Ten years ago, mother of four Carissa Kaye Scholten was raising money to care for her disabled daughter Tiffani. Now she is behind bars for allegedly murdering her.
The 36-year-old was charged with the murder of 12-year-old “Tiffy”, two years after the girl’s “extremely emaciated” body was removed from her Gold Coast home.
Police say the condition of the boy’s body, found in the family home on Easter Monday night 2022, was “conflictive”.
Police also filed murder charges against Aaron Paul Richardson, 37, who is Scholten’s longtime partner but not the biological father of Tiffani or her other children.
The accused pair appeared at Southport Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday where they were remanded in custody.
Detectives from Queensland Police’s child protection unit have been investigating Tiffani’s death since paramedics were called to the couple’s home in Bellagio Crescent, Coomera, at 8pm on April 18, 2022.
They found the girl “unconscious” and declared the house a crime scene.
Detective Inspector Paul Fletcher, from the Gold Coast District Vulnerable People Unit, said Tiffani’s case had been one of the most difficult he had been involved with.
Carissa Scholten has been charged with the murder of her 12-year-old daughter two years after the girl’s “extremely emaciated” body was found in her home in a state where police found her “disposed”.
Police found 12-year-old Tiffani Scholten “unresponsive” at the Coomera home where the girl lived with her mother, Carissa Scholten (right), and her stepfather, Carissa’s de facto partner, who has also been charged with murder.
“The investigation into the death of this young woman has been one of the most heartbreaking and complex we have ever had to undertake,” he said this week.
Tiffani suffered from the rare chromosomal disorder Rett syndrome and epilepsy, which made it difficult for her to eat, and had been fed through a gastric tube when she was young.
Eight years before Tiffani was found dead, Scholten and Tiffani’s biological father started the public fundraiser ‘Help Tiffy Walk’.
The Scholtens said the money raised would be used to buy a special baby walker harness called the ‘Upsee Kit’, which fits over an adult’s legs and allows the child to walk with them.
It took police, (above) outside the Bellagio Crescent home, Coomera in 2022, more than two years to charge Tiffani’s mother and her common-law partner over the girl’s alleged murder.
Tiffani (left) suffered from a rare disorder, Rett syndrome, which made it difficult for her to eat. She was found dead in her home in April 2022 and her mother, Carissa Scholten (right), has been charged with her alleged murder and denied bail.
At the time, in April 2014, Tiffani was about to turn five and had gained weight after starting to eat orally, having weighed just 5kg at the age of three.
On Facebook at the time, Scholten thanked generous donors and people posted responses saying “how lucky to have you as a mom” and “what a wonderful mother you really are.”
Scholten responded by posting a photo of herself, her husband and their four children and saying: “A BIG THANK YOU from our family.”
It appears to have moved to Coomera, the theme park capital of the Gold Coast and home to Dreamworld, Movie World and Wet’n’Wild, in 2016.
She and Aaron Richardson lived in a duplex on Bellagio Crescent, and then in the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home where Tiffani’s body was later found.
Carissa Scholten, pictured with Tiffani (right) and their three children, posted a big thank you on Facebook in 2014 when generous donors helped her raise money for a special walker for the then four-year-old babies.
Police say the condition of Tiffani’s remains, at the Coomera home they declared a crime scene, was “shocking” and she believed she died from “insufficient care”.
Detectives formed Operation Uniform Zoysia to investigate the vulnerable girl’s death and appealed for “direct eyewitnesses” who saw Tiffani between December 2021 and April 2022.
In addition to people who may have seen Tiffani in public at the time, they also asked for information about anyone, including children, who may have visited the home or interacted with the family over the previous few years.
Scholten, a former salesman of cleaning products and cosmetics, was listed as “unemployed” in court documents filed this week. The Gold Coast Newsletter reported.
Richardson was recorded as living in Redland Bay, south-east of Brisbane.
Police allege the death of Tiffani, a former pupil at Southport Special School, was the result of inadequate care.
Scholten and Richardson have been charged with a single count of murder and will reappear in Southport court on November 8.