Police Suspect Suicide in Burning, Stabbing Case

A 30-year-old Anaheim man apparently set his house on fire and then stabbed himself early Thursday in what police and coroner’s officials are calling a suicide.

A neighbor saw smoke coming from the house in the 1800 block of Victoria Street at 12:27 a.m. Thursday and called 911.

When authorities arrived and went inside, they found Mark Christopher Lake suffering from a wound to his chest. He died in surgery at UCI Medical Center several hours later, coroner’s officials said.

Anaheim Sgt. Jim Moore said a neighbor had called police about an hour before the fire to report that Lake was acting peculiar.

“We were called to check on his welfare,” Moore said. Officers went to the home but found nothing amiss.

When a neighbor called to report smoke coming from the house, police returned to the scene, along with firefighters, and found Lake wounded inside the home, Moore said.

“There was a lot of fire and a lot of smoke,” he said.

Lake is married but was home alone at the time of the incident, police said.