Arizona girl, 2, left in car by father on 109-degree day and is found dead

[TTF14]

dbm

 

[MadDoc]

Her affect was odd, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt as she likely was (and still is) in shock. I'm sure life is a complete blur and burden right now and all she can do is remember to breathe and take one minute at a time.

jmo

JMO - Anesthesiologists are trained to remain cool, calm and in control while all hell is breaking loose around them. They are often the ones taking charge during a code blue or other emergency. They can get intravenous access, intubate a patient, perform all kinds of heroic medical procedures where other lower medical life-forms have failed. They also have access to ALL the drugs, and know exactly how much to give you to make you go to sleep, or stay awake but become relaxed and comfortable.

I'm sure mom knew just the right medications and doses to give herself so that she could stay awake and talk rationally to the judge without falling apart emotionally.

Purely my opinion only.

 

[Curiosum]

Fundraiser?

sbm @NuttMegg
Thx for your post mentioning a fundraiser which was mentioned on another site, which said it was organized by a fam friend.

When I clicked link to go to The Granddaddy of Fundraising Sites, I could not see fundraiser info or page for "Parker Scholtes." It said "donations paused."
Personally drawing no conclusions one way or any other.

The fundraiser through a commercial fundraising site was organized by the mother’s colleagues (possibly without her knowledge). A link was shared in another group and multiple fellow physicians laid shame. Shortly after that the fundraiser was paused my guess is that either the mom requested that or the physician who started it got sick of hearing people complain (and probably realized that was anything but helpful for her colleague) or some combination of the above.

I would really encourage everyone to remember that ES is a victim. She lost her daughter and until there is evidence of her culpability perhaps we should channel compassion, grace, and kindness.

 

[al66pine]

The fundraiser through a commercial fundraising site was organized by the mother’s colleagues (possibly without her knowledge). A link was shared in another group and multiple fellow physicians laid shame. Shortly after that the fundraiser was paused my guess is that either the mom requested that or the physician who started it got sick of hearing people complain (and probably realized that was anything but helpful for her colleague) or some combination of the above.

I would really encourage everyone to remember that ES is a victim. She lost her daughter and until there is evidence of her culpability perhaps we should channel compassion, grace, and kindness.

@Curiosum
TYVM for the explanation re fundraiser.
Seems likely that the organizer was well intentioned.

As my post said on that subject: "Personally drawing no conclusions one way or any other."

 

[abyquinn]

Has anyone seen an OBITUARY for the toddler, perhaps in a newspaper local to family or in an online tribute in soc media page/account?

A link pls, if handy?

ETA: IIRC, per one of the MSM articles, in the ct. hearing (wasn't that on Fri?) Mother said mentioned planning the funeral to be held on Saturday.

I’ve been watching everyday for an obit and haven’t found one yet. I’ll keep looking. Someone started a Fund Me page that the site has closed down.

I’m having such a hard time with this one. It has been hotter than Hades here. We were buying a car in Marana on 7/9. I told my hubs he was going to have to go without me, it was just too hot. I usually have nothing but compassion for the family of the baby deaths in a hot car, but good-grief! It has been running 110* to 115*! It’s hot in the car even with the AC blasting! While I don’t think this was deliberate, it was such a horrible case of neglect! How can you forget about your 2 year old for 3 hours! I guess he figured she had her iPad to keep her company if she woke up!

I think his lies about the length of time she was in the car and claims he & his wife both leave their kids in the car, are going to bite him in the butt in a trial. Her text messages are spot on. His reply sounds pathetic.

 

[TTF14]

How can you forget about your 2 year old for 3 hours! I guess he figured she had her iPad to keep her company if she woke up!

I don't think he figured anything about the iPad. I think he just plain forgot she was out there at all . He got immersed in something else.

ETA: He was inside in the a/c. How hot it was outside probably wasn't even on his mind.

MOO IMO

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

I know video game addiction is a very real thing. But I hope they also tested his blood for substances.

They seized a half full glass from the coffee table, I hope they tested him, too.

