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

[Angelcat13]

summary of the interview w Parker's half sister:

She is 16 and unnamed in the article.

She never met her father until she was five. at that point a bitter custody battle was waged over her. Eventually CS won full custody and she lived with him and ES for four years. She has diabetes and describes that he was in the habit of her sitting in the car,, sometimes for hours at a time since age seven. Once she was in the car for 4 to 5 hours and kept having to restart it herself. She claims that day she had only eaten once, much earlier in the day, which is not good for someone suffering from diabetes.

She never wanted to live with him, eventually depression caused her to attempt to end her life. After that incident CPS finally removed her from CS and ES home. She was then returned to her mom's custody but mom then subsequently died after a battle with cancer. She now resides with an unnamed best friend's mother.

She says she is only shocked that a child hasn't died in a car sooner under his care.

her interview establishes that this has been a long standing practice for CS to leave small children unattended in a car.

Edited to correct an item (thanks for catching @al66pine)

I wonder why she “didn’t meet him until she was five”? Did her mom have concerns about his fitness as a parent?

 

[Angelcat13]

It's one thing to be watching TV while babysitting the kids. You can still hear them and see them, go looking for them during commercials.

It's another entirely to be completely absorbed for what must be hours in VR headset. No way are you actually caretaking those little children. LE needs to carefully get statements from the surviving children about what exactly he was doing, how often he behaved like this, and what they did or didn't do around him during these times.

The house could go on fire and a fire alarm might not even be loud enough to distract him. He wouldn't be able to hear screams of a child falling into a pool, or even a car alarm.

Absolute intentional negligence. He needs to go to prison, if these facts are true.

He should NEVER be in charge of children again and I am shocked that CPS hasn't stepped in to remove him from the home.

I hope LE has been recording ALL interactions with the girls because I am afraid that he (and maybe even mom) will do his best to get them to change what they have said so far. IMO, he is narcissistic and only cares about what happens to HIM and could care less how all of this affects his kids or anyone else.

 

[MsMarple]

I’m sorry, and maybe the mom could be considered a victim, but if she knew that he used the car as a babysitter IMO she could be considered complicit in Parker’s death or, at the very least, child neglect and/or endangerment.

Sorry, but if my husband did this he’d be rotting in jail and I’d be helping to make sure he stayed there and never had access to my children again! It would be different if this was a true case of “forgotten child”, but this case appears to be far from this.

My heart goes out to the children, but I’m sorry I have ZERO sympathy for mom - especially since her pleas to have him released could pose further risk to the girls - physically and or psychologically.

Now that it appears that dad was using the car as a babysitter nearly as far back as a decade ago I 100% agree with you. His behavior wasn’t recent and it wasn’t isolated, he’s been doing it for years and his wife chose to simply tell him to stop. Yet he kept doing it and she knew.

Those poor children. Only their parents stood between safety and harms way and they failed.
MOO

 

[Angelcat13]

Wow, is right. Did she live with CS and his current wife? Seriously, I wonder if he had "Xanny the Nanny" for his toddler. That is why I am hoping that there is a full blood screen done.

Not just BLOOD tests, but HAIR FOLLICLE tests to see if there was a history/pattern of drugging the kids so he didn’t have to be bothered with them.

 

[mickey2942]

Not just BLOOD tests, but HAIR FOLLICLE tests to see if there was a history/pattern of drugging the kids so he didn’t have to be bothered with them.

Agreed. Tomorrow should be interesting. Do we consider CS a "victim" or a "perpetrator"? MOO is that, Parker, the innocent toddler, who is dead, is the victim here. CS is definitely NOT a victim.

As for his wife, Parker's mother, she is definitely a victim. But also an enabler, for supporting CS. Difficult to understand the family dynamics here.

 

[Arkay]

I agree that CS is definitely NOT a victim. But sorry, I disagree with mom being a victim An enabler and/or complicit - not directly complicit, but complicit in her failure to protect. I just don’t see her as a victim, though. Maybe if she didn’t appear to choose her husband over her children, but not with her KNOWING that he frequently left the kids unattended in the car for long periods of time AND NOT with her glowing pleas to his release because of what a stellar father he is. Sorry, but I just can’t see her as a victim.

Typically I would see the mom as a victim here, it’s a terrible way to lose a child and she isn’t the one who committed this tragedy.

Like you, though, I am not on her side.

IMO what we see from her text to him was equivalent to shaking her finger at him and saying, “Naughty, naughty! How many times did I tell you not to do this?” Like she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar, instead of ending up killing their child.

Her begging the court to allow him to be at home strikes me as putting her remaining daughters in a very untenable position.
When they are older and realize what their father did, they may be angry to know their mother wanted him home and around his remaining daughters.

Maybe she doesn’t feel this is imperiling them, whereas I believe that man cannot be trusted around children EVER. We already have the testimony of his neglected teenaged daughter, that his method of car isolation and entrapment was very familiar to her.

I don’t believe the mother was a part of this, but she knew it was a long-standing and ghoulish practice yet did nothing beyond scolding him.

JMO

 

[TDoc72]

I’m sorry, and maybe the mom could be considered a victim, but if she knew that he used the car as a babysitter IMO she could be considered complicit in Parker’s death or, at the very least, child neglect and/or endangerment.

Sorry, but if my husband did this he’d be rotting in jail and I’d be helping to make sure he stayed there and never had access to my children again! It would be different if this was a true case of “forgotten child”, but this case appears to be far from this.

My heart goes out to the children, but I’m sorry I have ZERO sympathy for mom - especially since her pleas to have him released could pose further risk to the girls - physically and or psychologically.

Well said! This is how I’m leaning too. The fact that she had to tell him once is bad enough but maybe I could chalk that up to having little to no experience with little kids (even though any adult should know this basic thing) It’s the more than once that really makes me not like her.

 

[LifeIsAMystery]

I didn’t read anything about the 16 year old having a child. I went back to the link and checked.

It has been reported elsewhere and may be upthread.

 

[mickey2942]

I am not sure that I would want my husband in jail immediately. Honestly, I know what my husband is like, and I would have never put him in that position. He is a great person, but he forgets everything.

So, really, it goes back to the fact that she KNEW he left the kids in the car, and still left him as a primary caregiver...

 

[Herat]

I am not sure that I would want my husband in jail immediately. Honestly, I know what my husband is like, and I would have never put him in that position. He is a great person, but he forgets everything.

So, really, it goes back to the fact that she KNEW he left the kids in the car, and still left him as a primary caregiver...

She really has to answer to the law for that. It's not as if they could not afford childcare or even a nanny, or lived in a very isolated place and couldn't find reliable help.

 

[Angelcat13]

I am not sure that I would want my husband in jail immediately. Honestly, I know what my husband is like, and I would have never put him in that position. He is a great person, but he forgets everything.

So, really, it goes back to the fact that she KNEW he left the kids in the car, and still left him as a primary caregiver...

I agree that I would not want my husband in jail if this was truly a “forgotten baby” case. My husband would be absolutely devastated if he did this (by accident) and no punishment meted out by the Courts (or Society) would even come close to the pain and “sentence” he would inflict upon himself.

But from all that I’ve read/seen/heard about this guy, IMO he never earned my sympathy.

 

[airportwoman]

I had read that elsewhere in this thread but chose not to comment because it was about a minor and I didn't recall a verifiable source for it.

In the fundraising-website post that was put up when the girl's mother died, it said that the 16-year-old was expecting a baby the following month.

I wonder what kind of issues the birth mother may have had at the time, for custody to be given to a guy like this.

 

[airportwoman]

It's one thing to be watching TV while babysitting the kids. You can still hear them and see them, go looking for them during commercials.

It's another entirely to be completely absorbed for what must be hours in VR headset. No way are you actually caretaking those little children. LE needs to carefully get statements from the surviving children about what exactly he was doing, how often he behaved like this, and what they did or didn't do around him during these times.

The house could go on fire and a fire alarm might not even be loud enough to distract him. He wouldn't be able to hear screams of a child falling into a pool, or even a car alarm.

Absolute intentional negligence. He needs to go to prison, if these facts are true.

He should NEVER be in charge of children again and I am shocked that CPS hasn't stepped in to remove him from the home.

I would hope that the smoke would at least distract him enough to get himself out, KWIM?

 

[airportwoman]

Not just BLOOD tests, but HAIR FOLLICLE tests to see if there was a history/pattern of drugging the kids so he didn’t have to be bothered with them.

They should also investigate the mother, to see if she's been prescribing inappropriate things for the kids, to keep them sedated.

 

[iamshadow21]

Please note that the news outlet did not name the girl:

The News 4 Tucson Investigators discovered that Scholtes has a 16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
…
"It makes plenty of sense, actually I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner," she said. "{Once} I had to go sit out in the car for four to five hours and continuously had to restart the car and had only eaten once that day."

She has Type 1 diabetes so that proved dangerous for her.
…
She said eventually, against her wishes, Scholtes was able to get custody of her and she spent four years living with him and his wife Erika.

She described that period as a nightmare.

N4T Investigators: Half-sister of 2 year old killed in hot car speaks out in exclusive interview

For the first time one of Christopher Scholtes' daughters is speaking publicly after the tragic death of his two year old daughter Parker earlier this month.

www.kvoa.com

Much more at the link, including a statement from Marana police indicating they have now spoken to the girl and were unaware of the DCS reports that resulted in her being removed from Chris’ custody.

So, three of his four children have now told that he did this all the time, for hours, and the fourth is dead as a result of it.

And the eldest was at even more severe risk because of her type one diabetes.

He played Russian roulette with all four kids' lives on the regular.

We sign him up for Father of the Year how? Because if they award a booby prize, he's winning ten plus years worth, one for every year of the lives of his kids he ruined. I hope he serves at least that long.

MOO

 

[callmehenry]

summary of the interview w Parker's half sister:

She is 16 and unnamed in the article.

She never met her father until she was five. at that point a bitter custody battle was waged over her. Eventually CS won full custody and she lived with him and ES for four years. She has diabetes and describes that he was in the habit of her sitting in the car,, sometimes for hours at a time since age seven. Once she was in the car for 4 to 5 hours and kept having to restart it herself. She claims that day she had only eaten once, much earlier in the day, which is not good for someone suffering from diabetes.

She never wanted to live with him, eventually depression caused her to attempt to end her life. After that incident CPS finally removed her from CS and ES home. She was then returned to her mom's custody but mom then subsequently died after a battle with cancer. She now resides with an unnamed best friend's mother.

She says she is only shocked that a child hasn't died in a car sooner under his care.

her interview establishes that this has been a long standing practice for CS to leave small children unattended in a car.

Edited to correct an item (thanks for catching @al66pine)

Thank you for summarising. How very very sad that a grown man appears to not care one bit about his children. And how dangerous to not only leave your child in the car but a child with diabetes who subsequently missed eating and could have become so sick as a result.