Christina's Story: Newspaper Articles

Home --> Christina Holt's Story --> Christina Holt's Story: Newspaper Articles --> 1995 Page 8

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!


*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.

Courting A Jury (4/9/95)
Why? Isn't That What Mothers Do? (4/9/95)
Zile Should Have Prevented Beating, Prosecutors Say (4/11/95)
Jury Struggles To Clarify Issues (4/11/95)
Pauline Zile's Fate Put In Jury's Hands (4/11/95)
Verdicts Shatter Hope It Was All A Mistake (4/12/95)
Zile Sobs As Verdict Is Read (4/12/95)
Grand Juries Get Final Say On Murder Charge Specifics (4/12/95)
Mothers' Day Of Reckoning (4/12/95)
Visitors Still Drawn To Christina's Grave (4/12/95)

COURTING A JURY
DEFENSE LAWYERS DRESS DEFENDANT IN CLOAK OF INNOCENCE.
Sun-Sentinel
April 9, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

With cascading curls, and wearing a parade of pastel dresses and skirt sets, Pauline Zile was the picture of girlish innocence at her first-degree murder trial last week.

When former truck driver Jessica Schwarz went on trial for aggravated child abuse of her stepson, she cut a maternal figure in matronly flowered dresses and cardigan sweaters.

And out in California, O.J. Simpson in his somber, hand-tailored suits looks every bit as well-dressed as his high-priced attorneys.

Lawyers say that how a defendant is dressed in court could make the difference.
Ellis Rubin of Miami, one of Zile's attorneys, said dressing for a trial is much like dressing for a job interview. The difference is Pauline Zile is dressing for her life. Zile, 24, faces the death penalty if she is convicted of first-degree murder.

On the first day of jury selection, there was a mix-up, and Zile almost wore her jailhouse garb before the jury pool. Rather than dressing her in the size 6 women's suits offered by the Public Defender's Office, her mother, Paula Yingling, went on an emergency shopping trip.

When the jury pool was called to the courtroom, Zile had changed into a pristine white blouse with a white gingham skirt and white ballerina slippers.

Now, Yingling brings her daughter a trial outfit to the courthouse every morning.

Michael Dubiner, a West Palm Beach criminal defense lawyer who has been sitting in on Zile's trial, said Zile's courtroom attire hits just the right note.

"She looks about as innocent as you can get," Dubiner said.

Appearances are especially important when the defendant doesn't testify, Dubiner said, because the image is all the jury has to go on.

Zile's attorneys did not put on a defense and Zile did not take the stand.

"I always instruct my clients not only how to dress, but how to act in front of the jury. Pauline has been doing great. She always gets up when the jury comes in. That's very good," Dubiner said.

Fort Lauderdale lawyer Hilliard Moldof said clothing tips for female clients are more complicated than for men because with a woman, there is the issue of sexuality.

"You want high collars, nothing too tight, nothing too short," Moldof said. "With the guys, you tell them to cover the tattoos, get rid of the earrings and don't overdress."

While O.J. Simpson appears to be overdressed by most criminal defendant standards, Moldof said, Simpson is a special case.

"Everyone already had this image of O.J. Simpson; he's a former athlete pulling down a million dollars, a classy guy. He almost blends right in at the defense table. Now, what Johnny Cochran wears, I don't get," Moldof said.

Moldof and Michael Salnick of West Palm Beach were the lawyers of choice when judge's son Gregory Mounts was charged with armed home invasion robbery.

During his trial, Mounts wore pastel crew neck sweaters and white turtlenecks that made him look like Beaver's brother, Wally Cleaver, from the television show Leave it to Beaver, on a date. The jury acquitted him on all counts.

Salnick said it's no secret he videotapes his clients to show them what they look like to the jury.

"I ask them, do you believe that person; do you think that person looks sleazy?" Salnick said.

Salnick recalled one heart-stopping moment when one of his clients came to the first day of trial for sexual battery of a child dressed in a black suit and shirt, white necktie and funky shoes.

