The deadbeat Arizona dad who admitted leaving his 2-year-old daughter to die in a sweltering automotive whereas he watched porn is lifeless — together with his cowardly finish deemed a suicide, in keeping with stories.
Christopher Scholtes, 38, was discovered lifeless in a Phoenix house simply after 5 a.m. Wednesday, police instructed The Submit, the identical day he was on account of report back to jail forward of his sentencing, the place he confronted as much as 30 years behind bars.
“As a substitute of coming in to take account for what has occurred right here, now we have been knowledgeable, and now we have confirmed, that the daddy took his personal life final evening,” Pima County Lawyer Laura Conover mentioned in a press release Wednesday.
Confusion apparently ensued after he failed to seem for the listening to the place he’d been directed handy himself over to police, in keeping with ABC 15, with courthouse officers apparently unaware that he’d died.
The despicable dad — who had a identified behavior of leaving his youngsters within the automotive — pleaded responsible in October to second-degree homicide and was anticipated to be formally sentenced to between 20 and 30 years this month.
His dying comes greater than a yr after his younger daughter, Parker, was discovered lifeless within the driveway of their Marana house exterior Tuscon on a scorching July afternoon in 2024, when the temperature soared to 109 levels Fahrenheit.
He claimed to have left the toddler within the automotive round 12:30 p.m. for half-hour with the air-con on as a result of he didn’t need to wake her from a nap.
However court docket data later revealed he left the little lady within the automotive for over three hours — and even admitted understanding the automotive would shut off routinely inside a half-hour.
Scholtes was inside watching porn, taking part in video video games and consuming beer whereas his daughter roasted to dying.
That was one thing he apparently made a behavior of doing — not simply in a single household, however in two.
His older kids from a earlier marriage instructed investigators he would go away them within the automotive once they had been youngsters, whereas his youthful daughters with Parker’s mom, Erika, reported that their dad recurrently left all three of them strapped within the automotive whereas he went inside.
Parker’s roasting physique was discovered when her anesthesiologist mom got here house round 4 p.m., with bodycam footage from responding police displaying Scholtes break right into a panic whereas insisting he’d left her exterior for “not more than 30, 45 minutes.”
“She’s highly regarded proper now. We’re going to do every little thing we are able to,” cops instructed Scholtes.
Parker was declared lifeless inside an hour of being rushed to the Banner College Medical Heart — the identical hospital the place her mom labored.
Scholtes turned offended and defensive after studying his daughter had died.
“So I’m being handled like a assassin?” he mentioned in police bodycam footage when cops instructed him he couldn’t take a bathe and so they might not go away him alone.
And regardless of insisting to police that he’d by no means achieved one thing like this earlier than, Scholtes’ personal texts together with his spouse shortly mentioned in any other case.
“I instructed you to cease leaving them within the automotive,” the mom texted him after the dying. “What number of instances have I instructed you?”
“Babe, I’m sorry,” he responded. “Babe, our household. How might I do that? I killed our child, this will’t be actual.”
The spouse later known as the daughter he’d killed “excellent” as they texted.
Regardless of her fury, the mom later requested Scholtes be allowed to come back house after his arrest so the household might grieve collectively.
However all could not have been rosy at house.
Considered one of Scholtes’ older daughters from his earlier marriages sued each him and Erika in October, alleging they triggered her emotional misery and detailing incidents of being left in vehicles going again to when she was 7 years outdated.
It additionally alleged she endured assault and battery from her father and stepmother.
“The oldest daughter has suffered immensely from Christopher and Erika,” the 17-year-old lady’s guardian, Lindsay Eisenberg, instructed KVOA.
