Christopher Scholtes's Wife Says He Is an "Amazing Father" Who Didn't Mean to Kill Their Daughter
Christopher Scholtes's wife publicly applauded her husband as a father while privately asking him to stop mistreating their kids.
Published Aug. 13 2024, 5:46 p.m. ET
The average daytime temperature in July, in the state of Arizona, is about 107 degrees. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a child can die when their core body temperature reaches 107 degrees. This is why it is never OK to leave an unattended child in a vehicle for any reason. Sometimes the unthinkable occurs, which is what happened to 2-year-old Parker Scholtes.
On July 9, 2024, Parker's father left her in the car in front of their home while the air conditioning was allegedly running, reported the New York Post. Christopher Scholtes lives in Marana, Ariz., with his wife and three children, and on that day, he claims he checked on his daughter, who later died from environmental heat exposure after the car had stopped running. His wife was the one who found her body, and it was later revealed she was aware that he often left their children alone in his car. Here's what we know.
Erika Scholtes; Parker Scholtes
Christopher Scholtes wife begged a judge to let him come home.
Four days after Parker's death, Erika Scholtes was in a courtroom begging a judge to let her husband come home, per the New York Post. The anesthesiologist said her husband was an "amazing father" as well as a "pillar of the community." She also said what happened to their daughter was a "big mistake."
She pleaded with the judge to allow Scholtes to "come home to us so that we can all start the grieving process so he can bury our daughter with us this upcoming week and that we can go through this whole process together as a family." He was subsequently released on a $25,000 bond and was told he could have no unsupervised contact with his remaining children.
Text messages from Erika Scholtes to her husband suggest that what he did was not a mistake, but a pattern.
Documents obtained by KVOA in Tucscon suggest that Scholtes decision to leave his daughter in the car was less of an accident and more of a "reckless pattern" of abuse. In text messages between Scholtes and his wife, Erika is frequently scolding him about his erratic and at times dangerous behavior. "I told you to stop leaving them in the car, how many times have I told you," she wrote in one.
On March 11, 2024, Erika wrote, "You haven’t shown you can stop putting the girls in danger or treating me badly. Even yesterday you drove home drunk with two minors." She goes on to say, "You drink to excess every time. I have been asking for three years for you to cut back but it's actually gotten worse." Ten days later Erika asked Scholtes why he was driving 138 miles per hour with their "baby in the car" and alcohol in his system. He responded, "You hate me. She was sleeping. I’s fine."
Scholtes has a 16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship, who lived with her father and Erika starting at the age of 5. That's when Scholtes found out she existed and engaged in a custody battle with her mother. In an exclusive interview with KVOA, his eldest daughter said, "It makes plenty of sense, actually I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner." She recalled a time when he left her alone in a car for four to five hours, during which she had to keep restarting the vehicle.
The charge of second-degree murder has been upgraded to first-degree murder by an Arizona grand jury, per the New York Post. Scholtes has pled not guilty. If this goes to trial and he is convicted, Scholtes faces a life sentence.
