Zile's daughter, was ``a traggic (sic) accident.''

``I'm as brokin (sic) heart (sic) as anybody about Christina, I loved her too!'' Zile wrote. ``But I love nobody more in this whole world besides my kids than you Pauline.''

A grand jury indicted the Ziles on first-degree murder charges in Christina's death and also returned indictments on four counts of child abuse. Pauline Zile's trial is scheduled to begin Monday.

Ellis Rubin, her attorney, filed John Zile's letter Thursday to bolster his argument that the indictment against her is invalid because it relies on a statement she made after receiving a promise of immunity. In his letter, John Zile refers once to the alleged promise: ``I was told you got imunity (sic). I thought great she'll have her freedom & can get the kids back.''

Rubin also renewed his motion to move the trial because of pretrial publicity and to void the death penalty in Pauline Zile's case. Prosecutors have said they will ask that Pauline be put to death if she is convicted.

John Zile told police his stepdaughter began having convulsions and choked on her own vomit after he struck her while disciplining her. Police say he and his wife hid the girl's body in a closet for four days before John Zile buried her behind a shopping center in Tequesta. A month later, they claimed Christina had been abducted from a flea market.

RUBIN: DISMISS P. ZILE
LAWYER USES LETTER AS DEFENSE TOOL
Sun-Sentinel
March 24, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

John Zile forgave his wife for turning him in to police, asked if she needed canteen money in jail and told her he still loved her in a letter he wrote from his jail cell and sent to hers.

On Thursday, Pauline Zile's attorney cited the letter as the reason John Zile should stand trial alone for the death of Christina Holt, 7, Pauline Zile's daughter.
In his motion filed late Thursday, attorney Ellis Rubin said the letter shows John Zile admitted Christina was dead instead of kidnapped, but only after learning his wife was given immunity and turned himself in.

Rubin wants a hearing on the motion on Monday, the day Pauline Zile is scheduled to be tried on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

Rubin filed a slew of other motions on Thursday, including arguments against applying the death penalty in the case.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

Rubin argued that the charges should be dismissed against Pauline Zile because she was given immunity to talk to police. Her original statement cannot be used to extract an incriminating statement from her husband, Rubin said in his motion.

Pauline Zile was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse because prosecutors say she had a duty to protect her daughter from being beaten by her husband.

John Zile told police his wife was home during the beating last fall and they both tried to revive the child when she suffered a seizure and fell unconscious.

In his letter, John Zile stated he knew his wife was granted immunity and that's why he decided to tell police what happened.

"I'm not mad at you Pauline for what you did at the police station. I was glad you got immunity. I thought great, she'll have her freedom and can get the kids back," he wrote.

"The first thing I did besides ask for a lawyer was what I have to do to help Pauline! That's why I took them to Christina," John Zile stated in the Nov. 14 letter to his wife.

John Zile took police to a sandy field behind a Kmart in Tequesta where he had buried his stepdaughter after hiding her body in a closet for four days.

John Zile pleaded with his wife for them to face the charges together.

"I just know when this is all over, no matter what the outcome, the only thing that will be left for us is us," John Zile said. "These are our lives on the line, we should be able to stand together."

SENATE'S CRIME-FIGHTERS WILL CREATE MORE CRIME
The Palm Beach Post
March 25, 1995

If Florida continues to treat crime only by building prisons, the state will be no more successful than a patient treating cancer only with aspirin. Yet Sen. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, who chairs the ways and means committee, still plans to take money from the poor for prisons. That would guarantee the need for many more prisons 20 years from now.

Sen. Diaz-Balart needs to take a walk on the wild side of Florida's child welfare system. He needs to see frightened foster children. He needs to see a 2-pound baby struggling to survive because its mother didn't get prenatal care. Yet two months ago, rather than make the effort to obtain such flesh-and-blood facts, he issued a cavalier edict to state agencies: Show how you'd cut up to 25 percent of your budget. This irrelevant exercise consumed thousands of dollars in state employees' tim e and taxpayers' money. Now Sen. Diaz-Balart's committee proposes $1.1 billion in cuts, including some in welfare payments and public health clinics that would hurt the poor.
Sen. Diaz-Balart should have accompanied Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, when she went with a Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services protective investigator on a recent routine child-abuse call. He can read about the trip in a Post article published a week ago. The story detailed the harrowing case of two children who lived in squalor and fear yet howled when separated from their parents. It showed the appalling conditions seen daily by HRS workers. And it dramatized their dilemma, that there's rarely a ``right'' answer.

