Arizona Father Faces First-Degree Murder Charges in Toddler’s Hot Car Death

Shame-faced Father Charged with First-Degree Murder

Christo­pher Scholtes, a 37-year-old Ari­zona man, faced a somber first court appear­ance after being charged with first-degree mur­der in the death of his 2‑year-old daugh­ter, Parker. 

The charges were esca­lat­ed from the ini­tial sec­ond-degree mur­der arrest, indi­cat­ing pros­e­cu­tors believe the father inten­tion­al­ly killed his child.

Tragic Incident in the Scorching Arizona Heat

On July 6th, tem­per­a­tures reached a swel­ter­ing 109°F in Marana, Ari­zona. Scholtes alleged­ly left his tod­dler daugh­ter unat­tend­ed in his car for over three hours while he played video games inside their home.

When his wife, a med­ical doc­tor, returned from work and dis­cov­ered Park­er unre­spon­sive, the child was rushed to the hos­pi­tal but trag­i­cal­ly pro­nounced dead.

Damning Evidence and Heartbreaking Text Messages

Neigh­bor­hood sur­veil­lance footage obtained by police showed Scholtes’ car arriv­ing home around 12:50 pm, con­tra­dict­ing his claim that he arrived at 2:30 pm. 

Text mes­sages between the cou­ple also revealed the wife’s des­per­ate pleas, with Eri­ka Scholtes berat­ing her hus­band for repeat­ed­ly leav­ing their chil­dren in the car, say­ing “I told you to stop leav­ing them in the car. How many times have I told you?”

Facing Potential Life Sentence

Scholtes is now fac­ing a first-degree mur­der charge, which car­ries a poten­tial life sen­tence in Ari­zona. While the state allows for the death penal­ty, the Pima Coun­ty Attor­ney typ­i­cal­ly does not seek it in such cas­es. The trag­ic case has sparked out­rage over the care­less actions that led to the young girl’s untime­ly death.