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.

Both Sides Avoid Autopsy Findings in Zile Retrial (10/26/96)
Judge May Allow Teacher's Letter in Zile Retrial (10/26/96)
Teacher Will Miss Zile Trial (10/29/96)
Deputy: Zile Said He Beat Girl (10/29/96)
Prosecutor Frets Over Zile Juror 'Napping' (10/30/96)
Judge Refuses To Dismiss 'Sleeping' Juror In Zile Trial (10/30/96)
Officer: Blood Found In Zile Home (10/30/96)
Judge Details Zile Reporter Ruling (10/31/96)
Ruling Could Spare Zile Death (10/31/96)
Neighbor: I Heard Smacks, Girl's Sobs (10/31/96)

BOTH SIDES AVOID AUTOPSY FINDINGS IN ZILE RETRIAL
Sun-Sentinel
October 26, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

In long-awaited opening statements in John Zile's retrial on Friday, the prosecution called Christina Holt's death a murder. The defense said it wasn't.

What was unexpected was that both sides skirted the autopsy findings by the coroner who examined the 7-year-old girl's body because of uncertainty about Medical Examiner Dr. James Benz's testimony on the witness stand.
"Maybe he's going to change his testimony. I don't know what he's going to do," Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said about his own witness. "How can I stand up and represent anything in opening statements?"

Zile's attorneys shared Cupp's doubts about Benz. "With the past with Dr. Benz as a witness, one never knows what he's going to say," Zile's court-appointed attorney Ed O'Hara said.

Their comments came during a hearing in which the trial judge said Zile's attorneys violated disclosure rules, called discovery, because they withheld information about Benz from prosecutors until jury selection.

The judge forbid Zile's court-appointed attorneys, Craig Wilson and O'Hara, from using testimony from O'Hara and a lawyer not associated with the case that Benz told them this summer Christina's death was an unintentional homicide.

The conversations took place after Zile's first trial in May ended in a hung jury, and Benz was in the process of resigning from his 13-year career as Palm Beach County's chief medical examiner because of criticism about his findings by police and prosecutors.

Cupp told the judge that Benz already has ruled that Christina's death was a homicide.

"There are only four categories in the manner of [unnatural) death: homicide, suicide, undetermined and accident. An accidental homicide is an oxymoron," Cupp said.

O'Hara testified during Friday's hearing that he had a telephone conversation with Benz in which Benz told O'Hara he thought Christina's murder was not premeditated and that Zile should not have been charged with first-degree murder.

Before the conversation, Benz asked O'Hara if the telephone was bugged, then ended the talk by saying he would deny ever having the conversation if it was reported, O'Hara said.

Zile's attorneys said they did not immediately report what they learned because Benz already was listed as a state witness and they did not know whether O'Hara and the lawyer not associated with the case would be needed to testify.

"I pray, and I am not a religious person, that Dr. Benz gets up on the stand and tells the truth," Wilson said.

During Friday's opening arguments, there was no mention of the autopsy or Benz.

Cupp told the eight men and four women on the jury about how Christina had moved from Maryland to be reunited with her mother, Pauline Zile, in South Florida, only to die at the hands of her stepfather three months later.

"She was murdered, left in a closet to rot for several days and then buried in the middle of the night in the pouring rain in a hole in an open field behind a Kmart in a place called Tequesta," Cupp said.

During the girl's few months with the Ziles, Cupp described her life as that of non-stop punishment.

"In the time of her final beating, approximately 1 o'clock in the morning, no help was sought for Christina. No calls to neighbors. No call to 911. Nothing," Cupp said. Wilson told the jury that Zile admits spanking his stepdaughter the night she died, but there was no pattern of child abuse as the prosecution claimed.

The girl received a school physical on Aug. 23, 1994, during the time period Cupp said she was beaten, and the doctor did not find signs of abuse, Wilson said.

The state is expected to play Zile's statement to police.

JUDGE MAY ALLOW TEACHER'S LETTER IN ZILE TRIAL
The Palm Beach Post
October 29, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A teacher in Maryland who once described Christina Holt as disruptive will not testify at the murder trial of Christina's stepfather but it's possible jurors will see the letter containing the teacher's comments.

The teacher, Karen Boettner, wrote the undated letter to Christina's maternal grandmother sometime before Christina moved to Florida in 1994.
"She is constantly out of her seat, running across the room, talking out of turn and being generally disruptive," Boettner wrote.

