As police went door to door investigating how a toddler was left to die in a hot car by her dad, a series of twisted details began to emerge that would shatter their idyllic suburban community.
Not only was Christopher Scholtes, who watched porn and played video games as Parker, 2, slowly died, believed to be having an affair with the woman next door.
His supposed mistress, Katelyn Schacht, 37, neighbors said according to police reports, was in a ‘difficult situation’ with her own spouse. That was putting it lightly.
Court documents seen by the Daily Mail revealed Jon Schacht, the father of her two kids, was facing years in jail on drug smuggling and human trafficking charges.
The Scholtes and Schacht houses sat side-by-side on a quiet street in Marana in the Tucson, Arizona , suburbs – cultivating an image of perfect middle-class families.
But behind the façades of their cookie-cutter McMansions were two households in turmoil even before Parker’s death in July 2024 shattered the illusion.
Now both men are gone – Schacht serving six years in federal prison and Scholtes taking his own life to avoid 20 to 30 years for second-degree murder.
Scholtes was found dead in his car on November 5, parked in the garage of the new $1 million home in Phoenix his wife Dr Erika Scholtes bought for them, in a chilling echo of his daughter’s death.
Christopher Scholtes (left) and his wife Dr. Erika Scholtes seemed the picture-perfect suburban family
In July 2024, Scholtes left Parker, 2, napping in his car outside the house during 90F weather for three hours and she died of heatstroke
Next door lived Katelyn Schacht, 37, with whom neighbors claimed to police Scholtes was having an affair, and her husband Jon
On the surface, Jon Christian Schacht, 38, was an unlikely criminal.
He was raised in suburbs of Chicago with, as his lawyers put it in sentencing submissions, a ‘typical middle-class Midwestern upbringing’.
His parents William and Beatrice were a ‘hard-working, no-nonsense family that provided him with a moral foundation’ and friends claimed he was a man of ‘integrity, compassion, and responsibility’.
Schacht was a good student who worked hard, played football at Oak Forest High School, where he met his future wife, Katelyn.
Photos from the dorm rooms of Illinois State University showed the young couple very much in love as they partied with friends.
He graduated in 2010, climbed the ladder of corporate sales and in 2015 married Katelyn, with whom had two daughters, now aged nine and six.
But ‘the trajectory of their lives shifted tectonically’ in 2019, when court records showed that, for unclear reasons, Katelyn filed for divorce.
They reconciled four months later and moved to Tucson for Katelyn’s new sales executive job – just as the Covid pandemic struck.
Katelyn, 37, neighbors told police, was in a ‘difficult situation’ with her own spouse
Scholtes’ wife Erika, 37, was an anesthesiologist at the same hospital her daughter was rushed to before she died
Police outside the Tucson-area home as they investigated the scene. Parker was left in the blue Acura SUV behind the police tape
Katelyn was furloughed without pay and Jon hadn’t yet found a new job, plunging the family into hardship on meager government handouts.
Drowning in debt, Schacht started driving for Uber, earning $400 a week at best.
One fateful day in September 2021, a young man named Michael Ernesto Abril, now 27, clambered into the back of his car after booking a ride.
Schacht’s lawyers described how they struck up a conversation and he shared his financial woes. Abril saw an opportunity.
He told the desperate father if he wanted to make some easy money, he could help smuggle illegal migrants into the US.
Within weeks, Schacht was making runs near the border to pick up migrants after they snuck across, court documents explained.
He then stashed them in hotels until other members of the smuggling ring arrived to move them on to California, Texas, or New York.
Initially he made the occasional run, just to keep his family’s heads above water, but was gradually drawn deeper and deeper into the criminal enterprise.
‘Over time, he became involved in the coordination and management of other couriers, and it appears that the high risk appealed to him as much as the financial rewards,’ his lawyers explained.
Schacht was a good student who worked hard, played football at Oak Forest High School, where he met his future wife, Katelyn (pictured in their first photo together)
Schacht is now serving six years in federal prison with drug smuggling and human trafficking convictions
This was, his lawyers explained, because Schacht had yet another secret – a crippling gambling addiction that constantly needed to be fed.
It started when his father took him to the races aged 15 and progressed to poker with friends in his 20s, card games at casinos, and then online gambling.
His lawyers argued his addiction was so bad, he needed the rush of playing cat and mouse with the law.
Many times, he and his associates were followed, stopped, or detained and only narrowly avoided being busted.
Still, he persisted – not knowing he had already lost.
His downfall came on May 24, 2023, when he picked up the phone while gambling away his spare cash at a casino with Abril.
Schacht knew some of his associates were into drug smuggling, but insisted in court submissions he had never touched that side of the operation before.
