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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.

Credit Zile Prosecutors For Pursuit Of Truth, Jurors For Clarity Of Focus (11/20/96)
A Jury Calls It Right (11/20/96)
Why Was Pauline Zile's Conviction Easier? (11/24/96)
Zile's Life In Cautious Hands (12/3/96)
Death Sentence Unlikely For Zile (12/4/96)
Family, Friends Show John Zile's 'Sweet, Kind' Side (12/5/96)
Zile: Case Casts Suspicions on Parents of Missing Children (12/5/96)
Facing Sentence, Zile Asks For Mercy (12/5/96)
State Seeks To Use Girl's Age To Press For Zile's Death (12/19/96)
Law May Mean Death For Zile (12/19/96)


CREDIT ZILE PROSECUTORS FOR PURSUIT OF TRUTH, JURORS FOR CLARITY OF FOCUS
Sun-Sentinel
November 20, 1996

It took two years and cost taxpayers more than $250,000, but Florida's plodding and mistake-prone justice system finally caught up with John Zile Monday.

After a month-long third trial but only five hours of deliberation, a Bartow jury found the former short-order cook guilty of murder and aggravated child abuse in the 1994 death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt.

The first-degree murder conviction means Zile could be sentenced by Judge Roger Colton next month either to die in Florida's electric chair or to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Zile's wife Pauline, convicted in 1995 of murder for failing to protect her daughter, already is serving a life sentence. She admitted concocting with Zile a story that Christina had been kidnapped in Fort Lauderdale when she knew the dead child already had been buried behind a store in Tequesta.

Her husband managed to forestall a similar verdict for more than a year. His original trial in West Palm Beach ended in a mistrial last May when a single juror refused to join her 11 fellow panelists in voting for a conviction of first-degree murder.

Judge Colton ordered a change of venue to Polk County because of the intense publicity surrounding the case, but Zile's second trial was aborted in August when a court official was ruled to have contaminated the jury pool with prejudicial remarks.

The decisive third trial began Oct. 15 and ended Monday. Unfortunately, the justice system surely has not heard the last of the 34-year-old Zile, whose defense attorneys carefully laid the groundwork for appeals on procedural issues throughout the trial.

During the protracted process, Zile attempted to fine-tune his contention that Christina had not been the victim of a brutal murder at all, but rather had died of accidental suffocation after he disciplined her with a spanking.

The jury of nine men and three women focussed correctly on Zile's actions after Christina's death and his taped confession to police. Several jurors said they had noted numerous inconsistencies between Zile's chilling 1994 statement and the self-serving story he told on the witness stand.

The Palm Beach County state attorney's office deserves commendation for its persistence and professionalism in pursuing the long and often-frustrating case against Zile. Credit also should go to the Polk County jurors, who made the appropriate decision by soberly considering the wrenching facts and refusing to be swayed by emotion.

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A JURY CALLS IT RIGHT
Miami Herald, The (FL)
November 20, 1996
Author: Herald Staff

Christina Holt's stepfather now faces the death penalty.

The state of Florida has striven to give John Zile the full fair measure of justice that he callously denied his stepdaughter. It is a bitter irony of murder that all the state can do is seek punishment on behalf of victims.
Christina Holt, here is your justice:

Your mother, Pauline, was found guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse last year in Palm Beach County. She's in prison for life. On Monday, your stepfather was found guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse by a Polk County jury. He faces the death penalty, but at his request it won't be the jury but presiding Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton who will decide.

Christina, age 7, lived with her mother, stepfather, and their two sons for only four months before she was killed on Sept. 17, 1994. She had previously lived with her grandmother in Maryland.

The Ziles -- broke, living a marginal life -- found Christina a problem. ``Disruptive'' is how John Zile described the second grader in a confession, which police taped after the Ziles' elaborate kidnapping ruse collapsed.

Zile admitted punishing Christina but claimed that she had a seizure and died. But neither he nor her mother called 911; they let her die. They buried her in a vacant lot and staged an abduction, prompting a huge search.

Police became suspicious. Christina's mother broke first, revealing the sorry story of a child's short life and terrible death. John Zile's first trial ended in mistrial when one juror held out for a second-degree murder verdict. The trial was moved to Polk County to avoid publicity. The first retrial was halted after the court clerk tainted the jury pool with a careless remark. Finally, Zile got to testify and again call Christina's death an accident. The jury didn't buy his story. Another inexorable step has been taken toward justice.