"I told him: `You know what, you look like a child molester. He got angry with me, but I told him, `You pay me a lot of money to tell you the truth,'" Salnick said.

The man's wife rushed out during the lunch break to buy more conventional attire, Salnick said, and the jury acquitted him.

When Jessica Schwarz, 40, went on trial for aggravated child abuse of her stepson, who was found drowned, jurors saw a rosy-cheek matronly mother in floral print dresses and cardigan sweaters rather than the cursing, former truck driver depicted by her neighbors.

Jurors in Schwarz's case found her attire fitting.

"I think the clothing was pretty much her," said Schwarz juror Diane Melvin. "I couldn't picture her wearing makeup; the lipstick seemed kind of dark."

That jury convicted Schwarz of six of the seven counts of child abuse. She is still awaiting a verdict on a second-degree murder charge.

Salnick said defendants are not the only people in court who dress for the jury. Prosecutors take just as much care in picking out clothing for victims.

He cross-examined one victim who was the very image of a virginal, church-going young lady by showing the jury a photograph of the woman in a tank top with copious amounts of cleavage, Salnick said.

"I have seen both defendants and female victims dressed up like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms or Shirley Temple. You have to be careful with that because a jury can see through it," he said.

WHY? ISN'T THAT WHAT MOTHERS DO?
Sun-Sentinel
April 9, 1995
Author: Kurt Greenbaum

The trial of Pauline Zile has begun.

Perhaps you remember her. She's the woman who, along with her husband, John Zile, perverted our understanding of parental instinct - that parents will do anything to protect their children.

Police and prosecutors say the Ziles not only failed to protect their daughter, Christina Holt, 7, but that they literally beat her to death in September.
Then, police and prosecutors say, the pair conspired to hide their monstrous act under six feet of earth and behind a concocted a story about child abduction at the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop.

Christina died on Sept. 16; her body was found 38 days later.

Prosecutors in the trial have charged Pauline Zile with murder. If she is convicted, she could die in the electric chair.

It is the worst this society could do to her, but in my mind's eye, I imagine worse. If only it were possible: "Hello, Christina," Pauline Zile might say to her daughter.

"Hi, mom," the child would reply.

"How ... how are you doing?" Pauline would stammer, stunned and unsure of what to say.

"Not so good. There's a lot I wanted to do; I won't get the chance now."

"What do you mean?" "Well, my life was taken from me. I could have done a lot of things. I was only 7 when I died. I could have been an honor student, an athlete. Who knows?" "I don't know what to say."

"Why did this happen?" "I don't know. John got angry."

"Yes, he was always angry with me. How come?" "I don't know that either. He thought you were doing things you shouldn't be doing. He was upset. I couldn't stop him."

"Why?" "Please don't ask me that. I don't know. I just couldn't."

"You could have. You were my mother. You could have stopped him and you didn't. Then you lied about what happened. Why didn't you stop him?" "I don't know. You sound angry."

"No. Not angry. Confused. I was just a kid. I didn't know any better. I didn't know why you yelled at me or he hit me. I didn't understand any of that. I just thought you were my mother and that you should have protected me. Isn't that what mothers do?" "Yes, but ...."

"Why didn't you? I looked at you that day. I wanted your help. I needed it. But you didn't help me. Why?" I always imagine that this would be worse than anything that could happen to such a mother, to face the child that she had done so wrong.

But then, I suppose, that assumes that the mother cared in the first place.

ZILE SHOULD HAVE PREVENTED BEATING, PROSECUTORS SAY
The Palm Beach Post
April 11, 1995
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Jurors in the murder case against Pauline Zile ended five days of listening Monday and began talking about emotionally wrenching exhibits and testimony that one alternate juror described as both shocking and inconclusive.

