DATE: Thursday, April 24, 1997              TAG: 9704240388

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ANGELITA PLEMMER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   71 lines

POLICE TO LAY ``BABY MICHAEL'' TO REST THE INFANT, FOUND DEAD AT A TRASH PLANT, REMAINS UNIDENTIFIED.

His nude 6 1/2-pound body was found amid garbage and rubble at the Southeastern Public Service Authority plant in February.

No one knows the infant's name, his parents or why he was abandoned.

The only words on his tombstone will be, ``Baby Michael. In God's Loving Care.''

No date of birth. No date of death.

When police bury ``Baby Michael'' at noon Friday in Greenlawn Memorial Gardens in Chesapeake, it will be the third funeral in two years for infants whose bodies turned up at a trash-to-steam plant in Portsmouth. None has ever been identified.

In September 1996, police buried Baby June, the badly mutilated body of a black girl found last June at the SPSA plant.

And in March 1995, police buried Baby Angel Valentine, another black female infant found at the plant.

Baby Michael - named for an angel in the Bible - will be buried in a plot beside Baby June in a section of the cemetery called ``Babyland.''

The casket and funeral service were donated by Corprew Funeral Home of Portsmouth. Greenlawn Gardens donated the plot and Gorham Bronze Co. of Aiken, S.C., gave the grave marker.

Homicide Detective Robert Huntington is the lead investigator in the cases of Baby Michael, who also was black, and Baby June. He became the legal guardian for Baby Michael in order to ensure a proper burial.

When working the case, Huntington often thinks of his own children - an 18-month-old son and a 6-year-old daughter.

``Both of these (case files) stay right in the front of my desk and as long as I'm working in this unit, that's where they'll stay,'' Huntington said. ``They're never filed away. I make them a priority.

``This is something that I really want to work hard to do the best I can on, and hopefully bring some closure to it.''

Police received a tip that looked promising shortly after the baby's body was found. The caller led police to a Portsmouth woman, who agreed to a medical exam. She was not the mother.

``It wasn't possible for this woman to be the birth mother,'' Huntington said. ``And that's the only person we ever had any tips leading us to.''

Huntington has spent hundreds of hours looking for clues. In investigating other cases, he often asks if anyone knows of a mother missing a child.

``If we ever develop a suspect, we do have DNA samples that could be tested,'' Huntington said. ``We just have not developed anybody to even get to that point.''

An autopsy report has provided few clues. Baby Michael was born alive and healthy. His mother carried him full-term. He had fine, curly black hair and was 21 1/4 inches long. He was no more than two days old.

There were bruises on his body and internal injuries that he could have sustained by going through the trash plant, which receives 1,500 to 1,700 tons of trash a day. There were no signs of sexual abuse and he had no other distinguishing marks.

Homicide Detective Melvin Hike, assigned to investigate the case of ``Baby Angel Valentine,'' said he is still shocked by frequency of these cases and the cruelty involved.

``I'm saddened every time this comes up,'' Hike said. ``This is my third funeral like this. It can take a toll, especially since we haven't been able to arrest these people.

``How can people be so cruel? While they might think they're getting away in our eyesight, they're going to have to answer to someone much greater than us.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Detective Robert Huntington became the legal guardian for Baby

Michael in order to ensure that he have a proper burial. KEYWORDS: DEAD BABY SPSA ABANDONED BABY

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