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.

Zile Weeps, Says Girl Suffered A Seizure (5/9/96)
Zile Emotional On Stand (5/9/96)
A Riveting Day At The Trial Of John Zile (5/9/96)
Zile Defense Asserts Seizure Killed Christina (5/10/96)
Defense Offers Theories On Girl's Death (5/10/96)
Zile Jury May Be Told To Disregard Coverup (5/11/96)
Judge Halts Testimony in Zile's Defense (5/11/96)
1 Child Abuse Charge Dismissed in Zile Case (5/14/96)
Zile Murder Trial Winding To A Conclusion (5/14/96)
Zile Jury Will Hear Hours Of Closing Arguments Today (5/14/96)

ZILE WEEPS, SAYS GIRL SUFFERED A SEIZURE
The Palm Beach Post
May 9, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

John Zile, publicly reviled as a short-tempered brute who bullied his stepdaughter into a makeshift grave, wept Wednesday as he told jurors he loved the girl and had nothing to do with her death.

"I wanted her to be part of my family," Zile testified. "I wanted to do for her what my father did for me. I loved her. My wife loved her. My sons loved her. Her whole family loved her."
Zile, charged with first-degree murder in Christina Holt's death, responded testily on cross-examination when prosecutor Scott Cupp challenged his assertion that Christina was a serious behavior problem whom Zile had disciplined firmly but humanely.

But Zile, who has occasionally disrupted court proceedings with displays of a temper, remained largely calm and controlled on the witness stand, to his attorneys' relief.

Zile's testimony, which opened his side of the trial, crystallized the defense team's version of events - that Christina had a seizure while Zile was spanking her for misbehaving and that he frantically tried to save her life.

"She was just like staring right through me," Zile recalled of the onset of the seizure around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994.

"I thought she was going to fall so I grabbed her. She was making like a clawing motion. Her teeth were locked down on her tongue."

When he attempted artificial respiration, Zile said, Christina vomited into his mouth.

"She was still like trying to claw herself," he told the packed courtroom.

Christina's heartbeat slowed, then stopped, Zile said.

"All's I seen was a blank stare, just a continuous blank stare," he said. "I didn't feel a pulse or anything. At this point I thought she wasn't alive anymore. I panicked. I didn't know what to do."

Zile said he took her into the bathroom and sprinkled water on her face in a last, desperate attempt to revive her. He then laid her on a bed "like she was going to sleep."

"I went out to the dining room, cried, prayed that she would wake up in the morning," he said, weeping. Zile later buried her behind a Tequesta shopping center.

The episode at the Ziles' Singer Island apartment began, Zile said, while he was questioning Christina about prior misbehavior and the girl defecated in front of him. He asked for an explanation.

"At that time she told me she felt like it," Zile testified.

Prosecutors say Zile spanked and slapped Christina, then covered her mouth to muffle her screams. Medical examiner Dr. James Benz has testified that the girl died of suffocation.

Defense attorneys Craig Wilson and Ed O'Hara are expected to call medical witnesses today who will support Zile's contention that Christina, who was 7, suffered from seizures.

Zile said Wednesday that Christina experienced an earlier seizure after he sent her to her room, again for misbehaving.

"Fifteen or 20 minutes later I heard a thump," he testified. "She was doing exactly what she did the night she died - clawing slowly."

Cupp said later the state's case isn't in jeopardy even if jurors believe Christina suffered a seizure.

"Under the law, if what he (Zile) did materially contributed to her death during the course of committing a felony (aggravated child abuse), it's still first-degree murder," Cupp said.

Rape details changed

\ In his testimony Wednesday, Zile denied ever slapping his stepdaughter on the face, contradicting testimony from a police detective who testified that Zile admitted slapping her just before she died.

Zile did admit hitting Christina with a belt to discipline her, and he recalled becoming so angry with her the night she died that "I had even reached the asinine point of flicking my fingers on her lips when she lied to me."

Much of Zile's frustration was focused on Christina's practice of shifting details of her claim she had been raped while living with other relatives in Maryland before moving in with her stepfather and mother, Pauline Zile, in June 1994.

"I was concerned she was changing her story," Zile testified. "I believed it had happened, I just didn't know who it was."

