In December, Alexandra Eckersley was arrested for abandoning her premature infant in the freezing New Hampshire woods. Since then, she has been released on bail, and her family is seeking guardianship of the infant, a baby boy.
Alexandra Eckerlsey is the adopted daughter of Boston Red Sox legend Dennis Eckersley, whose family released a statement after the news of his daughter’s arrest. The family explained that she had struggled with drug addiction and mental illness through much of her life, and said they had not known she was pregnant until seeing it in the news.
“Allie is our beloved daughter who we adopted at birth,” the statement said. “Though it is painful to share, we feel it necessary to offer greater context of Allie’s circumstances and background. Allie has suffered from severe mental illness her entire life. Allie was hospitalized numerous times for her illness and lived in several residential programs. We did our very best to get Allie all of the help and support humanly possible.”
“Once Allie became an adult there was even less we could do because she was legally free to make her own decisions as long as she was not a danger to herself or others,” the statement continued. “Under existing laws, there was simply no way to force her to receive treatment. Nonetheless, we continued to support her as best we could.”
However, in a 2019 interview, Eckersley lashed out at her parents. “He found a way to bring my homelessness in every single conversation,” she said. “What I’ve wanted my entire life is to be accepted by my own family. In my own home, I felt like an outsider, an outcast.”
WCVB reported that the Eckersley family filed a guardianship petition to be involved in decisions made about the baby.
Eckersley has been released on bail, with orders given to have no contact in any way with her infant son or anyone under the age of 18, and that she live in either a sober living facility, with a parent, or at a court-approved residence.
Meanwhile, police have said that, while remaining intubated, the baby is recovering well in the hospital. According to NBC Boston, the baby is “believed to be born three months early, was 4.4 lbs. and survived at least 73 minutes in 15-degree weather.” However, such a birth weight would be unusually high for a child born at that reported gestational age.
