Bodycam footage from Arizona police shows the behavior of a father charged with first-degree murder after leaving his 2-year-old daughter in a hot car when authorities arrived at the scene.
The footage, obtained by Inside Edition, shows Christopher Scholtes’ apparent grief and frustrations with police after he allegedly left his daughter, Parker, in the family car because he “didn’t want to wake her” from a nap.
When told their home would be treated like a possible crime scene, he exclaimed, “So I’m being treated like a murderer?” — before an officer told him he wasn’t.
Scholtes, 37, also broke down when police responded to his home on July 9 and found Parker, clinging to life in the car, where he claimed to have left the air conditioner while she was sleeping.
When police first arrived and were trying to save Parker, Scholtes appeared distressed as he held his head in his hands and paced about the home, the video shows.
“Please, baby, please,” he pleaded at one point, later saying, “I can’t believe this,” his voice cracking as he spoke on the phone.
“She’s very hot right now. We’re going to do everything we can,” police told Scholtes.
Parker was found in critical condition when her mother, an anesthesiologist, came home around 4 p.m. and discovered her in the car with the AC off.
In the footage, Scholtes tells police he only left Parker outside for “no more than 30, 45 minutes” and that he checked on during that time, but court documents obtained by Inside Edition later claimed he allegedly left her in the baking car for over three hours while he was inside.
The docs also allegedly showed that this is something he’s done in the past with his thee daughters.
“I told you to stop leaving them in the car,” his wife, Erika Scholtes, texted him after the tragedy. “How many times have I told you.”
According to an interim complaint obtained by local Tuscon outlets KOLD and KVOA., Scholtes had left all of their children alone in the car on multiple occasions in the past. And when his daughter was sleeping in the hot car, his other children said, “He got distracted by playing his game and putting his food away.”
While authorities attempted to save Parker, she was ultimately pronounced dead.
The footage above also shows the moment police later came to arrest Scholtes, with the father dropping to the ground as he was cuffed. While he was initially charged with second-degree murder and child abuse, the charges were upped to felony first-degree murder and felony child abuse.
A 16-year-old daughter from a previous marriage told KVOA-TV that Scholtes frequently left her alone inside cars without food for hours at a time — to the point that Child Protective Services took her away from him, adding that she was surprised a tragedy like this had not struck sooner.
Scholtes pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges Thursday and remains free.
His wife previously asked a judge to release him to come home to his family so they could “start the grieving process” together. “This was a big mistake doesn’t represent him,” she said.
