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‘Kill me, take my life,’ man tells Anaheim officer after confessing to killing

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A man carrying a baby in his arms pleaded with an Anaheim police officer to kill him Thursday, confessing that he had killed his girlfriend.

Frank Moseley, 27, was booked on suspicion of first-degree murder Thursday after his girlfriend, Janessa Smith, 25, was found stabbed to death in the couple’s apartment in the 100 block of E. Wilken Way, police said.

Police first learned of the incident around 1:40 p.m., when Moseley used his car to cut off a patrol officer, who has been with the department about six months, in the 200 block of North Wilshire Avenue, said Daron Wyatt, an Anaheim police spokesman.

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Moseley then got out of the car with the couple’s 6- to 8-month-old daughter in his arms.

He asked the officer to kill him, telling him, “I just killed my wife,” Wyatt said.

The officer instructed the man to put the baby down, and Moseley did, setting her on the hood of the police car. As she began to roll off, the man grabbed the baby again.

The officer instructed the man to set the baby on the ground and once he did, the officer was able to get the suspect on the ground at gunpoint, Wyatt said.

“He’s yelling the whole time, ‘Kill me, take my life,’” Wyatt said. “Really agitated.”

Ultimately, the suspect gave an address, several miles away, of where he said he had killed Smith. As units were being sent to the location, police received a call from someone there who said a woman was down and they were performing CPR.

When authorities arrived, they discovered that Smith was dead, the victim of an apparent stabbing, police said.

Moseley is being held at the Anaheim Detention Facility on $1 million bail. The motive for the killing remains under investigation.

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The baby was unharmed and is in protective custody, Wyatt said.

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

Twitter: @Brittny_Mejia

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UPDATES:

1:40 p.m.: This article was updated with the names of the suspect and victim.

This article was originally published at 11:25 a.m.

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