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WHY WAS PAULINE ZILE'S CONVICTION EASIER?
EXPERTS: LEGAL STRATEGIES HELPED JOHN ZILE'S CASE
Sun-Sentinel
November 24, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

John Zile admitted hitting his stepdaughter the night she died and he even led police to the body, yet it still took two years and three trials to convict him of first-degree murder.

But the judicial system made quick work of his wife, Pauline Zile, although she did not strike her daughter, Christina Holt, that night.

Six months after her October 1994 arrest, Pauline Zile, 25, became one the first parents in the nation to be convicted of first-degree murder for not stopping the abuse and death of a child.
Pauline Zile failed to protect Christina, wouldn't turn in her husband, and then went on TV with her hoax about how her daughter vanished from a public bathroom at the Thunderbird Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale.

It was John Zile who dealt the blows that killed Christina.

So why was Pauline Zile so much easier to convict?

Two factors worked against her, experts said.

The first was the legal strategies used by her lawyer. John Zile's defense team outspent Pauline Zile's six to one when it came to paying investigators and expert witnesses. In both instances, Palm Beach County taxpayers footed the bill.

The other factor was society's deep-seated madonna complex, that a mother should do anything, including self-sacrifice, to save her child, other experts said.

"It's almost like people want to say you should have died rather than the child," said Michele Jacobs, a professor at the University of Florida who teaches about women defendants and the law.

"No one is as angry at the stepfather as they are the mother," Jacobs said. "No matter what she does, it's always the mother's fault."

Pauline Zile's defense was launched Nov. 3 from the steps of the state attorney's office when her attorney, Ellis Rubin, held a news conference to announce he would be using the battered-woman defense.

Rubin read a letter Pauline Zile had written him that listed her regrets. Regret No. 4 was "Not being able to walk out the door and call the cops that night."

The prosecution later used the letter at her trial to show Pauline Zile consciously did not intervene in her child's death. Rubin said it was a foregone conclusion that the public outcry would prompt the state to prosecute his client for first-degree murder.

"She went on television, they portrayed her as the mother who stood by while her child was killed, the mother who lied. The public hated her. They never forgave her for that," Rubin said.

Pauline Zile went on trial within six months of her arrest because of Rubin's demands for a speedy trial. The furor of Christina's death and ensuing abduction hoax was still at its height.

"I've never seen a case where a defendant was better off rushing to trial and that was their strategy," said West Palm Beach lawyer James Eisenberg.

Eisenberg represented Pauline Zile in removing Rubin as her attorney for the appeal of her conviction. Boca Raton lawyer Richard Bartmon is working on her appeal. He declined comment for this article.

Rubin said it didn't matter when the trial was held because prosecutors only had to play the TV tape of Pauline Zile tearfully pleading for the return of her daughter to refresh a jury's memory.

"This is one case the public will not forget. Did it help John?" Rubin said of the delay before trial.

With so little time before trial, Rubin failed to learn that a key state witness could have been easily discredited.

Home Depot cashier Betty Schultz testified at Pauline Zile's trial that the entire Zile family, including their two sons, came to the North Lake Boulevard store to buy a shovel and a tarp used to bury Christina.

She remembered John Zile "had the meanest eyes I've ever seen."Pauline Zile was very pregnant and they paid by a check, Schultz testified.

But the Ziles didn't have a checking account and the prosecution's own investigators couldn't find the store sales receipts that matched the items Schultz said were purchased. John Zile's attorneys discovered those discrepancies before his first trial in May; Pauline Zile was already in prison.

"If I was aware of that I would have used it," Rubin said of the discrepancies in Schultz's testimony.

Then, after the prosecution rested, Rubin deemed the state's case much weaker than he had expected and decided not to call any defense witnesses, not even his client.

Rubin said he did not want Pauline Zile to testify because it may have harmed their argument that his client was given immunity to talk to police and the immunity was violated when police used the statement to gather evidence against her.

By contrast in John Zile's case, the first order of business for his attorneys, Craig Wilson and Ed O'Hara, was to get a gag order to stop Rubin from making disparging comments about the case.

John Zile had experts to pick the jury, explain seizure disorders and the child's death, and even testify that paramedics would not have been able to help Christina had they been called.

John Zile testified for seven hours to tell the jury his version of events.

Zile's court-appointed attorneys spent $91,679 in taxpayers' money for experts and investigations in addition to their fees that stood at $107,447 before Zile's final trial that began Oct. 15.

"The amount of money they spent is obscene," said Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, who was on the prosecution team against both Ziles.

Rubin was privately hired, but he billed taxpayers about $15,000 for investigative expenses.

Cupp said getting a conviction against John Zile was a full-scale battle.

