Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2017 | 8:45 p.m.
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Paramedics and officers responding to a 911 call about an unconscious baby in a Henderson living room last month found dog feces on the floor and insects throughout the "filthy" house.
As officers investigated the Oct. 23 incident, Anthony Martzen, 21, maintained he didn’t know what had happened to his 6-month-old baby girl, Henderson police said.
But following a polygraph exam after the baby died two days later, he confessed to shaking her and said he'd “watched her eyes roll back into her head and she became lifeless,” according to his arrest report released this week.
When paramedics arrived about 6:30 p.m. to 235 E. Merlayne Drive, near Sunset and Russell roads, they found Martzen and family members attempting life-saving efforts on the baby's tiny body, police said.
The father had brought the baby to the living room and exclaimed that she wasn't breathing, police said.
A doctor at University Medical Center, where the baby was transferred to from St. Rose Dominican Hospital – Siena Campus, told detectives that a "small" brain bleed had been detected on the child, which according to the physician was caused by lack of oxygen due to shaking, police said.
Fluid in the girl's brain shows there'd been previous shaking incidents, police said.
Martzen initially told investigators that before she stopped breathing, the baby had acted normal all day and that about 20 minutes after the baby's mother fed her, he lay her down on a "bouncy bed," police said. He gave the baby a pacifier, which was held up by a blanket.
A few minutes later as he was cleaning the room, he heard the baby make a "strange sound," prompting him to pick her up to discover she wasn't breathing, police said. He said that similar incidents had happened before, but he denied shaking her.
The mother was at work when the incident occurred, police said. Clark County Department of Family Services, which documents near fatalities or deaths involving children, does not have a history of interacting with the baby's immediate family, records show. The agency also is investigating the death.
During the polygraph test, which he agreed to take last week, Martzen told the examiner that he "did shake" the baby, "which he knew killed his daughter," police said.
Upon being re-interviewed by detectives, he said he'd shaken his daughter "excessively" and saw the baby's eyes roll back into her head, police said. He admitted to also shaking the girl about four months earlier, but not as violently.
Martzen was arrested last week on one count each of murder and child abuse. He's being held at the Henderson Detention Center with no possibility of bail, jail records show.
