The sun hadn’t even risen when tragedy struck again inside the Scholtes home in Phoenix.
Just hours before he was due to start a 30-year prison sentence for his daughter’s death, 38-year-old Christopher Scholtes ended his own life.

Sixteen months earlier, he’d left little Parker, just two years old, asleep in a hot car while he watched adult videos and played games. When her mother, Dr Erika Scholtes, came home, the horror was already beyond repair.

“I told you to stop leaving them in the car,” her text read that awful day. His reply still haunts: “I killed our baby. This can’t be real.”

Now their eldest daughter, 17, who lost both her baby sister and now her father, refuses to stay silent. She has vowed to continue her lawsuit against Erika Scholtes, claiming years of neglect and emotional abuse. “She wants justice — not revenge,” said her former guardian. “She just wants the truth to mean something.”

Authorities confirmed Christopher’s death as suicide. In court, even prosecutors were shaken. “Justice was not served appropriately this morning,” one said through tears.

Two young girls remain without their sister — and now without their father.
And somewhere in Arizona, a teenage girl prepares to fight the battle her baby sister never could.