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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.
Thank you!
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In Loving Memory Of 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. |
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HRS Can't Protect
Children From Abuse if No One Reports It (4/5/95)
Zile Prosecutors Want To Call Two Surprise Witnesses (4/5/95)
Friends Testify To Abuse By Ziles (4/5/95)
Neighbor: I Heard Child's Beating (4/5/95)
Zile Judge Throws Out Evidence About Christina's Bed (4/6/95)
Store Clerk: Ziles Bought Shovel (4/6/95)
Zile Lawyer Loses Fight To Block Medical Examiner's Testimony
(4/7/95)
Judge Drops 1 Child Abuse Count; Zile Defense Rests (4/8/95)
Judge Acquits Pauline Zile of One Charge (4/8/95)
Judge Drops One Charge Against Zile (4/8/95)
HRS CAN'T PROTECT
CHILDREN FROM ABUSE IF NO ONE REPORTS IT
The Palm Beach Post
April 5, 1995
Author: RITA REILLY
I feel the need to respond to your article and headline ``Grand jury:
HRS failed kids.''
Only one of the four cases cited
had the involvement of the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services.
The other three - those of Christina Holt, Dayton Boykin and Kayla Basante
- were not cases of HRS failure. They had not been reported to HRS.
Those who knew of Christina's abuse and failed to report it must carry
their share of responsibility. Any of us who is aware of a child's unusual
appearance or behavior and fails to act on it in some way contributes
to that child's abuse, neglect or shame.
Death of Pauline Cone was inexcusable
Pauline Cone's death is inexcusable. That the Cone home was a licensed foster home that became an adoptive home is unbelievable. Those responsible for licensing the home and those who failed to act on the numerous complaints should face the consequences of their actions or lack of action.
I am also curious about whether the police who responded to the multiple family dispute calls ever called the (800) 96-ABUSE hot line. As professionals, they are required to do so. But remember, the Cone baby was adopted (no longer in HRS custody), and it was the inappropriate choices made by her parents that resulted in her death.
As I see it, HRS is a huge bureaucracy that is difficult to control. The line workers may or may not be properly trained, motivated, supervised or accountable. For years, each worker/unit has been allowed to be a ``law/policy'' unto itself.
There are winds of change under the direction of HRS District 9 Director Suzanne Turner and Sandy Owen, program manager for children and families. It will take time and money - more money, not less.
Kids' lives are not on the same level as roads.Call your legislators and scream: ``Do not cut the HRS budget.'' The responsibility of our children is ours, each one of us. HRS is charged with seeing that each of us does his or her part.
There is a severe need for caring, nurturing foster families in our district. If you would like further information on how to be a part of the solution, call the Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting unit of HRS at 688-7745.
The recommendations of the grand jury look good. Can the state attorney's office handle the tremendous load of dependency cases? Judges should scrutinize performance agreements carefully for substantial compliance within a reasonable, legal time frame and then act for what is truly in the ``best interest of the child.''
As a professional and a foster parent, I regret the state of our children in Florida and District 9 and the system designed to protect them. Here's a prayer - and a vote - that the planned changes will improve the system and that the improvement will be reflected in more timely permanent homes for our children and the ending of untimely deaths of our children.
Rita Reilly is a registered nurse who lives in Haverhill. She wrote this article for The Palm Beach Post.
ZILE PROSECUTORS WANT TO CALL TWO SURPRISE WITNESSES
The Palm Beach Post
April 5, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Prosecutors hope to call two surprise witnesses at the murder trial
of Pauline Zile, one who told investigators this week that John Zile
once tried to teach his stepdaughter a lesson by dropping her off in
a high-crime neighborhood.
Attorneys for Pauline Zile said
Tuesday they would fight efforts to call Vincent and Debbie Beck.
The Becks, who said they have known the Ziles for years, called Riviera
Beach police in October shortly after the collapse of the Ziles' cover
story that 7-year-old Christina Holt was missing. No one talked to the
Becks until state attorney's investigators interviewed them Monday night.
