Mother of Slain Girl, 3, Just Wants to Ask ‘Why’ : Crime: Woman says she bears no animosity toward the man accused of fatally stabbing her daughter.

Joanne Boydston, whose 3-year-old daughter was brutally murdered last weekend, said Tuesday that she bears no animosity toward the man suspected of killing her child and wants only to ask him a question.

“If I could see him now, I would just ask ‘Why?’ ” Boydston said in an interview from her brother’s home. “What was he thinking when he was stabbing my daughter?”

Boydston’s daughter, Marcelline Onick, was stabbed to death early Saturday at her Fullerton apartment. Michael Robert Pacewitz, 21, who attended the same charismatic church in Fullerton as Boydston and was watching her daughter Friday night, has confessed to the killing, according to police, and reportedly had sought psychiatric help earlier.

“I also would like to know what my daughter was thinking when he was stabbing her,” said the 25-year-old Boydston, who also has a 9-month-old son. “I just want to know why, why, because my daughter didn’t do nothing to nobody. She was ornery, like any 3-year-old, but polite. She helped me bake popcorn. She was just a real happy baby.”

Fullerton police Tuesday were continuing their investigation of the murder while Pacewitz, an unemployed painter from Fullerton, remained in the Orange County Jail without bail pending an arraignment on March 16.

In addition to the murder charge, Pacewitz faces an attempted murder charge in connection with the stabbing of his mother and her boyfriend the night before the child was killed.

Anaheim police Lt. Marc Hedgpeth said Tuesday that Pacewitz went to the Anaheim apartment of his mother, Elena George Fontaine, about 7:50 p.m. Friday to talk with her. While speaking with her in her bedroom, Hedgpeth alleged, Pacewitz became enraged for an unknown reason and began hitting her.

Fontaine’s boyfriend, Juan Martinez Marin, ran in and pulled Pacewitz away, Hedgpeth said. But Pacewitz produced a knife and slashed at Marin, cutting his hands, then kicked down the door to a bathroom where his mother had fled, chased her out of the apartment and stabbed her once in the side after she fell on the patio, Hedgpeth said.

Fontaine was rushed to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where hospital officials Tuesday declined to comment on her condition. Marin was treated at the scene by paramedics.

Pacewitz had been displaying aberrant behavior since he quit his job at a local T-shirt shop about three weeks ago and, according to church friends, reverted to his old drug habit. Robert Town, pastor of the Jacob’s Well Christian Centre that both Pacewitz and Boydston attended, said Pacewitz was a former methamphetamine addict who became a born-again Christian about a year ago.

On Thursday, Town said, Pacewitz dropped his pants and bared his buttocks to the congregation during a service. On Friday, Pacewitz reportedly visited friends and relatives asking for psychiatric help, and even checked into a county mental health clinic in Anaheim briefly.

Boydston said she had no idea of Pacewitz’s troubles until after her daughter was killed. She said she remembered him only as “a very withdrawn, very quiet guy” who three weeks before had moved into an apartment downstairs from her with two other church friends.

Although she had not met Pacewitz before they started attending Jacob’s Well, Boydston said she was close friends with his mother, who helped take care of her daughter while they lived in separate rooms of the same Anaheim motel.

Boydston said after speaking with Fontaine by telephone Tuesday, “She’s doing really bad. She just said, ‘Joanne, I’m so sorry and I loved your baby so much.’ ”

Boydston last saw her daughter late Friday as she left her two-bedroom apartment in the 1600 block of Picadilly Way to spend the night with a female church friend. She left her ex-boyfriend, Wes Robinson, 40, a Long Beach man who is the father of her son, Vasshawn Robinson, to watch over both children. Boydston’s estranged husband, Christopher Onick, is Marcelline’s father.

As she drove away, Boydston said she saw Pacewitz walking down the street and pulled over to talk.

“I said, ‘Hey, bro’, what are you doing?’ And he tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘I’m on my way to your house,’ ” Boydston said.

Sometime late Friday night, Boydston continued, Robinson had to leave for work and designated one of Pacewitz’s roommates, Robert Henderson, to take his place as baby-sitter. In turn, Henderson, 28, got sleepy and left Pacewitz in charge, Boydston said.

About 6 a.m., Fullerton police said they received a 911 call from Pacewitz, who allegedly said, “I just killed a baby.” Officers forced their way into Boydston’s apartment and found Marcelline fatally stabbed but Vasshawn unharmed. They subsequently arrested Pacewitz at the phone booth from which he had called.

Boydston said she did not find out about the murder of her daughter until late Saturday, when Fullerton police contacted her.

Boydston’s problems are further complicated by the fact that she said she cannot afford a proper burial for her daughter. Such a burial will cost an estimated $2,000 to $3,000, but she said she has no insurance and only a few hundred dollars left from a job as a doctor’s clerk that she quit three weeks ago.

Boydston said that until only very recently, she had been doing quite well, having saved enough money to move out of a low-rent motel and into a roomier apartment.

Now, she said, she plans to move back to her home state of Pennsylvania and live with her mother.

“There’s just no way I can go back to my apartment,” Boydston said.

Although the Anaheim motel where she once lived has set up a fund to defray funeral expenses, and some church members have offered to help out, Boydston said, she has little hope of raising enough money to bury her daughter.

“The state will pay if we have her cremated,” Boydston said.