As do all Floridians, Rep. Frankel wants safe streets. But she understands there must be strategies besides prisons. ``If we're going to get tough on crime in the streets,'' Rep. Frankel says, ``we have to do the same with crime in the home.'' Last week, Attorney General Bob Butterworth called domestic violence Florida's most crucial problem.

Yet state spending on children's mental health, to use one example, met only 6.5 percent of the need last year. This year, HRS has $115,360,062 for foster-care services, but it's not enough. For 1995-96, the agency requested $137,995,438. Gov. Chiles recommended $119,130,780, and the actual number is likely to be less.

And with so many children and families needing help, HRS must deal with lawmakers such as Sen. John O-stal-kiewicz, R-Orlando, who is using one anecdote to make his case that HRS takes children away from parents too quickly. If that were true, perhaps HRS would have saved 10-year-old A.J. Schwarz, whose stepmother is on trial for killing him. And maybe someone would have called HRS in time to save Christina Holt, allegedly killed by her stepfather, John Zile, in September.

Miami attorney Karen Gievers' 1990 lawsuit on behalf of Florida's foster children called attention to these innocent children. But U.S. District Judge James Kehoe rightly approved a settlement Monday between Ms. Gievers and HRS Secretary Jim Towey. That agreement, mediated by Rep. Frankel, saved taxpayers from spending more money on lawyers. Judge Kehoe will review the settlement in July. If HRS has recruited more foster and adoptive parents and reduced turnover among foster-care workers, he will dismiss the suit. But that won't dismiss the goal - secure, permanent homes for these children.

HRS is a scapegoat for society's failure. Yes, the agency must operate better. In fact, since Mr. Towey arrived, it is. More foster children are being placed. But HRS gets no points for successes because problems get peoples' attention. Rather than wait for troubled children to become criminals, find out how children have been saved and duplicate the effort. Rather than wait for pregnant women to walk into emergency rooms to have their babies, provide care to all through Gov. Chiles' Healthy Start program.

Sen. Diaz-Balart's 25 percent solution had the wrong goal. He should have asked, ``What will it take to address the problems?'' Once we agree on the goal, we can work on achieving it as efficiently as possible. The least efficient - and most expensive - way is to put someone in prison.

We have to do better. Troubled kids grow up. And the bill comes due.

PAULINE ZILE TRIAL TO BEGIN TODAY
MEEK INAGE DISAPPEARING IN JAIL FOR DEFENDANT IN DEATH OF DAUGHTER
Sun-Sentinel
March 27, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Since she was 16, Pauline Zile has spent most of her time pregnant, raising children and working - sometimes two waitressing jobs at a time - and trying to please her husband, John Zile.

"I just think that Pauline is just a weak female," longtime friend Cynthia Larcher told state investigators in February. Pauline Zile would go along rather than resist, even if it meant the death of her child, Larcher said.

"I mean it takes something to stand up against what you don't want to do, and if you're not sure and you're wrapped up in it, then that's the way to exist. That's what you're doing," Larcher said in a sworn statement.
Today, Zile is scheduled to go on trial on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of her daughter, Christina Holt, 7. Her husband, John Zile, will be tried later.

Prosecutors say Pauline Zile, 24, is just as responsible as her husband for her daughter's death because they say she did nothing as her daughter was beaten to death. Christina fell into a seizure and collapsed during the beating, John Zile told police. The couple tried to cover up the child's death by concocting a hoax that she was abducted in a restroom at a Broward County flea market.

Larcher described Pauline Zile as a mere shadow of John Zile.

"All she wanted to do was keep having babies with him," Larcher said. "You know, I mean, she was into it."

Since November, Pauline Zile has been in the Palm Beach County Jail. In that time, she appears to have shed the passivity that defined her.

Instead of the meek mother described by Larcher and other friends, jail records show a different Pauline Zile - a woman who now knows what she wants and is willing to express it.

In jail, she has asked for a mirror to maintain her appearance, a roommate to ease her loneliness, an opportunity to get her high school diploma and medical attention for a lump in her body.

In December, Zile wrote that a month of being confined alone was getting to her, even if it was for her safety.