John Zile's attorneys, Craig Wilson and Ed O'Hara, want to introduce the letter as evidence during John Zile's trial, even though Boettner, who is about to deliver a child, says she will not be able to testify. Prosecutor Scott Cupp objected, calling the letter "rank hearsay."

Circuit Judge Roger Colton reserved ruling but hinted he may decide, as he did at Zile's first murder trial, to allow the letter into evidence. Boettner also declined to testify at the first trial.

The letter is important to the defense because it supports Zile's contention that Christina was a difficult child whom he had problems controlling.

Zile, 34, is accused of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse in Christina's September 1994 death at Zile's Singer Island apartment. His first trial ended in a hung jury.

Testimony at the retrial began Friday before a jury of eight men and four women. Cupp and prosecutor Jill Estey began focusing Monday on the elaborate kidnapping ruse that they said Zile and his wife, Pauline Zile, Christina's mother, concocted to explain the 7-year-old's disappearance.

When Wilson asked Broward County sheriff's Sgt. William Robshaw on cross-examination how he felt after working hard to solve the kidnapping only to discover Christina had been dead a month, Robshaw said he felt "some satisfaction knowing we were moving the case to some resolution."

"People lie to me all the time," he told Wilson. "I think, professionally, I'm kind of immune to it."

Pauline Zile, who was convicted of first-degree murder last year in connection with Christina's death and is serving a life sentence, told police her daughter was kidnapped from a Broward County swap shop.

TEACHER WILL MISS ZILE TRIAL
LETTER SAYS CHRISTINA MISBEHAVED IN SCHOOL
Sun-Sentinel
October 29, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

A Maryland teacher who wrote that Christina Holt was a disciplinary problem has refused to appear at John Zile's murder trial because she is nine months pregnant.

In Zile's first-degree murder trial in the death of his stepdaughter, Christina, 7, on Monday, defense attorneys asked that a letter by the girl's second-grade teacher outlining behavior problems be allowed as evidence or that the woman be ordered to testify.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton asked both sides to find some way to work around the problem without forcing the teacher, Karen Boettner, to travel to Bartow.
"You're not going to ask me to sign a court order for a woman who is nine months pregnant, had two miscarriages and [whose) doctor told her not to fly," Colton said.

The undated letter that was among Christina's Maryland school files is addressed to her paternal grandmother, Judy Holt of Poolesville, Md. "Christina has been out of control for the last week. She is constantly out of her seat, running across the room, talking out of turn and being generally disruptive," the letter said.

Craig Wilson, one of Zile's two court-appointed attorneys, said the letter or Boettner's testimony is necessary for the defense to back up its contention that the child misbehaved badly before she moved to South Florida to live with her mother in June 1994.

Boettner refused to testify at Zile's first trial in May, which ended in a hung jury, but the letter was allowed as evidence because the defense said her reluctance came at the last minute.

Zile contends he spanked his stepdaughter the night she died in September 1994, saying the child was a continual disciplinary problem and made up stories of sexual abuse by relatives in Maryland.

The prosecution contends the girl was well-behaved until traumatized by emotional and physical abuse by Zile, which culminated in her death.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp objected to the letter being admitted as evidence if Boettner does not testify that she wrote it, and the state does not have any plans to call Boettner, although she is listed on the prosecution witness list.

Cobbett said he learned last Friday that his company would not continue to pay his salary while he served on the twoto three-week trial. Cobbett was off work for two weeks of jury selection before testimony started.

Colton told the juror to find out if his bosses at Homes of Merit, a prefabricated housing company, would be willing to pay the difference between his jury fees of $30 a day and his regular salary.

Testimony on Monday came from law-enforcement officers who told jurors how a missing-child investigation at a flea market west of Fort Lauderdale turned into a murder case at the Ziles' one-bedroom apartment in Singer Island.

Christina originally was reported kidnapped by her mother, Pauline Zile, 25, who is currently serving a life sentence for failing to protect her child.

More police officers were expected to testify today to lay the groundwork for the prosecution to play Zile's taped police statement.

DEPUTY: ZILE SAID HE BEAT GIRL
Miami Herald, The (FL)
October 29, 1996
Author: Associated Press

John Zile, accused of killing his stepdaughter then faking her abduction, told an investigator he disciplined the 7-year-old and on occasion ``beat her butt,'' a deputy testified Monday.