Jacobs, the law professor, agreed that more of an effort could have been made to humanize Pauline Zile, as Susan Smith's attorneys did in her trial for the drowning of her two sons in Union, S.C.

After Smith's attorneys presented evidence of sexual abuse by her stepfather and how she was devastated by her father's suicide, the town's cries for the death penalty was silenced, Jacobs said.

But in Pauline Zile's case, Jacobs said, "Nobody let the public know who this woman was."

According to Michael Radelet, a University of Florida sociology professor who testified for Pauline Zile, she worked two jobs at a time as a barmaid, was pregnant five times since she was 17, and was pretty much dominated by someone all of her life.

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ZILE'S LIFE IN CAUTIOUS HANDS
The Palm Beach Post
December 3, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

It was the sort of bizarre circumstance that Circuit Judge Roger Colton had come to recognize - and dread - as a chronic affliction of the John Zile murder case.

A freelance television camera operator had generated unwelcome publicity by coming forward with out-of-court comments she attributed to lead defense attorney Craig Wilson. Zile wanted to fire Wilson, which could derail the murder trial.
"A decision has to be made, and I'm prepared to make it," Colton announced after hearing from Zile and the attorneys in the case.

He then looked down at his desk and lapsed into a long silence. Zile and the attorneys waited, and waited some more. After a full minute, when no decision seemed forthcoming, they launched into another round of argument.

Colton ultimately refused Zile's request to fire Wilson, but making the call clearly had been an ordeal.

Long moments of indecision are characteristic of Colton. Friends and former colleagues describe him as a man of impeccable integrity whose deep commitment to fair play prevents him from quickly resolving difficult issues.

"The only problem with Colton is that he tries too hard to make everybody happy," said defense attorney Jack Goldberger.

Colton must now decide whether Zile should die in Florida's electric chair or serve life in prison. A Bartow jury convicted Zile on Nov. 18 of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse in the death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt, in 1994, but Zile waived his right to have the jury recommend a sentence. So Colton alone must decide after a sentencing hearing, which is set to begin Wednesday in West Palm Beach.

Colton has never sentenced a defendant in a death-penalty case, but he may struggle less deciding Zile's punishment than he has resolving many minor procedural matters. Attorneys who know the judge well say his compassion and capacity for forgiveness favor a life sentence for Zile.

"I just don't think he could sentence someone to death," said a prosecutor with no connection to Zile's case. "That would be too much for him."

Another factor working for Zile is that prosecutors may be short of material to back their call for the death penalty.

A judge by law must weigh aggravating factors justifying the death penalty against mitigating circumstances favoring life in prison.

In 1994, when Christina died, Florida law listed 11 aggravating circumstances that could be cited in calling for a defendant's execution. Two might apply in Zile's case. One applies to a murder that is "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." The other refers to a defendant who has been convicted of a prior violent felony. The second applies because Zile's convictions for aggravated child abuse are considered prior violent felonies, even though those convictions occurred as part of the same case as the murder .

Mitigating circumstances by law are to be considered more broadly than aggravating ones. One mitigator, in fact, says jurors can consider any aspect of the defendant's character or history that the defense wants to present as mitigating, if it is established by evidence. Another that might apply in Zile's case refers to a defendant having "no significant history of prior criminal activity."

In an interview before Zile was convicted, Colton said he sees the possibility of a second chance for defendants who own up to their crimes.

"If someone comes in and says, `Judge, I'm guilty. I'm willing to take responsibility,' shouldn't that be given some consideration?" he asked.

Zile case a hand-wringer

\ The erratic history of Zile's case - a hung jury at the first trial, a botched jury selection at the second and frequent procedural delays - produced a steady stream of tough decisions for Colton, who sometimes seems so anxious to avoid making the wrong decision that he has trouble deciding at all.

His hesitancy, and his practice of allowing attorneys time to exhaustively argue and reargue, often exasperated the prosecutor in Zile's case, Scott Cupp.

"We keep going over the same stuff over and over, again and again," Cupp complained to Colton during Zile's retrial in Bartow. The judge's over-deliberation, Cupp griped, was threatening to establish a new courtroom policy: "Whoever talks longest and loudest, wins."

Others say Colton just wants to be fair.

"Roger's smart enough to know there are two sides to every story and he's got the patience to listen to both sides without making any snap rulings," attorney Bob Foley, Colton's former law partner, said recently.

Colton and Foley met in 1971. Colton had spent nine years as an FBI agent and was expecting to be transferred to Washington D.C.