She asked to room with Clover Boykin, 19, another woman kept isolated as protection from other inmates. Boykin is accused of killing two babies, her 5-month-old son, Dayton Boykin; and 9-month-old Kayla Bassante, whom she was baby-sitting.

"Being alone 24 hours a day is not doing either one of us any good whatsoever," Zile wrote her jailer. "The protective custody lockdown for my safety does not affect me. It's the long, lonely days and nights, I don't like," she said.

She got her wish in December, and now Boykin and Zile are cellmates. Two other women accused of killing their children, Paulette Cone and Joanne Mejia, also share a cell in the same unit.

"They all seem to get along with each other," said Lt. Chris Kneisley, a jail supervisor. "They're very quiet. You'd hardly know they're up there except for the media attention."

Jail logs show Zile and Boykin spend their time reading, writing, sleeping and playing with each other's hair.

"Braid Boykin hair. Curling Boykin hair. Getting hair curled," states a series of entries in a jail log on Zile.

John Zile sends love letters to his wife from his jail cell. He also sent a wedding anniversary card. But Pauline Zile turns them over to her attorney, Ellis Rubin.

Pauline Zile now blames her husband for what has become of her life and the lives of the four children she bore. Christina, her firstborn child from a previous marriage, is dead. The Ziles' two sons, Chad and Daniel, 3 and 5, are in foster care. Her fourth child was given up for adoption shortly before her indictment in November. She says her husband forced her to abort a fifth child.

Rubin, her attorney, handed reporters a letter that he hoped would evoke sympathy for his client.

In the letter with the heading "Regrets," Pauline Zile recalled the night Christina collapsed on the floor and her body was put in bed after attempts to revive her failed.

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

It is Zile's own words in the letter that prosecutors are hoping will convict her.

Prosecutors had little to back up their theory that Zile was equally responsible for the death of her daughter by failing to protect the child from her husband's beatings.

Prosecutors have said Zile gave them the ammunition they need with the letter. Numbered four among six items she listed under the heading "Regrets," Pauline Zile wrote: "Not being able to walk out the door and call the cops that night."

Until the letter, the state had little that could be used in court to implicate Pauline Zile in the death. State Attorney Barry Krischer had given Zile immunity to talk to police, and what she said could not be used against her.

It was not enough that John Zile said in his confession that his wife was present when he beat his stepdaughter. An accomplice's statement, alone, cannot be used to convict.

Rubin, Zile's attorney, has contended the prosecution does not have a case against his client with or without the letter, especially not first-degree murder. Last week, he continued to file last-minute motions to have the charges dismissed.

The trial is expected to last several weeks. The state subpoenaed more than 60 people last week as potential witnesses. The state has not waived the death penalty in the case.

Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan said the prosecution was ready to go to trial and declined further comment.

Boynton Beach lawyer Charles Burton, a former prosecutor now in private practice, said a first-degree murder charge against Pauline Zile is tough to prove.

"The public outrage in this case is really about what happened after the fact - the hoax," Burton said. "There's a question of whether they can get that admitted."

To cover up Christina's death, the Ziles concocted a lie that the little girl was kidnapped at a flea market restroom in Broward County. Pauline Zile's tearful pleas for the return of her daughter played out on television sets in living rooms throughout South Florida.

Then came the revelation that the child had been dead for a month. Her parents kept up the ruse that she was alive. They told Christina's teachers that they decided to instruct her at home. Finally, they reported her as kidnapped. John Zile later took police to a sandy field behind a Kmart in Tequesta where he had buried Christina after hiding her body in a closet for four days.

Burton said prosecutors also will have to show there was a pattern of abuse by John Zile and that Pauline Zile knew what was happening to her daughter.

ZILE JURY SELECTION DELAYED TO ASSESS EVIDENCE
The Palm Beach Post
March 28, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Attorneys for Pauline Zile will try to convince a judge today that an illegal chain of events tainted the state's most crucial evidence against Mrs. Zile, who with her husband is charged with the first-degree murder of her daughter.

After hearing arguments by Mrs. Zile's attorneys, Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp agreed Monday to hear testimony outside the presence of the jury pool about whether the evidence against her in the death of 7-year-old Christina Holt should be suppressed.
Nothing Mrs. Zile said to police can be used against her because she was given immunity, attorney Ellis Rubin argued on Monday.

