Fullerton Girl’s Killer Given 26 Years to Life

A judge sentenced 21-year-old Michael Robert Pacewitz to 26 years to life in prison plus a separate life term today for a night of violence that resulted in the stabbing death of a 3-year-old Fullerton girl, the attempted murder of his mother and a knife assault on her boyfriend.

But Superior Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon also included a recommendation to state corrections authorities that Pacewitz serve his sentence at a prison mental facility at Vacaville.

“I strongly recommend that he be sent to Vacaville at the earliest possible moment,” Weatherspoon added in his sentencing report.

The victim’s mother and father urged the court to give the maximum possible sentence to Pacewitz. Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown then leaned over the rail and asked Pacewitz’s mother, Elena Fontaine, if she wanted to say anything. She started to speak, but fighting tears, finally shook her head no.

Prosecutors contend that Pacewitz killed the little girl to get back at his mother. Fontaine used to baby-sit for her and treated her like a granddaughter.

Pacewitz had called the police March 3 after stabbing 3-year-old Marcelline Onick 44 times while she slept next to her baby brother, who was unharmed, in the Fullerton apartment where he was baby-sitting.

Just hours earlier, Pacewitz stabbed his own mother repeatedly at her Anaheim home, nearly killing her, and assaulted her boyfriend who had run into the room to try to help her.

Pacewitz first told news reporters in jailhouse interviews that Satan told him to kill the girl. But later, he changed that to say that he thought the little girl, and his mother earlier that night, were Satan.

The jurors who convicted him in just one day then deliberated another eight days before deciding Pacewitz was sane. Most of them said later they didn’t believe any of the Satan story.

At today’s sentencing hearing, the little girl’s mother, Joann Boydston, told the court that the crime had not only cost her daughter’s life, but resulted in the loss of her job, her apartment, her career goals, and a six-month separation from her son, who had been sent to the Orangewood Children’s Home after the incident.

“This crime was senseless and morbid. Michael Pacewitz is a menace to society and will be a danger to the public if ever turned loose,” she said.