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MICHELLE S. JACOBS

Pauline Zile allowed her daugter to die. During 7 year-old Christina Holt's terrifying last weeks of Iife, Pauline Zile wasn't a mother; she was a co-conspirator.1

I will never forget seeing Christina on the living room floor, nor her laying on the bed.2

INTRODUCTION

She was a sorrowful sight as she appeared before the nation on the evening news. A thin, modestly dressed woman with tired lines etched into her face. Every parent's worst nightmare had just come true for her. Her daughter disappeared that day from the bathroom in a flea market. Pauline Zile looked into the camera and sent her daughter a consoling message: "Mommy's going to find you. I love her. Her little brothers miss her so much. We want her to come home."4 She told her daughter not to be afraid and encouraged her, if she could, to try and find a way to call home.5

This is how the public was first introduced to Pauline Zile of Rivera Beach, Florida, whose seven-year-old daughter, Christina Holt, was reported missing on October 22, 1994.6 For three days, her neighbors, the police, and the public-at-large searched for Christina.' Fairly quickly after the announcement of little Christina's disappearance, however, suspicions about the veracity of Pauline Zile's disappearance report began to mount. A witness from the Swap Shop-the flea market where Pauline Zile first reported the disappearance-had some doubts about the missing child.8 An early report that the child had been found evoked a strange response from her mother. Even before it was confirmed that the child was not Christina, Pauline Zile had expressed doubt that the child was her daughter.9

All too soon, the public came to understand why Christina's mother was so sure she had not been found. Christina was dead and had been dead for a month before Pauline Zile appeared on television and reported her missing.10 She died during the course of a beating administered by John Zile, her stepfather.11 To stifle Christina's cries during the beating, he covered her mouth.l2 She choked to death on her own vomit.ls Her body lay hidden in a bedroom closet for several days before John Zile buried her in a field behind a K-Mart store in Tequesta, Florida.'4 Pauline Zile's...

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