Zile first began weeping when he recalled briefly leaving Christina alone in a dangerous area of West Palm Beach after the girl threatened to run away.

"I wasn't trying to be cruel to her," he said. "I was trying to teach her a lesson."

On cross-examination, Cupp characterized Zile as a callous abuser who "hacked off" his stepdaughter's hair to punish her and beat her so badly he felt compelled to remove her from school, where people would have noticed her bruises.

"You were afraid she was going to tell," Cupp said.

"That's not true," Zile answered.

Later, Cupp accused Zile of pawning his stepdaughter's bicycle and videotapes to erase all traces of her.

`She died'

\ "You destroy her, then you destroy her memory," Cupp said.

"That's not true," Zile responded again.

Twice, Zile interrupted Cupp after the prosecutor characterized Christina's death as a murder.

"Christina was not murdered - she died," Zile said with a trace of anger.

He told Cupp he didn't call 911 after Christina collapsed because "I was worried about my family."

"I had just lost my stepdaughter, whom I loved," Zile told Cupp. "I didn't want to lose the rest of my family."

Cupp described Zile's performance as factually unconvincing.

"A lot of what he said doesn't agree with his own taped statement and it's not going to jibe with what the investigators say," Cupp said.

O'Hara conceded that he and Wilson, Zile's other attorney, sweated through their client's 90 minutes on the witness stand.

"Our concern was whether he could handle the pressure," O'Hara said.

But Zile's testimony clarified the defense team's main message, that while Zile may have badly handled the problems posed by Christina's behavior - behavior that included inappropriate sexual activity with Zile's youngest son - he is not guilty of murder.

"He's hopeful that people will see it from his perspective," O'Hara said.

Zile, 34, faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder. He also is charged with four counts of aggravated child abuse.

His wife, Pauline, Christina's mother, was convicted last year of first-degree murder for doing nothing to prevent her daughter's death.

Testimony at Zile's trial could conclude this week, but defense attorneys plan to ask Circuit Judge Roger Colton to delay closing arguments until next week so jurors may avoid sequestration at a hotel over the weekend, O'Hara said.

ZILE EMOTIONAL ON STAND
THROUGH TEARS, ANGER, HE DENIES ACCUSAL OF `MURDER'
Sun-Sentinel
May 9, 1996
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

The use of the word "murdered" by a prosecutor irked John Zile on Wednesday as he told a jury his version of how his 7-year-old stepdaughter collapsed into convulsions and choked to death.

"She died," Zile snapped after Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp used "murdered" while asking about Christina Holt's last night alive.

Minutes later, Zile shot back at Cupp when the prosecutor used the word again.

"Mr. Cupp, Christina Holt was not murdered. She died," Zile said.

In tears one moment and calmly defiant the next, Zile, 34, was the first witness called by the defense on Wednesday in Palm Beach County Circuit Court
During nearly two hours of testimony, Zile said he loved Christina and denied beating the girl, causing her to convulse and die of asphyxia.

In court sat his mother, Patricia Zile, who calmed a weeping relative seated to her left.

John Zile faces a possible death sentence if convicted of first-degree murder and four counts of aggravated child abuse.

Under questioning by defense attorney Craig Wilson, Zile, the ninth-grade graduate and former restaurant worker said on Wednesday that Christina died unexpectedly around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994.

The death occurred as he was questioning her about his suspicions that Christina had sexually abused her younger half-brother, he said.

Christina, he said, defecated, so he ordered her to take a bath. When she was done, the questioning began again.

Angry because of her lies, Zile said he began "flicking her lips" with his fingers. Suddenly, Christina went into a seizure, falling to the floor.

"She had this stare," he said. "I thought she would stare right through me. All I saw was the continual blank stare."

His attempts to administer CPR were hampered by Christina's locked jaws, Zile testified.

When he tried to revive her in a tub of water, as he had during a seizure a week before her death, Christina did not respond. Then, her heart stopped.

"I panicked. I didn't know what to do," Zile said, wiping away tears.

The next day, he hid Christina's body in a closet to keep his sons, Chad, 5, and Daniel, 3, from seeing their dead half-sister. Days later, he buried her behind a Kmart in Tequesta.