His wife, Delores, didn't want to live in Washington, so Colton began planning a career change. Friends at the FBI put him in touch with Foley.

Colton seemed somewhat naive - "He wasn't a street guy like a lot of criminal defense attorneys are," Foley recalled - but he was immensely likable, with solid connections in law enforcement. And an ex-FBI man could only help the office's image, Foley believed.

The two men never signed a formal agreement. Instead, they shook hands, christening a partnership that lasted 23 years.

"We probably got along so well because we never really socialized a lot," Foley said. "I was raising six kids and he was raising two. I think working together is enough."

As an attorney, Colton became known as a consummate plea bargainer who worked hard to avoid trial for his clients.

"My philosophy has always been, if I never went to trial it was too soon," Colton said recently. "If you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas."

Colton also earned a reputation as a totally trustworthy man.

"The greatest compliment I ever received was `If Roger Colton said it, it must be true,' " Colton said. "I worked very hard to get that reputation."

Prosecutors praise style

\ Prosecutors agreed to his plea deals, because they knew Colton would never misrepresent himself or his intentions, Assistant State Attorney Ellen Roberts said.

"If Roger said the sky was orange, you wouldn't bother to go outside and check," she said.

When Colton did go to trial, his personable style and gentlemanly manner often impressed jurors, attorneys said.

In one memorable victory, he won an acquittal in 1980 for a deputy sheriff, Loren Schnicke, accused of manslaughter by culpable negligence for shooting a teenager, Demetri Athanasakes, in Boynton Beach.

Colton argued that the shooting was an accident. After deliberating only 20 minutes, the jury agreed.

"Some of the things Roger said in his closing argument in that case I still use today," attorney Michael Salnick said. "He's able to look at you and talk to you in such a nice way that you know you're getting a fair shot."

Colton, 59, grew up in Normal, Ill. and attended college at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, where he was student body president his senior year.

In 1959, he entered law school at Northwestern University, graduating in 1962. That same year, he joined the FBI.

"When people used to ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would always say I wanted to be an FBI agent," he said.

He worked in Denver, Puerto Rico, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, California - where he took an intensive, 6-month Spanish course at the Department of Defense language school - and New York, where he assisted in the Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno investigation.

"It was a great experience," Colton said of his years at the bureau. "You had to be absolutely honest and a man of your word. You were loyal. You were dedicated. And you did the very best job you could do."

Colton's dedication to those values left an indelible impression on the people he worked with.

"Roger always taught me that no one case is so important as to sacrifice your principals or your ethics," attorney Doug Duncan, who worked with Colton for six years in Foley's office, recalled. "He taught me how to practice law. Whatever success I enjoy as a lawyer, I attribute a great deal to him."

After 23 years with Foley, Colton applied for a judgeship on the advice of his wife, who is girls' athletic director at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach. The two have been married 35 years.

"You've heard me tell kids, `When your probation officer says jump, you ask `How high?' " Colton said. "That's how I feel about my wife. When she tells me to jump, I say, `How high?' "

Chiles' appointee in 1994

\ In 1994, Gov. Lawton Chiles named Colton to fill the circuit judge's seat left vacant by the death of Vaughn Rudnick. Colton was reelected to a four-year term that same year. Circuit judges are paid $104,619 a year.

Colton started off in civil court, where attorneys rated him an excellent listener, always prepared.

In October 1995, Colton began handling criminal court cases. Attorneys who responded to a county Bar Association survey released in June gave Colton an overall 60 percent "excellent" rating.

Colton received his highest marks - an 83-percent excellent ranking - in the "judicial demeanor" category. His weakest area, according to the survey, was "knowledge and application of the law," where his performance was rated satisfactory or needing improvement in 57 percent of the responses.

True to his roots in small-town middle America, Colton remains a simple man. He has no hobbies and says he doesn't have time to read for pleasure. The golf posters that adorn his office wall aren't there because he plays golf - he doesn't - but because his family is close friends with Jack Nicklaus' family.

Colton, who reported a net worth of $851,015 in 1995, has one passion outside his career.

"He's a real movie buff," his oldest son, attorney Scott Colton, said. "He enjoys all types of movies. He goes to them and he rents them."

Colton's schedule promises more of the same judicial overload he experienced during the Zile case. His docket has at least seven murder trials - three of them death-penalty cases - said Cindy Ray, the judge's judicial assistant.

"It's stressful for him," Scott Colton acknowledged. "It seems like he's gotten a lot of high-profile cases, and it's hard enough to do the job without reading about yourself (in the newspaper) every day. But I really think he enjoys it. He likes the challenges."