 

[NuttMegg]

I don't think he figured anything about the iPad. I think he just plain forgot she was out there at all . He got immersed in something else.

ETA: He was inside in the a/c. How hot it was outside probably wasn't even on his mind.

MOO IMO

I don't have any small kids to keep an eye on. But I have an older pup. I know where she is at all times, kind of like an automatic radar, just that I am aware when she goes out to pee, when she disappears for a few minutes it's like hearing the kids go silent, you know they're up to something. It's not as though I lose my concentration on my hobbies, my chores, my reading, my gardening. Just that when you love someone, or some furbaby they are just part of you, an extension, it feels like part of my body is missing if she wanders away. I can't imagine losing track of my pup for 3 minutes.

Three hours?

 

[TTF14]

I don't have any small kids to keep an eye on. But I have an older pup. I know where she is at all times, kind of like an automatic radar, just that I am aware when she goes out to pee, when she disappears for a few minutes it's like hearing the kids go silent, you know they're up to something. It's not as though I lose my concentration on my hobbies, my chores, my reading, my gardening. Just that when you love someone, or some furbaby they are just part of you, an extension, it feels like part of my body is missing if she wanders away. I can't imagine losing track of my pup for 3 minutes.

Three hours?

We are all different and have different levels of things on our minds. And different cognitive abilities. In the last month I’ve accidentally lost track of not only my own dogs but a dog I was sitting. And I loooovvve these dogs and have never done that before. And when my kids were little I accidentally left one of them in the car for ten minutes after grocery shopping and the other one snuck out of the house during nap time!

I don’t have warm, fuzzy feelings about this guy at all. But I really do think he totally forgot (for whatever reason) and it wasn’t a case of him remembering and thinking she was fine out there.

IMO MOO

 

[NuttMegg]

We are all different and have different levels of things on our minds. And different cognitive abilities. In the last month I’ve accidentally lost track of not only my own dogs but a dog I was sitting. And I loooovvve these dogs and have never done that before. And when my kids were little I accidentally left one of them in the car for ten minutes after grocery shopping and the other one snuck out of the house during nap time!

I don’t have warm, fuzzy feelings about this guy at all. But I really do think he totally forgot (for whatever reason) and it wasn’t a case of him remembering and thinking she was fine out there.

IMO MOO

There's something wrong with routinely making your kids stay in the car. In their own driveway or garage. It seems like he knew he had to keep them alive, but didn't really want anything to do with them.

 

[TTF14]

There's something wrong with routinely making your kids stay in the car. In their own driveway or garage. It seems like he knew he had to keep them alive, but didn't really want anything to do with them.

I totally agree!!

 

[iamshadow21]

IMO MOO

That’s right out of today’s Toxic Behavior Excuse Playbook:

Normalize your actions
Minimize your actions
Joke about your actions

Those poor kids. They’re going to need lots of love and support. I hope they get it.

IMO MOO

Yeah I don't believe any of this was accidental or unintentional. He used the car as a babysitter, because his hobbies and 'me time' were more important than being a parent. It was only a matter of time before one of his kids died.

This is one of the worst cases of weaponised incompetence that I've ever heard of. And the thread is full of people asking why the wife didn't hire a babysitter if he was being negligent. I continue to insist that this is on him. He is a full adult, competent and non disabled. He knew the risks, didn't care, did it anyway.

MOO

 

[thinker47]

Those girls were old enough to tell their mother, or someone else, what he was (not) doing. Does anyone else wonder if he threatened them, to keep their mouths shut about this?

In her text messages to him she made it clear that she knew he left the girls in the car.

 

[Charlot123]

Is he saying that he regularly left the child/ children in the car with the A/C running IN the garage? That has it's own horrible set of risks of carbon monoxide poisoning. That is a dangerous thing to do and just as prone to harm to your child/children. As an anesthesiologist, of all people, you would think the mother would have shut that down completely if she was aware of it. I know a woman whose older parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning in their home when they left the car in the closed garage running to warm up on a cold day, inside the garage while the carbon monoxide buildup from the vehicle exhaust steeped into their home, so it's a dangerous practice to those in the house, too, not just the children in the running vehicle.