Zile broke down in tears again as he testified how he and his wife decided in February 1994 to give up their son, born on Oct. 9, 1994, for adoption. "We knew we couldn't provide for Daniel, Chad, Christina and our newborn son," he said.

Zile's tears disappeared, however, when the prosecutor stepped to the lectern.

Cupp said Zile fatally beat Christina, causing her lips and mouth to bleed and bruises to form on her face and body. Zile denied he beat or slapped her.

When Cupp asked how Christina sustained bruises to her face and body, Zile said, "post mortem," echoing the testimony he heard last week from a medical examiner.

Cupp said Zile had been physically abusing Christina for weeks, forcing her to be kept home from school to hide her injuries.

"She was starting to look bad," Cupp said.

"That had nothing to do with it," Zile said.

"You were afraid she was going to tell," Cupp said.

"That's not true," Zile said.

The prosecutor wanted to know why Zile pawned Christina's bicycle and Hooked on Phonics tapes when they were paid more than $5,000 for the adoption.

"You destroy her, then you set out to destroy her memory," Cupp said.

"That's not true," Zile said again.

Zile said he loved Christina and wanted her to be a part of his family.

Cupp asked Zile why he did not call for help on the night she died.

"Have you heard of 911?" Cupp asked.

"Yes I have," Zile said.

"John, you were a little worried about your hide," Cupp said.

"I was worried about my family," Zile said. "I had just lost my stepdaughter, whom I loved. I didn't want to lose my family."

The trial continues today.

A RIVETING DAY AT THE TRIAL OF JOHN ZILE
'IT WASN'T MURDER'
Miami Herald, The (FL)
May 9, 1996
Author: LORI ROZSA Herald Staff Writer

Quivering and sobbing, John Zile tried to explain to a jury Wednesday what happened the night his stepdaughter died.
"It wasn't murder," he said again and again. "She died."

The bruises on the face of 7-year-old Christina Holt, he testified, didn't come from him. "Post mortem" is when they happened.

Zile, 34, charged with first-degree murder and trying to keep out of the electric chair, testified for 90 minutes. Jurors stared in rapt attention.

For days they heard him depicted as a sadistic bully who terrorized Christina with brutal punishments until the moment she died. Then he buried her behind a shopping center and concocted a kidnapping hoax to explain her disappearance.

His unexpected appearance on the stand came a day after jurors heard his taped confession. In it, Zile sounded clinical and detached as he matter-of-factly told detectives that the child lied and misbehaved and he was disciplining her when she had a seizure and died.

Wednesday, in contrast, Zile was alive with emotion.

His voice cracked and his eyes welled with tears as he looked into the faces of the jury and described the events of the night of Sept. 16, 1994.

It was near midnight, Zile recalled, and Christina was still awake. He called her to the living room of their tiny Singer Island apartment to have yet another talk about her misbehavior -- she was lying, acting up, sexually molesting her young stepbrothers, he said.

"I was frantic at this point. I'd tried just about everything, talking to her, making her write 'I won't act up, I won't lie.' I had spanked her," Zile said.

"I had even at one point, did the asinine thing of flicking my fingers on her lips when she lied to me."

She soiled her pants as he lectured her. He told her to take a bath, then he dressed her in fresh pajamas.

"I asked her why she defecated in front of me, and she told me she felt like it. I got upset," Zile said.

Staring strangely

Then he noticed her staring strangely. "She was just staring right through me," he said. "I thought she was dizzy, I thought she might fall."

Then she started "clawing at herself," Zile said, moving his hands across his chest to demonstrate. She clenched her teeth, and bit down on her tongue.

He tried smelling salts and tried putting her in a cold bath. He thought it was an epileptic fit, like one she had a few weeks earlier. Christina wasn't diagnosed with epilepsy, but her mother Pauline suffered from it.

"All I saw was that blank stare. There no noise or anything. I didn't hear her heartbeat, I checked her pulse, I didn't feel a pulse."

"I put her to bed, like she was going to sleep," Zile said, weeping. "I went out in the living room and cried, praying she would wake up. I went in and checked on her, to see if she was awake.

"She wasn't awake. She was dead."

