Father who left 2-year-old in car on 109-degree day for 3 hours charged with murder

An Arizona man has been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly leaving his 2-year-old daughter in the car outside their home for three hours while temperatures hit 109 degrees, police said.

According to a press release from the Marana Police Department , 37-year-old Christopher Scholtes was arrested on Friday and charged with second-degree murder and child abuse charges.

Police said that Scholtes told them when he arrived home on Tuesday afternoon, his daughter was sleeping in her car seat, so he left her in the vehicle because he didn’t want to wake her.

The release says that he also claimed the car was still running while in the driveway, with the air conditioner on.

Shortly afterward, police say that the girl’s mother came home and found her in the car, which was off without the air on, and the father was inside the home.

The girl was unresponsive when her mother pulled her from the vehicle, and despite attempting to give her life-saving measures, she was pronounced dead at a local hospital, police shared.

Video from nearby homes showed that Scholtes had left his daughter in the car for nearly 3 hours, police said. At the same time, temperatures in the area climbed as high as 109 degrees on Tuesday.

Scholtes allegedly told officers that leaving his daughter in the car with it running and parked in the garage was not unusual for him and his wife, an affidavit obtained by KVOA says.

However, he said that on Tuesday, he parked in the driveway instead because they had exercise equipment in the garage.

The affidavit also states that he said he usually gets alerts if the car shuts off or gets too hot, but that day, he didn’t receive anything.

Police are warning parents about the “dangers of leaving children unattended in vehicles.”

“The temperature inside a vehicle can rise rapidly, even on relatively mild days, leading to potentially fatal outcomes within minutes,” police said. “We urge all parents and caregivers to remain vigilant and take every precaution to ensure the safety of their children.”