I would have thought the exercise equipment in the garage taking up space for the car would not have been a new issue, but one that was ongoing for weeks or months, and in cooler months never seemed dangerous, to him.

There is a profound issue of negligent care of a helpless child here and it appears to me to be a chronic practice - indeed using the locked car as a babysitting technique. I find the mother's text to be very odd and in a way, an attempt to deflect any responsibility for this crime to him.

I'm still having trouble understanding how he thought this was an acceptable way to care for your children.

I don’t see it this way. Mom is a full-time working provider, who also gave birth to three kids; all of them young. I can’t blame the mom, she was probably chronically tired. I also wonder if dad was trying to conceal his computer addiction and pretending to be “present” while wife was at home. Since she was not that day, he made a beeline to the computer without taking the child out.

 

[Charlot123]

I am curious if he has ADHD… the hyperfocus on the videogame and time blindness are typical for someone with ADHD. Not an excuse of course, just curious.

Most of the men who leave kids in hot cars do have ADHD, that with severe executive dysfunction. It is the form when certain weakness of the prefrontal cortex shows itself at times when it should “take over” the basal ganglia to suppress “automatic” behaviors. (Example of automatic behavior: every day you take a right turn to go to the work, but on Saturday, you plan to go to the mall. Suddenly, you find yourself taking a right turn to go to work.)

We often see “forgotten baby syndrome” when a person with (usually, undiagnosed ADHD) is struggling but managing, and one day, additional responsibility makes the system “spill over”. A common example would be: one of the two cars broke, and instead of taking one child to daycare, you have to take your wife to work, take one kid to preschool, another one to daycare and drive yourself to work. Usually the “forgotten” baby is the one who is not your daily responsibility. And usually, we do feel sorry for the parents in such situations (however, these are, usually, fathers, to whom it happens; an issue of priorities, IMO.)

But here, it seems, the “habitual” behavior was to leave the kid in the car. The outlier was the temperature.

So to me he appears more of a loser than the pillar of the community. I don’t know how the mom is, but give or take, the responsibility for the pregnancy, delivery and early child-rearing of three kids lies on her. Plus, she has a full-time job. I’d respect him if he were a good stay home dad. He is not - not in the slightest.

 

[LeahBee]

Mother's & Father's Texts. When? Where?

sbm @NuttMegg Thx for your post.

1.
If MSM quote of LE's complaint's quote of text* is accurate, is a bit unusual that TEXT has full sentences, std. grammar, NO abbreviations? Maybe w med training & experience, she maintains calm demeanor regardless of circumstances?
And HIS responding texts, w no abbrev's, etc?

2.
HOW did they go to hosp? Why text in transit?
A. Did both Mo. & Fa. ride in AMBU. TOGETHER?
If so, is it likely she since that text* in ambu, w him right there? Unless one parent was in ambu med bay & other in front cab, they could talk or whisper to ea other, so why text?

B. SEPARATELY, w Mo. in ambu & Fa. driving car?
Or would she have been focussing only on dau, perhaps offering guidance, wanted or unwanted, to EMTs?

C. If they went to hosp together in ONE CAR then why TEXT instead of talk? Unless they had dau(s) w them?

D. Other way to hosp, e.g., Uber, neighbor, relative? Together or separately?

Both ^ points puzzle me.

Maybe or likely because I'm the only person left in the US who doesn't text.

______________________________
* "The interim complaint also shows Scholtes received text messages from his wife while their daughter was being taken to the hospital stating: “I told you to stop leaving them in the car, How many times have I told you?” "
"He responded, “Babe, I’m sorry!” She then said “We’ve lost her, she was perfect,” and he responded by texting “Babe our family. How could I do this? I killed our baby, this can’t be real.” "
From Father may have been distracted by PlayStation when toddler died in hot car

I don't think texting in full sentences and using proper grammar is strange. Everyone I know texts like that, and only use abbreviations in medical notes. Reading messages with many abbreviations or run-on messages without punctuation is really jolting to my ADHD brain. [Not a stab at you, just how the silly voice in my brain processes written information "aloud" in my head lol ]

However I do find the contents of the conversation very odd.. sorry babe... ??? I feel like a conversation about your baby just being pronounced dead is the type of conversation you have verbally. So strange.