Wrapped her in blanket

The next day, he said, he wrapped her in a blanket and
put her body in a closet, so his sons Chad, 3, and Daniel, 5, wouldn't see her. Four days later, he buried her behind the Tequesta Kmart.

A month later, to cover her absence, he and his wife told an elaborate abduction story that fooled police and the public for a while, until blood stains were found in their apartment.

Christina, his wife's daughter by another man, lived with them only three months. His wife was pregnant, but they decided to give the baby boy up for adoption because they couldn't handle four children.

"I thought everything was going well," Zile said. "She was bonding with us, she became a big sister to Daniel and Chad."

Then school started. Christina thought she was just in Florida for a summer vacation, Zile said, and she wanted to go back to her friends in Maryland, where her grandparents had raised her for most of her life.

Zile said Christina "acted up" in school, and at home. As punishment for pouring a bottle of Pert shampoo down the drain, he took away her pink bike. His wife pawned it for $10.

Pawned video tapes

They pawned some of the 70 video tapes her grandparents had sent her. They pawned her Hooked on Phonics set. They made her stand in the corner.

"We wanted her to be with us, we just wanted her to be good, to be a happy family" Zile said, tearfully. "At the time, she said she wanted to so I took her back home."

Prosecutor Scott Cupp said Zile couldn't have cared much for the little girl because he buried the body and didn't tell anyone, not even her mother, where it was.

"You destroyed her, so you set out to destroy her memory, too," Cupp said.

"That's not true," Zile replied.

"You ever hear of 911?" Cupp asked.

"Yes."

"Isn't it true that when she died, nobody was with her who gave a damn about her?" Cupp asked.

"We all gave a damn about her, Mr. Cupp," Zile said defiantly.

ZILE DEFENSE ASSERTS SEIZURE KILLED CHRISTINA
The Palm Beach Post
May 10, 1996
Author: GARY KANE
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Defense attorneys presented hours of medical testimony Thursday in an attempt to bolster their contention that a seizure, not her stepfather, killed Christina Holt.

In sharp contrast to the dramatic testimony of the accused on the previous day, the trial downshifted into clinical descriptions of seizure disorders, asphyxiation and larynx spasms.
John Zile, charged with first-degree murder in the death of the 7-year-old child, listened attentively as his attorneys framed their seizure defense with testimony about the reported epilepsy of Pauline Zile, the girl's mother.

It's a connection that prosecutors were quick to attack.

``Whether Mrs. Zile did or didn't (have seizures) is totally irrelevant,'' said Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp. He plans to call two doctors and the child's grandmother to the witness stand to testify that the child had no history of seizures.

Zile has testified that his stepdaughter seemed to suffer a seizure on Sept. 16, 1994, while he spanked her for misbehaving. He said he frantically tried to revive her and panicked when his efforts seemed to fail.

Pathologist Michael Arnall, laboratory director at Glades General Hospital, testified Thursday that Zile's account of the child's death is consistent with the findings of the autopsy. Food particles found in Holt's lungs and air passages tend to support Zile's testimony that he tried to save the child with cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

An autopsy cannot identify a seizure, which essentially is a malfunction of the brain's electrical activity, he said.

Psychologist Stephen Alexander testified that he learned that Pauline Zile was taking medication to prevent seizures when he examined her jail medical records. She was sentenced to life in prison last year after being convicted of murder for doing nothing to prevent her daughter's death.

The defense produced no witness to testify to any genetic link that would support their argument that the child suffered a seizure at the time of her death. Attorney Craig Wilson indicated that such testimony might come from a rebuttal witness.

Defense attorneys said they expect to rest their case today.

DEFENSE OFFERS THEORIES ON GIRL'S DEATH
MEDICAL EXPERT CITES THREE SCENARIOS IN ZILE'S MURDER TRIAL
Sun-Sentinel
May 10, 1996
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

A defense medical expert on Thursday outlined three possible ways John Zile's stepdaughter may have died, including one that has Zile inadvertently killing the girl while trying to revive her.