William Robshaw, a Broward County sheriff's deputy, investigates missing persons cases and sex crimes. He was assigned to the Zile case on Oct. 22, 1994, the day little Christina Holt was reported missing from a flea market.
After Zile killed Christina, he and his wife, Pauline Zile, concocted the abduction story rather than calling an ambulance, prosecutors maintain. Mrs. Zile, Christina's mother from a previous relationship, is currently serving a life sentence for failing to stop the fatal beating.

The second-grader's body eventually was uncovered in a field near a Palm Beach convenience store.

Zile, 34, is being tried on a first-degree murder charge and three counts of child abuse.

He has said the child suffocated during a seizure and he tried unsuccessfully to revive her.

Zile told investigators Christina was not well behaved, was disruptive in school and was not responsive to his discipline, Robshaw said from the stand.

Meanwhile, as the investigation and interrogation of Zile and his wife went on, a massive search for Christina took place. Police sent divers into a canal, brought in canine units and made up fliers.

On Thursday night, Oct. 20, 1994 -- two days before the Ziles told police the abduction story -- Zile and a friend went to a bar in the same Broward County area as the flea market.

He told police he went to check out the flea market to ensure it was safe for his wife and daughter to come to the following Saturday. He said it appeared safe and met with his approval.

In earlier testimony, Riveria Beach police Sgt. Dale Long said Zile directed officials to dig behind a Kmart for the little girl's body. That's where the body was found.

Christina had not lived with the Ziles until the summer of that year. Zile told Robshaw the girl was dropped off unexpectedly in June by her grandmother who brought Christina to live with the couple. It surprised them and strapped them financially, Robshaw testified.

Zile's first trial in May ended in a mistrial. A Palm Beach County jury split 11-1 for a first-degree murder conviction. The holdout wanted a second-degree murder conviction.

PROSECUTOR FRETS OVER ZILE JUROR `NAPPING'
The Palm Beach Post
October 30, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The murder trial of John Zile is not only testing the state's evidence, it also is testing the jurors' attention spans.

On Tuesday, as testimony plodded through explanations of dozens of photos taken inside Zile's former apartment, prosecutor Scott Cupp worried that one juror might be napping.
"I personally observed him asleep this morning," Cupp told Circuit Judge Roger Colton after jurors had left for lunch. "We have heard him on numerous occasions audibly snoring."

Colton said he had not noticed the juror - Edard Terrell - sleeping. The judge said Terrell did seem to be breathing loudly at times but also appeared to be listening and taking notes.

Colton promised to watch Terrell, who showed no signs of inattention the rest of the day.

Zile, 34, is on trial on charges of murder and aggravated child abuse in the 1994 death of his stepdaughter, 7-year-old Christina Holt. His first trial in West Palm Beach ended with a hung jury.

Prosecutors say Zile began abusing his stepdaughter around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994. When Christina cried out, they say, Zile covered her mouth to stifle her cries, asphyxiating her. Zile's attorneys say Christina most likely died from a seizure.

Tuesday's testimony focused on the recovery of Christina's body from a makeshift grave in Tequesta, and on the initial searches of the Ziles' Singer Island apartment, where Christina died.

Robert Foley, a former Broward County sheriff's deputy, told jurors he concluded a crime had occurred inside the apartment after his testing showed traces of blood on some items.

JUDGE REFUSES TO DISMISS `SLEEPING' JUROR IN ZILE TRIAL
Sun-Sentinel
October 30, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Snores are coming from the jury box in the murder trial of John Zile.

On Tuesday, a prosecutor accused a juror of nodding off during crime scene testimony and demanded he be replaced with one of the two alternate jurors.

"This is a juror falling asleep," Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said of juror Edard D. Terrell. "I clearly saw him asleep."
The judge, while acknowledging he saw Terrell closing his eyes and heard him snoring, refused to dismiss the juror. He noted that the juror also appeared to snap to attention to take notes.

"I concur I heard certain sounds coming from him, but he wasn't asleep," said Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge B. Roger Colton. "I will continue to observe if he listens more attentively with his eyes closed than with his eyes open."

The ruling enabled Colton, who has already seen the trial end twice in a mistrial, to keep the proceedings on track without resorting to two alternate jurors selected for the trial, which could last three weeks.

Zile, 34, is accused of killing his stepdaughter on Sept. 16, 1994, and faking her abduction to conceal her death. Zile's wife, Pauline Zile, 25, is serving a life sentence for her role in the case.

Cupp insisted he could hear snores coming from Terrell seated in the jury box a few feet from the prosecution table. Zile's attorneys said they heard nothing and did not notice Terrell asleep.

