Father accused of killing child in hot car had history of child endangerment

MARANA, Ariz. (KGUN) — Police reports in the case of a Marana man charged with murder for leaving his child in a hot car show a history of reckless and dangerous behavior toward his children.

“Please, baby, please! Do whatever you want!”

Christopher Scholtes was begging his daughter to get out and survive after hours in a hot car on a scorching July day. Marana police reports suggest that by that point, she and the other children in the family had survived years of dangerous and irresponsible behavior.

Police found this text exchange from March 11: Here are excerpts:

The child’s mother tells him: “You haven’t shown me that you can stop putting girls in danger or abusing me. Just yesterday, you came home drunk with two minors… I’ve been asking you to cut down on your use for three years and it’s gotten worse… You’ve replaced cocaine with alcohol.” In this exchange, Scholtes admits that he is a drug addict.

Marana police said they discovered store surveillance that showed at least two instances of shoplifting of Scholtes beer, two or three cans at a time.

Police say neighbors described several incidents in which the family’s children wandered around the neighborhood unsupervised, apparently without Scholtes knowing they had left the house.

On March 21, the mother asks:

“Why were you driving at 138 with our baby in the car?”

Scholtes replies: “You hate me. And she was asleep. That’s good.”

On July 9, the day the child died, the mother was on her way to the hospital with her daughter.

She texts Scholtes and says:

“I told you to stop leaving them in the car. How many times have I told you that?”

He replies, “Honey, I’m sorry.”

Police say neighborhood security cameras show Scholtes parked the family’s blue SUV at 12:51 p.m. He said he left the engine and air conditioning on, but knew the car would automatically shut off in 20 to 30 minutes.

According to the timeline, the two-year-old had been in the car for more than an hour and ten minutes when Scholtes began surfing the Internet. A computer search shows that he spent more than half an hour visiting an online shopping site and then watching pornographic videos for five minutes.

No one removed the child or tried to save her until her mother returned home around 4:15 p.m., about three and a half hours after police said surveillance cameras saw Christopher Scholtes park the car and drive away.