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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.

Will Jurors Hear Zile Confession? (4/8/96)
Fair Ruling, Fair Trial (4/9/96)
Zile Asks For Jury Dismissal At Sentencing (4/9/96)
Zile: No Chance For Fair Trial (4/9/96)
Zile Prosecution Gets Boost On Eve Of Trial (4/9/96)
Judge Alone Will Decide Zile Penalty (4/10/96)
Jury Selection Begins In Zile Murder Trial (4/10/96)
Questioning To Pick Zile's Jury Begins (4/10/96)
Despite Waiver, If Zile Is Guilty, Death Penalty Should Be An Option (4/11/96)
Zile Jury Selection Slow (4/13/96)


WILL JURORS HEAR ZILE CONFESSION?
WORDS ARE BEST EVIDENCE
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 8, 1996
Author: LORI ROZSA Herald Staff Writer

When prosecutors put John Zile on trial this week in West Palm Beach for the beating death of his 7-year-old stepdaughter Christina Holt, they hope to make their job a lot easier by using Zile's own words against him.
Without his confession, they have little damaging evidence against Zile -- no body, and no narrative of how Christina was abused and killed. After the confession, Zile led police to the shallow grave behind the Tequesta Kmart where he buried Christina.

Zile will testify Monday at a hearing to explain how the police got him to talk. His lawyers say the confession was obtained illegally, and they're fighting to keep the jury from hearing it. They say police and the state attorney's office were under so much public pressure to make an arrest, they broke rules and made mistakes and violated Zile's rights.

"These are not legal loopholes," said Craig Wilson, who along with Ed O'Hara is representing Zile. "They're just wrong."

Prosecutors say Zile is a child killer, and his own statement -- given "freely and voluntarily" -- proves it. They don't want to comment on the case now that the trial is pending.

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton will decide whether the jury should hear the confession.

The painfully detailed statement provides a look at the sad and violent last days of young Christina's life. She had only lived with her mother, stepfather and two small stepbrothers for four months before she died. Her grandmother in Maryland had raised her until then.

Her parents said she was a liar and manipulator who disrupted their family and played improper, sexually oriented games with her stepbrothers.

"She lies to us all the time and thinks she's the boss," her mother Pauline Zile wrote in a letter to her father July 23, 1994 -- just a month after Christina had moved to Florida.

"She has spent a lot of time in her room writing 'I will not lie' a few hundred times so far and still she lies. What's next I don't know!"

Christina was fatally beaten when she soiled her pants, Zile said, and when he said he caught her in lies. He said she really started "acting up" when school started, because she apparently thought she would be going back to Maryland at the end of the summer.

He "smacked her butt," "flicked her lips," "whacked her" with his belt to punish her, he said.

The night she died, though, the beatings triggered an epileptic seizure, he said, and the Ziles panicked. Zile said they tried to resuscitate her, but she died. He wrapped her in a blanket, put her body in a closet, and, for four days, the couple debated what to do.

When the odor became too strong for burning incense to mask it, Zile said, he found a place to put her. He buried her behind the Tequesta Kmart after he watched Monday Night Football.

They were afraid to call police after Christina died, but not because it was murder -- Zile said it was an accident. But Christina was bruised.

"She had bruises on her buttocks. She had the bruise on the side of her face. It looked like, I mean, I just didn't know what to do. I was thinking of my family, I was thinking of myself," Zile said in a statement to police.

"We were horrified. We loved Christina very much. She was having problems, and things did get out of hand."

The statement came hours after Zile and his wife Pauline were taken to the Riviera Beach police department, put in separate rooms and interrogated. It was the culmination of a week of intense searching and public alarm over the disappearance of Christina.

Her parents said she was abducted from the Swap Shop in Fort Lauderdale. They appeared on TV to plead for help. Police soon suspected something was wrong, and blood stains found at the couple's Singer Island apartment convinced them the Ziles were lying.

Pauline cracked first. She failed a lie detector test, and then started to talk. She blamed it all on her husband.

Confronted with his wife's statements, Zile talked. But before that, he asked for an attorney. He didn't get one.

By the time his wife had "spilled her guts," as Zile's attorney Craig Wilson put it, he was asking for a different attorney -- this time, for the state attorney.

Zile told them all that what happened to Christina was an accident. Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer said all Zile wanted to know when he walked in the room was, "What's in it for me?"

"I asked him six times if he wanted an attorney, and he said no," Krischer said. In a jailhouse interview with Herald reporter David Kidwell, Zile said Krischer told him he couldn't make any promises, but if he cooperated, he might be charged with involuntary manslaughter or accidental death instead of murder.

