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

[NuttMegg]

It really doesn't matter what he was doing in his air conditioned home while his toddler sat dying in the driveway. He knew she was there and chose to leave her there for HOURS. It does make it more absurd if he was playing video games. He's no 'pillar of the community' so I am not sure why she is telling herself and the court that.

Doubly unfortunate, publicity wise, that he is coupled forever with a "play station".

My last gaming was, ahem, pac man last century, so maybe play station is an adult outlet, not really aimed at kids(?).

I wonder more about his possible grown up use of the internet. Maybe he wanted to make absolutely sure the kids wouldn't peer over his shoulders at awkward moments. Thus lock em in the car for awhile.

Imo!!

 

[Elliot_Alderson]

Parenting was his job. However it seems he wasn’t too fussed about actually watching the children, choosing instead to play games. Nothing wrong with being a stay at home parent as long as you actually parent!

If that's his job then he's not very good at it. JMO

 

[iamshadow21]

Doubly unfortunate, publicity wise, that he is coupled forever with a "play station".

My last gaming was, ahem, pac man last century, so maybe play station is an adult outlet, not really aimed at kids(?).

I wonder more about his possible grown up use of the internet. Maybe he wanted to make absolutely sure the kids wouldn't peer over his shoulders at awkward moments. Thus lock em in the car for awhile.

Imo!!

PlayStation has plenty of games for adults. But also plenty for children. It really depends what you enjoy playing, there is everything from violent first person shooters to colourful cartoonish Lego adventures.

MOO

 

[SMK777]

Doubly unfortunate, publicity wise, that he is coupled forever with a "play station".

My last gaming was, ahem, pac man last century, so maybe play station is an adult outlet, not really aimed at kids(?).

I wonder more about his possible grown up use of the internet. Maybe he wanted to make absolutely sure the kids wouldn't peer over his shoulders at awkward moments. Thus lock em in the car for awhile.

Imo!!

That’s a distinct possibility, certainly.
Unless it was simply use the AC/car as a nap station for less work and fuss. Either way not good.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Parker was born at the end of October 2021, and within weeks had her first trip to Disneyland with her parents and two older sisters

They went skiing in Banff in February, with their older daughters in tow, and took a beach holiday to Cancun in March with the whole family.

The couple also traveled through Europe in June, Seattle in October, and Sedona in June last year, just the two of them.

Girl, 2, dies in hot car after 'her father made terrible mistake'

Parker Scholtes, 2, died after she was left in a car outside her home in Tucson, Arizona, for at least half an hour by her father Chris Scholtes as the temperature climbed to 109F.

www.dailymail.co.uk

*maybe he doesn't need the money, traveling costs add up. He possibly started out as a good role model for the kids but somewhere, prob long ago, something went wrong with his priority selections of feel good pings in his head.

 

[NuttMegg]

PlayStation has plenty of games for adults. But also plenty for children. It really depends what you enjoy playing, there is everything from violent first person shooters to colourful cartoonish Lego adventures.

MOO

Does it depend on wifi? Does it have a browser like google or firefox? Meaning, can you be in between games and be surfing? Or completely offline. Sorry I must sound pathetic.

 

[MissMalowe]

I'm not saying that the mother has no duty of care to her kids, not at all.

But I am concerned that this woman is the sole breadwinner, is by her own admission barely home, barely sees her kids, is likely overworked, has repeatedly admonished him for this behaviour... and we're criticising HER behaviour. I worry about the gendered implications of that.

MOO

I've criticized both his actions as well as her inactions. Their genders don't have anything to do with it. If roles had been reversed I'd be pointing out the dad's failures to seek alternative or additional care rather than the mom's.

I do, however, think that their close relation to one another DOES play a big part in terms of their levels of expectations of one another.

For instance,
I brought up the example the other day of what if this had occurred at a daycare facility?
The parents would have (rightfully) made a formal complaint to the facility seeking to immediately terminate that worker and also possibly alert the police to ensure that specific worker will never be able to care for children in a professional capacity again. Perhaps even file a lawsuit with the daycare facility and possibly still pulll their child from that facility and seek alternative care despite the worker no longer being employed there.

But if its a parent who continuously does this it's no big deal? They aren't a daycare facility so the expectations regarding care are lower? The level of danger for the same act is somehow lessened? Interesting.


Conversely,
If the facility chose to keep that worker on staff and that worker continued leaving children in the vehicles unattended and parents knew about this but still chose to keep their children at that facility, the failure to protect would fall not only on the daycare worker and the facility, but also on the parents who knew it was occurring and did nothing.