Michael F. Arnall, a pathologist and lab director at Glades General Hospital, helped bolster the defense assertion that Christina Holt, 7, did not die as a result of Zile's beating
During testimony on Wednesday, Zile, 34, told the jury that Christina died on Sept. 16, 1994, after convulsing and vomiting. He denied hitting her on the face and head and said attempts to revive her were hampered by her clenched jaw. Arnall said Zile's description of what occurred is "consistent with a seizure" but said autopsies alone cannot make that determination.

"Most individuals who die of a seizure have no finding at an autospy," Arnall testified. "It's based on eyewitness accounts."

Arnall's testimony came on the ninth day of Zile's first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse trial in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. If convicted, he faces a life sentence.

His wife, Pauline, 25, is serving a life sentence after being convicted last year of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for failing to protect her daughter.

Palm Beach County Medical Examiner James Benz, who conducted the autopsy on Christina, testified last week that the girl died of asphyxiation due to multiple head trauma.

But Arnall said on Thursday his review of the autopsy found no head trauma injuries that would have brought on the seizure.

Food particles found in her respiratory tract and lungs indicate she choked on her vomit, he said.

Christina's seizure and clenched teeth also could have caused her to asphyxiate, he said.

Arnall's second theory was that Zile's attempts to revive his stepdaughter could have caused her to choke.

Zile told the jury on Wednesday he tried to clear her airway by pushing on Christina's stomach, then by giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

In doing so, Arnall told the jury, Zile may have inadvertently pushed food and vomit into the girl's airway. The subsequent mouth-to-mouth resuscitation could have forced food particles into her lungs, causing her to asphyxiate.

As Benz found in his autopsy, Arnall said the advanced decomposition of Christina's body prevented him from determining whether her bruises occurred before or after death. He said the spots that appear to be bruises could be discoloration caused by the gravitational pull of blood after death.

Arnall's third theory came out as prosecutor Scott Cupp questioned him about statements John Zile made to police that he covered Christina's mouth with his hand or a towel to muffle her screams as he beat her.

The pathologist conceded that was another possibility that could have caused asphyxiation.

The defense also called Philip Buttaravoli, an emergency room doctor at Palm Beach County Medical Center.

Buttaravoli agreed that John Zile's attempts to revive Christina could have caused asphyxiation. If the girl was having a seizure, there would be no need to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he said.

The trial continues today, with the defense expected to rest its case.

ZILE JURY MAY BE TOLD TO DISREGARD COVERUP
The Palm Beach Post
May 11, 1996
Author: GARY KANE
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Jurors heard scant testimony about the nighttime burial of young Christina Holt and the scheme concocted to explain her disappearance.

Now the judge presiding at the trial of her accused killer might instruct the jury to virtually disregard all evidence of the coverup, a plot which brought the case to national attention.
Attorneys defending John Zile, 34, the child's stepfather, asked Circuit Judge Roger Colton on Friday to issue special instructions to jurors barring them from considering the coverup in their deliberations on the first-degree murder charge against their client.

And Colton said he is inclined to go along with the request.

"Certainly, it's relevant," the judge said of the coverup evidence. "But I'm trying to convey to the jury that Mr. Zile isn't charged with anything involving a coverup."

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp objects to the proposed jury instruction. He argued that coverup evidence provides the jury insight into Zile's motive, state of mind and credibility.

"It has relevance or it would have been inadmissible," he said.

Jurors are aware of Zile's efforts to secretly dispose of the child's body after her death on Sept. 16, 1994. They saw the items used to wrap the body before Zile buried her near a Tequesta Kmart in the dark of night. They have heardZile's statement to investigators in which he discusses devising the story that the child was snatched by a stranger while visiting a Fort Lauderdale flea market with her mother.

But prosecutors never pounced on the coverup. By making it a "feature" of the case, they would risk a mistrial or a certain appeal, Cupp explained. Appellate courts have overturned guilty verdicts on the basis of jurors being overly influenced by elaborate and grisly coverups, he said.

"The issue is how far you go," he said about presenting coverup evidence to jurors. "It becomes a problem when it rises to the level where it overcomes the emotions of the jury."

The coverup invented by Zile and his wife sparked a nationwide search that included participation by the FBI and the Adam Walsh Center, which distributed 5,000 fliers about the missing girl. The case later drew comparisons to that of Susan Smith, who stirred racial tensions with a story about the abduction of her two sons in South Carolina. She was later convicted of drowning the boys.

