(LifeSiteNews) — Prosecutors have revealed that the Arizona father who accidentally left his 2-year-old daughter to die in a hot vehicle last summer was watching pornography while she suffered from heat exposure for over three hours.
According to the New York Post, 37-year-old Christopher Scholtes was “distracted watching the X-rated videos when he left his youngest daughter, Parker, inside a car parked in the driveway of his Marana home during a scorching 109-degree day last summer.” Scholtes, who has also been accused of physically assaulting his oldest daughter, is charged with first-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty.
Scholtes left the little girl sleeping in the family’s 2003 Acura on July 9, 2024, and went inside to play video games, drink beer, and watch pornography. Surveillance footage also recorded Scholtes leaving Parker in the car at a gas station and the supermarket, where he stole cans of beer. Scholtes initially claimed that he left his daughter in the car with the air conditioning on for a mere half hour so she could continue napping.
According to court records, however, Parker was in the car from 12:30 PM to 4 PM, when his wife Erika arrived at home and found her unconscious in the car. According to the Post, Parker “was pronounced dead an hour later at Banner University Medical Center—the same hospital where her mother worked as an anesthesiologist.” The records also revealed that Scholtes admitted that he knew the car would turn off after 30 minutes.
Court records revealed that Scholtes admitted in text messages with his wife that he “killed our baby”; the mother told him that Parker had been “perfect” and wrote plaintively that: “I told you to stop leaving them in the car. How many times have I told you?” Scholtes had previously left his other children in the car as well, with police records noting that he “got distracted playing his game” and the oldest daughter telling police that she had been old enough to figure out how to turn the car back on when the children were abandoned.
Despite Scholtes’ record of alleged child abuse against his oldest daughter (with a different woman) and the death of Parker as a result of his adulterous pornography use, his wife has stated that she is sticking with him, calling the daughter’s death a “tragic mistake.” That may be true, but Scholtes still faces life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder (Arizona has the death penalty, but prosecutors are not requesting it).
Parker’s horrifying death is yet more evidence of pornography’s profoundly corrosive effect on those who use it. “First lesson: pornography should be illegal so that it’s insanely difficult and costly to access,” Christian commentator Allie Beth Stuckey wrote in response to the story. “This would save lives. Second lesson: sin makes you stupid. When you’re enslaved to sin, you do stupid things, and innocent people pay the price. Don’t delude yourself into thinking, ‘I’d never let it get that bad.’”
“The truth is, if you look at porn, you’re not in control. Porn is. Stop looking, confess your sin, and allow accountability into your life so you’ll never watch again,” she concluded.
Another commentator put it more succinctly: “I’d rather die alone than be with a man who watches porn.” Many others echoed Stuckey’s sentiments that pornography should be banned, and they are obviously correct. Few porn addicts make mistakes as lethal as Scholtes, but all porn addictions are tremendously destructive both personally as well as for the loved ones of those who use.