Mom pleads in court for his return rather than his termination because he's her husband, not "just" a daycare worker.

Gender doesn't play a part in this for me. Nor do their family roles or their relationship to one another. But definitely for them, their relation to one another plays an enormous role in how this even came to be and what they think the repercussions should be.

 

[iamshadow21]

Is it depend on wifi? Does it have a browser like google or firefox? Meaning, can you be in between games and be surfing? Or completely offline. Sorry I must sound pathetic.

You have to be online to use the app to buy or update games, or play games that need the internet, but not if it's just a game that doesn't need the internet.

I honestly don't know about the browser thing... I'll have to check when I boot up my PS4... But he had a ps5 anyway, so it's different.

MOO

 

[SMK777]

Parker was born at the end of October 2021, and within weeks had her first trip to Disneyland with her parents and two older sisters

They went skiing in Banff in February, with their older daughters in tow, and took a beach holiday to Cancun in March with the whole family.

The couple also traveled through Europe in June, Seattle in October, and Sedona in June last year, just the two of them.

Girl, 2, dies in hot car after 'her father made terrible mistake'

Parker Scholtes, 2, died after she was left in a car outside her home in Tucson, Arizona, for at least half an hour by her father Chris Scholtes as the temperature climbed to 109F.

www.dailymail.co.uk

*maybe he doesn't need the money, traveling costs add up. He possibly started out as a good role model for the kids but somewhere, prob long ago, something went wrong with his priority selections of feel good pings in his head.

It’s a shame, because they had a great life, and with a better and more responsible attitude on his part, the situation could have been ideal.

 

[MissMalowe]

I think his "role" as SAH may have been related to his FC situation.......

(Snipped by me)
I feel silly having to ask this, but what does FC mean?

 

[scapa]

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.

This is a tough one. I'm a doc, and well remember the relentlessness and exhaustion of ER/OR rotations. In the absence of family nearby I relied absolutely on my partner and when I was off shift did my best to give her a break.

Full-time stay-at-home parenting is tiring and I absolutely get the need for safe respite for the carer. Like others hereI see a significant difference between, say, planting a kid in front of Blue's Clues for a bit whilst reading the paper nearby . playing whatever video game and leaving that kid in the car in a car seat she cannot escape from in extreme heat.

Especially if this is a regular gambit.

Also wanted to note that, per reports upthread, that his actual text reads "Babe, I'm sorry." It's a small distinction, and I'm no linguistic analyst, but to me that construction explicitly close down the discussion in quite a different way, with an address that firmly places his wife in a specific (and subaltern) subject position, and expresses a distinctive finality of engagement. It's a shocking text to send in the circumstances, and I suspect follows the contours of many past arguments.

No idea how this case will run, but it strikes me as different in kind from many of the "forgotten child" cases we see. There's an apparent pattern of negligence, a series of lies in the early investigation, a clear and appalling timeframe of neglect and likely compelling digital evidence. I expect this particular pillar of the community to go to court and very possibly to serve significant time. Hopefully the family he leaves can find their way through this eventually.

'How could I do this?': He left his daughter in a hot car for hours. She died

Marana police say Christoper Scholtes, 37, intentionally left his daughter in the car that afternoon and had done so before.

www.azcentral.com

 

[Herat]

I've criticized both his actions as well as her inactions. Their genders don't have anything to do with it. If roles had been reversed I'd be pointing out the dad's failures to seek alternative or additional care rather than the mom's.

I do, however, think that their close relation to one another DOES play a big part in terms of their levels of expectations of one another.

For instance,
I brought up the example the other day of what if this had occurred at a daycare facility?
The parents would have (rightfully) made a formal complaint to the facility seeking to immediately terminate that worker and also possibly alert the police to ensure that specific worker will never be able to care for children in a professional capacity again. Perhaps even file a lawsuit with the daycare facility and possibly still pulll their child from that facility and seek alternative care despite the worker no longer being employed there.

But if its a parent who continuously does this it's no big deal? They aren't a daycare facility so the expectations regarding care are lower? The level of danger for the same act is somehow lessened? Interesting.


Conversely,
If the facility chose to keep that worker on staff and that worker continued leaving children in the vehicles unattended and parents knew about this but still chose to keep their children at that facility, the failure to protect would fall not only on the daycare worker and the facility, but also on the parents who knew it was occurring and did nothing.

Mom pleads in court for his return rather than his termination because he's her husband, not her daycare provider.

