Father charged with murder after 2-year-old left in car for three hours during 42-degree heatwave, police say

An Arizona father has been arrested and charged with murder for allegedly leaving his 2-year-old daughter in a car outside the family home for three hours as temperatures reached 108 degrees, authorities said.

Christopher Scholtes, 37, was taken into custody Friday and booked into the Pima County Adult Detention Center on charges of second-degree murder and child abuse, Marana police said in a news release.

Scholtes told police that when he returned home Tuesday afternoon, his daughter was asleep in her car seat and he didn’t want to wake her, the release said. He allegedly said he left her in the car seat while the car’s engine was running in the driveway and the air conditioning was on.

He then went into the house, police said.

According to police, the girl’s mother came home shortly afterward and found the toddler in the vehicle. The car’s engine was no longer running and the air conditioning was turned off, authorities said.

Despite life-saving efforts by the mother and the police, the girl was pronounced dead at the local hospital.

Police took video footage of surrounding houses and found that Scholtes left his daughter in the car for about three hours, the press release said.

Parts of the country were hit by a heatwave of historic proportions, with temperatures rising to as high as 42 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

In an affidavit, Scholtes claims he told authorities it was not unusual for him and his wife, a doctor, to leave their daughter in the running car while it was parked in the garage, Tucson NBC affiliate KVOA reported. He said he parked in the driveway because there was exercise equipment in the garage.

He also said he usually gets a warning when his car overheats or stalls, but he didn’t receive one on the day of the incident, the affidavit states.

Police said the incident was a “stark reminder of how dangerous it is to leave children unattended in a car.”

“The temperature inside the vehicle can rise quickly, even on relatively mild days, and can cause potentially fatal consequences within minutes,” police said. “We urge all parents and caregivers to remain vigilant and take every precaution to ensure the safety of their children.”

It is unclear whether Scholtes has a lawyer.