Krischer said he told Zile that the decision on what charges to bring against the Ziles rested solely with him, but he made him no promises.

Zile has maintained all along that what happened to his stepdaughter was a terrible accident, and he thought police believed him.

"When the poor bastard was hit with the news that he was being arrested in the death of Christina Holt, he blurted out, 'How could it be, it was an accident?' " Wilson said. Immediately after he gave his statement, Zile and his wife were jailed on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

Pauline Zile was convicted on those charges last year and sentenced to life in prison, though prosecutors had sought the death penalty. Pauline mostly stood by and watched while her husband hit Christina, they said, and hit her occasionally, and screamed obscenities at her loud enough that neighbors in an upstairs apartment heard.

She is expected to testify at her husband's trial. The two had a rancorous relationship after their arrest. John Zile screamed and swore so badly at his wife during one court appearance that he had to be hauled from the courtroom.

He has now found religion in jail and wears a large cross on a beaded chain over his jail uniform. Pauline asked for permission to visit him but was denied.

Jury selection begins Tuesday.

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FAIR RULING, FAIR TRIAL
The Palm Beach Post
April 9, 1996

Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton let the people's court remain open to the people Monday when he denied a motion by John Zile's attorney to remove television cameras from the courtroom during the accused murderer's trial.

John Zile is accused of first-degree murder in the 1994 death of his stepdaughter, 7-year-old Christina Holt. His attorney said Judge Colton should bar TV cameras because news reports have characterized Zile as a ``demonic and inhuman person.''
Zile and his wife, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the child's killing last year, let Christina's body rot in their apartment for days while telling police she had been kidnapped from a Broward County flea market. Then, John Zile said, he buried the body. So it wouldn't be unusual to conclude that Zile isn't a Rotary Club member.

Beyond that, however, is the simple fact that the camera, by itself, doesn't disrupt court proceedings. Television didn't prevent William Kennedy Smith from getting a fair trial. Ultimately, the judge controls what happens in the courtroom. Judge Colton seems to have no problem being in charge.

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ZILE ASKS FOR JURY DISMISSAL AT SENTENCING
Sun-Sentinel
April 9, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

John Zile is convinced a Palm Beach County jury would sentence him to death if he is convicted of first-degree murder of his stepdaughter at his trial, scheduled to begin today with jury selection.

If a jury convicts him in the killing of Christina Holt, 7, Zile asked the judge on Monday to dismiss the panel before the sentencing phase of the trial. Zile said he'd rather the judge sentence him without the jury's recommendation
Zile, 33, is accused of beating his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, in September 1994 until she collapsed into convulsions and suffocated.

Zile's wife, Pauline Zile, was convicted of first-degree murder a year ago for failure to protect her child from her husband.

"My wife's been convicted in this town. I feel if it does become a reality - phase two - the jury will put me in the electric chair," John Zile testified. Jury trials for first-degree murder are split into two parts. The first phase is to determine guilt or innocence. If convicted of first-degree murder, the same jury in the second phase votes whether the defendant should be sentenced to life in prison or the death penalty.

While the trial judge ultimately decides on the punishment, by law, he must give the jury's recommendation "great weight," and explain his or her reasons for overriding their recommendation.

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Roger Colton said he is inclined to grant Zile's request but wanted additional information today on whether he has the power to do so over protests from prosecutors.

Earlier on Monday, Colton denied Zile's motions to throw out his statement to police, keep TV cameras out of the courtroom and give him separate trials on the murder charges and four counts of aggravated child abuse. His motion to move the trial out of the county was denied in March.

In her trial, Pauline Zile made the same request to have a judge decide her sentence after she was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse.

But in that case, prosecutors did not object. The judge sentenced her to life in prison.

"I feel if my wife had kept the same jury, they would have given my wife the electric chair," John Zile testified.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp, who along with Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan is prosecuting both cases, said on Monday the roles each of the Ziles played in the child's death are different.

"It's apples and oranges," Cupp said.

Another difference in the two cases was that Pauline Zile did not ask to dismiss the jury for the penalty phase until after her conviction. During jury selection, jurors were asked to promise they would be able to hand down the death penalty if the case warranted it.

With John Zile's request coming before jury selection, prosecutors will not be able to pick out jurors able to carry out the death penalty, who defense attorneys say are more likely to convict in the first place.

