NORTH OGDEN — Alexis Rasmussen was remembered Saturday at her funeral as a free-spirited and fun-loving 16-year-old "bound and determined to learn life's lessons the hard way."

Those were the words of her aunt, Brittany Rudd, who momentarily stopped the tears of the several hundred mourners gathered in an LDS ward by reading a paper found in Alexis' room after her death.

"I am always good at being myself," Alexis wrote. "So I do good at getting boys to fall in love with me." The popular teen's many friends attending the services laughed knowingly at the description.

Rudd also held up coloring book pages of children's cartoon characters that Alexis had patiently filled in with crayons with her young cousins. "I can't describe how much love she gave us," Rudd said softly.

Related:

Angels for Alexis

A benefit dinner in honor of Alexis Rasmussen will be held November 1, 2011, at the Marriott Hotel, Grand Ballroom, 247 24th Street, Ogden, Utah from 6 to 9. All members of the public are invited and welcome to attend.

Alexis' body was discovered buried in a remote part of Morgan County Oct. 18, ending her family's hopes that she would return home after disappearing Sept. 10 from a baby- sitting job.

The couple whose children she was tending, Eric and Dea Millerberg, were arrested on drug charges earlier this month and were identified last Tuesday as persons of interest in her disappearance and death.

Alexis' final contact with her family were texts sent by her mother, who was frustrated the couple were still out shortly before midnight. While Alexis had run away before to be with friends, she had always taken clothes and let her mother know where she was.

"Honestly, to me right now it's not real. This isn't real," Rudd told reporters after the services. "I don't think it'll feel real until we know who did it and why. I want to know why.

"Why could anybody, how could anybody do that to a person like that, to a child? So to me there's not closure right now. It's not even close."

Clutching the papers she spoke from during the funeral, Rudd said her niece "was smart, she was funny, she was loving, she was sarcastic, she was quick-witted. She was loyal to all of her friends and all of her family. She never spoke badly about anybody."

The "mischievous and spunky and just fun" Weber High student loved being the center of attention, her aunt said. "I'm not surprised half of her school showed up. That's just the kind of person she was. She was friends with everybody and everybody loved her."

Alexis' best friend, Sidney Shaw, spoke of their relationship at the funeral. Sidney shared a note Alexis had written to her "BFFL," best friend for life.

The note described how lost Alexis would be without her. "Don't die anytime soon," Sidney read, choking back sobs. "But I know if you die, you're going to go to heaven."

In the note, Sidney said, Alexis also told her that she "was supposed to be a boy because we're soul mates. Too bad you're a girl."

Another friend, Bree Jacobson, read a poem urging her family and friends to continue to feel her presence. "My spirit is free but I'll never depart as long as you keep me alive in your heart," she said.

Alexis' cousins, including some of the youngest members of the large and close-knit family, sang, "I Am a Child of God."

A family friend, Karen Kagie, told reporters that Alexis' death has brought the community together.

"I think her passing has really made a difference," Kagie said with her children by her side. "Because a lot of people, thousands of people, could associate with her, because they have daughters that are the same age and they really felt the family's pain."

She said there's also been an impact on Alexis' peers. "I know the kids in this community are kind of scared because this could have happened to them."

Alexis was interned at Valley View Memorial Park in West Valley. A $10 a plate benefit dinner for her family is scheduled to be held Tuesday at the Marriott Hotel in Ogden from 6-9 p.m.

Email:lroche@ksl.com

Related topics