In her sworn statement, Debbie Beck said Pauline Zile frequently stopped by the Becks' Singer Island apartment and complained about Christina.
``They couldn't control her,'' Debbie Beck told investigators. ``(Pauline) said that she would put herself into seizures by beating her head on the floor and put herself under the water in the bathtub until she was convulsing.''
Christina, who was being raised by her grandparents in Maryland, unexpectedly came to live with her mother, stepfather and two young stepbrothers in July 1994. By September, Christina was threatening to run away, Debbie Beck said.
``John took her in the car down to Tamarind Avenue and let her out and he went around the block to teach her a lesson,'' Debbie Beck said. She recalled Pauline describing John's intent: `` `If you want to run away so bad, then run away right here.' ''
John Zile, who will be tried later on similar charges of first-degree murder and child abuse, told police Christina died accidentally Sept. 16 after he hit her and she went into seizures. The couple tried to revive her in a bathtub, then hid her body in a closet until Zile said he buried her four days later.
Prosecutors continued their strategy of depicting Pauline Zile as a heartless mother during the second day of testimony Tuesday. The owner of a pawn shop said Pauline Zile tried to pawn her daughter's Hooked-On-Phonics tapes just hours after the girl died.
Dayle Ackerman, a neighbor said she heard a young girl screaming in the Ziles' apartment on Sept. 16 and a woman say, ``That's enough John.'' Then, she heard water running in the bathroom and a man crying, ``What did I do? What did I do?”
FRIENDS TESTIFY TO ABUSE BY ZILES
SOME HEARD, SAW GIRL BEING BEATEN
Sun-Sentinel
April 5, 1995
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer
A parade of prosecution witnesses in the murder and child abuse trial
of Pauline Zile on Tuesday described the brief life 7-year-old Christina
Holt led in Florida after moving from Maryland in June.
The steady stream of witnesses,
14 in all, ranged from friends and neighbors of the Singer Island couple
to forensic scientists and Christina's teacher.
Dayle Ackerman, a neighbor, testified that she heard John Zile beating
Christina in mid-September, when prosecutors contend the little girl
fell into convulsions and died at the couple's seaside apartment.
"[John Zile) started to strike her, and [Christina) was screaming. Then I heard the screams being muffled," Ackerman said. "Then I heard the mother in the bathroom, and she said, `That's enough, John.'"
Ackerman described what she perceived were attempts by John and Pauline Zile to revive Christina.
"I heard water running in the bathtub, and I could tell they were putting her into it. You could then hear them saying, `Wake up, wake up, please wake up.' Then I heard the father say, `Oh my God, what did I do?'"
Ackerman said she did not call police but went to her mother's nearby home to tell her what she had heard.
Ackerman also recalled seeing John Zile beat Christina with a belt on a previous occasion.
Chad Brannan, a friend of the Ziles, told the jury of seeing John Zile beat Christina with a belt because she lied about being sexually abused. Pauline Zile was in the kitchen, but could hear the beating, he said.
"I grabbed John and told him to relax, to go into the other room," Brannan said. "[Christina) asked if I could spank her. [John Zile) found that a little disturbing."
Most of the times Brannan visited the couple, Christina was being punished, confined to her bedroom, he said.
Christina's second-grade teacher, Lydia Johnson, said the "sweet, very well-mannered" girl attended fewer than six days of classes. On the last day, Christina would not stay in her seat.
"She kept getting up and hugging me," Johnson said, noting the girl would not tell her what was wrong. "It was like she had something on her mind."
Pauline Zile came to school the next day to talk to Johnson. She told Johnson she was sending Christina to Maryland for a week to have her grandmother explain that she did not come to Florida for a vacation but to live with her mother and stepfather.
Johnson said when Christina did not return a week later, she called Pauline Zile again. Pauline Zile gave her several excuses, then told her Christina would be taught at home by her stepfather because Christina was misbehaving at home.
"I couldn't believe it - what she was saying. This was not the little girl I knew ... Now, all of a sudden, she's a monster," Johnson said.