And because John Zile agreed to confess to police only after learning that his wife had been granted immunity, the scope of that immunity should also extend to evidence seized after he confessed, Rubin said.

At least one detective has given a sworn statement saying that John Zile agreed to talk about the girl's death and led them to her grave after they told him about his wife's immunity, Rubin said.

``If any direct or indirect fruits of her statement are used against her, that's a violation of her immunity,'' Rubin said. ``If she had taken the Fifth Amendment the state would have nothing.''

Her attorneys also want to prevent the jury from hearing hearsay statements that John Zile made before his arrest Oct. 27, especially comments to police and the media about a kidnapping the police say the couple staged at a Broward County swap shop to cover up the girl's death.

Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan agreed that the statements are hearsay, but said they should be allowed to show a conspiracy between the couple to cover up the girl's death.

But evidence and testimony about the kidnapping hoax and burial of Christina - among the case's most emotional - probably will be allowed, even though they had nothing to do with the girl's death.

John Zile, who was Christina's stepfather, told police that the couple hid Christina's body in a closet for four days while he searched for a place to bury the girl.

One witness told police that she saw the Ziles with their two young sons buying a shovel and a tarp at a Home Depot store.

``Pauline Zile is not on trial for going to a swap shop and telling everybody that her child was missing,'' defense attorney Guy Rubin said.

``The jury is going to hear these things and say, `what kind of person would do this?' '' Rubin said.

Even though Mrs. Zile has not been charged with filing a false report or illegally burying her child, jurors should hear about what the couple did after the girl's death to show Mrs. Zile's state of mind and her ``consciousness of guilt,'' Duggan argued.

Nearly all of the 140 jurors screened Monday said they had heard of the case.

Ten were excused because they said they did not believe in the death penalty.

The judge dismissed seventy-two other jurors who said they could not put aside what they knew about the case and base a verdict on the evidence.

PROSECUTION LOSES ROUND IN ZILE TRIAL
Sun-Sentinel
March 28, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Prosecutors cannot use Pauline Zile's statement to police about the death of her daughter against her, and her husband's confession cannot be used in her trial, a judge ruled on Monday.

Without John Zile's confession, prosecutors will be hampered in their argument that Pauline Zile should have intervened during the beating that led to the death of Christina Holt, 7, and that Pauline Zile is equally guilty of first-degree murder.
John Zile told police that his wife was present during the September beating. But Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp said on Monday the statement was secondhand information and cannot be used against Pauline Zile.

Her own statement to police has been excluded because she was given immunity.

Pauline Zile's attorney, Guy Rubin, said outside the hearing he was confident that she would be acquitted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

"Not doing anything is not a crime," he said.

Prosecutors disagree - but to show Pauline Zile was present during the death of her daughter, they are left with only Pauline Zile's letter expressing regret that she did not call police, and a neighbor who said she overheard the beating and recognized Pauline Zile's voice.

Police say Christina went into seizures and died after a beating in the Ziles' Singer Island apartment. About a month after the death, the Ziles told investigators their daughter had disappeared from a public restroom at a Broward County flea market.

Rapp did not rule on Monday on whether the jury could hear any other statements made by John Zile; statements from the Ziles' sons that their stepsister was dead; and anything about the kidnapping hoax and coverup.

Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan said the jury should be allowed to consider how the Ziles hid Christina's body and concocted the abduction hoax.

"When you cover up the crime, it is a part of the crime," Duggan said. "It goes to the state of mind, consciousness of guilt."

Rubin said details of what happened after the killing will make jurors hate his client and are not relevant to the murder charge.

"Pauline Zile is not on trial for going to the Swap Shop and telling everybody her child was missing when she was actually dead," Rubin said.

"The reason we have so much hostility to our client is the child was left in a closet and the public was infuriated when they were led down the path to identify with my client and then betrayed," he said.

Police say the Ziles kept the child's body in a closet for four days before John Zile buried her in a sandy field in Tequesta.

Also left open at Monday's hearing was Pauline Zile's request for a change of venue because of massive pretrial publicity. Her attorneys submitted 816 newspaper articles on the case.

The judge said he wanted to try to pick a jury in Palm Beach County first.

Seventy-three of the 140 potential jurors questioned on Monday said they could not be impartial in the case and were dismissed. Six people said they knew nothing about the case.

The trial continues today.