SENTENCING A MURDERER

In sentencing someone convicted of first-degree murder, a judge must weigh aggravating factors justifying the death penalty against mitigating circumstances favoring life in prison. Of the 11 aggravating factors defined by law, Nos. 2 and 8 might apply in John Zile's case. Of the eight mitigating factors, Nos. 1 and 8 might apply.

AGGRAVATING FACTORS

1: THE CRIME was committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment or placed on community control.

2: THE DEFENDANT was previously convicted of another capital felony or a violent felony.

3: THE DEFENDANT knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons.

4: THE DEFENDANT was committing, helping to or attempting to commit a robbery, sexual battery, arson, burglary, kidnapping, aircraft piracy or was using a bomb.

5: THE DEFENDANT was fleeing arrest or escaping from custody.

6: THE CAPITAL crime was committed for pecuniary gain.

7: THE CAPITAL crime was committed to disrupt a governmental function or the enforcement of laws.

8: THE CAPITAL crime was especially heinous, atrocious or cruel.

9: THE CAPITAL crime was a homicide and was committed in cold, calculated or premeditated manner without any pretense of moral or legal justification.

10: THE VICTIM was a law enforcement officer performing his or her official duties.

11: THE VICTIM was an elected or appointed public official performing his or her official duties and was killed in connection with those duties.

MITIGATING FACTORS

1: THE DEFENDANT has no significant criminal history.

2: THE DEFENDANT was severely mentally or emotionally disturbed at the time of the offense.

3: THE VICTIM was a participant in the defendant's conduct or consented to the act.

4: ANOTHER PERSON committed the capital crime and the defendant's participation was relatively minor.

5: THE DEFENDANT acted under extreme duress or under the substantial domination of another person.

6: THE DEFENDANT was too impaired to understand the criminality of his or her conduct.

7: THE DEFENDANT'S age at the time of the crime.

8: ANY OTHER applicable aspect of the defendant's character.

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DEATH SENTENCE UNLIKELY FOR ZILE
SENTENCING HEARING BEGINS TODAY
Sun-Sentinel
December 4, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

As first-degree murders go, the sad, short life and death of Christina Holt, 7, which outraged many in South Florida, may not meet the threshold of a select class of killings that warrants the death penalty.
At John Zile's sentencing hearing, which begins today, a judge will listen to evidence for and against Zile, known as aggravating and mitigating factors. Zile's attorneys waived a jury recommendation for the penalty phase.

Roger Colton, Palm Beach County Circuit Court judge, has only two choices: life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Colton, who has been on the bench since 1994, has never sentenced a defendant to death.

Colton has said he expects to announce his decision within 30 days of the sentencing hearing, which is scheduled to last two days.

Criminal defense attorneys who handle capital cases said murders that are the consequence of child abuse traditionally are not punished by the death penalty because the killings were not planned.

"The death penalty was enacted for cold-blooded, premeditated murder," said Peggy Natale, the assistant public defender who was one of Zile's original defense attorneys. "I don't think anybody says he intended to kill this girl.

"Everybody wants him to get the death penalty because he killed this sweet little girl, and that's understandable. But we have to remember the death penalty is reserved for the worst of the worst."

A Polk County jury in November convicted Zile, 35, of first-degree murder because his stepdaughter died on Sept. 16, 1994, while he was committing aggravated child abuse, not under the premeditated form of first-degree murder.

The two aggravating factors expected to be used by the prosecution is that the killing was "heinous, atrocious and cruel" because Christina suffocated and that Zile was convicted of two other counts of aggravated child abuse when he was convicted of first-degree murder.

Criminal defense attorney Richard Lubin said the heinous, atrocious and cruel category "is meant to be reserved for the most horrible and gruesome of first-degree murders."

"You have to look only at the crime, not what was done afterwards," Lubin said. "There may be in a given case something done afterwards that is distasteful, but that doesn't mean the death itself was heinous, atrocious and cruel."

Attorneys for Zile and his wife, Pauline Zile, 25, have said the case would not have been treated as a capital crime if the couple had not tried to hide Christina's death.

The Ziles did not call paramedics, they hid the body in a closet for four days, secretly buried her and then claimed the girl had been snatched in a restroom at the Thunderbird Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale.

As for prior violent felonies, Zile has a conviction for burglary.

"It seems to me that you would have to give a different weight to someone charged in the same indictment," Lubin said.

Mitigating factors are open to broader interpretation under the law and a judge can consider such things as a defendant's troubled childhood or whether he or she was a hard worker. It is up to the judge what weight is given to evidence for and against the defendant.