Gender doesn't play a part in this for me. Nor do their roles or their relationship to one another. But definitely for them, their relation to one another plays an enormous role in how this even came to be and what the repercussions should be.

I've played this argument to myself over and over, too.

If she knew he had a pattern of intentionally leaving the children locked in the car for "babysitting", did she have any idea why he needed to do this or what he was doing during this time?

I've read he was a scientist, a researcher. Did he still have projects or was he currently between jobs?

I would have thought a more responsible situation for him would be to have his alone, Playstation time during the evenings when she was not scheduled to work or to be on call. This afternoon me-time sounds like a serious problem.

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

(Snipped by me)
I feel silly having to ask this, but what does FC mean?

Family Court

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

I've played this argument to myself over and over, too.

If she knew he had a pattern of intentionally leaving the children locked in the car for "babysitting", did she have any idea why he needed to do this or what he was doing during this time?

I've read he was a scientist, a researcher. Did he still have projects or was he currently between jobs?

I would have thought a more responsible situation for him would be to have his alone, Playstation time during the evenings when she was not scheduled to work or to be on call. This afternoon me-time sounds like a serious problem.

Per media reports, he was not employed outside the home.

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

Apologies if this has been posted, this thread moved so quickly I may have missed it. Here is the Complaint, in full, it contains many details that have been highlighted by the media.

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/kvoa.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/78/17846bec-42fb-11ef-a3cf-0bbd73adf697/6695a5310511f.pdf.pdf

 

[iamshadow21]

Apologies if this has been posted, this thread moved so quickly I may have missed it. Here is the Complaint, in full, it contains many details that have been highlighted by the media.

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/kvoa.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/78/17846bec-42fb-11ef-a3cf-0bbd73adf697/6695a5310511f.pdf.pdf

So the two older children were home.

 

[mickey2942]

8-week-old girl dies in hot car in New Jersey, dad arrested

A dad is facing charges after his 8-week-old daughter died when she was left in a hot car in New Jersey, authorities said.

abcnews.go.com

Another girl, I wonder if statistically more girls die than boys in "hot car deaths"?

Police: Death of 2-year-old left in hot car in Monticello under investigation

Officials say efforts to save the child were unsuccessful and that they were pronounced dead at the scene.

westchester.news12.com

This toddler is male.

Hot Cars Resources - Kids and Car Safety

Information provided by Kids and Car Safety related to hot cars data, education, safety tips, studies, technology, child stories, and more.

www.kidsandcars.org

 

[al66pine]

07-12-24 Interim Complaint.

Apologies if this has been posted, this thread moved so quickly I may have missed it. Here is the Complaint, in full, it contains many details that have been highlighted by the media.

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/kvoa.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/1/78/17846bec-42fb-11ef-a3cf-0bbd73adf697/6695a5310511f.pdf.pdf

@LifeIsAMystery
Thanks so much for this.

 

[al66pine]

So the two older children were home.

@iamshadow21 Thx, as some earlier MSM reports seemed vague.

Interim complaint: Neighbor's vid(s?) shows---
Approx. 12:53 .... Chris' "vehicle arrived at residence & was parked in driveway just AFTER"... (< my caps)
12:52.... "his other two children arrived home."

It seems imo the other dau's were not w him in the car when he took toddler on whatever errand(s?).

Where had the other dau's been?
Had they been at a house nearby, maybe playing w friend(s), and they walked home?
Were they dropped off by someone in a vehicle?

Just wondering.

 

[airportwoman]

If I had a video game addiction and young kids, I might get the gaming stuff out of the house or at least not have it on the coffee table in the living room. That they seized a half full glass to test makes me wonder how that tox screen will come back.

Since mom was concerned that he was repeatedly leaving the kids in the car in the garage, wonder if she thought the exercise equipment would be a constructive barrier to doing so? In direct sun on the driveway in AZ heat was his next go to. It's surreal, it seems like it was only a matter of time before tragedy. And that he failed in his responsibilities to his older child shows a pattern to me of what seems like callousness to the needs of young kids. And indifference to court orders, norms of behavior, etc. that tracks with blowing off his wife's safety concerns and the odd tone of "Sorry Babe!" re: a dead toddler. JMOO.

I'm also curious about the fairly recent sealed criminal case that comes up in court records. This guy has a lot of issues. JMOO. Would be interested to hear more about how he is a "pillar of the community" and what "community" that may be. MOO.

How desperate must this woman have been to have a man in her life, a PHYSICIAN no less, that she picked a guy like this and stayed with him? Not victim blaming; just wondering what she could possibly have seen in him.