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ZILE: NO CHANCE FOR FAIR TRIAL
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 9, 1996
Author: RONNIE GREENE Herald Staff Writer

A religious cross dangling from beads around his neck, John Zile sat in the witness chair Monday and said he has no prayer for a fair trial in Palm Beach County.
He talked about how his wife was convicted of first degree murder here. "People in my wife's jury pool said they'd like to be in my jury, to give me the electric chair," Zile said.

Then he ticked off other signs he's doomed: His request to move the trial out of Palm Beach County was denied. So was his request to suppress his confession. Likewise his request to toss out the indictment.

"I don't believe I can get a fair trial in this town," Zile said. "I've pleaded not guilty to these charges because I'm not guilty. I feel the cards are stacked against me."

Zile said that if he's convicted, he doesn't want jurors to have a say on whether he should live or die. "I really feel my hands are tied," he told Judge Roger Colton. "I have no choice but to ask you to dismiss the jury if it comes" time for sentencing.

Prosecutors and police counter that Zile stacked the cards against himself the day he beat his stepdaughter Christina Holt to death, hid her in the closet and then buried her.

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ZILE PROSECUTION GETS BOOST ON EVE OF TRIAL, REQUEST TO SUPPRESS CONFESSION DENIED
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 9, 1996
Author: RONNIE GREENE Herald Staff Writer

When John Zile stands trial today -- accused of beating his stepdaughter to death, stashing her body in a closet then burying her behind a Kmart -- he will be fighting a case built
from his own mouth.
On Monday, Palm Beach Circuit Judge Roger Colton denied a defense request to suppress Zile's October 1994 confession, granting a major victory to prosecutors on the eve of trial.

Without Zile's words, the state would be walking into court with little damaging evidence. After he opened up inside the Riviera Beach Police Department, Zile led police to a shallow grave that served as a cruel resting place for 7-year-old Christina Holt.

Zile and his lawyers argued strenuously that his statement should be suppressed.

Their case was clear and simple: On the afternoon of Oct. 27, 1994, Zile invoked his right to counsel. He did not get an attorney until the next day. In between, he told police a tragic tale of how Christina died, calling it an accident.

"This confession was improperly obtained," argued Craig Wilson, Zile's lawyer.

From the bench, Colton agreed with the defense on several points.

"There is no doubt Mr. Zile did more than just make an inquiry, 'Gee, do I need an attorney?' " Colton said. "There is no doubt Mr. Zile invoked his right to an attorney."

Colton cited an appeals court ruling spelling out the significance of such a request: "If the individual states he wants an attorney, the investigation must cease until an attorney is present. They must respect his decision to stay silent."

Even the notes of Barry Krischer, the Palm Beach County state attorney, indicate Zile originally said he wanted a lawyer. "Apparently, Mr. Krischer was told that Mr. Zile said he needed an attorney," the judge said.

And Colton said he was "a little concerned" and "surprised" that police and prosecutors didn't keep detailed logs of events as they initially unfolded. "Not only do we not have logs, we do not have tape recordings of these very important decisions being made."

When it appeared Colton might toss the confession, he reversed legal course.

Despite Zile's initial request for a lawyer -- and the fact that none was immediately provided -- it was Zile who decided to open up to police, prosecutors and the FBI, the judge ruled.

Zile did so after asking an FBI agent whether talking to the state attorney would help him and his wife.

"It was Mr. Zile -- freely, voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently -- who re-initiated contact and wanted to speak to the investigative officers," the judge said. "He made a calculated decision to cooperate, to talk, hoping that this would be a great benefit to him at a later time."

In the end, his ruling sided with arguments of Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan that Zile was responsible for initiating the contact.

"He is motivated by his own personal agenda. He wants to help himself," Duggan said. "In his own self-preservation mode, he decides to make a statement."

Also Monday, Colton denied a defense request to ban television cameras from the courtroom. Jury selection begins this morning.

Zile will stand trial on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. His wife, Pauline, was convicted of first-degree murder last April and was sentenced to life in prison.

Initially, the parents said Christina was abducted from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop, and they pleaded for her return on TV. But blood stains in the couple's Singer Island apartment in Palm Beach County eventually led police to the child's burial site.

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JUDGE ALONE WILL DECIDE ZILE PENALTY
The Palm Beach Post
April 10, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

If John Zile is found guilty of murdering his stepdaughter, the jurors who convict him will not decide whether he receives life in prison or death in the electric chair, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Circuit Judge Roger Colton granted Zile's request to excuse jurors from the sentencing hearing that will ensue if Zile is convicted in the 1994 death of 7-year-old Christina Holt.
That means Colton alone would hear the arguments for and against imposing the death penalty and would pass sentence without the jury's recommendation.