Cecelia Crouse, a DNA specialist with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, testified that blood stains found on a mattress, a pair of child's jeans and two pillows seized from the Ziles' apartment in October matched the DNA makeup of Christina.
The trial begins its third day today.
NEIGHBOR: I HEARD CHILD'S BEATING
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 5, 1995
Author: KAREN TESTA Associated Press
Dayle Ackerman was getting dressed when she heard the familiar noises
of her neighbors and their children: yelling, smacking, crying.
But on the morning of Sept. 16,
the shouting and hitting were more persistent, the little girl's screaming
desperate, then muffled, then silent.
The sound of running water came from the bathroom of the apartment,
which was next to Ackerman's. A man and woman were dunking something
into the tub and pleading: "Wake up. Wake up. Please wake up."
"Then the father was crying and said, 'My God. My God. What did I do?' " Ackerman recalled on the witness stand Tuesday in West Palm Beach.
Prosecutors say 7-year-old Christina Holt already was dead of asphyxiation caused by her stepfather John Zile's beating and the failure of her mother, Pauline Zile, to intervene.
More than a month later, the Ziles reported Christina missing and concocted an elaborate story of how she had been abducted from a restroom at a Fort Lauderdale flea market. Pauline Zile's tearful pleas for the girl's return made national television, and dozens of people scoured the area for the child.
Their story quickly unraveled, and John Zile led police to Christina's body, which had been buried in a field after being kept for days in a closet.
Pauline Zile, 24, is on trial, charged with murder and aggravated child abuse. John Zile awaits a separate trial, also on charges of murder and child abuse.
The state's case includes Ackerman's testimony and statements by a family friend who said he saw Christina bruised and battered.
Defense attorney Ellis Rubin claims Pauline Zile had no intent to harm Christina and had no way of knowing what was about to happen.
He said she was indicted because she lied to the public, which days later was duped again by Susan Smith's claim in South Carolina that her sons had been abducted in a carjacking. Smith later admitted she had drowned the boys.
Christina had lived most of her life with relatives in Maryland. But a grandmother brought her to Florida to live with Pauline Zile at the start of the summer of 1994.
Chad Brannon had worked at a restaurant with both Ziles, spent several days a week at their house and was known as Big Chad to their children: Daniel, 5, and Chad, 3.
Brannon testified Tuesday that John Zile confided he had removed Christina from school because she had been acting up. He also said Christina was making up stories of sexual abuse by relatives in Maryland. Those stories prompted John Zile to beat her with a belt, Brannon said.
On one occasion in September, John Zile told Christina to show Brannon the bruises he'd inflicted. Zile told her to tell Brannon the story of abuse, but the little girl told another story instead, and Zile became angry.
"He picked her up over his head and slammed her down on the bed," Brannon said. "She bounced about three feet in the air and landed back on the bed. She was screaming and crying."
John Zile then struck her four or five times with a belt, he said, while Pauline Zile was in the next room telling the curious boys to "go play."
ZILE JUDGE THROWS OUT EVIDENCE ABOUT CHRISTINA'S BED
The Palm Beach Post
April 6, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Pauline Zile, composed and confident during the first three days of
her murder trial, looked stunned when prosecutors tried to admit evidence
on Wednesday that semen found on her dead daughter's bed and sheet probably
belonged to her husband, John Zile.
``It was a technical issue that
only the attorneys knew about,'' Guy Rubin, one of Pauline Zile's attorneys,
said about her reaction to the evidence. ``It's not relevant to our
case and we're not taking it too seriously. It's conjecture.''
During three days of testimony prosecutors have portrayed Pauline Zile
as a willing collaborator, who did nothing to prevent her daughter's
death and helped plan a kidnapping hoax.
But there has been little evidence to show that she participated in her daughter's death or watched as John Zile beat the girl. The state's only evidence that Pauline Zile was even in the apartment the night 7-year-old Christina Holt died came from a neighbor who said she heard a woman's voice say, ``John, that's enough,'' the day of the girl's death.
