The Arizona dad who killed himself instead of serving decades behind bars after leaving his 2-year-old daughter to bake to death in a hot car was rumored to be having an affair with the married woman next door, neighbors told police.
Christopher Scholtes, 38, was found dead in his SUV inside the garage of his Phoenix home around 5:20 a.m. on Nov. 5, the same morning he was due to report for a 20- to 30-year prison sentence for the murder of his daughter, Parker.
He had pleaded guilty last month to second-degree murder and intentional child abuse.
Dr. Erika Scholtes, his anesthesiologist wife, had defended him for more than a year after the tragedy and backed his bail and travel requests, even as prosecutors prepared to send him away.
Neighbors, though, told cops they believed Scholtes was getting close to someone else: 37-year-old sales executive Katelyn Schacht, who lived next door.
Incident reports reviewed by the Daily Mail show several residents describing a “special relationship” between the two and saying the neighborhood had a “common consensus” the pair were having an affair.
Neighbor Michael Kramer said Scholtes’ young daughters often escaped from the house and wandered the streets and that Schacht “had many stories” about the kids getting loose.
Another neighbor, Kristine Verdugo, told police she doubted Schacht would be honest with investigators because of her ties to Scholtes, while resident Sarah Godsil said neighbors sometimes had to form “search parties” when the children or pets got out while Scholtes was sleeping “or something else happens.”
Godsil added that Schacht frequently excused his behavior and that some believed “something was going on.”
Police interviewed Schacht and her husband hours after Parker’s death. She told investigators Scholtes’ older daughters came to her door crying and said their mother was performing CPR.
“Mommy and daddy are calling 911 and mommy is giving her CPR,” one girl said, according to the report.
Scholtes is believed to have died of carbon-monoxide poisoning, though the cause hasn’t been officially confirmed, the Maricopa County medical examiner told the Daily Mail.
His death came sixteen months after Parker died in a July 2024 heat wave when he left her strapped inside the family Acura for more than three hours.
Court records say he spent the afternoon inside drinking stolen beer, watching pornography and playing video games while temperatures outside hit 108 degrees.
Scholtes told investigators he lost track of time while gaming and drinking. Surveillance footage showed he left Parker in the SUV shortly before 1 p.m., and she was found unresponsive by her mother after 4 p.m.
The temperature inside the car hit 108.9 degrees when first responders arrived, according to the Pima County Medical Examiner.
Text messages in police files show Erika Scholtes confronting her husband about drinking, alleged drunk driving and what she called a worsening pattern of reckless behavior.
“You haven’t shown me you can stop putting the girls in danger or not treat me badly,” she wrote in a text exchange on March 11 of last year.
After Parker’s death, she texted him again in anger: “I told you to stop leaving them in the car. How many times have I told you?”
“Babe, I’m sorry,” he replied. “Babe, our family. How could I do this? I killed our baby, this can’t be real.”
The couple’s two older children later told police their father often left them alone in the car, according to the reports.
His 17-year-old daughter from a previous marriage alleged in a lawsuit filed days before his death that he’d been leaving her unattended in vehicles for hours since she was “younger than 7.”
That means Scholtes had been leaving his kids in cars for more than a decade before the behavior finally turned deadly.
Schacht and Erika Scholtes could not be reached for comment.
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or are experiencing a mental health crisis and live in New York City, you can call 888-NYC-WELL for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the five boroughs, you can dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org.
