Christopher Scholtes, 38, had everything ready to turn himself in that morning, November 5, 2025, in Arizona.
He had accepted a plea deal that would leave him facing between 20 and 30 years in prison for the death of his daughter Parker, just 2 years old, who had been forgotten in a car under the sun in Marana in July 2024. But that early morning, around 5:20 a.m., the family’s nanny arrived at the house and found him unresponsive in the garage. While trying to get the other daughters out of the home, which was filled with toxic gases, she called 911 in a call that is now known and describes the chaos of those minutes.
The medical examiner determined that he died from carbon monoxide poisoning—a suicide hours before losing his freedom. His wife Erika, an anesthesiologist, had been the one who tried to resuscitate Parker that day in 2024. Two 911 calls, the same family, an ending neither of them saw coming.