When Pauline Zile was sentenced to life in prison for her first-degree murder conviction for failure to protect her daughter, that judge found only one aggravating factor, that the child's death was violent.

Stephen Rapp, Palm Beach County Circuit judge, said the mitigating factors included that Pauline Zile was abandoned by her mother, held down two barmaid jobs at a time and was apparently a good mother to her other two children.

The most important mitigating factor, Rapp said, was that the conviction was the first time she had been charged with a crime, and her potential as a danger to society was minimal.

Natale said many people have forgotten the original intention of the death penalty to punish the exceptionally horrid murders and expect it to be automatic in all first-degree murder cases.

"I think we've lost sight of it," Natale said. "Well it's first-degree murder, give him death."

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FAMILY, FRIENDS SHOW JOHN ZILE'S `SWEET, KIND' SIDE
The Palm Beach Post
December 5, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The John Zile jurors never saw - the "sweet, kind" child who grew into a loving family man - was introduced Wednesday to the judge who will decide between life and death for the John Zile convicted of murdering a 7-year-old girl.

"We were all the time having to find his bike because he had lent it to someone at the playground," his mother, Patricia Zile, told Circuit Judge Roger Colton.
Zile was a rebellious teen - his parents once exiled him to a home for wayward boys after he went joy-riding in his mother's car, refused to attend school and ran away - but he later developed into a model employee at his parents' restaurant in Maryland, according to testimony Wednesday.

By 1993, Zile had married, moved to Florida and was raising two sons, Chad and Daniel, on Singer Island in Riviera Beach.

"They were a very loving, very close family that needed each other," said Zile's sister, Mary Ann Darling of Maryland.

Zile's attorneys hope those images will sway Colton as the judge decides whether to sentence Zile to life in prison without parole or death in the electric chair for the 1994 murder of his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, in their Singer Island apartment. Last month, a jury convicted Zile, 34, of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse.

Colton, who gave attorneys two weeks to file written arguments, said, "I know I'm going to need a lot of time" to make a decision. This is the first time he has been called on to issue a sentence in a death penalty case.

Prosecutor Scott Cupp, arguing for the death penalty, said Zile's repeated abuse of his stepdaughter so terrified her that she spontaneously defecated whenever he lost his temper with her.

"When she became incontinent, she would be beaten for it," Cupp said. "It's pitiless. This defendant didn't give a damn about Christina Holt."

Cupp told Colton that Christina's death was "heinous, atrocious or cruel," which qualifies under state law as a justification for the death penalty. Cupp asked Colton to factor in Zile's convictions on the three aggravated child abuse counts as well.

Christina died around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994, moments after Zile began spanking her and "flicking" his fingers on her lips as punishment for a variety of behavior problems, including her habit of changing details of her claim that she had been sexually abused by relatives in Maryland, where she lived before moving in with the Ziles in June 1994.

Zile's own parents disciplined their three children by striking them with a belt, Zile's sister testified Wednesday.

Zile also took the stand, conceding that he was "culpably negligent" in Christina's death but insisting it was an accident. He said Christina died because he improperly performed CPR on her after she had a seizure.

"I can look everyone in this courtroom in the eye and say I loved Christina, and I miss her," Zile said.

Defense attorney Ed O'Hara asked Colton to weigh all Zile's "redeeming qualities," including his compliant behavior in jail over the last two years. During that time, he once rushed to the aid of a corrections deputy who was being attacked by another inmate. O'Hara also said Zile has no significant criminal history, which can help a defendant in death penalty cases.

In most death penalty cases, jurors recommend a sentence of either death or life in prison, but Zile opted to leave his punishment to Colton alone.

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ZILE: CASE CASTS SUSPICIONS ON PARENTS OF MISSING CHILDREN
Sun-Sentinel
December 5, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

The repercussions of Christina Holt's death extends beyond her family and friends to all parents suspected of foul play when they report their children are missing, Holt's killer, John Zile, told a judge on Wednesday.

At his sentencing hearing, Zile recalled the people who rushed to make up fliers showing a smiling Christina, 7, to help find her after he and his wife, Pauline Zile, reported she was abducted from the Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale in October 1994.
How America's Most Wanted host John Walsh, a father who has experienced the loss of a child, believed in him despite police suspicions and taped a nationwide plea for the return of the girl.

Before the segment aired, the truth came out that the child was dead and Zile had secretly buried her behind a Tequesta K mart more than a month before he reported the abduction.

"I have no excuse for the things I did afterwards," Zile said, speaking directly to the judge who will decide whether he lives out his life in prison without parole or be sentenced to death.