Cupp said he presented nearly as much evidence about the coverup in Zile's trial as was used in the prosecution of his wife, Pauline Zile, who was convicted of first-degree murder last year and sentenced to life in prison.

In a separate matter Friday, Zile's defense rested - at least as far as the judge was concerned. In a rare move, Colton declared the defense's case closed, although attorney Craig Wilson argued that he needed more time to deflect the prosecution's attack against Zile's insistence that the child's death was precipitated by a seizure.

Defense attorneys contend that Zile accidentally caused Christina's death by improperly using cardiopulmonary resuscitation to bring her out of a seizure. They maintain that the child suffered the seizure while being spanked and disciplined by Zile.

Prosecutors argue that the child had no history of seizures.

The trial will continue Monday.

JUDGE HALTS TESTIMONY IN ZILE'S DEFENSE
Sun-Sentinel
May 11, 1996
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

John Zile's attorneys watched in stunned silence.

In an unusual move, a judge on Friday announced to jurors in Zile's murder and child abuse trial that the defense was resting its case.

"The court has considered the defense to have rested at this time. The state will begin its rebuttal," Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton told the jury
On Thursday, defense attorney Craig Wilson had said he intended to rest his case the next morning. But on Friday, Wilson decided that the defense needed more time to find a genetic expert who may be able to tell the jury that Zile's stepdaughter, Christina Holt, 7, could have had a seizure disorder because her mother is epileptic.

The defense contends that Christina died as a result of a seizure. The prosecution has countered that Zile, 34, beat the girl on Sept. 16, 1994, covered her mouth to muffle her screams and caused her to convulse and die.

Wilson argued unsuccessfully on Friday that the rebuttal witnesses prosecutors intend to call include two of Christina's Maryland doctors who are expected to testify that they never treated Christina for a seizure disorder.

He also maintained that prosecutors raised the epilepsy issue on Wednesday when they questioned Zile about whether he knew his wife, Pauline, 25, was epileptic, and that's why he needed time to find a genetics expert.

But Assistant State Attorney Maryann Duggan maintained that Wilson did not need more time to find a genetics expert because the defense had deposed Christina's doctors more than a year ago and knew what their testimony would cover. She added that the defense can call their expert during their rebuttal case.

Legal experts on Friday said Colton's ruling was unusual, but one said it was not unheard of.

"Judges have the discretion to do it," said criminal defense lawyer John Tierney, who had a federal case where the same action was taken.

But Jim Eisenberg, a criminal lawyer for 19 years, was surprised to hear of the judge's ruling. "I've never heard or known of that happening," he said.

Eisenberg said Zile's defense attorneys may have refused to rest as part of a legal strategy. "Maybe these lawyers want to preserve the issue for appeal," he said.

Richard Lubin, a criminal defense lawyer, said he has had judges force him to rest when a witness was not available, but never had a judge rest for him in front of the jury. He said the judge's ruling shouldn't be a problem for the defense because they can present their expert during their rebuttal.

The state began its rebuttal case on Friday after Colton announced the defense had rested.

David Muller, 39, the former owner of Dave's Pawn Shop, testified that Zile brought Christina into his business in the summer of 1994 and she began to act up.

"The defendant said, `Knock it off or you're going to end up going back to Tamarind Avenue again,'" Muller said.

Muller's testimony corroborated that of a witness who told the jury last week that Zile took the girl to Tamarind Avenue, a high-crime area in West Palm Beach. He did so, the woman said, to scare Christina, who had threatened to run away.

On Wednesday, Zile conceded he had tried to "teach her lesson" by threatening to dump her on Tamarind Avenue, but denied he ever took her to Muller's pawn shop.

James Welsh, a pediatrician from Gaithersburg, Md., said he treated Christina six times from 1988 to June 1994. "This child has not had seizure activity during our time with her," he said.

But Welsh told Wilson that epilepsy can be passed on to children genetically by parents who have the illness. He said it was possible Christina could have had a seizure on the night she died even though she never had one before. On Monday, prosecutors are expected to call at least one more rebuttal witness, Christina's family doctor, who also disputes Christina had epilepsy.