Zile said Monday that ``a jury would put me in the electric chair'' for a first-degree murder conviction.

Colton's ruling will sharply reduce the time required to select jurors for Zile's trial.

It also could result in a more liberal jury - and therefore one less likely to convict Zile - by eliminating jury selection questions designed to weed out would-be jurors opposed to the death penalty.

Almost all the jury candidates questioned Tuesday recalled hearing about the Zile case. Most were excused after they said they were too disturbed by the case to be impartial or said they knew that Zile had confessed to the killing.

The trial is expected to last three to four weeks.

Christina died Sept. 16, 1994, after going into convulsions during a beating, according to a statement Zile, a restaurant worker, gave police. Her parents buried her behind a Tequesta shopping center, then concocted a kidnapping hoax that gripped the public for several days before unraveling.

Zile's wife, Pauline, was convicted of murder last year for failing to protect her daughter from John Zile. After her conviction, she waived participation by her jurors in the sentencing process. A judge sentenced her to life in prison.

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JURY SELECTION BEGINS IN ZILE MURDER TRIAL
Sun-Sentinel
April 10, 1996
Author: STEPHANIE SMITH Staff Writer

Jury selection started on Tuesday in the first-degree murder trial of John Zile after a judge granted Zile's request that the panel be dismissed before the sentencing phase.

Zile, who is accused of killing his 7-year-old stepdaughter, Christina Holt, testified at a hearing on Monday that he wants the judge to determine his sentence without the jury's recommendation, if he is convicted
Zile said he expected the jury would be predisposed to sentence him to death because of the public outrage against him.

Only one of the 25 prospective jurors interviewed on Tuesday said they knew nothing about the case, which drew national news coverage amid a spate of child-killings in South Florida and elsewhere in the country.

The man, who works as a mechanical engineer in Fort Lauderdale, said he was interested only in sports in his television viewing and newspaper reading and had never heard of the case.

Eleven of the 25 said they could be impartial and would not resent serving on a jury for three to four weeks of trial. They will return next week for more detailed questioning before a 12-member jury and alternates can be seated for the trial.

As many as 10 people in the jury pool on Tuesday said their mind was already made up that Zile was guilty. "What I heard was he murdered a young innocent girl, and he showed the legal people where he buried her," said one woman.

The woman said she is a single mother with an 11-year-old daughter, and she could not presume Zile was innocent until proven guilty, even under a judge's order. She shook her head no. "I can't," she said.

Several other jurors linked Zile's case with that of Susan Smith, a South Carolina woman charged with killing her two sons, saying they recalled the incidents happened about the same time.

Both cases involved mothers who claimed their children were kidnapped, and then the discovery that the missing children were actually dead, and the involvement of the mothers in the deaths.

Smith was convicted of killing her children by strapping them into a car and pushing them into a lake.

Pauline Zile was convicted of first-degree murder for standing by while her husband, police have charged, beat her daughter until the child collapsed into a seizure and suffocated.

John Zile's attorneys earlier lost their bid to have his trial moved out of Palm Beach County.

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said that jury selection on Tuesday proved a change of location wasn't necessary, although it could take a while to pick a jury.

In Pauline Zile's murder trial last year, 190 prospective jurors were interviewed before a jury was picked.

"It's pretty much going to mirror Pauline Zile's trial," he said. Jury selection took a week in that case.

Zile, who was dressed in something other than a jail uniform for the first time since his arrest in October 1994, sat attentively at the defense table along with his two attorneys and a jury consultant. Occassionally, he studied his own book on Florida criminal procedures and took notes.

Some of the people in the jury pool did not recognize Zile, who was dressed in a shirt and tie and wore tassled loafers, when asked to point out the man they had seen in television or newspaper accounts.

Jury selection resumes today.

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QUESTIONING TO PICK ZILE'S JURORS BEGINS
TRIAL EXPECTED TO MOVE SLOWLY
Miami Herald, The (FL)
April 10, 1996
Author: RONNIE GREENE Herald Staff Writer

Christina Holt's death came swiftly, but the quest for justice against murder suspect John Zile promises to plod through the court system question by question, motion by motion, appeal by appeal.
It will take days to pick a jury. Then another three to four weeks for trial. Then, if Zile is convicted -- and he admits the "cards are stacked against me" -- the defense is likely to launch an appeal, based on Palm Beach Circuit Judge Roger Colton's decision not to suppress Zile's confession.