"I apologize to the families of children who have come up missing since then. I think me and my wife and Susan Smith have put people under scrutiny when their children are missing."

About the same time the Zile case unfolded, police in Union, S.C., learned that Smith's story - that her two sons were carjacked - also was a hoax. She had launched her car off a boat ramp with her boys strapped inside.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger B. Colton will not decide Zile's sentence until both sides file legal memoranda by Dec. 18. The case is the first time Colton has been confronted with the death penalty since he became a judge in 1994.

"I know I'm going to need a lot of time," said Colton, who will preside over another death penalty case on Monday.

By law, the judge must weigh aggravating evidence against mitigating circumstances - for and against Zile - before he can decide whether the murder merits the death penalty.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said Zile deserved to die. The killing was heinous, atrocious and cruel, and Zile was convicted of other violent felonies, Cupp said.

Zile was found guilty of aggravated child abuse by the same jury that convicted him of first-degree murder.

Had Christina's killing occurred a year later, it would have been easier for prosecutors to seek the death penalty. Aggravated child abuse and a victim under age 12 was added to the list of aggravators for first-degree murder, Cupp said.

The prosecution did not present any new witnesses, relying instead on testimony from Zile's three-week trial last month.

Zile's attorneys put a slew of people on the witness stand, from his jailers to his crying mother, to try to show he was not beyond redemption.

His sister Mary Ann Darling of Maryland testified Zile was always a hard worker who mowed lawns as a boy. He worked a different restaurant shift than his waitress wife to allow one of them to be home, instead of using baby sitters, she said.

His wife is serving a life prison term for her first-degree murder conviction for failure to protect her child.

His mother, Patricia Zile, lost the stoic demeanor she kept up for most of the trial, openly crying on Wednesday as she described her son as a boy.

"We were all the time having to find his bicycle because he was lending it to someone at the playground," Patricia Zile said. "I guess it was because they didn't have one."

Zile's jailers said he has been a model inmate during his two years in jail and even rescued a sheriff's deputy in an attack.

Zile's attorney, Ed O'Hara, said that while Christina's death was tragic, the crime does not warrant the death penalty.

"I see no reason to dignify those cries for this man to be put to death," O'Hara said. "We're not talking about a [Ted) Bundy, some incorrigible soul who will repeatedly commit murder."

The prosecutor asked the judge to remember Christina.

"You have an awesome responsibility ahead of you," Cupp told the judge. "You also have the responsibility to weigh, to take into consideration the value of the life of a 7-year-old little girl."

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FACING SENTENCE, ZILE ASKS FOR MERCY
Miami Herald, The (FL)
December 5, 1996
Author: LORI ROZSA Herald Staff Writer

John Zile begged the public for forgiveness and pleaded for his life Wednesday before Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge Roger Colton.

Prosecutors want Zile, convicted three weeks ago of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the 1994 death of his stepdaughter, to die in the electric chair. Colton will decide within the next 30 days if Zile will get life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death sentence.
As he did in his murder trial, Zile, 35, took the witness stand to try to explain his actions, and to ask for mercy. Zile's stepdaughter, 7-year-old Christina Holt, died after he punished her by hitting her. He said the death was an accident -- that she died from a seizure complicated by his clumsy attempt at CPR.

``Not a day goes by that I don't think about Christina,'' Zile told Colton. ``Knowing that I personally, though in an accidental way, was responsible for the death of someone I loved . . . is torment, sorrow, remorse and shame.''

Zile cried when his mother, Patricia Zile, took the witness stand and described him as a ``sweet, kind, unselfish, fun-loving child.'' She said she was a severe disciplinarian, and believed in corporal punishment. John Zile said that's all he was doing when Christina died -- punishing her for soiling her pajamas.

Prosecutor Scott Cupp was unmoved by Zile's tears and his protestations of love for the girl he was convicted of killing.

``The defendant didn't give a damn about Christina Holt,'' Cupp said.

He said Zile systematically abused Christina with his punishments and that, after living with Zile and her mother Pauline for only three months, the little girl ``was scared to death'' of him.

Witnesses said the couple pawned Christina's bicycle and pulled her out of school, the one place they said she felt safe.

Cupp called the seizure excuse ``laughable.''

``Christina Holt suffered the ultimate seizure. It's called death,'' Cupp said.

Pauline Zile was convicted last year on the same charges as her husband and was sentenced to life in prison. Two young sons of the couple now live with foster parents. The Ziles put a third child up for adoption shortly before Christina died.