Prosecutors, who believe Zile deserves to die in the electric chair, accused her in closing arguments of ``acting by not acting'' - of failing to protect her daughter, Christina Holt, from brutal mistreatment at the hands of the girl's stepfather, John Zile.
``She has a legal, ethical, moral duty to protect this child,'' Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan told jurors. ``She had a duty to stop it, and she didn't.''

Defense attorneys Ellis Rubin and his son, Guy Rubin, derided the state's case as a mixture of ``innuendo and hyperbole,'' noting that some of the state's strongest testimony comes from a woman who says she heard the beating that led to Christina's death, but could see nothing.

``This would be the first conviction I have heard of based on ear-witness testimony,'' Ellis Rubin said. ``That's not enough.''

Melissa Movic, one of two alternate jurors excused before deliberations began at 3:15 p.m., said arguments on both sides were so convincing that she had trouble gauging Pauline Zile's role, if any, in the abuse that allegedly killed her daughter.

The jurors, who are considering one charge of first-degree felony murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse, deliberated for five hours Monday before Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp excused them for the night. They will resume deliberations today.

Movic said she found some evidence shocking, particularly statements that John Zile, tired of hearing Christina talk about wanting to run away, briefly abandoned the 7-year-old in a high-crime area and told her if she wanted to run away she could start there.

Pauline Zile had described the incident to a co-worker in a ``matter-of-fact'' way, without appearing to view the punishment as excessive, according to testimony.

She also found Ellis Rubin's courtroom demeanor ``irritating,'' but credited Rubin, noted for his flamboyant style and novel trial tactics, with delivering a persuasive closing argument.

To convict Pauline Zile of first-degree felony murder, jurors must decide she was committing aggravated child abuse, a felony, by failing to intervene when John Zile began beating Christina on Sept. 16 at the family's Singer Island apartment. Zile also is charged with first-degree murder and will be tried separately.

The Rubins portrayed Pauline Zile, 25, as a caring mother struggling to cope with her own advanced pregnancy and the task of raising Christina and two sons.

``She was married to a man with a temper,'' Guy Rubin told jurors. ``He was a little bit aggressive at times. She may have been a little afraid at times.''

Prosecutor Scott Cupp, dismissing that defense as ``a sick joke,'' noted that Pauline's pregnancy didn't stop her from pawning Christina's bicycle and materials the Ziles were supposed to use to teach Christina at home.

He and Duggan focused jurors' attention on the hoax orchestrated by the couple that Christina had been kidnapped from a flea market - proof, they said, of Pauline Zile's willing participation in the cover-up and, by extension, the torment that characterized her daughter's last months.

ZILE JURY STRUGGLES TO CLARIFY ISSUES
JURY QUERIES JUDGE ABOUT ACCOMPLICE THEORY, CHILD ABUSE CHARGES
Sun-Sentinel
April 11, 1995
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer
Staff Writer Mike Folks contributed to this report.

Jurors in the murder trial of Pauline Zile, charged in the killing of her 7-year-old daughter, failed to reach a verdict after four hours on Monday and will resume deliberations today.

The panel of nine men and three women was sequestered overnight at a West Palm Beach hotel.
Zile, 25, of Singer Island, faces the death penalty if she is convicted of first-degree murder in the Sept. 16 death of Christina Holt, her daughter from a previous marriage. Zile is also charged with three counts of aggravated child abuse.

The jury appeared to be grappling with several complicated legal issues. They asked the judge whether the accomplice theory can be applied to aggravated child abuse as well as the first-degree murder charge and whether a person can commit aggravated child abuse without actually touching on the child.

Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp answered "yes" to both questions.

Jurors also wanted to know the difference between aggravated battery and simple battery. Aggravated battery involves debilitating injuries.

Before they can convict on first-degree murder, the jury must first find Zile guilty of aggravated child abuse for failure to protect her daughter on the night she was beaten by her husband, John Zile.

Zile appeared drawn and nervous on Monday. Several times during closing arguments, she turned her head and cried. One of those occasions was when Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp held up a pair of dainty blue jeans that had belonged to Christina. Numerous holes were cut in the pants where technicians had found blood.

