Undercover tapes reveal accused killer’s conversations after tiny girl’s death

“He’s there now, not in pain.”

Aaron Paul Richardson was allegedly referring to his stepdaughter, Tiffani. The 12-year-old weighed just 7.4kg when he died at his Gold Coast home a few months ago.

“We’re here, parents, devastated by the accusation,” he told an undercover police officer, according to Supreme Court documents released for the first time.

Richardson, 39, and his partner, Tiffani’s mother Carrissa Scholten, are accused of killing the girl.

It was an April evening in 2022, and Scholten had called Richardson to come home.

Prosecutors said Tiffani remained on a cot in a dark closet in her parents’ bedroom for hours.

She told police Richardson went to the home and tried to resuscitate her.

But after his arrest, he told an undercover officer that despite his best efforts, CPR did not work. “Especially when there was nothing, nothing. Everything was awful.”

He said later: “We left it until the last minute.”

The girl was diagnosed with Rett syndrome, a genetic neurological disorder, when she was two years old and had developmental problems.

Following Tiffani’s death, police launched Operation Uniform Zoysia, during which they interviewed members of her family.

Scholten’s sister recalled how Richardson called her that night and said: “You need to get here as soon as possible.

“What?” The aunt answered.

“Tiff.”

The aunt reported that Richardson sounded genuinely distressed. He told her: “This is not good.”

The phone call was quick, the aunt recalled. “When I arrived, I ran upstairs. I saw [Richardson] In the driveway as I walked in. “He seemed excited and I think he was worried the police would come to the house and find things he didn’t want found.”

Documents submitted for the rejected Richardson’s bail application detailed that he had a criminal history in both Queensland and NSW, including domestic violence and dangerous drug trafficking. He was sentenced to three years in prison in Brisbane for trafficking cocaine between April and July 2022.

“[Richardson] “I was confused as to why he wasn’t there with Carrissa,” the aunt told police.

‘‘I had to look at him all the time’

Photographs of the room presented to the court showed Tiffani’s bed was placed inside an 8-foot-by-8-foot wardrobe, a fan was mounted on a shelf above, and a small dresser was located nearby. There were also children’s clothes in the bathroom, an empty purse pouch and a glass lid on the dressing table.

According to court documents, when Scholten spoke to the Triple Zero operator, he told them: “My daughter is dead.”

He then performed CPR on Tiffani’s weak body and told them: “She’s so cold.”

The prosecution reported that although Tiffani was dependent on her mother and Richardson to make ends meet, Scholten checked on her at 1 p.m. without any observation for more than six hours.

The prosecution argued that Richardson owed a duty of care to Tiffani, regardless of whether he was her biological father or not. He had repeatedly told police that Tiffani was his daughter and that he took care of her and fed her.

She talked about their bond and said it was “disgusting” that police thought she would harm her own child, according to documents. He told the undercover officer that he “had to take care of her all the time” and that if they took him out to dinner he would raise up the whole house.

“You can never have family relaxation time. So there was always one of us on the move. So the family was kind of separated from that, but we dealt with it. We learned how to live with it, and yeah, it worked,” he allegedly said during the conversation.

The legal team stated that the charges were challenged and that there were significant triable issues without compromising the strength of the prosecution case.

His defense said Richardson would likely oppose the lawsuit on two grounds (duty and causation). His lawyers stated that he was not the biological father and said that the prosecution should establish that he had the duty to provide the necessities of life.

They also said that Tiffani was born prematurely and that there would be a question as to whether malnutrition was the sole cause of death or whether an underlying health condition was a contributing or primary cause.

His defense said Richardson did not attempt to minimize the seriousness of the allegation and that he was not alleged to have committed any act of violence against Tiffani.

‘Medical, emotional and physical neglect’

A haunting photo presented to Tiffani’s court showed her body lying on a spotted blanket. He had become very weak, his eyes were sunken and sunken.

A medic in the intensive care unit said the woman reminded him of starving children in Africa.

A doctor who analyzed Tiffani’s condition after her death said that in more than 30 years of looking at children with Rett syndrome, they had never seen a child as emaciated as Tiffani in autopsy photographs.

His body was so small that paramedics had to attach defibrillation pads to his chest and back.

The morning after her death, Tiffani’s grandmother took Scholten to Starbucks to talk to her, according to documents. Scholten made a comment he found strange: He had bathed Tiffani after the girl died but before calling an ambulance.

“I asked Carrissa why. Carrissa replied: ‘Because she was cold.’ I said: ‘If he was cold and not breathing, had he disappeared for a while…?’

“Carrissa just said, ‘She was really cold.’ That was all she could say.”

Court documents show Tiffani’s family spent $100,000 provided by the National Disability Insurance Program, but they were unable to bill an inspector.

The prosecutor in the Richardson case said Tiffani was funded from 2019 until her death and received an annual lump sum package for her care. However, there was no evidence that this funding was spent on allied health support, services or products for Tiffani.

His last medical contact before his death in April 2022 was at Gold Coast University Hospital in June 2019.

Tiffani attended a private school until the year before her death. Teachers there remembered him as constantly hungry and restless. A teacher prepared meals, stocked the kitchen cupboard and brought second-hand clothes especially for Tiffani. No child safety concerns were raised.

The prosecution argued that Scholten repeatedly told people that Tiffani’s life expectancy was five years; This was something his first pediatrician didn’t tell him.

The prosecution argued that between the end of the school term in December 2021 and her death four months later, Tiffani rarely left her home and spent most of her time in her cot.

“She had no social interaction, learning, or developmental support. She had no medical treatment. Tiffani suffered from medical neglect, emotional neglect, and physical neglect,” the documents state.

Richardson and Scholten’s cases are still in court.

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