Defense attorneys will be allowed to present a brief rebuttal, and closing arguments could begin. The jury is not expected to begin deliberations until Tuesday.

If convicted, Zile faces a possible death sentence. Pauline Zile, convicted last year of first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for failing to protect her child, is serving a life sentence.

1 CHILD ABUSE CHARGE DISMISSED IN ZILE CASE
The Palm Beach Post
May 14, 1996
Author: VAL ELLICOTT
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

One of the five charges against John Zile was thrown out Monday after a judge ruled that removing a child from school is not necessarily a manifestation of abuse.

Prosecutors had argued that Zile refused to allow his stepdaughter, Christina Holt, to attend elementary school in 1994 as a means of punishing the girl.
If Christina had not been pulled from her second-grade class at Jupiter Farms Elementary School after attending only a few days, prosecutor Scott Cupp argued, ``she would be alive today.''

But Circuit Judge Roger Colton said Zile's motives might have been more benign. ``I just struggle with the idea of keeping someone out of school with the idea of home teaching,'' he said.

Colton dismissed one count of aggravated child abuse against Zile but rejected defense arguments that other counts be dismissed. Zile remains charged with first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse.

Jurors will hear closing arguments in the case today and will begin deliberating Wednesday. After they begin, they will be sequestered at a hotel every night until they reach a verdict.

If jurors reject acquittal, they may convict Zile of first-degree murder under two possible theories - that he planned to kill his stepdaughter or that he killed her during the commission of another felony, aggravated child abuse.

Or they could decide Zile is guilty of a lesser crime - second-degree murder or third-degree murder or manslaughter.

Prosecutors say Zile began hitting and spanking Christina, 7, around midnight on Sept. 16, 1994, at the family's Singer Island apartment, then covered her mouth to muffle her screams. They say Christina suffocated.

Defense attorneys contend Zile accidentally caused Christina's death by improperly using cardiopulmonary resuscitation in an attempt to revive the girl after she had a seizure while he was disciplining her.

Zile, 34, faces the death penalty if jurors convict him of first-degree murder.

The final witness at the trial, Katherine Nicholas, testified Monday for the defense. Nicholas, a clerk at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office who records pawn shop receipts, said her records show Zile did not pawn anything at Dave's Pawn in Riviera Beach during 1994. Her testimony was an attempt to counter testimony from the pawnshop's former owner, David Muller, that he overheard Zile threaten Christina in the pawnshop.

Also Monday, Colton said he will tell jurors to disregard any evidence that Zile participated, on certain days, in the hoax that Christina had been kidnapped from a swap shop in Broward County, Cupp said. He said Colton's ruling applies to the specific dates that Pauline Zile, Zile's wife and Christina's mother, played the lead role in perpetrating the kidnapping hoax. Pauline Zile was convicted of murder last year for doing nothing to prevent her daughter's death.

ZILE MURDER TRIAL WINDING TO A CONCLUSION
CLOSING ARGUMENTS, DELIBERATIONS AND VERDICT REMAIN
Sun-Sentinel
May 14, 1996
Author: MIKE FOLKS Staff Writer

After two weeks of sometimes emotional testimony, the murder trial of John Zile is nearing a close.

There are only three things left: closing arguments, which begin today; jury deliberations, which begin on Wednesday; and then the verdict.

In closing arguments - about six hours in all - both sides take their last shot at trying to sell their case
Prosecutors are expected to hammer away at Zile's confession to police.

In that confession, Zile, 34, admitted that he beat stepdaughter Christina Holt, 7, and held his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. That action, prosecutors will argue, caused Christina to choke on her vomit and die of asphyxiation. That action, they say, is first-degree murder and child abuse.

They want Zile to die in the electric chair.

The defense will likely counter that the girl suffered a seizure, and that's what caused her to convulse and die. Or, they will say, Zile, 34, inadvertently killed Christina during a failed attempt to give her cardiopulmonary resuscitation after she had a seizure and he tried to revive her. Either way, they say, Christina Holt's death was an accident.