Cupp said Pauline Zile must have changed her daughter out of the jeans and into the white outfit with a teddy bear design on the top in which the child was found buried.

Cupp said he found it ironic Pauline Zile had publicly announced her daughter was wearing the same outfit when she falsely reported Christina was abducted at the Swap Shop flea market near Fort Lauderdale.

"I guess that was just a coincidence," Cupp said.

Zile's attorney Guy Rubin said in his closing arguments that the jury should not let outrage over the abduction hoax rule their verdict.

"Admittedly, Pauline was wrong in going along with her husband and deceiving the public that her daughter was missing. But that's not what we're here for," Rubin said.

Zile did not know her daughter's life was in danger and the jury should put themselves in her place, Rubin said.

"Pauline is 25 years old. She's had four kids, two husbands. She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant. She was working. She was cooking and cleaning. And she was struggling with the issues of discipline," Rubin said.

Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan said the prosecution does not have to show that Pauline Zile knew her daughter would die. Ignoring the abuse of your child is a crime, Duggan said.

Zile knew of the abuse of her daughter because bruises covered the child's small body. Any mother who bathes or dresses her child would notice such bruises, Duggan said.

"Pauline Zile is the natural mother. She can't look the other way, pretend it's not happening and it'll just go away," Duggan said.

Ellis Rubin, who is on Zile's defense team with his son, said in his closing arguments that the state's entire case is built on weak circumstantial evidence about what his clients should have known and should have done.

The state does not have an eyewitness to a killing, just a neighbor who said she overheard voices and noises the night Christina died.

"I've never heard of anybody being convicted of first-degree murder based on an ear-witness," Rubin said.

PAULINE ZILE'S FATE PUT IN JURY'S HANDS
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 11, 1995
Author: LORI ROZSA Herald Staff Writer

A Palm Beach County jury on Monday began deciding whether Pauline Zile was a caring but overburdened mother or an ill- tempered woman who had a hand in her daughter's killing. Zile is charged with first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse in the death last year of her 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt. She could go to the electric chair if convicted.
Zile and her second husband, John, made Christina's final days a horrendous, terror-filled time, prosecutors told the jury.

The girl, who had been staying with other relatives, lived with them only 90 days before she was killed.

"She was completely alone. Terrified, frightened, injured," assistant state attorney Mary Ann Duggan said. "She was a prisoner with no one to play with, no hope."

Zile's attorneys, Ellis and Guy Rubin, described Pauline Zile as a young woman saddled with an angry and aggressive husband. She was 8 1/2 months pregnant, taking care of Christina, her two young sons and her out-of-work husband.

The daughter she gave birth to was given up for adoption.

She didn't know Zile, Christina's stepfather, was abusing the girl, the Rubins said. The only time she hit her was to give her a few slaps when she refused to get up for school, they said.

"The worst crime anybody can commit in our society is for a mother to kill her offspring. It goes against human nature," Ellis Rubin told jurors. "Pauline Zile did not kill Christina Holt."

Her real crime was fooling the public, Rubin said.

"Pauline cried, she faked it. She scammed everybody," he said. "The public will never forgive her for that . . . but that is not enough to send her to the death house."

He said "there was no reason to believe that Pauline was anything other than a good, caring mother."

But prosecutors recapped testimony about how Pauline pulled Christina from school, the only place the little girl felt safe, after she had attended just five days.

Christina's teacher testified that the child clung to her, as if she was afraid of something.

Pauline pawned Christina's pink bike and her Hooked on Phonics tapes. She sold the girl's favorite video tapes in a bar, and swore and screamed at her.

"All of this while she is very pregnant," assistant state attorney Scott Cupp said. "She's running all over town."

The jury of nine men and three women met for about 3 1/2 hours Monday without reaching a verdict. They're scheduled to resume deliberations this morning.

The case grabbed national attention last year when Pauline and her husband John told police the girl had been abducted from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop. The pair made emotional public pleas for her return.

