No jail time for mom found guilty of abandoning newborn in woods

MANCHESTER, NH – Alexandra Eckersley, found guilty of abandoning her newborn in a makeshift tent on a frigidly cold winter night nearly two years ago, on Thursday was given suspended sentences.

Judge Amy Messer, presiding in Hillsborough County Superior Court Northern District, in sentencing Eckersley said she was mindful of the jury’s guilty verdicts of reckless conduct, endangering the welfare of a child and falsifying physical evidence. She also noted they had acquitted her of two counts of second-degree assault.

She said she took into consideration that Eckersley’s lifetime of mental illness and her later substance use disorder as an explanation of her conduct.

Messer said in sentencing, a judge has to take the victim into consideration.  In this case, that is Eckersley’s son, Edward Ruth, who she calls, “Teddy.”  Now 21 months old, Eckersley gained custody of him after receiving and continuing to receive intensive mental health treatment, and staying at a sober house for treatment of her methamphetamine addiction, which happened during her five years of being houseless and living on the streets.

As a condition of the 18-month suspended sentence, Eckersley must enroll in the Community Connections program (mental health court) and be under their supervision for a year.  If the program does not accept her, she will be under court supervision with regularly scheduled reviews to ensure she is continuing treatment.

In asking the judge to  impose a suspended sentence, defense attorney Kimberly Kossick said, “Allie is one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. I don’t think there’s a person in this courtroom who could accomplish what she accomplished in the last two years after living five years on the streets.”

Kossick, after the sentencing, said her client is a “marvel” and that Teddy is doing fantastic.

She does not believe the case should have gone to trial.

Dr. Edward O’Neil Jr., Eckersley’s uncle who is a staff physician in the emergency room at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, agrees.  Still, he said the family has nothing but gratitude to the first responders who saved Teddy and Allie’s lives.  He and Eckersley’s mother Nancy both had high praise for Lauren Berry, the AMR (American Medical Response) EMT.  O’Neil said she was one of the heroes that night.

After the baby, blue and cold to the touch, was found in the tent, Berry ran with the infant to a firetruck and headed to the hospital. On the way, the baby opened his eyes and moved his hands.

Nancy Eckersley also had high praise for the state Division of Children, Youth and Families who placed Teddy with a foster family.  The foster mother, Linda, took exceptional care of the infant, she said, and is now part of their extended family.

“She attended his christening,” Allie said.

DCYF, Nancy Eckersley said, does not get the accolades it deserves.  It is because of them and their kindness, she said, that their family is united, happy and healthy.

She also addressed the court. “I am beseeching you for leniency,” she told the judge.  She said for the first time in her life, her daughter has found happiness and it is because of Teddy, now 21 months old.

Eckersley said “Allie” and her brother were both adopted and while her son’s birth parents wanted to be a part of his life, Allie’s parents did not.  It left her daughter with an emptiness and wanting to know why.

She said her daughter was diagnosed at two with a mental illness.  At the age of 7, she was sent to her room for a time-out and jumped out the second-story window.

From then on, for her safety, she was sent to boarding schools so they were denied the mother-daughter homelife relationship.  At the boarding schools, she said Allie was severely bullied and sexually assaulted.  It was a time, Eckersley said, that she couldn’t be there to console her daughter.

“Finally, at age 27, Allie is thriving,” Eckersley said. “Teddy is thriving and I’m thriving because I have her at home. The three of us are living in bliss. Teddy is a gift.”

It wasn’t easy, she said.  When she was called to pick Allie up at the hospital, after the incident, she said Allie was emaciated and shackled to a bed like a “serial killer.”

Allie received residential treatment and then moved to a sober house.  Allie, she said, never complained.  She did what she had to and ultimately gained custody of her son.

“Teddy is a bright, beautiful, happy, loving child,” she said.  “He adores his mother and she adores him.  Yes, she made mistakes but this little miracle that is our Teddy has not.”

She said Allie’s past is over.  “Her future lies ahead. Please give her the ability to have the life she always dreamed of and deserves,” she said through sobs.

Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Alexander Gatzoulis asked the judge to sentence Eckersley to a year in the Valley Street jail.  He said she had the opportunity on many occasions to tell first responders where the baby could be found and didn’t.

Eckersley, who testified at her trial, said her boyfriend, George Theberge, 45, told her the baby was dead.

“Against all odds and expectations, Allie has thrived over the almost two years since Teddy’s birth,” Kossick wrote in her sentence recommendation.

She said what was most important is that Allie is reunited with her son.  “Allie did everything asked of her in order to be Teddy’s mother.  Having Teddy has transformed her life.”