But the man on the phone, whom he knew as ‘Chuy’, had an offer that seemed like easy cash.
All he had to do was drive to Tucson, pick up a package, and take it to an address in Phoenix, where he would be paid $1,500.
Kathleen and Jon have two children whom neighbors said regularly went on playdates with the Scholtes’ daughters
Photos from the dorm rooms of Illinois State University showed the young couple very much in love as they partied with friends
He convinced Abril to come along for the ride, who wrote in his own court filings that he assumed they would just be transporting a few pounds of meth.
Instead, Chuy loaded 4.26kg of fentanyl into Schacht’s trunk and sent him on his way. Both men claimed in their court filings they never knew what was in the package.
Unbeknownst to Schacht, multiple law enforcement agencies knew about the smuggling ring, even the cars he drove.
Border Patrol was already tailing his 2019 Toyota Camry and enlisted Pinal County Sheriff’s deputies to pull him over.
Schacht quickly gave them the excuse they needed by turning across three lanes of traffic to take an exit and escape, records of his arrest explained.
But the cops already had a tracker on his car and pulled him over an hour later for the dangerous lane change.
Charging documents told how a sniffer dog detected the drugs in the trunk and police found the fentanyl inside.
Schacht claimed the drugs were planted in the car when he left it running while doing an errand for a friend, but Abril turned on him then and there.
Jon graduated university in 2010, climbed the ladder of corporate sales and married Katelyn in 2015 with whom had two daughters now aged nine and six
Out on bail and facing hard time, Schacht didn’t learn his lesson.
With online gambling debts piling up, he was ‘actively recruiting and coordinating pickups of undocumented migrants’ by the summer of 2024, his lawyers wrote.
Arrested again that November, he was ordered with an ankle monitor by the court and served with divorce papers by Katelyn.
He eventually pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess fentanyl with intent to distribute and conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal immigrants for profit.
Schacht’s lawyers told his gambling addiction story and asked for four years’ jail, while prosecutors demanded eight.
The judge split the difference and gave him six years, starting July 14 this year, with another three on probation.
Katelyn, meanwhile, was developing what neighbors told police was a ‘special relationship’ with Scholtes, who shared three children with wife Erika.
His relationship with Katelyn came up when neighbor Michael Kramer told police that Scholtes’ three young girls often escaped from the house and wandered the streets.
Kramer said Katelyn ‘had many stories’ about these incidents, but may be unwilling to discuss them with police.
‘[Kramer] stated that a common consensus in the neighborhood, although not confirmed, was that Katelyn and Christopher were having an affair, and that Katelyn would not come forward with what information she had due to this,’ police wrote.
Parker had been left to sleep in the family’s Acura with its air conditioning turned on. Her father admitted her second-degree murder last month and had been facing 20-30 years without parole when he was found dead
Another neighbor, Sarah Godsil, told the officers how neighbors several times formed ‘search parties’ when Scholtes’ daughters and pets got out of the house when he was sleeping ‘or something else happens’.
Godsil told police that Katelyn frequently made excuses for Scholtes and would therefore be unlikely to cooperate with police.
‘Sarah’s concern… is that Chris and Kate have a «special relationship» and she may not be forthcoming with information,’ police wrote in their report.
‘Sarah said Kate is in a difficult situation herself with her husband. She is not sure if Kate would be willing to share her specific stories.’
Katelyn was interviewed by police with her husband hours after Parker’s death, but did not discuss past incidents of Scholtes’ negligent parenting.
She instead explained how Parker’s two sisters came to her door after the toddler was found unresponsive in the car.
‘Kate said they were upset (‘in tears’) and they said that Parker wasn’t breathing and that Erika was giving her CPR,’ police wrote.
Despite her husband’s extreme negligence killing their toddler, Erika stuck by Scholtes and even petitioned the court, successfully, for bail and for him to be allowed to go on a family holiday to Maui
Scholtes was found dead about 5.20am on November 5 in his car in the garage (left) of the $1 million home in Phoenix
None of Scholtes’ neighbors recalled him having a job in the almost five years he lived at the Tucson-area house, and he appeared to be a full-time stay-at-home dad.
Erika worked long hours as an anesthesiologist at Banner University Medical Center, the same hospital Parker was taken to.
She was at work while Parker slowly died in the 2023 Acura MDX sitting in the driveway, and discovered her after arriving home after 4pm.
By that time, Parker had been locked in the car for more than three hours – since 12.53pm, according to surveillance footage.
Despite her husband’s extreme negligence killing their toddler, Erika stuck by Scholtes and even petitioned the court, successfully, for bail and for him to be allowed to go on a family holiday to Maui.
Neither family replied to requests from the Daily Mail for comment.