Police later learned Christina had been dead for nearly a month when the Ziles went on TV asking for help in finding her.

Investigators say John Zile beat the girl until she was unconscious and died. She may have choked on her own vomit.

The beating was intended as discipline because Christina had soiled her pants, the Ziles told police.

Pauline Zile didn't beat her on the night of her death, prosecutors said, but she had hit her before, and did nothing to stop the fatal abuse at the hands of her husband.

"She did nothing," Palm Beach County assistant state attorney Scott Cupp said. "She watched her die."

VERDICTS SHATTER HOPE IT WAS ALL A MISTAKE
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
Author: EMILY J. MINOR

Tuesday was one of those anticlimactic days. One of those days you hope will bring solace, but doesn't.

Because now, we are absurdly and forever linked to two women we detest.
In the past months, we have learned the details of the miserable lives, and horrible deaths, of A.J. Schwarz and Christina Holt.

And for months we have wondered how - if - Jessica Schwarz and Pauline Zile could deliver such incredible suffering. Could a stepmother actually hold a boy's head underwater with such force that she left bruises behind his ears? Could a mother stand by as her 7-year-old daughter is beaten to death, then only hours later try to pawn the child's videotapes?

Oh, we knew the answers. But until the verdicts, we could still hope, however bleakly, that these mothers might prove incapable of such atrocities.

Now, any such hope has passed. A judge and a jury have found them both guilty of murder. And we are forced to live with Jessica Schwarz and Pauline Zile.

It is hard not to compare these two mothers.

Zile, looking soft and pretty - and, yes, innocent - after her trial make-over. Schwarz, cold and crass and never abandoning her jail-issued blues.

Their pretenses are different, but they are the same. They both put their children through hell. They both are evil.

If they had been found not guilty, we would be outraged. But our memories of them would have eventually faded and vanished, just as they probably would have.

Now, they will be forced upon us again and again. We will learn of their court appeals, their requests from remote prison cells - a hairbrush, a mirror, a different cell.

We will be forced to remember. We should remember, of course. But it would be easier to forget.

Each time a child dies and a parent is accused, we will think about A.J.'s humiliation. Forced to go naked and eat from a plate next to cat litter, his spirit - and then his life - cruelly stolen from him.

And if a child is abducted by a stranger, we will recall Pauline Zile - her believable tears and frightening plea for the return of the daughter she knew was dead. We will wonder: Is this parent lying, too?

When Scott Cupp, the prosecutor in each of the cases, heard the first guilty verdict Tuesday - for Jessica Schwarz - he wearily laid his head on the courtroom table, his eyes brimming with tears.

Outside the courtroom, the tears finally falling, Cupp said: ``Maybe now, A.J. has peace.''

But he doesn't. He never did.

And now, because of two mothers we have grown to hate, neither do we.

ZILE SOBS AS VERDICT IS READ
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Pauline Zile, the mother who barely shed a tear during two weeks of testimony about the death of her 7-year-old daughter, Christina Holt, sobbed when a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder on Tuesday.

As Pauline Zile gasped and shook with grief, her attorney, Ellis Rubin, said ``What?'' in exasperation. The jury also found Pauline Zile guilty of three counts of aggravated child abuse.
``I think the verdict is an outrage,'' Rubin told Circuit Judge Stephen Rapp. ``There's no first-degree murder here.''

Pauline Zile's mother, Paula Yingling, sat stone-faced as the verdicts were read but cried as deputies escorted her to the holding cell for a brief visit with her daughter.

Yingling shook and fought back tears as she read a statement outside her Jensen Beach home on Tuesday afternoon.

``I believe in my daughter,'' she said, flanked by son Matt Yingling and one of Zile's attorneys, Guy Rubin. ``I believe in the justice system. Sooner or later, justice will prevail. My daughter is neither a murderer nor a child abuser. She loves her children. She loved Christina. One day she will get her fair day in court.''

