Inset: Christopher Scholtes (Pima County Sheriff's Office). Background: The scene outside the home where Scholtes' daughter died from being left in a hot car (KOLD).
A 38-year-old father in Arizona may spend decades behind bars for leaving his 2-year-old daughter to die in a hot car parked in front of their home while he was inside playing video games and performing online searches.
Christopher Scholtes reached a deal with prosecutors in the Pima County Attorney's Office in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of second-degree murder and one count of intentional or knowing child abuse under circumstances likely to cause death or serious physical injury, authorities announced.
According to prosecutors, the plea agreement stipulates that the sentences imposed by Judge Kimberly Ortiz will run consecutively and Scholtes "will face a sentencing range of 20 to 30 years of flat time (meaning he's not eligible for early release, he must serve the full sentence imposed by the court) in the Department of Corrections for murdering [Parker Scholtes] on July 9, 2024."
As Law&Crime previously reported, Scholtes earlier this year turned down a plea deal that would have required him to plead guilty to one count of second-degree murder and face between 10 and 25 years in prison.
Authorities said that Scholtes left Parker sleeping inside the family's 2023 Acura MDX that was parked in front of their home for several hours because he got "distracted" playing video games on his PlayStation and putting food away. It is also alleged that Scholtes regularly left the children in the car unattended.
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Prosecutors said that Scholtes arrived home at about 12:35 p.m. that day and left Parker in his vehicle. He asserted he did not want to wake her, so he left her in the car with the air conditioning on. Surveillance footage, however, did not sync up with his story, with investigators saying he actually arrived home at 12:53 p.m.
According to a report from the Arizona Daily Star, while on his way home from the doctor's office with Parker, Scholtes stopped at two convenience stores, went in alone, and shoplifted cans of beer from both, likely drinking consuming some of those cans in the restroom of one store.
After arriving home just before 1 p.m., Scholtes made his older daughters lunch, messaged with his wife about a Christmas vacation, and then "surfed the internet for men's clothing at Nordstrom and for pornography from 2:02 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.," per the report.
The wife, Erika Scholtes, who was a doctor at a nearby hospital, returned home from work at about 4 p.m. Police said she arrived to discover the vehicle was no longer running and the AC was off. The temperature that day reached a high of 109 degrees.
The child was rushed to the hospital by paramedics where she was declared dead at about 5 p.m. that day.
Erika Scholtes spoke on behalf of her husband at his bond hearing, saying their daughter's death was a mistake and did not "represent him," according to video obtained by Tucson NBC affiliate KVOA.
Court documents, however, state her text messages with her husband showed he left his children in the car unattended regularly.
"I told you to stop leaving them in the car, how many times have I told you," she texted him as she was driving Parker to the hospital, adding, "We've lost her. She was perfect."
Text messages between the couple in the weeks leading up to Parker's death also appeared to show a pattern of neglect from Scholtes. On March 11, Erika Scholtes reportedly texted him about drinking and driving with the kids in the car and his overall substance abuse.
"You haven't shown me you can stop putting the girls in danger or not treat me badly," she wrote in the message. "Even yesterday, you drove home drunk with two minors. You drink to excess every time. You can never have just one. I've been asking for three years to cut back and it's actually gotten worse."
When she accused him of replacing "cocaine with alcohol," he reportedly responded, "at least this one is legal, right?" before admitting to being "a piece of s— addict."
Just over a week later, Scholtes' wife texted him about driving 138 mph with their "baby in the car" and "alcohol in [his] system," per the Star.
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