In October 1994, the pair concocted an elaborate hoax to explain Christina's disappearance. They went to police and claimed the girl had disappeared from the Swap Shop in Fort Lauderdale. They made tearful pleas for her return on television. Pauline carried around a stuffed teddy bear while the two asked the public for help in finding the girl.

Christina had been dead for two weeks when they launched the ruse. Police soon suspected them, and both eventually confessed. John led them to a vacant lot behind a Tequesta Kmart, where he had buried Christina.

Zile said there was no excuse for what he did. He apologized to the state of Florida, police, the FBI, the Adam Walsh Foundation, which printed fliers of Christina and to other parents.

``I apologize to the parents whose children come up missing in the future,'' Zile said. ``Because of people like me and Susan Smith, people might not believe them. I feel terrible.''

Shortly before the Ziles claimed Christina was missing, Susan Smith made up the story about her two sons being abducted in North Carolina. She later was convicted of killing the boys by drowning them.

One of Zile's two sisters, and an aunt who hadn't seen him in 30 years, testified that he had been a good kid, even though he ended up in a juvenile detention hall when he was a teenager.

His mother said she made mistakes when she was raising Zile, but that she didn't raise a murderer.

``I don't have a problem with my grandchildren,'' Patricia Zile said. ``You learn a lot when you do it wrong the first time.''

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STATE SEEKS TO USE GIRL'S AGE TO PRESS FOR ZILE'S DEATH
The Palm Beach Post
December 19, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Prosecutors are arguing new grounds to send murderer John Zile to the electric chair, prompting a retaliatory strike from one of Zile's attorneys.

In court papers filed Wednesday, prosecutor Scott Cupp asked Circuit Judge Roger Colton to consider two new "aggravating circumstances" in Zile's case that were not in effect when Zile's stepdaughter Christina Holt, 7, was killed in September 1994.
Florida court rulings back the proposition that aggravating circumstances - elements of a crime that can be used to justify the death penalty - are relevant "if they are law at the time of sentencing," Cupp argued.

He is asking Colton, who will decide whether Zile dies in the electric chair or spends his life in prison, to weigh the fact that Christina was less than 12 when she was killed and that Zile was convicted of committing aggravated child abuse when she died.

Defense attorney Ed O'Hara filed papers Wednesday noting that Cupp specifically agreed in court Dec. 4 that the new aggravators don't apply.

"He stated on the record that the state would not rely on them because they were not in existence at the time of this incident," O'Hara wrote.

Zile was convicted in Bartow last month of first-degree murder in Christina's death, as well as three counts of aggravated child abuse.

If Colton agrees to consider the new aggravating circumstances, O'Hara wrote, he should also weigh a "new" mitigating circumstance that took effect this year - a catch-all element that refers to "any other factors in the defendant's background" that could be used to argue against the death penalty.

Previously, Zile's attorneys cited his lack of significant criminal history as the only mitigating circumstance under Florida law supporting a sentence of life in prison without parole.

They are asking Colton to consider mitigators not specified by law, including Zile's good behavior in jail, his potential for rehabilitation and his good employment record.

Cupp initially said Zile deserves death based on the factors that Zile had prior violent felony convictions and that Christina's death was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel."

The felony convictions refer to the three counts of aggravated child abuse that were part of the murder case. Under Florida law, those can be considered "prior" convictions even though they were returned at the same time as the murder conviction.

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LAW MAY MEAN DEATH FOR ZILE
Sun-Sentinel
December 19, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Prosecutors say they have two more reasons under the law to send John Zile to the electric chair for the murder of his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, 7.

At Zile's sentencing hearing on Dec. 4, prosecutor Scott Cupp said a new state law that allows the death penalty when the victim was younger than 12 and died during aggravated child abuse did not apply to the October 1994 Zile case.
But in written legal arguments released on Wednesday, Cupp argued that those changes, which were made a year after Christina's death, could be applied retroactively because they are the law at the time of sentencing.

Circuit Judge Roger B. Colton postponed a decision on Zile's sentencing until both sides submitted written arguments by 5 p.m. Wednesday. The only two options are the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

The judge must weigh evidence for and against Zile, called aggravating evidence and mitigating circumstances, before deciding whether the murder merits the death penalty.

The sentencing faces further delay because Zile's attorneys want a hearing to contest the state's additional reasons for seeking the death penalty. Hearings dates have not been set.

Zile's attorney, Ed O'Hara, said the state cannot retroactively apply new laws to the case.

If prosecutors are allowed to do that, he said the defense should also be able to present new mitigating circumstances that went into effect this year and get another sentencing hearing.

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