Dawn Marie Ritz loved competing in track and field as a Special Olympics athlete. She enjoyed water skiing — especially on one leg — during family vacations. She called everyone “honey.”

Amid these joyful memories, Ritz’s grieving family is trying to make sense of her brutal killing at the Aacres Group Home in Granada Hills for adults with developmental disabilities.

Police have said another resident stabbed Ritz, 61, to death with a kitchen knife while she was in bed in the early morning hours of May 14.

“I think it was horrible not to be able to protect yourself and to wonder ‘what did I do to cause someone to hurt me like this?’” said her brother Joe Phelan of Meridian, Idaho. “I don’t think she really quite understood it.”

State licensing regulators are investigating the residential care facility in the 16500 block of Bircher Street to determine whether there was appropriate care and supervision at the time of the incident, whether there was an adequate number of staffing and whether the needs of the residents were being met, a spokesman for the California Department of Social Services said.

• RELATED STORY: Fatal stabbing at Granada Hills care facility prompts state investigation

Aacres management has declined to comment on the incident.

‘Very loving’

Another brother, Terry Lee Ritz of Las Vegas, said he still gets emotional when reading or talking about what happened to his younger sister on Mother’s Day.

“I find myself crying, wondering how this person (who stabbed her) can do this?” he said.

Dawn Ritz “wouldn’t harm a flea,” he added. “She was very loving.”

She sustained brain damage as a toddler after she fell ill with a high fever and was treated with cold alcohol baths while they were living abroad, Phelan said. She functioned at probably a third- or fourth-grade level during her adult life.

“In my eyes, she was always a child because she never really grew up mentally,” Phelan said.

Dawn Ritz always looked forward to Halloween because she loved to dress up and go trick-or-treating — and because it fell on her birthday. She enjoyed dancing, listening to the classic oldies from K-EARTH 101, bowling and spending time with family, her relatives said. When asked what she wanted to eat, she would often say “hamburgerfriescoke” — like it was one word — repeatedly until she was taken to McDonald’s.

“She loved her mom and dad,” Phelan said, adding that they took very good care of her. “Dad was the apple of her eye. She would follow him around like an old puppy dog most of the day.”

Relationships ‘most important’

Raised in the Antelope Valley, Dawn Ritz was an enthusiastic member of Grace Chapel in Lancaster and enjoyed sharing her love of Christ with family and friends. She also participated in their Sunday school program for developmentally disabled adults called Shining Lights.

“Whenever you would meet Dawn Marie, she would always greet you with a smile (and say) ‘my name is Dawn and Jesus touches me,’ ” Phelan said. “I would say, ‘how does Jesus touch you?’ (She would say) ‘He touches my heart.’”

Dawn Ritz participated for many years doing production-line jobs in a workshop at Desert Haven Enterprises, which assists those with developmental disabilities become independent and productive members of their community. Her parents, Don and Alice, were on the Lancaster nonprofit’s board of directors and intimately involved in the formative years of the organization, said Jenni Moran, Desert Haven’s executive director.

“Relationships I think were the most important to (Dawn),” Moran said. “It was rather difficult for her to concentrate on work because of all the people around, especially the boys. She liked the boys.”

Dawn also participated in the Special Olympics for decades, bringing home medals for sports like track and field, softball throw and snow skiing — even carrying the torch around the track at Antelope Valley College in 2001, Phelan said. She loved to do anything that challenged her, particularly physically.

“She was so excited to be able to come home and say, “I won gold or I won three silver medals,” he said.

Two lives ‘ruined’

After Dawn Ritz had a stroke and her father fell ill, she was placed in a secure facility called Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa for years before being transferred to the Aacres facility in Granada Hills, Terry Ritz said.

The 18-year-old suspect in her death, Ravneet Kaur, pleaded not guilty to one count of murder in May and faces life in prison if convicted. Kaur is scheduled for a mental competency hearing on Aug. 1 at the San Fernando Courthouse, said Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

The caretaker on duty at the Aacres facility told Los Angeles police that she had locked the cabinet where the knives are stored on the night of the murder as required, but that somehow the suspect was still able to obtain a knife from the kitchen, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Steve Castro has said.

Phelan said he’s also concerned about the future of the suspect, who had also been placed in the group home to be protected.

“I feel the home failed that girl, also,” Phelan said. “The girl is only 18; her life is ruined now, too.”