Suspect in Girl’s Death Says He Worships Devil

Michael Robert Pacewitz, the Fullerton man accused of fatally stabbing a 3-year-old girl, said in a jail interview Wednesday that he is a devil worshiper and that Satan told him to kill the toddler.

Pacewitz, 21, an unemployed painter, said he thought about killing Marcelline Onick for three hours before stabbing her to death last Saturday. The attack occurred while he was baby-sitting Marcelline and her half-brother, 9-month-old Vasshawn Robinson, both the children of neighbor Joanne Boydston, 25. Vasshawn was not hurt.

“The devil wanted me to do it and I wanted to do it for him,” Pacewitz said in an interview in the medical ward of the Orange County Jail. “I’m not sorry, because I wanted to do it. I wanted her dead.”

Pacewitz agreed to a joint interview with reporters from The Times Orange County Edition and the Orange County Register. Afterward, authorities either refused to comment on the interview or said they had no way of knowing if Pacewitz was truthful or manufacturing a story to pave the way for a possible insanity defense.

Unshaven and looking disheveled in a jail-issue yellow jumpsuit, Pacewitz spoke slowly and hesitantly as he related how he has been struggling with his sexual identity, has long harbored resentment for his mother, has unsuccessfully sought psychological help for his problems and hopes to go to the gas chamber for what happened last Saturday.

“I’m responsible for my actions,” he said, detailing what he described as occurring last weekend.

The attack on the girl, he said, happened after his roommate asked him to take over baby-sitting Boydston’s two children in her upstairs apartment.

Pacewitz said the children were asleep in their bedroom when he arrived about 2 a.m. Saturday. He said that he lay awake on the couch for three hours thinking about killing Marcelline, adding that he decided not to harm the boy.

Pacewitz said that shortly before 6 a.m., as the children still lay sleeping, he attacked the girl, sexually molesting her before stabbing her repeatedly. He said he left the apartment afterward to surrender to police.

He said he decided to turn himself in because he wanted psychiatric help. But, he added, “I hope to be on Death Row.”

An officer involved in the case who asked not to be named confirmed that Pacewitz had told police that he molested Marcelline. However, the officer said, there was no evidence that she was molested. He also said that Pacewitz had never before mentioned his interest in satanic worship.

In addition to a murder charge, Pacewitz also faces two counts of attempted murder in connection with the stabbing of his mother, Elena George Fontaine, 40, and her boyfriend, Juan Martinez Marin, 28, the night before Marcelline’s death.

Pacewitz, who said he has long harbored resentment against his mother, told reporters that he entered her Anaheim apartment at her invitation and asked that they talk in a bedroom. He said that he then drew a knife and that she ordered him to put it down.

“I told her I wanted to kill her,” Pacewitz said.

Pacewitz said he stabbed his mother several times. He said she ran out of the apartment and stumbled and fell, after which he stabbed her again.

Pacewitz also slashed Marin on his hands when he tried to intercede, according to Anaheim police.

Pacewitz said he left the apartment.

Fontaine remained at the Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. Hospital officials were not allowing phone calls into her room Wednesday. Marin was treated at the scene and released.

“I could never tell he was going to do something bad, and I never noticed that he had a knife,” Marin said Wednesday. “It’s amazing. He was a good kid. But I blame the system because he was asking for (psychiatric) help and no one would help him.”

“I tried to stop him,” Marin added. “But he punched my face and then took off. I ran after him and, as I got outside, I fell.”

When asked what prompted the attack on his mother, Pacewitz thought for a moment and replied: “I didn’t like my mother.”

He added: “I want to go back and kill my mother.”

Investigators from the Fullerton and Anaheim police departments were unavailable to comment on Pacewitz’s interview.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Mel Jensen, who is prosecuting the case, said that past murder defendants have made similar public statements in order to facilitate an insanity defense. If Pacewitz were to do so in this case, Jensen said, the defendant would have to prove that he was insane at the time of the crimes.

“I can’t tell if (what Pacewitz said in the interview) is legitimate or if he is manufacturing this,” Jensen said.

Deputy Public Defender E. Robert Goss, who is representing Pacewitz, declined comment on the interview. Goss said that he had instructed his client Tuesday not to speak with anyone before consulting with him first, and that a court order was issued earlier this week barring unauthorized interviews with his client.

The public defender’s office Wednesday afternoon sought a court order barring publication of Pacewitz’s interview in both The Times Orange County Edition and the Orange County Register but was turned down by Municipal Judge Margaret Anderson.

During the interview, Pacewitz, who has a brother and sister, said he spent his childhood following his family as they moved frequently around Southern California, staying in trailer parks and low-rent motels. He briefly attended Santiago High School in Garden Grove, where school officials said he was a straight “F” student. He skipped the next year before being transferred to Lake Continuation High School in Garden Grove, where Principal Thomas Robins said that Pacewitz passed all five of his classes but dropped out after a semester.

Pacewitz said he had been a devil worshiper most of his life until being “saved” by the Jacob’s Well Christian Centre in Fullerton a year ago. He said that although he was a methamphetamine addict at the time, he heeded advice from church officials to quit using illicit drugs as well as prescription medication that was given to him following 1988 treatment in a Ventura County psychiatric clinic. He said he admitted himself there for three months because he was on the verge of self-castration.

“I’ve always wanted to be a woman,” he said, adding that he is a homosexual.

This past week, he said, he quit the Jacob’s Well church, where he felt like an outcast because of his homosexuality. He then returned to his worship of Satan, he said, because God wasn’t doing enough for him.

“I wanted money and God didn’t give it to me,” Pacewitz said.

It was a final act of defiance, Pacewitz said, when he bared his buttocks to the congregation at a service last Thursday night.

“I just wanted to do it,” he said.

Friday afternoon, he said, he sought psychiatric help at both a county mental health clinic in Anaheim and UCI Medical Center in Orange. But he left the facilities before receiving treatment.

When told of Pacewitz’s remarks, Boydston said she had no idea that her neighbor and former fellow church member was so troubled. However, she referred further questions to Jan Mark Dudman, her attorney.

Dudman said Boydston feels that she is being blamed by the community for leaving Pacewitz in charge of the children. In fact, Dudman said, Boydston left the children with Vasshawn’s father while she spent the night with a female church friend.

Pacewitz’s jail interview “shows the guy was clearly out of his mind and that it’s very difficult to start blaming everybody in the world,” Dudman said.

Vasshawn was taken into protective custody by county social services officials and remains at the Orangewood Children’s Home in Orange pending a March 18 hearing on whether Boydston can regain custody. Dudman said such hearings are routine.

Pacewitz is being held without bail. Arraignment on the murder and attempted-murder charges has been postponed until March 16 to give his attorney time to prepare the case.