A dad who was charged with murder after his two-year-old daughter died when he left her in a hot car was allegedly playing on his Playstation at the time.
Christopher Scholtes, 37, who is a father of three from Arizona, claimed he only left Parker sleeping inside his 2023 Acura MDX car for 30 minutes after getting back from shopping because he did not want to wake her up.
However, court documents claim that Parker was left in the car for over three hours while Christopher played games on his Playstation until his horrified wife came home to find their daughter dead.
Newly-released court documents show that Christopher claimed to police that he had arrived to their home in the Tucson suburb of Marana at around 2:30PM and parked the car outside because the garage was full of exercise equipment.
He claimed he forgot his daughter was still in her car seat until his wife arrived home at 4:00PM and found her dead.
However, surveillance footage reviewed by police showed that he arrived outside the home shortly after 12:30PM, meaning Parker was left in the car in 109 degree temperatures for over three hours, according to reports from KPLC.
According to a complaint filed in the case, as reported by the New York Post, Christopher had “got distracted playing his game and putting his food away”.
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The couple’s other two children also reportedly told police that their dad regularly left all three of them alone in the car while he was in the house.
Text messages were also shared between Christopher and his anaesthesiologist wife, Erika Scholtes, which appeared to corroborate the claim that it was not the first time their children had been left in the car.
According to reports from KPLC-TV News, Erika sent a text reading: “I told you to stop leaving them in the car. How many times have I told you?”
Christopher then allegedly replied: “Babe, I’m sorry. Babe, our family. How could I do this? I killed our baby, this can’t be real.”
Erika is also said to have called Parker “perfect” during their heartbreaking text conversation.
Christopher had told police he’d left the air conditioning on in the car for Parker, but admitted he knew that it would automatically shut off after 30 minutes.
He was charged with murder and child endangerment in court on Friday, where his wife pleaded with the judge to release him pending trial, calling the fatal incident “a big mistake”.
Erika told the judge: “I’m just asking if you can allow him to come home to us so that we can all start the grieving process, so he can bury our daughter with us this coming week and that we can go through this whole process together as a family.
“This was a big mistake doesn’t represent him. I just want the girls to see their father – that I don’t have to tell them tonight that they’re going to have to endure another loss.”
The judge has set his bond at $25,000 despite prosecutors requesting that it be set at $1 million.
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