Baby found in recycling trash mourned by community

ROSEVILLE, Mich. — The small white casket with baby-blue rosary sat in the middle of a table covered with a lace cloth.

The casket, encircled by about a handful each of flowers and small stuffed animals, was only about the size of a breadbasket. It had the words "loved and cherished."

"This is the smallest casket I've ever seen," said Bob Constantino, 72, of Eastpointe, who came to pay his respects Tuesday to Baby Boy Alexie, named by Macomb County morgue workers Henry Alexander Macomb.

The days-old baby inside the closed casket was a stranger to many who paid their respects to him at Kaul Funeral Home in Roseville. In many respects, he was a stranger to most of his family, who also attended the visitation for the baby, who was born and left to die in an Eastpointe garage just before Christmas and who was found in mid-January at a Roseville recycling center.

"A lot of people have adopted this young man, bringing flowers and stuffed animals," Roseville Police Detective Lt. Raymond Blarek said. "From a baby who really didn't have parents, he now has a family."

The baby's mother, Angela Alexie, 24, of Eastpointe, is charged with murder and child abuse in his death. She admitted giving birth to him in a detached residential garage, leaving him there, checking on him and trying to feed him every couple of hours.

Tuesday night, it was about paying respects to the baby, who for nearly a week didn't belong to anyone until police got a tip about his mother. The Macomb County community rallied, offering to provide him a proper funeral and burial, which is Wednesday at Resurrection Cemetery in Clinton Township.

One woman came with a pot of yellow daffodils and a stuffed animal. Another carried in balloons. Gloria Heller, 74, of Mt. Clemens, brought a white and blue blanket she knitted.

Funeral home manager Timothy McGillen said, "This is a compassionate community ... they are grieving for this child they don't even know."

The prayer card was simple: a picture of a baby with wings sitting in the clouds.

"Sleep sweet baby, let your dreams take flight, let them soar above the trees until morning light," the card read.