A man confessed to police that he used “wrestling-style moves” to inflict horrific injuries to a 1-year-old boy, who died several days later. However, the man shocked detectives when he made a disturbing special request.
When their regular babysitter called in sick, Brandon DeHart and Araya Coffey asked 24-year-old Marvin Rex Lake, who was their trusted friend, to watch their little boy so they could go to work. Just hours later, a simple babysitting job turned into every parent’s worst nightmare.
While Lake was babysitting 1-year-old Ahren Joshua DeHart and his own two children, he caused fatal injuries that led to the boy’s death, he told El Paso police. According to authorities, Lake admitted to using “several wrestling-style moves” on the boy, including placing the child’s head in a tight football hold after getting upset at him for ripping a pillow, WFTV reports. He claimed the child slipped out of the hold and hit the metal frame of the futon.
Investigators discovered that Lake had a video call at 5 p.m. with Allison Schneider, who is his girlfriend and the mother of the other two children he was watching. During this time, Schneider says that DeHart appeared to be “in good health and alert, but was crying and fussy.” At around 9:30 p.m., Lake called Schneider again to say that the boy had “rag-dolled” and vomited a red substance, KFOX reports.
Just before midnight, Schneider and DeHart’s mother arrived at the apartment to find the little boy unresponsive and struggling to breathe. He was rushed to a local hospital where he was placed on life support and diagnosed with severe brain damage, multiple skull fractures, hemorrhaging of the lung, internal abdominal injuries, and bruising, all of which were recorded as non-accidental. DeHart died less than four days later.
“Ahren was on life support and on Friday, at around 2:30 p.m. we were all there at the hospital and they decided to disconnect everything and let him pass away,” Lawrence DeHart, Ahren’s uncle, said. “Never in my life did I think I, my family, a 20-year-old newly married couple with almost an exact 1 year-old baby would have to live through this.”
When police questioned Lake, he initially claimed that he didn’t know what happened to DeHart and that he was watching television on his futon when the little boy got hurt. However, he soon confessed to the horrific abuse that caused the child’s death, blaming it on anger issues and underestimating his own strength.
During a break in questioning, Lake called Schneider and admitted that he caused the boy’s internal injuries but maintained that he didn’t inflict brain damage. The other two children in his care also sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
Lake told police, “I did not hurt his head, I only caused the internal injuries” during the conversation at police headquarters.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the interrogation was Lake’s main concern, which had nothing to do with the child. As the little boy lay dying in the hospital, Lake requested to pursue reimbursement for damages DeHart caused to his futon — the same futon upon which Lake allegedly injured the toddler’s head.
Friends established a GoFundMe to help ease the medical and funeral costs the young couple would incur. The goal was to raise $20,000.
Lake was taken into custody and booked at the El Paso County Detention Facility. He was charged with capital murder for the death of the toddler and was denied bond.
The 1-year-old boy’s death gained little attention in the media since it doesn’t further the chosen political narrative. Sadly, his life doesn’t matter to activists, who are quick to protest the deaths of armed criminals but ignore the murder of innocent children.
