An Arizona father who left his 2-year-old daughter to die in a hot car while he played a PlayStation is facing tougher charges.
Christopher Scholtes, 37, is said to have abandoned his daughter, Parker Scholtes, 2, in their blue 2023 Honda Acura SUV to take a three-hour nap while playing video games.
On Thursday, August 1, a grand jury indicted the father on charges of first-degree murder and child abuse.
Parker was found dead in the car outside the family’s home in Marana, north of Tucson, around 4:15 p.m. on July 9. Arizona. The Pima County coroner said the girl’s body temperature rose to 42.4°C when emergency services arrived.
Marana police previously charged Scholtes with second-degree murder for the July 9 death of his daughter. Initially, his daughter’s death was ruled an “accident.”
Christopher Scholtes, 37, was charged with first-degree murder and child abuse in Parker’s death. He is seen with Parker, her two older sisters and his wife Erika
Parker Scholtes, 2, died in a hot car outside her home after reportedly being left there for three hours
The complaint alleges that Scholtes’ other two children, ages 9 and 5, stated that their father habitually left the three children unattended in the vehicle, according to COLD.
They claimed he was playing a video game and packing food when their sister was left in the car.
Scholtes told police he left Parker in her car seat in the car, with the engine running and the air conditioning on, because he didn’t want to wake her.
He claimed she was there less than an hour after they arrived home, but CCTV footage showed she had been in direct sunlight for more than three hours, according to a criminal complaint obtained by DailyMail.com.
His wife, Erika Scholtes, a doctor at the hospital where Parker was pronounced dead, arrived home at 4:08 p.m. and asked where her daughter was, only to find her in the car, police said.
As Parker was being rushed to the hospital, she texted him, “I told you not to leave them in the car, how many times have I told you that.”
She later added: ‘We lost her, she was perfect.’
Scholtes’ two other children, ages nine and five, told police that Scholtes regularly left his three siblings alone in the car
Scholtes replied, ‘Honey, I’m sorry! How could I do this? I killed our baby, this can’t be real.’
Scholtes’ two other children, aged nine and five, told police that their father regularly left his three siblings alone in the car.
The children told police that Scholtes was “distracted by his playing and putting away his food,” the complaint said.
Police seized a PlayStation and other electronic devices as evidence.
The father of three told police he had left the air conditioning on in the Acura, but that he knew from previous experience that it would automatically turn off after about 30 minutes.
Scholetes told police he arrived home with Parker around 2:30 p.m., but surveillance footage from neighbors showed his car arriving at the house around 12:53 a.m.
According to emergency workers, Parker’s body temperature had reached 109.9 degrees Fahrenheit
Scholtes told police that when he got home, Parker (pictured together) was asleep in the backseat and he didn’t want to wake her, so he decided to leave her in the car, despite the extreme heat.
The cameras also showed that Scholtes never went outside to check on Parker until his wife came home and asked where she was, police said.
A few minutes later they found Parker unconscious in the back of the car and at 4:16 p.m. 911 was called, when the temperature was 108 degrees Fahrenheit.
Erika Scholtes, an anesthesiologist, called her daughter’s death a “big mistake” and begged a Tucson judge to reconsider the decision to keep her husband in custody until his next hearing in August.
The judge granted the doctor’s request and agreed to release him until his next hearing on Thursday so he could begin the “grieving process” with his family members.
Parker was seen earlier that same day in this blue Honda Acura SUV, which was behind police tape
Erika Scholtes, 35, works as an anesthetist in the same hospital where her daughter was rushed to on the day she died
“I just ask that you please let him come home so we can all begin the grieving process,” Erika said during a private appearance at her husband’s scheduled sentencing hearing.
She explained that it would be ‘so that he can bury our daughter with us this coming week, and [so] that we can get through this miserable process together as a family’.
“This was a huge mistake and I don’t think it suits him,” the mother of two continued.
“I just want the girls to see their father so I don’t have to tell them tonight that they’re going to have to deal with another loss.”
The defense then pointed out that Scholtes had no criminal record, apart from a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol from 15 years ago. He was also charged with assault, but the charge was dropped.