Man Calls Police to Say He Just ‘Killed a Baby’ : Crime: He leads officers to body of 3-year-old girl found with unharmed infant. The children’s mother, an acquaintance, is missing.

Led to the scene by a man calling from a pay phone to say he had just “killed a baby,” officers broke into an apartment early Saturday and found a 3-year-old girl dead, apparently stabbed repeatedly.

They also found a 9-month-old boy unharmed and took him into protective custody.

Police arrested Michael Robert Pacewitz, 21, a church acquaintance of the children’s mother who reportedly had recently lost his job and reverted to using methamphetamine. Police said Pacewitz called police at 5:54 a.m., then waited to be arrested at a public telephone at Gilbert Street and Commonwealth Avenue, about a mile from the mother’s apartment.

Upon taking Pacewitz into custody, police said they found a kitchen knife in one of his pants pockets. The suspect is being held in the city jail without bail, police said, and murder charges against him are expected to be filed Monday, with an arraignment to follow on Tuesday in Municipal Court.

Late Saturday, police still had been unable to locate the mother, Joanne Boydston. Friends said Boydston, in her mid-20s and unemployed, had gone the previous night to visit a friend, leaving the children in Pacewitz’s care.

Investigators said that they had not clarified the relationship between Pacewitz and Boydston. Acquaintances of both said they did not know whether the two were romantically involved.

According to one neighbor, Pacewitz “seemed to be one of those ‘born-again’ Christians. They (Pacewitz and Boydston) would be in the back talking gospel.”

Both are members of Jacob’s Well Christian Centre, a Fullerton church that ministers to street people.

Robert Town, pastor of the church, said Pacewitz was drawn into the congregation about a year ago when the church’s outreach program encountered him and his mother living in a low-rent motel in Anaheim.

“He and his mother came to the church one evening,” Town said. “It was either that night or shortly after that he became saved.”

Pacewitz had had a history of frequent drug use, but he embraced religion, got a job and appeared to have stopped using drugs, Town said.

But Pacewitz lost his job at a T-shirt store about three weeks ago, became depressed and began acting oddly, Town said.

Last Thursday, he exposed himself before the congregation during a revival meeting and later explained that he had resumed taking methamphetamines, popularly known as “crystal,” Town said.

“He was really into drugs, and we were just trying to get him to cope with life,” Town said. “It all just blows my mind that this all came down, because he was doing so well. And then Thursday, he just flipped out and then went on down the road.”

Scott East, 27, whose apartment faces Boydston’s, said he was awakened at 3:15 a.m. Saturday by “a thumping sound--boom, boom, boom. That’s when somebody started yelling.”

He said he opened his front door and saw men who live below Boydston’s apartment knocking on her door to check on the noise, but no one answered.

Neighbors said the little girl’s name was Marcelin and described her as blue-eyed with brownish-blond hair, usually unkempt, whose soles had turned black from constantly going barefoot.

“She was always playing in the middle of the street,” said one neighbor, Yolanda Velez. “She just wandered around like she didn’t know where she was going.” The girl seemed to be healthy, but “it looked like they didn’t give her a bath,” Velez said. Another neighbor, Ron Whitacre, 30, described her as “the sweetest little girl. She didn’t shy away from people.”

Gwen Armstrong, 25, said she occasionally baby-sat for Boydston. She said Boydston always left the children with baby-sitters when she left but had never before stayed away from home so long. The girl would have crying fits when separated from her mother, Armstrong said.

Staff writer Michael Ashcraft contributed to this story.