 

[iamshadow21]

Most of the men who leave kids in hot cars do have ADHD, that with severe executive dysfunction. It is the form when certain weakness of the prefrontal cortex shows itself at times when it should “take over” the basal ganglia to suppress “automatic” behaviors. (Example of automatic behavior: every day you take a right turn to go to the work, but on Saturday, you plan to go to the mall. Suddenly, you find yourself taking a right turn to go to work.)

We often see “forgotten baby syndrome” when a person with (usually, undiagnosed ADHD) is struggling but managing, and one day, additional responsibility makes the system “spill over”. A common example would be: one of the two cars broke, and instead of taking one child to daycare, you have to take your wife to work, take one kid to preschool, another one to daycare and drive yourself to work. Usually the “forgotten” baby is the one who is not your daily responsibility. And usually, we do feel sorry for the parents in such situations (however, these are, usually, fathers, to whom it happens; an issue of priorities, IMO.)

But here, it seems, the “habitual” behavior was to leave the kid in the car. The outlier was the temperature.

So to me he appears more of a loser than the pillar of the community. I don’t know how the mom is, but give or take, the responsibility for the pregnancy, delivery and early child-rearing of three kids lies on her. Plus, she has a full-time job. I’d respect him if he were a good stay home dad. He is not - not in the slightest.

Yeah, I have ADHD that was not treated until I was in my late thirties. I do not have kids, but I have had dogs most of my adult life, and I never, ever, left them in a car like that. And every time I have been a caretaker for a young child, I have been hyperaware of where they are and if they're safe. Why? Because I give a bleep about them and I desperately want them to be okay, especially on my watch.

There is no indication that this guy was thinking of anyone but himself, ever. On his own admission, he habitually left all three kids in the car for long periods, despite being told repeatedly not to by his partner.

That isn't inattention and disability, that's being a completely self absorbed bleep who doesn't care if your kid dies, just so long at you get your beer and your PlayStation and your AC, uninterrupted by a toddler.

MOO

 

[imstilla.grandma]

"I heard the most horrible screams I've ever heard in my entire life," neighbor Dalia Zimmerman tells Inside Edition.

"He's an amazing father. This was a big mistake and I think that this doesn't represent him," Erika said at the court hearing. "No one understands how great of a tragedy this is more than myself, my remaining two daughters, and Christopher."

Christopher has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Woman Asks for Husband to Be Freed in Child Hot Car Death Case

Christopher Sholtes drove home with his daughter, Parker, asleep in the car. He told police he did not want to wake her so he left her in the vehicle with the engine on and the air conditioner running.

www.insideedition.com

 

[iamshadow21]

"I heard the most horrible screams I've ever heard in my entire life," neighbor Dalia Zimmerman tells Inside Edition.

"He's an amazing father. This was a big mistake and I think that this doesn't represent him," Erika said at the court hearing. "No one understands how great of a tragedy this is more than myself, my remaining two daughters, and Christopher."

Christopher has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

Woman Asks for Husband to Be Freed in Child Hot Car Death Case

Christopher Sholtes drove home with his daughter, Parker, asleep in the car. He told police he did not want to wake her so he left her in the vehicle with the engine on and the air conditioner running.

www.insideedition.com

An amazing father doesn't habitually, knowingly, put his kids at risk like that.

I hope she wakes up and realises that. Her kids need her protecting them, not him.

MOO

 

[airportwoman]

There's something wrong with routinely making your kids stay in the car. In their own driveway or garage. It seems like he knew he had to keep them alive, but didn't really want anything to do with them.

You have just summed up my opinion of this man's "parenting" skills.