On Monday, the last of the business was wrapped up as prosecutors rested without calling their last witness. The defense called one witness in its rebuttal case before they, too, rested. After that, Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Roger Colton ruled on a defense motion to acquit Zile of all charges. Colton dismissed one count of aggravated child abuse, which had to do with keeping his stepdaughter home from school. Colton agreed with the defense that the state failed to prove that Zile committed the crime of aggravated child abuse, but he declined to issue acquittals for charges of first-degree murder and three remaining aggravated child abuse counts.

Throughout the 11-day trial, prosecutors have maintained that Zile kept Christina home from school to hide her injuries - the result of Zile beating the girl with his hand and a belt in the week before her death.

In acquitting Zile on the charge, Colton cited Zile's trial testimony that Christina was kept home because she had become a behavior problem and that they intended to educate her through home schooling.

That evidence, Colton said, did not give rise to aggravated child abuse spelled out in state statutes, which requires proof that the abuse was malicious punishment and willful torture.

In April 1995, another judge acquitted Zile's wife, Pauline, 25, of the same charge for similar reasons. Days later, she was convicted of first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse and is now serving a life sentence.

"Any small thing helps," Ed O'Hara, one of Zile's defense attorneys, said on Monday of Colton's dismissal of the charge. "I think it's appropriate."

Assistant State Attorney Scott Cupp said he was surprised the judge ruled for the acquittal.

"We had a lot more evidence," Cupp said, citing Zile's statement to police that he and Pauline kept her home from school after several beatings. Zile told police that he had beat Christina for defecating in a closet, sexually abusing her younger stepbrother, lying about being sexually abused in Maryland, where she had previously lived with relatives, and for pouring a bottle of shampoo down the drain.

In Pauline Zile's case, Cupp said, the jury was not allowed to hear John Zile's confession because the couple were being tried separately.

"If anyone else had done this - taken this child out of school and hid her away - they could be charged with kidnapping. You can't charge a parent with kidnapping. We felt that charging aggravated child abuse would be appropriate," Cupp said.

Colton's ruling came after prosecutors rested their case without calling a second doctor who would have testified that Christina did not suffer from seizure disorders while he cared for her in Maryland.

Cupp said they did not call the second doctor because Christina's pediatrician, who testified last week, firmly established that the girl had never been treated for seizure disorders.

The defense, which put on a brief rebuttal as well, called a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy who testified that she found no records to indicate that John Zile had ever pawned anything in Dave's Pawn Shop in Riviera Beach. The pawn shop owner testified last week that Zile brought Christina to his store and threatened to dump her on Tamarind Avenue, a high-crime area in West Palm Beach, if she did not stop misbehaving.

Minutes later, the defense rested, without calling a genetic specialist who could have testified that because Pauline Zile was epileptic, Christina could have inherited the condition genetically.

O'Hara said the defense had found several genetic specialists who could have testified that Christina could have inherited the seizure disorder, but they had no definitive proof.

Also on Monday, the judge ruled the jury may consider lesser charges than first-degree murder, including second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter.

Colton also ruled that the jury will be told that John Zile had never been charged with a crime arising from a "coverup" in October 1994 at the Swap Shop west of Fort Lauderdale.

Colton will send the jury home after closing arguments today, and deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday morning.

ZILE JURY WILL HEAR HOURS OF CLOSING ARGUMENTS TODAY
Miami Herald, The (FL)
May 14, 1996
Author: Herald Palm Beach Bureau

The jury in the John Zile murder case will hear closing arguments today -- as much as six hours worth -- before beginning deliberations on the fate of the accused child killer.
Zile, 34, is charged with first-degree murder and three counts of aggravated child abuse in the September 1994 death of his stepdaughter, Christina Holt. Christina was 7 when she died, and had lived with Zile and her mother, Pauline Zile, for only three months.

Pauline Zile was convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse last year, and is serving a life sentence.

As in Pauline Zile's case, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Roger Colton threw out one count of child abuse against her husband. Prosecutors had considered the parents yanking Christina from school after only a few days as child abuse.

Colton told the prosecution and defense teams that they would have up to three hours each to sum up their case. The trial is in its third week. The prosecution maintains that Zile mistreated Christina, beating her until she choked on her own vomit and died. Defense attorneys say she died from a seizure. If Zile is convicted of first-degree murder, prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty.