'How could I do this?': He left his daughter in a hot car for hours. She died
"Babe, our family. How could I do this? I killed our baby. This can't be real."
So wrote the Marana father who police say left his daughter in a car last week, to die.
The temperature that afternoon was 109 degrees.
She was 2 years old.
This is where you want to stop reading. Please don’t, especially if you are a parent or a grandparent.
Marana police say Christoper Scholtes, 37, intentionally left his daughter in the car that afternoon and had done so before, according to court records released on Monday.
Dozens of children die in hot cars each year
Apparently, she was sleeping and he didn’t want wake her so he left her there in the car, with the air conditioner running.
More than three hours later, his wife arrived home and well, you know.
The Scholtes tot was the ninth child to die in a hot car this year, according to Kids and Car Safety. Since then, you can add two more, in Omaha, Neb., and Lakewood, N.J.
Every year, dozens of children die after being left in sweltering cars.
Often, it’s a mother running errands or a father who forgot to drop off a child at daycare on his way to work. Rarely, but sometimes, it’s a parent who just doesn’t much care.
Father knew A/C in car would shut off in half hour
It’ll be up to the courts to decide how this child came to be left to die, strapped in her car seat as the temperature rose to unbearable and ultimately unsurvivable levels.
Christoper Scholtes told police he returned home with the child around 2:30 p.m. on July 9. Neighborhood surveillance cameras, however, put his arrival at 12:53 p.m.
It was after 4 p.m. when the child was found, after the mother got home from work and asked about her youngest.
Here’s the stunner: Scholtes told police he knew the car would shut off after 30 minutes.
Scholtes’ other children, ages 9 and 5, told Marana police their father got distracted, busy as he was playing a Playstation game and putting food away.
And not the first time he has left child in the car
Apparently, it wasn’t the first time he left a child unattended in the car.
“I told you to stop leaving them in the car,” the child’s mother texted him as the child was being rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. “How many times have I told you?”
Scholtes has been arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder and child abuse. He could face decades in prison though I would imagine, if he's any sort of father, that he’s already living in hell.
"I told you to stop leaving them in the car, how many times have I told you," his wife texted.
"Babe I'm sorry,” he replied.
"We have lost her she was perfect," she wrote.
Lest you proclaim this could not happen to you ...
"Babe, our family. How could I do this? I killed our baby. This can't be real."
I don’t envy the judge who must figure out where justice lies in a tragedy such as this.
Before you say it could never happen to you … well, perhaps the better thing to be thinking is this:
There but for the grace of God …
Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona hot car death as inexplicable and heartbreaking as always
