Christopher Scholtes, 37, entered his plea but otherwise said very little Thursday in Pima County Superior Court, KGUN reported. He refused to speak to reporters.
Scholtes’ charges were elevated by a grand jury last week. He was initially arrested for second-degree murder.
Christopher Scholtes, 37, pleaded not guilty to first degree murder charges in Pima County, AZ on Thursday. He is charged in the hot car death of his toddler daughter. KGUN9 Scholtes entered his plea on Thursday but said very little and didn’t address the media. KGUN9
The father of four was picked up last month after his daughter, 2-year-old Parker, was found unresponsive in his Honda SUV outside their home in Marana, Arizona. Temperatures peaked at 109 degrees that day.
Scholtes’ other children, aged five and nine, told police that their dad spent the afternoon playing video games.
Parker Scholtes may have been left inside the car for more than three hours after returning home from shopping around 12:30 p.m., based on surveillance footage police obtained from neighborhood cameras, KGUN reported.
The escalation of Scholtes’ charges implies that prosecutors believe the father intentionally killed his daughter.
Investigators said Scholtes told them he would often leave his daughter in the car, with the engine and air conditioning on, according to media reports. But in this case the car stopped running.
The interim complaint indicates Scholtes knew the car would shut off automatically after 30 minutes, according to media reports.
Police believe 2-year-old Parker Scholtes was left for at least three hours in a car where the outside temperatures reached 109 degrees. Parker was pronounced dead at the hospital after she was found unresponsive in the car.
One of his daughters with his wife Erika Scholtes, a 35-year-old anesthesiologist, told investigators that he had left them in the car alone about 59 times in the past, KVOA-TV reported.
The dad’s history of leaving his kids in the car is corroborated by text messages with his wife. As the little girl was being rushed to the hospital, one from Erika Scholtes scolded him. “I told you to stop leaving them in the car, how many times have I told you.”
Christopher and Erika Scholtes with their three daughters. His 16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship told KVOA-TV that her dad routinely left her in the car for up to 5 hours without food and that life with him was a “nightmare.”
“It makes plenty of sense, actually I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner,” she said. “[Once] I had to go sit out in the car for four to five hours and continuously had to restart the car and had only eaten once that day.”
She has Type 1 diabetes so it was especially dangerous for her. The daughter, who did not want her name to be used, also told KVOA-TV that she tried to kill herself in 2021 during a custody battle because she didn’t want to live with Scholtes.
After living with Scholtes and his wife for five years, Child Protective Services got involved and the daughter was eventually sent back to live with her mother, according to media reports. The mother died suddenly in May and the girl now lives with her legal guardian, a friend of her mother’s.
While second-degree murder usually rests on reckless behavior or malicious intent leading to death, first-degree murder requires the death to be premeditated and deliberate.
Scholtes could get life in prison if convicted.
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