Kossick said the outcome “should be celebrated and recognized, not punished. It is very rare that someone in Allie’s situation is able to transform their life and maintain their sobriety.”

Gatzoulis said in his sentencing recommendation said that although rescuers were able to press Eckersley to finally disclose the location of the freezing baby, the baby very nearly lost his life as a direct result of his mother’s deliberate actions.

“Such a severe offense deserves a severe punishment,” he wrote.  “…A sentence on the order of 4 to 8 years at the New Hampshire State Prison is more in line with the severity of the offense that the Defendant committed.”

However, he said there are mitigating factors to consider:  At the time, Eckersley was living in a tent when the outside temperature was about 15 degrees Fahrenheit and had apparently been living in such conditions for years.

“A tendency to protect the instruments of basic survival, despite the consequences to others, is not beyond the realm of understanding.  Clearly, the Defendant’s motivations for committing these crimes were entirely self-centered, but a person with so few means could easily be understood for trying to protect what little she had.  Additionally, the Defendant did admit her actions at trial and recognized on the stand that her actions were wrong.  For those reasons, the Sate’s recommended sentence is appropriate.

Eckersley, 27, was accused of abandoning her premature newborn son in a makeshift tent in freezing conditions on Dec. 26, 2022, and misdirecting emergency workers searching for him.  Eckersley testified that she did not know she was pregnant and that she didn’t bring the infant with her when she went to the West Side Ice Area to get a signal on her cell phone to call 911 because “I thought he was dead.”

Her boyfriend, Theberge, had told her the infant did not have a pulse, she testified.  He fled the area when the ambulance arrived on scene.

Eckersley testified she told the 911 operator that the baby could be found in Goffstown on the other side of the trestle bridge and that it had cried, an indicator he was alive.  However, the 911 operator did not relay that information to first responders and instead told them the infant was not viable.

Prosecutors said when the 911 call came in, it was a medical emergency for Eckersley who had just given birth.  There was no need to alert police.  However, once it was learned an infant was lost in the woods, it required police involvement and ultimately, Eckersley’s arrest for abandoning the baby.

The defense said Eckersley told both the 911 operator and a police officer where the baby could be found – on the Goffstown side of a trestle bridge off the West Side rail trail.  And, according to Kossick, Eckersley told the EMT and police officer William Collins when he arrived on scene that she heard the baby crying when it was born, indicating it was alive.

However, the 911 operator, Kossick said, told firefighters the infant was not viable and never relayed that information to police.

Prosecutors maintained Eckersley never told them exactly where the baby was and that, at the scene, she directed them to the area of the ball fields about a half mile from the makeshift tent where the infant was found

Eckersley at the scene told emergency workers she was coming back from the store when she unexpectedly gave birth near the ballfields in the area of the West Side Ice Arena, about a half mile from her makeshift tent where the baby was born.

Rescuers searched the ballpark area for about 40 minutes before Eckersley led them to the tent and the infant.

Eckersley, while being treated in an ambulance for a second time for heavy bleeding, said something “clicked in her head” and she told emergency personnel she would lead them to the tent.

Eckersley has a long, complicated history of mental illness beginning at the age of two, according to a forensic psychologist who testified at the trial.  She had attended structured (boarding) schools, where she never took a sex education class, and had been treated in psychiatric hospitals on four occasions, the last time after giving birth.

At the age of 20, she was in a residential placement that she left after an online meeting of an older man in NH.  She came here to live with him and then became homeless.

On Dec, 26, 2022, she had been without a home for five years. She was intermittently in contact with her family.

Rescuers ultimately found the infant on the tent floor suffering from hypothermia and in respiratory distress.   A video clip, from the body worn camera of Officer William Collins, was played for the jury.  It recorded fellow Officer Joseph Vitale finding the baby.

“Oh, Jesus Christ. It’s here. Yeah, it’s still alive.  It’s still moving,” Vitale is heard saying.  EMTs began CPR on the child and while an ambulance was called to the scene, they opted to take the baby to the hospital via a fire truck that was already there

At Catholic Medical Center, medical personnel determined the baby’s body temperature was 82.5 degrees.

Hours later, after the infant was stabilized, he was transferred to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon for further treatment.

Teddy now lives with Eckersley and her mother in Sudbury, Mass.

Defense attorneys maintain Eckersley committed no crime.  “Giving birth while homeless is not a crime,” Kossick told the jury in her closing argument.

Eckersley is the adopted daughter of Hall of Fame Red Sox pitcher Dennis Eckersley.