To Donna Campbell-Powell, her son, Lewin, was the center of her life.
She attended all of the 16-year-old?s sporting events. She made sure he enrolled in the finest schools. She was, in the words of one relative, the epitome of a “caring and devoted parent.”
That was how friends and family remembered Campbell-Powell, 39, at her funeral Saturday, 10 days after police say her only child, Lewin Powell III, whom she called “Junior,” confessed to beating his mother to death with a baseball bat after arguing about his slipping grades at the prestigious McDonogh School.
“Junior was Donna?s everything,” said Campbell-Powell?s sister-in-law, Nailah, reading from her obituary. “She lived and breathed for her son.”
Hundreds of people, including Campbell-Powell?s co-workers from the Baltimore County budget office and Lewin?s classmates wearing their blue school blazers, packed Morning Star Baptist Church in Catonsville to pay tribute to the Jamaican native.
“Donna was a quiet, family-oriented person,” her brother Alvin Campbell said. “She was also a very bright, beautiful and intelligent young woman.”
Family members said Campbell-Powell always took education seriously.
In Jamaica, she attended the “highly respected” Excelsior High School for several years, until 1985, when her family moved to America, her brother said. She attended Northwestern High School and earned a bachelor?s degree in business administration from Morgan State University.
Family members described Lewin as an “exceptionally intelligent son” who filled his mom?s world with pride.
Bishop Dwayne Debnam told mourners not to dwell on why Campbell-Powell was killed but instead ask themselves: “How do I deal with what happened?”
“Don?t ask that age-old question, ?Why?? ” Debnam said. “You might not like the answer you get.”
Investigators say the teen, an honors student who played in the jazz band, gave a “matter-of-fact” confession about his mother?s killing. He is charged with first-degree murder and is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center.
The teen hid his mother?s body in the garage and then beat his father, Lewin Powell II, with a bat, hospitalizing him, police said. Even so, Lewin Powells lawyer says the teen still has “the love and support of the entire family.”
In addition to her husband and son, Campbell-Powell is survived by siblings Dawn Campbell, Marcia Campbell and Alvin Campbell, among other family members.
