Amigale, a 4-month-old girl, was crying last Friday morning. She wanted to be held. Instead, her mother, Nina Alexie, shoved a pink-and-blue knit hat all the way into the newborn's mouth.


When the mother removed the hat five minutes later, the child was gasping. Deafening silence filled the room a moment later.

That is the story state prosecutors say Alexie told Anchorage Police Department officers who arrested her after Amigale was found dead. The 22-year-old with a lengthy criminal record now faces second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.

One key piece of evidence that led investigators to arrest the infant's mother is a letter she allegedly left behind for the girl's father after the killing.

"I cannot take what happened," she wrote in the two-page handwritten letter. "I've been holding her praying for her dear life to come back. She done (sic) didn't. I'm scared. I'm very terrified. I am hurting. I'm lost."

According to a document submitted by the state to Superior Court Judge Kevin Saxby, who was weighing bail conditions after a grand jury indicted Alexie, the infant's parents were fighting in the hours leading to her death. It got bad enough that the father left the unit the family occupied in the East Anchorage transitional living center, Safe Harbor Inn. The girl died while he was gone, police say.