A tragic incident unfolded when a two-year-old girl succumbed to extreme heat exposure after being inadvertently left in a sweltering car. The child’s father, Christopher Scholtes, aged 38, had unknowingly left his daughter, Parker, inside the vehicle for an extended period upon their return home. Scholtes had presumed she was resting comfortably with the car’s air conditioning running. The distressing discovery was made by Scholtes’ wife, an anaesthesiologist, who returned from work around 4 pm and inquired about their daughter’s whereabouts, prompting Scholtes to rush outside to investigate.
The unfortunate event took place on a scorching day in July last year, with temperatures reaching a searing 43 degrees Celsius in the Arizona neighborhood where the family resided. Tragically, on the day Scholtes was expected to surrender himself following a plea agreement, he was found deceased.
Scholtes acknowledged to law enforcement that he was aware of leaving his young daughter in the car, attributing the oversight to a deviation from his usual practice of parking in the garage due to obstructing exercise equipment. Testimony from Scholtes’ two other children, aged nine and five, revealed a concerning pattern of the children being frequently left unattended in the vehicle by Scholtes.
Investigators uncovered that Scholtes had been preoccupied with leisure activities, including consuming alcohol, engaging in video games, and viewing mature content while his daughter languished inside the overheated car. Although Scholtes initially claimed the child had been alone in the car for approximately 30 minutes, surveillance footage contradicted his account, showing a three-hour gap between his return home and his wife’s inquiry about their missing daughter.
Upon discovering the motionless child still secured in her car seat, the couple rushed her to the hospital, but tragically, Parker did not survive. An autopsy disclosed a body temperature of 42.72 degrees Celsius when emergency responders found the young girl unresponsive, determining her cause of death as accidental due to environmental heat exposure.
Scholtes initially contended that he had left his daughter in the car with the air conditioning running for a brief period while she napped after a shopping trip, only to realize later that the car’s system would automatically shut off after 30 minutes. Bodycam footage captured Scholtes visibly distressed at the scene, expressing his anguish to the authorities.
Text message exchanges between Scholtes and his wife indicated prior warnings about leaving the children unattended in the car, with his wife lamenting the loss of their daughter due to his actions. Subsequently, Scholtes accepted a plea deal, confessing to second-degree murder and child abuse charges. However, before surrendering to authorities as planned, he was discovered deceased in a residence in a northern Phoenix suburb.
The plea agreement stipulated a maximum prison sentence of 30 years for both charges, with a sentencing hearing scheduled for November 21.