ZILE TRIAL JURY POOL RAPIDLY DWINDLING
Miami Herald, The (FL)
March 28, 1995
Author: LORI ROZSA Herald Staff Writer

More than half the members of a 110-member jury pool called for the murder trial of Pauline Zile were excused Monday after they said they couldn't be fair and impartial.
Zile is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death last fall of her daughter, 7-year-old Christina Holt. Jury selection began Monday. John Zile, Pauline's husband and Christina's stepfather, will be tried separately for first-degree murder.

Ellis and Guy Rubin, Pauline Zile's attorneys, said the response from potential jurors proves the trial should be moved
from Palm Beach County.

"The extensive adverse publicity and continuing outrage are still at their height, even after 21 weeks," Ellis Rubin said.

Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp hasn't ruled on Rubin's request to move the trial, saying he wanted to question jurors more closely before deciding.

The publicity began in October, when the Ziles made tearful public pleas for help in finding Christina. They said she disappeared during a trip to the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.

But their story soon unraveled, and they eventually told police Christina died Sept. 17, after John beat her for soiling her pants. They said it was an accident.

Their arrests came around the same time Susan Smith in South Carolina was charged with drowning her two boys and concocting an abduction hoax story.

Rubin said that only added to the prejudice of potential jurors.

Pauline Zile's trial is expected to last two weeks. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

IMMUNITY DECISION MAY GET ZILE OFF
EVIDENCE IN STATEMENT CAN'T BE USED AGAINST HER, ATTORNEY SAYS
Sun-Sentinel
March 29, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Pauline Zile's statement to police about her missing daughter handed investigators the evidence they used to charge her with first-degree murder, her attorney said on Tuesday.

But because prosecutors gave Zile immunity in order to get her to talk, none of that evidence can now be used against her, her attorney, Ellis Rubin, said.
Tony Ross, the lead investigator for the State Attorney's Office, testified on Tuesday that Zile was not a suspect in the disappearance of her daughter, Christina Holt, 7, until Zile gave her statement.

"That's incredible," Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp said about Zile not being a suspect.

In the second day of jury selection in Zile's trial on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, Rapp heard testimony from investigators about how a missing child case turned into a murder investigation.

Rubin, who along with his son, Guy Rubin, represents Zile, said the case should be dismissed because every critical bit of evidence came from her immunized statement, including the discovery of Christina's body.

"The bottom line is the state made a mistake in immunizing her," Ellis Rubin said. "They got their whole case from her."

Investigators say Christina died in September when she went into a seizure after being beaten by John Zile. Her body was buried four days later, investigators say, and the Ziles eventually concocted a story about an abduction to explain her disappearance.

If the judge grants Rubin's motion, the prosecutors still have some evidence gathered independently of Pauline Zile's immunized statement, such as her letter regretting not going to police when her daughter was beaten, blood found at the Ziles' Singer Island apartment and statements from witnesses who said they heard or saw John Zile beat Christina in her mother's presence.

But Ross, the investigator, testified it was through Pauline Zile that he learned about the beating that ended the girl's life.

It was through Zile that investigators learned the child's body was hidden in a bedroom closet for four days and then finally secretly buried by John Zile, Ross testified.

Pauline Zile was not a suspect, Ross said, at the time State Attorney Barry Krischer personally decided to subpoena her and force her to reveal what happened.

Under state law, nothing Zile said to investigators can be used against her, not even to develop leads in the case, because she was under a subpoena to talk.

Krischer was in Tallahassee on Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. Chief Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks said the office could not comment on the motion while a judge's decision was pending.

In October, when Krischer made his immunity decision, he said there was hope that Christina was still alive.

"The whole of Florida was trying to locate the child," Krischer said at the time. "We were desperate to find this baby."

The hearing on Rubin's motion, as well as jury selection, continues today.

ZILE JURY SELECTION CONTINUES
Miami Herald, The (FL)
March 29, 1995
Author: Herald Staff

Jury selection in the first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse trial of Pauline Zile continued in West Palm Beach on Tuesday. Attorneys say the process could last through Thursday.
More than a dozen jurors were questioned individually about the case. Zile is charged in the death of her daughter, 7-year- old Christina Holt.

A massive search was made for the girl in October after Zile and her husband John said she had disappeared from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop. A few days later, the parents were arrested after being questioned by police. John Zile faces a separate trial on the same charges.

The state is seeking the death penalty for both parents.