Prosecutors argued strenuously on Wednesday that they should be allowed to recall two state witnesses, including a DNA expert, who concluded that the semen stains found on Christina Holt's bed and a pastel sheet probably belonged to John Zile.
But Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp refused their request, agreeing with defense attorneys that it was not relevant to the murder and child abuse charges against Pauline Zile. Although not admissible in Pauline Zile's trial, prosecutors said they intend to use the evidence against John Zile, the girl's stepfather.
Zile will face similar murder and child abuse charges in a separate trial. In their statements to police, the couple were obsessed with Christina's claim that she was sexually abused by family members in Maryland, where she had lived since her birth. The couple told friends they knew she was lying, and they cross-examined her increasingly about the abuse.
According to his confession, John Zile became increasingly angry with Christina after he found the girl with one of his young sons in a closet. The boy's pants weredown.
Zile wanted to know who had taught her about sex. At first, Christina denied that anyone had molested her. Finally, she told several stories naming several men. Zile, infuriated, wanted to know the truth.
Chad Brannon, a friend of Zile's who testified on Tuesday, said that Zile worried that one day Christina would accuse him of molesting her. Brannon said he suggested that Zile take Christina to a doctor to be checked for sexual abuse.
``He shrugged his shoulders and said it was something to think about,'' Brannon said on Tuesday.
On Sept. 16, the night Christina died, Zile again tried questioning her about her claims of sexual abuse. The girl soiled her pants. Zile said he hit her and covered her mouth with a towel when she screamed. She began having convulsions and died, he said. The couple hid her body in a closet in their one-bedroom apartment on Singer Island.
Zile told police he buried her several days later behind a shopping center in Tequesta.
The trial continues today.
STORE CLERK: ZILES BOUGHT SHOVEL
DETECTIVE TESTIFIES IT TOOK ABOUT 12 HOURS TO UNEARTH CHRISTINA
Sun-Sentinel
April 6, 1995
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer
John Zile's eyes captured the attention of Betty Schultze, a store clerk
who testified to selling Zile and his wife a shovel and a tarp that
prosecutors say were used to bury Christina Holt behind a Tequesta discount
store.
Schultze said she didn't recall
the mid-September sale until she saw a Zile family portrait printed
in a newspaper article reporting the Singer Island couple's Oct. 27
arrest for the 7-year-old girl's murder.
"His eyes, he had the meanest eyes I've ever seen in my life,"
testified Schultze, a North Palm Beach Home Depot clerk. "The best
description I can give you is devil."
Schultze said after seeing the portrait, she remembered that the Ziles, accompanied by their two sons, Daniel, 6, and Chad, 3, came to her store on Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard. They bought a shovel, a blue plastic tarp and a rose bush.
When she questioned Daniel about his interest in growing the rose bush, Daniel said, "It's for my sister."
At that point, John Zile stepped in, Schultze said. "He pushed the children away from me when I was talking with the little boy."
Schultze's testimony came on the third day of the murder and child abuse trial of Pauline Zile, 24.
Prosecutors used Schultze to show that Pauline Zile knowingly went along with her husband's plan to cover up the killing of his stepdaughter, who the couple had claimed was kidnapped from the Swap Shop near Fort Lauderdale.
Riviera Beach Police Detective Dale Long described the painstaking steps investigators took to unearth Christina's body.
Long said it took about 12 hours to remove sand from around the body because authorities had to use their hands, cups and brushes to protect evidence. Once they reached the body, buried nearly 5-feet deep, investigators found it wrapped in a blue plastic tarp and bound with tape.
Also on Wednesday, prosecutors were unsuccessful in an attempt to get a DNA expert to return to the stand to testify about semen stains on Christina's mattress and a sheet.
While cross-examining prosecution witnesses, Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp argued defense attorneys had raised the issue of Christina being sexually abused in Maryland. To counter that, Cupp said the DNA expert would testify the semen stains matched John Zile's DNA makeup.
But Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp denied the request, saying neither of the Ziles is charged with sexual abuse.
The direction Cupp inteded to take the evidence was unclear, but a source in the State Attorney's Office later explained the evidence was not so much directed at John Zile as it was to suggest Pauline Zile may not have been a good mother.
Guy Rubin one of Pauline Zile's defense attorneys, said Pauline Zile began crying during the courtroom debate because she was upset prosecutors would even raise the prospect of her husband sexually abusing Christina.
"We have no indication there was anything of that nature going on in the Zile house," Rubin said.
ZILE LAWYER LOSES FIGHT TO BLOCK MEDICAL EXAMINER'S TESTIMONY
EXPERT DETAILS BRUISES FOUND ON GIRL'S BODY
Sun-Sentinel
April 7, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer
Staff Writer Mike Folks contributed to this report.
Pauline Zile's attorney told a judge on Thursday that he wants to use
the autopsy findings from another child killing case to try to discredit
the medical examiner's decision that Christina Holt's death was a homicide.
The deaths of Zile's daughter
and another child, A.J. Schwarz, 10, are strikingly similar, attorney
Guy Rubin said, yet Medical Examiner James Benz's findings were drastically
different.
In A.J.'s case, Benz ruled the cause of death was undetermined. The
boy was found drowned in a waist-high, above-ground swimming pool. His
naked body was covered with old and new bruises. The non-jury, second-degree
murder trial of A.J.'s stepmother, Jessica Schwarz, ended last week,
but the judge has not issued a verdict.
In Christina's case, Benz ruled the death was a homicide. She had suffocated, and bruises covered her body. Zile faces charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.
"How is this different?" Rubin said outside the courtroom.
Benz said on Thursday that in the Zile case, he thought the death was a homicide even before he examined the girl's body.
"When I stood by the grave as they dug 57 inches to take the body up, I was suspicious this was a homicide," Benz told the judge outside the presence of the jury.
Zile's attorneys spent most of the morning trying to prevent the jury from hearing Benz's testimony. Rubin and his father, Ellis Rubin, contended Benz used a statement Pauline Zile gave under protection of immunity to conclude that the child's death was a homicide. Under those circumstances, Benz should not testify at the trial, the Ellises argued.
Benz said he received a tape of Zile's statement to police but did not listen to it until after he reached his decision that the 7-year-old girl's death was a homicide. Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp allowed Benz to testify, although he said Benz should not have been given the tape.
Jurors were shown autopsy photos of the child, and Benz used a chart to point out bruises on Christina's scalp, face, arms, legs and hand.
Benz said Christina suffocated after a beating. Bruises near her mouth and a torn strip of flesh that attaches the upper lip to the gums indicate her mouth was covered, he said.
John Zile, who is awaiting a separate trial on first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse charges, told police he covered his stepdaughter's mouth with a towel to muffle her cries during a beating.
During cross-examination, Ellis Rubin questioned whether the bruises and tear could have been caused during attempts to give the child artificial respiration.
Benz rejected that possibility because only one side of the child's nose was damaged, which is consistent with a thumb being pressed against it as a hand covered her mouth.
JUDGE DROPS 1 CHILD ABUSE COUNT; ZILE DEFENSE RESTS
The Palm Beach Post
April 8, 1995
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Pauline Zile's defense attorneys rested their case Friday without calling
any witnesses to counter charges that Zile stood by and did nothing
as her daughter succumbed to a fatal beating.
Defense attorney Ellis Rubin said
a defense case wasn't necessary because prosecutors, who also rested
their case Friday, have not proved Zile is guilty of first-degree murder.
``They haven't made a case,'' he said.
Jurors also have three counts of aggravated child abuse to consider. Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp threw out a fourth count Friday, saying the allegation that Zile kept her daughter, Christina Holt, from attending school does not qualify as abuse.
``This is the only count I look at and say, `This doesn't sound like child abuse,''' Rapp told prosecutors Scott Cupp and Mary Ann Duggan. He rejected defense requests to dismiss the other counts.