Jurors, who deliberated about eight hours over two days, will return to court in several weeks to hear more testimony and decide whether to recommend a sentence of life in prison without parole for 25 years or death in the electric chair. No women have been executed in Florida, although six are on Death Row for women at Broward Correctional Institution.

Prosecutors declined to comment, saying ``the verdict speaks for itself.''

Outside the courthouse, defense attorneys Ellis Rubin and son Guy blasted the jury and prosecutors.

``I can't understand how they (jurors) lied to me under oath that they could set aside what they knew about the case,'' Rubin said, referring to media coverage about a kidnapping hoax staged by Pauline Zile and her husband to cover up Holt's death. ``You tell me what evidence there was of first-degree murder.''

The state's case against Pauline Zile, 24, focused on emotional circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors opened their case with the most damaging testimony about the couple's kidnapping hoax at the Thunderbird Swap Shop in Broward County a month after the girl's death on Sept. 16.

John Zile, who faces a separate trial on the same charges, told police that the girl died after he hit her and she went into convulsions. He and his wife tried to revive the girl in a bathtub.

They hid her body in a closet in the one-bedroom Singer Island apartment they shared with their two young sons, Zile said. He buried Christina's body four days later in a 57-inch-deep grave he dug behind a shopping center in Tequesta, he said.

Ellis Rubin asked the judge for at least 60 days to prepare his case against the death penalty. Prosecutors asked the judge to schedule the sentencing trial in a few weeks. No date has been set.

Prosecutors could call Pauline Zile to testify against her husband at his first-degree murder trial. Spouses are usually protected from each others' testimony in court by ``spousal immunity,'' a legal rule that prevents such testimony.

However, spousal immunitydoes not apply in child abuse cases. Prosecutors said they will not offer Pauline Zile a deal - such as a life sentence - in exchange for her testimony.

``I don't know of anything that would preclude her from testifying if she wants to but we're not making any deals,'' Chief Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks said. ``Absolutely not.''

John Zile's attorneys did not return phone calls on Tuesday.

``The issue is whether we would want her to testify,'' said Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp. ``Why would we?''

Reaction from Christina's family in Maryland, who raised the girl after Pauline Zile left her as an infant, was strong.

``She deserves what she gets,'' said Brenda Money, who helped raise Christina with her mother, Dorothy Money, Christina's paternal grandmother. ``Basically, my family would like to see her get a death sentence.''

Christina's biological father, Frank Holt of Maryland, declined to comment Tuesday.

Around the swap shop, where the couple staged Christina's kidnapping hoax, the verdict was good news.

``We're delighted with the verdict, but you can't take pleasure in this,'' said Lori Parrish, an executive with the swap shop's management company. ``A little girl lost her life.''

Former friends and neighbors from the couple's Singer Island apartment reacted similarly.

Debbie Beck worked as a waitress with Pauline Zile at Ocean's Eleven North for two years. Beck, who testified during the trial, said Pauline Zile came to her house about two days after Christina's death and complained that Christina had become hard to discipline.

But Pauline Zile, who sold Beck some children's sing-a-long cassette tapes days after Christina's death, never acted strange or distressed, Beck said.

``She talked to me just like I'm talking to you,'' Beck said.

For those whose jobs it is to protect children, the verdicts were especially good news.

``There's a definite message going out to parents that you cannot say, oh gee, there was nothing I could do or pretend you didn't know it was going on,'' said Nancy McBride, executive director of the Adam Walsh Foundation. ``The message is, we're all responsible.''

WOMEN ON DEATH ROW

If Pauline Zile is sentenced to death, she will join six other women under death sentence on a special Death Row for women at Broward Correctional Institution. The only woman ever executed in Florida was Celia, a slave with no last name, who was hanged in Jacksonville in 1848, after an all-white jury convicted her of manslaughter for killing her long-abusive master.

Aileen Wuornos - A highway prostitute sentenced to death in February 1992 for the deaths of seven men - clients or men she hitchhiked with - whose bodies were found along Florida's interstates in 1989.

