Carrissa Scholten raised money for her severely disabled daughter 10 years ago. Now she is accused of starving the child after the 12-year-old was allegedly found murdered in her Gold Coast home

Ten years ago, mother of four Carrissa Kaye Scholten raised money to care for her disabled daughter Tiffani. Now she is in prison for allegedly murdering her.

The 36-year-old was charged with the murder of 12-year-old ‘Tiffy’, two years after the child’s ‘extremely emaciated’ body was removed from her Gold Coast home.

Police are calling the condition of the child’s body, which was found in the family’s home on Easter Monday evening 2022, “confronting.”

Police have also filed a murder charge against Aaron Paul Richardson, 37, who is Scholten’s longtime partner but not the biological father of Tiffani or her other children.

The accused couple appeared at Southport Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday where they were remanded in custody.

Detectives from the Queensland Police Child Protection Unit have been investigating Tiffani’s death since emergency services were called to the couple’s home in Bellagio Crescent, Coomera, at 8pm on April 18, 2022.

They found the girl “unresponsive” and declared the house a crime scene.

Detective Constable Paul Fletcher, of the Gold Coast District Vulnerable People Unit, said Tiffani’s case was one of the most difficult he had ever been involved with.

Carrissa Scholten has been charged with the murder of her 12-year-old daughter, two years after the child’s “extremely emaciated” body was found in a state police home that was “confrontational” with

Police found Tiffani Scholten, 12, ‘unconscious’ in the Coomera home where the child lived with her mother, Carrissa Scholten (right) and her stepfather, Carrissa’s de facto partner, who has also been charged with murder

“The investigation into the death of this young girl is one of the most heartbreaking and complex investigations we have ever had to conduct,” he said this week.

Tiffani suffered from the rare chromosomal disorder Retts syndrome and epilepsy, which made it difficult for her to eat. As a child, she was fed through a stomach tube.

Exactly eight years before Tiffani was found dead, Scholten and Tiffani’s biological father started the public fundraising campaign ‘Help Get Tiffy Walkin’.

The Scholtens said the money raised would be used to purchase a special harness for baby walkers, called the “Upsee Kit,” which attaches to an adult’s legs and allows the child to walk.

Police (above) outside the home in Bellagio Crescent, Coomera in 2022, have taken more than two years to charge Tiffani’s mother and her de facto partner with the girl’s alleged murder

Tiffani (left) suffered from a rare condition, Rett syndrome, which made it difficult for her to eat. She was found dead in her home in April 2022 and her mother, Carrissa Scholten (right), has been charged with her alleged murder and has been denied bail

Tiffani was almost five years old at the time, in April 2014, and had gained a lot of weight after starting oral feeding. At three years old, she weighed only 5 kg.

Scholten thanked the generous donors on Facebook at the time and people posted comments in which they wrote: ‘How happy she is to have you as a mother’ and ‘what a wonderful mother you are.’

Scholten responded by posting a photo of herself, her husband and their four children, with the caption: ‘THANK YOU SO MUCH from our family’.

It appears she 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.

Carrissa Scholten, pictured with Tiffani (right) and her 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

Police say the condition of Tiffani’s remains, at the Coomera home they have declared a crime scene, was “confronting” and it is believed she died from “inadequate care”.

Detectives launched 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 people — including children — who may have visited the home or had contact with the family in recent years.

Scholten, a former salesman of cleaning products and cosmetics, was listed as “unemployed” in court documents this week, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

Richardson was reported as living in Redland Bay, southeast of Brisbane.

Police say the death of Tiffani, a former pupil at Southport Special School, was the result of inadequate care.

Scholten and Mr Richardson have both been charged with murder and will appear in Southport District Court on November 8.