A father who left his two-year-old daughter to die in a hot car while he watched adult movies has died on the day he was due to go to prison for murder.
Christopher Scholtes, 38, was listed as deceased by Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office in Arizona on Wednesday, with no cause of death listed.
Sources close to the family told the Daily Mail that Scholtes took his own life at his home in Phoenix early on Wednesday morning, but it was unclear how he did it.
He failed to show up for a hearing in Pima County Superior Court the same day, ahead of his sentencing on November 21.
Scholtes struck a deal with prosecutors last month to plead guilty to the second-degree murder of his daughter Parker in July 2024.
The killer dad was to be jailed for 20 to 30 years, but was allowed to stay out on bail until Wednesday when he would be taken into custody.
Pima County prosecutors appeared shaken and emotional as they left court after the hearing, and said they would provide more details later on Wednesday.
The medical examiner’s listing stated that he died on Wednesday, but didn’t list a location or provide any details.
Scholtes moved from the house in Marana, near Tucson, where Parker died to one in the suburbs of Phoenix about an hour away.
His wife, anesthesiologist Erika Scholtes, 37, splashed $1.025 million on the stunning four-bedroom, 2,369sqft home in April.
Christopher Scholtes, left, was reported to have died on Wednesday – the day he was due to report to prison for murdering daughter Parker (pictured second from right on mother Erika’s knee) in a hot car
Parker had been left to sleep in the family’s Acura with its air conditioning turned on. Her father is now charged with her murder
Scholtes’ protracted legal defense has not been cheap as he pleaded not guilty last year and rejected a plea deal in March that would have let him off with as little as 10 years behind bars.
Just six months later he had no choice but to accept a far worse deal for 20 to 30 years jail on second-degree murder and child abuse charges.
Erika was at work as an anesthesiologist at Banner University Medical Center, the same hospital Parker was taken to, while her daughter was left in the car
She strongly defended her husband in court by calling their daughter’s death ‘a mistake’.
In addition to facing decades in jail, Scholtes was sued last week, along with Erika, by his eldest daughter, now 17, for emotional distress, assault, battery, and fraud.
Scholtes left Parker napping in his 2023 Acura running with the air-conditioning on outside his house during the scorching weather.
But he lost track of time while he played on his PlayStation, drank booze and watched adult videos, and the vehicle shut off.
The Pima County Medical Examiner said the temperature inside the car was 108.9F when first responders arrived, confirming she died of heat exposure.
Texts between Scholtes and Erika revealed leaving his children in the car for extended periods was a pattern of behavior for him.
As Parker was rushed to the hospital, Erika texted Scholtes saying: ‘I told you to stop leaving them in the car, how many times have I told you.’
She later added: ‘We’ve lost her, she was perfect.’
Scholtes replied: ‘Babe I’m sorry! How could I do this. I killed our baby, this can’t be real.’
Erika Scholtes, 35, was an anesthesiologist at the same hospital her daughter was rushed to
The Scholtes family upgraded their existing property to this gorgeous new home in Phoenix complete with a huge backyard swimming pool
Their other two other children, then aged nine and five, told police their father regularly left all three siblings alone in the car.
The youngsters told police Scholtes ‘got distracted by playing his game and putting his food away’, according to the criminal complaint.
A PlayStation and other electronics were taken away as evidence.
Prosecutors wrote in court documents that Scholtes also searched the internet for men’s clothing at Nordstrom and for pornography from 2.02pm to 2.30pm.
Scholtes also left Parker alone in the car on his way home that day while he shopped at a gas station and a supermarket.
He shoplifted beer from both shops, some of which he later drank while Parker was dying, according to the documents.
Security camera footage showed him swipe the alcohol from the gas station, go into the bathroom, and emerge with fewer cans than he went in with.
Scholtes’s two other children, aged nine and five, told police that Scholtes had left all three siblings alone in the vehicle regularly
Scholtes finally arrived home at 12.53pm, just as his older daughters returned from a trampoline park he let them go to unattended.
He initially told detectives he pulled in at 2.30pm, but changed his story after it was proven a lie by security footage.
Parker was left to nap in the car while they all went inside, and was not retrieved until after 4pm when Erika got home from work.
Erika came inside and asked where the toddler was, prompting a frantic rush to the car by both parents and the arrival of first responders soon after.
Parker was declared dead in hospital just an hour later.
Investigations into how she died revealed a disturbing pattern of alcoholism, child neglect, and past drug abuse.
The older daughters said their parents often fought about Scholtes’s behavior, especially how much he drank.
‘He still drinks too much beer, and he keeps leaving us in the car when my mom told him to stop doing this,’ one of the girls said, according to documents.
‘That’s how he made my baby sister die.’
Scholtes, 37, was charged with murder after leaving his two-year-old daughter (pictured as a newborn) in the back of a hot car in 109F heat while he was inside their house
Police outside the house in Marana, north of Tucson, Arizona, as they investigated the scene. Parker was left in the blue Honda Acura SUV behind the police tape
Other texts between the couple showed Erika increasingly furious about her husband letting his drinking put the children’s lives at risk.
‘You haven’t shown me you can stop putting the girls in danger or not treat me badly,’ she wrote on March 11 last year.
‘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.’
Scholtes promised to ‘find relief and happiness elsewhere’ but Erika countered that the last time he did that he merely replaced booze with cocaine.
‘At least this one is legal, right?’ he replied.
‘I’m a piece of shit addict and I need to get addicted to healthy things like running again.’
But just ten days later she raged at him for allegedly driving 138mph after drinking, with Parker in the car, calling both ‘shitty decisions’.
‘You hate me,’ he replied. ‘And she was sleeping, it’s fine.’
While on bail, the court gave Scholtes permission to go on vacation to Maui with his doctor wife Erika and their surviving children earlier this year.
Scholtes also had a history of similar behavior with his oldest daughter, now 16, whom he had with a previous partner.
Scholtes was allowed to go on holiday to Hawaii with his wife Erika Scholtes, who has stood by him and even strongly defended him in court, and their children earlier this year
Some of her family told investigators that back then, he also left her and his other two daughters in the car alone long enough for the air-conditioning to shut off.
Fortunately, the older girl knew how to restart the car and prevent them all from meeting the same fate as Parker.
Scholtes was also allegedly abusive towards the eldest girl, and she on one occasion called police to say she was afraid to go home because she lost some money and was worried her father would hit her.
Department of Child Services investigators wrote in their reports that she told them ‘she would frequently be slapped, thrown, have her hair pulled, have her head pushed into walls, and be picked up by her shirt or her arm’.
Scholtes eventually lost custody of the girl and after her mother died earlier this year she was instead given to another guardian.
