Arriving home from running errands, Christopher Scholtes notices his two-year-old daughter, Parker, is asleep in her car seat. Rather than disturbing her by waking her up to go inside the house, the Arizona father of three leave the toddler in the vehicle with the air conditioner running. Scholtes knows from previous experience with his Acura MDX the air conditioner and vehicle will run for about 30 minutes before shutting off automatically.

Wife, Dr. Erika Scholtes, arrives home just aft 4PM. She sees her 5- and 9-year-old daughters and asks husband, Chris, “where is Parker”? Christopher Scholtes first begins looking in the rooms of the house, then darts outside, where he realizes he left Parker in the Accura. The vehicle is off, the air conditioner is not running, the outside temperature is over 109 degrees and Parker Scholtes is taken out of the car, unresponsive, strapped in her child restraint system.

When first responders arrive at the scene, the outside temperature is over 109 degrees. The toddler is transported to the Banner University Medical Center, the same hospital her mother works as an anesthesiologist.  Unable to resuscitate the 2-year-old, Parker Scholtes is pronounced dead at 4:58 p.m.

Investigators locate surveillance footage from a neighbor and watch as Chris Scholtes arrives home at 12:53 PM, not the 2:30 PM time Scholtes told them earlier.  Scholtes is seen on video walking into the house alone and is not seen on video coming back out of the house again until after his wife, Dr. Erika Scholtes, arrives home.

Investigators conduct forensic interviews with the other children and find out that their father leaves all three of them in the car alone, regularly.  It is the children that tell investigators that during the time Parker was left in the car, their father was distracted “playing his game” and “putting his food away.”

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[Feature Photo: Christopher and Parker Scholtes/Facebook]