The nine men and three women on the jury will hear closing arguments Monday and then begin deliberating. They will be sequestered during deliberations.
Because Ellis Rubin and his son, Guy Rubin, called no witnesses to testify for Zile, they will have the final word in closing arguments, a right usually reserved for the prosecution.
The state's felony murder case against Zile rests on one of the three remaining abuse counts. Zile, 24, is not accused of killing Christina herself, but she still could be convicted of murder if jurors agree with prosecutors that she was committing a felony - aggravated child abuse - when her daughter was killed on Sept. 16 at the Ziles' Singer Island apartment.
``If there is no aggravated child abuse, there is no first-degree murder,'' Guy Rubin said.
Cupp and Duggan, who are seeking the death penalty in the case, say Zile is guilty of child abuse by omission. She could have and should have stopped her husband, John Zile, from inflicting the beating that killed Christina, they will tell jurors. Christina, 7, suffocated when John Zile, her stepfather, covered her mouth to muffle her screams, according to the state's case.
John Zile also is charged with first-degree murder. He will be tried separately.
``She (Pauline Zile) knew punishment was about to happen,'' Cupp told Rapp during a hearing Friday. ``She'd been there and she'd seen it before. She's the child's mother. She should have had her out of there a long, long time ago.''
One of the other two abuse counts alleges that Pauline Zile failed to protect Christina on another occasion when her stepfather hit her with a belt. The third abuse count charges that Pauline hit Christina one morning when the girl was uncooperative about getting dressed and going to school.
The Rubins will argue during closing arguments Monday that prosecutors failed to prove Pauline Zile could have intervened in the fatal beating. A neighbor who testified she heard the beating also said she didn't hear Pauline Zile's voice saying, ``That's enough, John,'' until Christina had gone silent, perhaps because she was already dead, Guy Rubin said.
``Where is the proof that Pauline was aware of what was going on until a minute or two after (Christina's) last sounds?'' he said. ``There is not a scintilla of evidence that she could have prevented it.''
Prosecutors say Pauline concocted an elaborate story of her daughter's abduction from a busy Fort Lauderdale flea market in October to cover up the girl's death at the hands of her stepfather a month earlier. Police say John Zile buried the girl behind a shopping center in Tequesta.
JUDGE ACQUITS PAULINE ZILE OF
ONE CHARGE
Sun-Sentinel
April 8, 1995
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer
A judge acquitted Pauline Zile on one count of aggravated child abuse
on Friday, leaving a jury to decide next week whether she should be
convicted of first-degree murder and three other abuse counts.
Zile's defense attorney, Guy Rubin, tried on Friday to get direct acquittals
from the judge on all the charges.
"There's no reasonable doubt here. There's no case here," said Rubin, who later rested his case without calling any defense witnesses. "How can you possibly, conceivably send her to the electric chair on this case? There's no evidence."
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp agreed, at least in part.
He acquitted Zile of an aggravated child abuse charge for keeping Christina Holt, 7, from attending school. Although prosecutor Scott Cupp had argued that keeping Christina out of school was to cover up injuries she suffered at the hands of her parents, Rapp ruled the state failed to prove keeping a child out of school constituted aggravated child abuse.
But three aggravated child abuse charges, for unnecessary torture and punishment resulting in injury to Christina, remain for the jury to decide.
And prosecutors are seeking to convict Zile, 24, of felony murder, a form of first-degree murder. Under that charge, for which Zile could face the death penalty, prosecutors don't have to prove premeditation but must prove that Christina was killed while Pauline Zile failed to protect her.
Investigators say Pauline Zile looked on as her husband, John, beat Christina in their Singer Island apartment in September. Christina went into convulsions and died, and her body was buried behind a Kmart in Tequesta.
In his argument for the directed verdict of acquittal, Rubin said prosecutors did not prove Zile was guilty of failing to protect her daughter.
Rubin also said the state failed to show Pauline Zile was aware that some of the punishment carried out by her husband went "beyond corporal punishment, which is not illegal in this state."