After the lunch break on Tuesday, Colton urged jurors to stand up and stretch during the proceedings if they find themselves unable to concentrate. Terrell, along with a fellow juror, took Colton up on the advice during one of numerous bench conferences.

Colton declined comment on Tuesday on whether he would remove a juror he thought was actually napping.

Ed O'Hara, one of Zile's attorneys, said he has never known of a sitting juror to be excused for not paying attention, but one prospective juror in the case was excused for that reason during jury selection in Zile's case.

The allegations of the sleeping juror followed another juror's request on Monday to be excused from the case because he learned his company did not want to pay his salary during jury service.

That juror, Wallace Cobbett Jr., said on Tuesday his bosses at a prefabricated housing company have agreed to make up the difference between his regular pay and his $30-a-day jury fee. Cobbett said he was now willing to stay on the case.

On Tuesday, detectives testified about what they found at the Ziles' Riviera Beach home in September 1994 and how that led them to the back of a K mart in Tequesta, where they unearthed Christina Holt's body buried in 5 feet of sugar sand in a blue tarp.

OFFICER: BLOOD FOUND IN ZILE HOME
Miami Herald, The (FL)
October 30, 1996
Author: Associated Press
Bloodied jeans and other traces of blood in the home of 7-year-old Christina Holt led investigators to conclude that the girl had been killed in her home and then taken out to be buried, a sheriff's official said Tuesday.

Broward County Undersheriff Robert Foley held the small jeans up for jurors to see in the first-degree murder trial of John Zile, Christina's stepfather.
The girl's mother, Pauline Zile, was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors say Zile beat the girl to death in 1994 and that a month later the mother concocted a story that her daughter had been abducted from a Fort Lauderdale area flea market.

Foley testified that during a routine search of the Zile home for evidence to help locate the child, he noticed a girl's bathing suit and a dance costume. He also noticed that the one-bedroom apartment had been recently vacuumed although there was no vacuum in the apartment.

Upon further investigation he found trace blood stains on amattress and box springs, pillow and jeans, he said. That led Foley to conclude that the girl had been killed in the home, he said.

Zile led police to his stepdaughter's unmarked grave behind a Kmart north of Palm Beach about one month after her death.

He claims the death was accidental.

JUDGE DETAILS ZILE REPORTER RULING
LAW COVERS PRESS EVEN WHEN IT'S NOT PROTECTING SOURCES, HE SAYS
The Palm Beach Post
October 31, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Reporters are constitutionally protected from having to testify about the stories they cover even when they are not protecting a confidential source, a federal judge in Miami said in an opinion released Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Wilkie Ferguson Jr. issued the opinion to explain his Oct. 21 decision to set free a Miami Herald reporter jailed Oct. 7 for refusing to answer questions about his 1994 jailhouse interview with John Zile, who is on trial this week in Bartow on a charge of first-degree murder in his stepdaughter's death.
Ferguson's 10-page explanation says David Kidwell was jailed because some Florida appellate courts have adopted a misguided "blanket rule" that journalists cannot claim special protection, or privilege, unless they are protecting a confidential source.

But Ferguson said the privilege should protect reporters shielding confidential sources and reporters such as Kidwell who obtain nonconfidential, secondhand information. Otherwise, Ferguson noted, "there is a question whether any news-gathering activity remains protected by the First Amendment."

Under federal law, the government cannot subpoena a reporter to testify unless it shows that the reporter has information highly relevant to the case, that the need for that information outweighs the reporter's constitutional protection, and that the information is unavailable anywhere else.

Ferguson's opinion about the privilege isn't binding on the 4th District Court of Appeal, where Kidwell's case is still under review.

"He can issue an order and explain it, but that doesn't mean the appellate court is going to adopt it," Ed O'Hara, one of Zile's two attorneys, said Wednesday.

But the judge's carefully worded analysis could prompt the appellate court to reconsider its earlier ruling - the same one Circuit Judge Roger Colton cited in jailing Kidwell for contempt.

"What we need is for the decision to be changed," Sandy Bohrer, Kidwell's attorney, said. "Judge Ferguson's opinion really says to the 4th DCA, `I think you guys ought to rethink what's going on here.' He made some pretty telling points."

Ferguson also said in the order that Kidwell will remain free until he rules otherwise.

"What this means," Bohrer said, "is that if you're a reporter who's willing to go to jail, at least one judge in this district is going to bail you out."