Andrea Hicks Jackson - Sentenced to death for the fatal shooting of a Jacksonville police officer as he tried to arrest her in 1983 for filing a false report about a vandalized car.

Judy Goodyear Buenoano - Nicknamed the Black Widow, who slowly poisoned her husband, James Goodyear, with arsenic after he returned from Vietnam in 1971. She also killed her 19-year-old disabled son by pushing him out of a canoe. Sentenced in 1985.

Deidre Hunt - Videotaped by her former lover as she tortured, shot and killed Mark Ramsey, 19, in 1989 near Daytona Beach. She also killed another in a tangled scheme to murder her former lover's wife. Sentenced to die in 1990.

Ana Cardona - The only female resident of Death Row convicted of killing her child, Lazaro ``Baby Lollipops'' Figueroa, in Miami in 1990. Sentenced to die in 1992. Experts testified that her child suffered months of beatings and torture.

Virginia Larzelere - Sentenced to death in 1993 for the 1991 shotgun death of her husband, a dentist in Edgewater, Fla. Prosecutors argued that Larzelere killed her husband for his $2.1 million life-insurance policy.

Compiled by staff librarian Michelle Quigley.

THE ACCUSED

Others accused of killing children in their care:

Timothy and Paulette Cone: A Lake Worth couple facing first-degree murder charges in the November death of their adopted daughter, Pauline, 2, who died when a homemade lid slammed shut on her crib.

Clover Boykin - A Royal Palm Beach woman who confessed to strangling her infant son in October and told police she killed a friend's baby 11 months earlier. She is charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Jacqueline Caruncho - A West Palm Beach woman accused of third-degree murder in the February shaking death of a 4-month-old girl she baby-sat.

Joanne Mejia - A suburban West Palm Beach woman charged in January with first-degree murder in the death of her 9-month-old son, who showed signs of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

John Zile - A Riviera Beach man who awaits trial for first-degree murder in the death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt.

Staff writers Jon Glass, Heather Graulich and Jounice L. Nealy contributed to this report.

GRAND JURIES GET FINAL SAY ON MURDER CHARGE SPECIFICS
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
Author: CHRISTINE STAPLETON
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A mother who never touches her dying child is charged with first-degree murder and may face the electric chair, while a stepmother accused of holding her stepson's head under water is charged only with second-degree murder.

Why?
``There's a simple explanation,'' said Chief Assistant State Attorney Paul Zacks. ``Both cases were presented to the grand jury and it was their call.''

Separate grand juries listened to the evidence against Pauline Zile and Jessica Schwarz. In Schwarz's case, the grand jury opted for a second-degree murder charge. For Pauline Zile, the jurors chose first-degree felony murder.

``Contrary to what people think, we do not control the grand jury,'' Zacks said. ``We instruct them on the law and present the evidence to them and they decide what charges, if any, should be filed.''

The grand jury reviews all homicides in Palm Beach County. Prosecutors provide the legal definitions for a variety of crimes, ranging from manslaughter to first-degree murder.

Prosecutors say they do not recommend or lobby for a particular charge. However, it is prosecutors - not the grand jury - who decide whether to seek the death penalty.

In Pauline Zile's case, grand jurors opted for first-degree felony murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse charges. Those charges required prosecutors to prove that by failing to protect her daughter, Christina Holt, from her husband, John Zile, she was guilty of aggravated child abuse.

In addition, prosecutors needed to prove that Pauline Zile's ``acting by not acting'' made her a principal in the girl's murder.

The grand jury selected second-degree murder for Jessica Schwarz, believing there was enough evidence to prove that Schwarz caused the death of her stepson, A.J. Schwarz ``by an act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life.''

``It's really apples and oranges,'' said Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, who prosecuted both cases. ``The bottom line is, they're both looking at a lot of time.''

