Dad Charged with Murdering His Daughter Allowed to Go on Family Vacation to Hawaii with Wife and Surviving Kids

• Christopher Scholtes is charged with first-degree murder after allegedly leaving his 2-year-old daughter alone in his car for three hours
• In April, a judge granted Scholtes’ request to travel with his wife and two surviving daughters to Hawaii from May 1 through May 9
• Scholtes recently rejected a deal that would require him to enter a guilty plea to a lesser charge of second-degree murder and will now head to trial in October

An Arizona father accused of murdering his daughter was allowed to vacation with his family ahead of his trial later this year.

Christopher Scholtes, 38, asked that he be able to travel to Hawaii with his wife and two daughters from May 1 through May 9, according to court records filed in Pima County Superior Court and obtained by PEOPLE.

In an order filed on April 3, Judge Kimberly Ortiz agreed to hear arguments on the matter, and after an April 15 hearing, ultimately decided to approve Scholtes’ request.

The trip came 10 months after Scholtes’ 2-year-old daughter died after Scholtes allegedly left her in his car alone while he played video games, according to an interim complaint obtained by PEOPLE.

His wife discovered the toddler three hours later, says the complaint, when she returned home to find the toddler unconscious in the vehicle.

The temperature in the vehicle at that time was 109 degrees, according to the complaint.

Scholtes allegedly told detectives with the Marana Police Department that after running errands that day, he left his daughter in the car with the air conditioning on because she was asleep in her car seat.

His car engine automatically turns off after 30 minutes — and Scholtes even told detectives he was aware of this, the complaint alleges.

Scholtes’s two surviving daughters, who were 6 and 9 at the time, also allegedly told detectives in interviews that their father had previously left them alone in the car for extended periods of time.

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The complaint details an alleged text exchange between Scholtes and his wife, during which she allegedly writes, “I told you to stop leaving them in the car, How many times have I told you?”

After reviewing the evidence in the case, the Pima County Attorney’s Office filed charges of first-degree murder and intentional child abuse against Scholtes.

He entered pleas of not guilty to both charges at his arraignment, and court records show that in March, Scholtes rejected a deal from prosecutors that would have reduced the charge to second-degree murder if he agreed to enter a guilty plea.

Scholtes petitioned the court for permission to travel to Maui with his wife and surviving children from May 1 through May 9 just days after rejecting that plea deal.

In her order approving the request, Judge Ortiz wrote that Scholtes would still be required to adhere to all the conditions of his parole, and stressed that he must contact pretrial services throughout his trip and not have any unsupervised contact with children, including his own.

Prosecutors then requested that the court order Scholtes to surrender his passport before making the nearly 3,000-mile trip to Hawaii, but Ortiz denied that motion, court records show.

KOLD first reported on the court approving Scholtes’ request to travel with his family to Hawaii.

His murder trial is set to begin on Oct. 27, having been pushed back from a planned September start date.

If convicted, Scholtes could be sentenced to life in prison.