"I think it is great," Kidwell said Wednesday. "I feel confident that I will remain free, but now my hopes are up that this might even change the law."

Jurors at Zile's trial in Bartow Wednesday heard dramatic testimony from a witness, Dayle Ackerman, who says she overheard a man hitting a small girl inside Zile's Singer Island apartment. A few moments later, Ackerman said, she heard the man saying "Wake up! Please wake up!" and a few moments after that, "My God! My God! What did I do?"

The details of Ackerman's description closely match Zile's description of the moments just before his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt, died, except Ackerman says the incident she overheard took place the morning of Sept. 16, 1994; Zile says Christina died around midnight that day.

RULING COULD SPARE ZILE DEATH
JURY CAN CONSIDER LESSER FORM OF CHILD ABUSE IN STEPDAUGHTER'S SLAYING
Sun-Sentinel
October 31, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

With the prosecution's agreement, a judge made a ruling on Wednesday which could spare John Zile the death penalty or life in prison for the death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter.

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Roger Colton ruled that a jury for the first time will be allowed to consider less serious forms of child abuse against Zile, who is charged with first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse.
Zile's attorneys said the change will dramatically help their efforts to spare Zile from a first-degree murder conviction for the death of Christina Holt, 7, which is punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.

"It's wonderful," Craig Wilson said of the new jury instructions.

Still, in a sign of how contentious the case has become, Zile's co-counsel, Ed O'Hara, continued to argue until co-counsel Craig Wilson told him to sit down. "We've won," Wilson told a disbelieving O'Hara. "We got what we wanted, Eddie."

In the state's two-pronged prosecution, Zile can be found guilty of first-degree murder if the jury finds he intended to kill his stepdaughter or if the death occurred while he was committing the specific charge of aggravated child abuse. Aggravated child abuse is defined as malicious punishment or torture.

If the jury rules out intent and decides the spanking that preceded the child's death was a less serious form of child abuse than aggravated, Zile cannot be convicted of first-degree murder.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said he agreed to the new jury instructions to avoid a conviction from being overturned on appeal because of the technicality.

"It's in an abundance of caution," Cupp said of his consent.

Zile is already in his second retrial. The first trial in May ended with a jury split 11-1 for a first-degree murder conviction. The court attempted to retry the case in Bartow to seat an impartial jury, but Colton halted jury selection after a week because of inappropriate remarks a court clerk made to prospective jurors. Opening statements in the current trial began Friday.

On Wednesday, the prosecution gained an edge when jurors were allowed to hear a private social worker's testimony that the Ziles never mentioned that Christina suffered any medical conditions and refused counseling only six days before her death.

The testimony tends to contradict Zile's contention that while he spanked his stepdaughter the night, she died from an undiagnosed seizure disorder.

The social workers' conflicting testimony was kept from Zile's first jury, but was allowed on Wednesday because the defense opened the line of questioning.

A short-order cook with a ninth-grade education, Zile testified at his first trial that he was overwhelmed when his stepdaughter was dropped off early by Maryland relatives to join his family of four. He and his wife Pauline Zile already had two sons and they were expecting a third, who was given up for adoption to make room for his stepdaughter.

Ellen Flaumm, a private social worker who interviewed the Ziles for the adoptive parents, said the only medical history the Ziles mentioned were that John Zile was allergic to bee stings, their oldest son had a speech problem and Pauline Zile had epilepsy.

NEIGHBOR: I HEARD SMACKS, GIRL'S SOBS
Miami Herald, The (FL)
October 31, 1996
Author: Associated Press

The neighbor of a man charged with beating his 7-year-old stepdaughter to death testified Wednesday that she heard yells, smacks and a girl's sobs coming from his apartment.

Then, the neighbor said, she heard a man crying, ``My God, what did I do?''
``I went to my mother's apartment and I told her, `Mom, I think there's a little girl in trouble,' '' Dayle Ackerman testified at John Zile's retrial in Christina Holt's slaying.

She was reported missing from a Fort Lauderdale-area flea market Oct. 22, 1994. Prosecutors say Zile beat the girl to death and his wife concocted a story that she had been abducted.

The second-grader's body eventually was uncovered in a field near a Kmart in the Palm Beach County town of Tequesta.

Pauline Zile was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison. John Zile is being tried on a first-degree murder charge and three counts of child abuse.

Ackerman, who lives in an apartment building behind Zile's, said she heard shouting coming from their unit through open windows on the morning of Sept. 16, 1994, when police believe Christina was killed.