Prosecutor Cupp argued Pauline Zile must be held accountable for not acting to protect her daughter over the few months she lived in Florida after moving from Maryland, where Christina lived with paternal relatives.
"[Pauline Zile) is the child's mother. She should have had [Christina) out of there a long time ago," Cupp said, citing Pauline Zile's knowledge of the abusive acts her husband was committing against the girl.
"Christina Holt comes to Florida to live in June. By September, she's dead. That just didn't happen [all of a sudden)," Cupp said.
Testimony in the five-day trial ended on Friday, and Zile's attorneys rested their case without putting on a defense.
Defense co-counsel Ellis Rubin explained that decision by repeating what he told the jury in his opening statement on Monday. "If [prosecutors) haven't proven their case, I won't call [Pauline Zile) or defend a case," he said, describing the state's case as "weaker than I expected."
During the weeklong trial, the state's witnesses and evidence included:
-- Debbie Beck, who testified on Friday that Pauline Zile told her that John once drove Christina to Tamarind Avenue, a high-crime area of West Palm Beach, and ordered her from the car because she had continually threatened to run away. He let her out, drove around the block and let her back in the car. "It was to teach her a lesson," Beck said.
-- Neighbor Dayle Ackerman, who recalled hearing what she perceived was the Sept. 16 beating by John Zile that led to Christina falling into convulsions and dying. "You could hear them saying, `Wake up, wake up, please wake up.' Then I heard the father say, `Oh my God, what did I do?'" Ackerman told the jury.
-- A family friend, Chad Brannon, who said John Zile beat Christina with a belt while Pauline Zile was nearby. "I grabbed John and told him to relax, to go into the other room," he tesified.
-- A videotape of Pauline Zile pleading for Christina's safe return after reporting her abduction on Oct. 22 from the Swap Shop near Fort Lauderdale. "I love her. Her little brothers miss her so much. We want you to come home," Zile said on the video.
-- Home Depot store clerk Betty Schultze, who testified about selling John and Pauline Zile a tarpaulin and a shovel, which prosecutors say were used to bury the girl behind a Kmart. "His eyes, he had the meanest looking eyes I've ever seen," she said of John Zile.
Closing arguments in Pauline Zile's trial are scheduled for Monday.
John Zile, 32, faces the same charges as his wife. His trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 14.
JUDGE DROPS ONE CHARGE AGAINST
ZILE
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 8, 1995
Author: LORI ROZSA Herald Staff Writer
A judge dismissed one child-abuse charge against Pauline Zile on Friday,
but let stand the other abuse charges and the charge of first-degree
murder in the death of her 7-year-old daughter.
Her attorneys had asked Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Stephen
Rapp to dismiss all the charges.
The jury will begin deliberating the murder and abuse case Monday, after hearing closing arguments. Her defense team, Ellis and Guy Rubin, rested Friday without presenting any evidence or witnesses.
The state is seeking the death penalty in both cases.
"The state doesn't have a case," Ellis Rubin said after leaving the courtroom. "I knew it as soon as I heard their opening argument."
Zile and her husband John are charged with killing her daughter, Christina Holt, and then covering up the murder by pretending she had been snatched from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.
Their tearful, panicked pleas for her return last October set off a nationwide search. Days later, after police interrogation, they confessed. John Zile had beaten Christina until she was unconscious and died, police say. He faces a separate trial.
Prosecutors say that although Pauline Zile did not beat Christina on the night of her death, she abused her in other ways, and she failed to protect her from John Zile.
"She had a duty to care for, to protect, to save this child," Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said. "She knew there would be further abuse at the hands of that pit bull of a husband she's got."
Rapp threw out one of five aggravated child-abuse charges against Zile. That charge claimed she abused Christina by yanking her out of school. They didn't do it to teach her at home, prosecutors said.
"They'd already pawned her Hooked on Phonics," Cupp said.
Rapp said that simply taking a child out of school did not constitute abuse.