Jack Goldberger, a defense attorney representing Paulette Cone, another mother charged with first-degree murder, wonders whether politics and media pressure play a role in the grand jury's decision.

``The grand jury does what the state attorney's office wants it to,'' Goldberger said. ``If they had wanted to indict Pauline Zile or Paulette Cone for second-degree murder they could have.''

MOTHERS' DAY OF RECKONING
ZILE, SCHWARZ GUILTY OF MURDERS
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Christina Holt was beaten so badly just before she died that she went into convulsions and began to choke. As her screams intensified, her mother stood passively by, letting it happen as she had before.

Andrew Schwarz, after suffering months of abuse, died much the same way - beaten, then drowned by the stepmother who had made his last months a waking nightmare.
On Tuesday, both women - Pauline Zile and Jessica Schwarz - were convicted of murder.

The two cases were shockingly similar in the depth of cruelty inflicted on their young victims.

Pauline Zile, convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, and Jessica Schwarz, convicted by a judge of second-degree murder and witness tampering, sat dry-eyed through descriptions of their children's deaths.

But both women cried after their convictions, Zile in the courtroom and Schwarz as she was driven back to jail.

People with a professional or personal stake in the cases were unforgiving.

``She's a wicked person,'' prosecutor Scott Cupp said of Schwarz. Cupp was the lead prosecutor in both cases.

``She deserves what she gets,'' Brenda Money, who helped raise Christina, said of Zile. ``Basically, my family would like to see her get a death sentence.''

Schwarz faces a possible life term for 10-year-old A.J.'s May 1993 death. Prosecutor Joe Marx hailed her conviction as a fitting final chapter to ``the horror story'' of humiliation and physical torture inflicted by Schwarz.

``There's no understanding it,'' A.J.'s grandmother, Gladys Soini, said after Schwarz's conviction. ``Even an animal protects and looks after its own.''
Caption:
1. BILL INGRAM/Staff Photographer
PAULINE ZILE: Christina's mother, 24. CONVICTED OF: First-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse. FACES: Death penalty or life in prison without parole. No sentencing date set.
2. E.A. KENNEDY III/Staff Photographer
JESSICA SCHWARZ: A.J.'s stepmother, 40. CONVICTED OF: Second-degree murder. FACES: Life in prison. No sentencing date set.
3. A.J. SCHWARZ, 10
Died May 2, 1993
He was beaten and drowned by his stepmother, who was convicted in September of aggravated child abuse. An autopsy report showed if A.J. hadn't drowned, he would have died from the beating.
4. CHRISTINA HOLT, 7
Died Sept. 16, 1994
Beaten to death as her mother stood by. Christina had been dead more than a month when her mother concocted an abduction tale and made televised appeals for Christina's safe return.

VISITORS STILL DRAWN TO CHRISTINA'S GRAVE
The Palm Beach Post
April 12, 1995
Author: JOE BROGAN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The teddy bears, wreaths and artificial flowers that mourners left at the makeshift burial site of little Christina Holt have been weathered by sun and wind.

But those who can't forget the smiling little girl with pigtails still come to stand and gaze in silence at the shrine at the rear of Kmart.
On Tuesday night, after learning that Christina's mother, Pauline Zile, had been convicted of first-degree felony murder, Jean Immucci and her daughter Vicki of Tequesta visited the grave where Christina's body was found. Christina's stepfather John Zile told police he had buried her there after beating her to death Sept. 16.

Immucci, who has a 7-year-old of her own, said she wished it could have been different.

``If only they could have given her to someone who wanted her,'' she said. ``Our house was open.''

Lee and Fran Pelleschi, a retired couple, watched the grave site from their car.

``I can't bring myself to go see it,'' said Fran Pelleschi. ``I'd just break down. We have four children and seven grandchildren.''

She said she doesn't understand how a mother could allow her child to be killed.

``I would have definitely stopped him by calling 911 or hitting him over the head,'' she said. ``I can't believe anyone could do such a horrible thing. That little girl was adorable.''