Defense attorney Craig Wilson maintains the confession is illegal, arguing that Zile asked for an attorney while holed up in the Riviera Beach Police Department Oct. 27, 1994.

He didn't get one until the next day. In between, Zile gave a statement and led police to a shallow grave where he buried his stepdaughter Christina, 7.

Colton agrees Zile asked for an attorney. But he ruled the confession was sound because it was Zile -- not law enforcement -- who reopened the issue after he invoked his right to counsel.

"It's definitely going to be an issue on appeal," Wilson said during a break in proceedings Tuesday. "Obviously."

On Tuesday, lawyers questioned 25 prospective jurors, each side aided by a jury expert. Of the 25, 14 were dismissed outright, many because they had strong feelings about Zile's guilt; 11 were asked to return for further questioning as part of a pool of finalists. From that pool, the 12 jurors will be chosen.

Zile did get one wish Tuesday: If he is convicted, he doesn't want the jury to have a say in whether he lives or dies. Colton granted the request.

Usually, a jury sitting in a first-degree murder trial will recommend life in prison or death by electric chair upon conviction. The judge has final say, but the jury's word is supposed to carry weight. But Zile, a cross dangling from his neck, said Monday: "I feel that any jury -- if the reality of the penalty phase comes forward -- will vote for the electric chair."

Zile, a 10th-grade dropout and chef by trade, stands accused of one count of first-degree murder and four counts of aggravated child abuse stemming from his stepdaughter's 1994 death.

Police say he brutally beat Christina, then stashed her frail body in a closet in the family's Singer Island apartment while he and wife, Pauline, decided what to do. The couple went on TV, saying their daughter disappeared from the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop. The hoax unraveled after police spotted blood stains in their home.

Already, a Palm Beach County jury has convicted Pauline Zile of first-degree murder. She is serving a life term. She is listed as a potential witness to be called by the prosecution, Wilson said, but he doesn't expect she'll be called.

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DESPITE WAIVER, IF ZILE IS GUILTY, DEATH PENALTY SHOULD BE AN OPTION
Sun-Sentinel
April 11, 1996

Accused murderer John Zile persuaded a Palm Beach County judge Tuesday to give him something he never gave his stepdaughter Christina Holt: A chance at life instead of death.

Circuit Judge Roger Colton granted Zile's request to dismiss the jury before the penalty phase if it should convict him of first-degree murder in the 1994 beating death of 7-year-old Christina. If that occurs, Colton will pronounce sentence without the benefit of a recommendation from the jury. Selection of jurors began Tuesday
Last year, Pauline Zile, Christina's mother and John's wife, was convicted of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for failing to protect the child. She waived her right to jury deliberation in the penalty phase and Judge Stephen Rapp sentenced her to life in prison.

Zile said he is convinced a Palm Beach County jury would condemn him to the electric chair because of the intense publicity surrounding the case. If he is convicted of first-degree murder, Colton could sentence him either to death or life imprisonment.

Zile may be accurate in his assessment of the temperament of his peers, but his last-minute waiver smacks mainly of desperation juror-selection strategy by the defense. Prosecutors will be unable to identify potential jurors who favor capital punishment and usually are considered more likely to convict.

Realistically, Colton had little choice but to grant Zile's request. However, he did rule properly in denying previous defense motions to suppress Zile's statement to police, move the trial out of Palm Beach County, bar television cameras from the courtroom and grant him separate trials on the murder charge and four separate counts of child abuse.

The Christina Holt case attracted national attention in September 1994 when her mother and stepfather concocted a story of her abduction from a Broward County flea market. A frantic search was mounted, but the child already had been killed and buried in a shallow grave in northern Palm Beach County. When their deception began to unravel, the Ziles admitted the girl had died in a disciplinary beating that got tragically out of hand.

Pauline Zile has faced justice and now it is her husband's turn. He deserves to have his actions weighed fully and publicly by an impartial panel of his neighbors and then to face society's ultimate sanction if he is found guilty.

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ZILE JURY SELECTION SLOW
Sun-Sentinel
April 13, 1996
Author: Staff reports

After a week of questioning prospective jurors on publicity in John Zile's first-degree murder trial, attorneys in the case were only at the halfway mark in their search for 60 people who did not have their minds made up.

Ed O'Hara, one of Zile's court-appointed attorneys, said Friday he didn't expect a 12-member jury to be seated for another week.

His co-counsel Craig Wilson said jury questioning so far proves that people already think Zile is guilty of killing his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, 7.

"It's bearing out our point," Wilson said.

The trial is expected to take three to four weeks once a jury is picked.

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