A New York man, possibly jealous over the attention his cancer-stricken baby had been receiving, confessed to beating her to death with a baseball bat, saying he first asked God to step in and stop him.

According to People magazine, Ryan Lawrence, 25, took a first-degree murder plea deal for the February death of his daughter. 21-month-old Maddox. last Thursday in a court in Onondaga County, New York.

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Court records show that Lawrence admitted he took his daughter to a “remote and secluded location” where he bludgeoned the baby repeatedly with a wooden baseball bat before placing her her body and the bat “in a prepared fire pit for hours.” He then bound her remains to a cinder block and tossed them into a local harbor.

Her body was later recovered in Syracuse’s Onondaga Lake.

After being taken into custody, Lawrence reportedly confessed to Detective Mark Rusin that he asked God to intervene, saying he prayed, “God, if I’m not meant to kill her, make her stumble.”

According to District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick, baby Maddox had already fought off eye cancer, with the attorney suggesting that Lawrence was jealous over the amount of attention his daughter received.

Lawrence is set to be sentenced in October.

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(H/T Friendly Atheist)