Homeless mom indicted on three felonies; defense attorney blames city homeless policy
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Jan. 19—A Hillsborough County grand jury has brought formal criminal charges against Alexandra Eckersley, the homeless woman accused of abandoning her newborn infant in a cold tent the day after Christmas.
The three felony indictments likely will short-circuit plans by Eckersley's public defender for a hearing next Friday. Kim Kossick had hoped to call witnesses and challenge the police narrative of what happened in the early hours of Dec. 26 near the West Side Ice Arena.
The Eckersley case emerged as Manchester officials sought to tackle problems of homelessness in the state's largest city. The latest filing in the Eckersley case took place on Thursday, a day after the city cleared an encampment of about 50 people outside the city's homeless shelter.
"The city is pushing people further from the fringes of society. That's why these things happen," Kossick said in an interview. "She shouldn't have had to have been alone in the woods."
The prosecutor in the case, First Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Shawn Sweeney, said Eckersley is not charged with poverty or homelessness.
Eckersley is accused of abandoning her newborn son in a tent and misleading rescue workers about the tent's location in temperatures below 20 degrees.
Police have portrayed Eckersley as concerned only for her own well-being.
But Kossick has portrayed her client as frightened, bleeding and confused. Eckersley believed she had miscarried, and an E911 operator encouraged Eckersley to care for herself.
Yet police put a headlamp on her and told her to find the tent. "They marched her around like she was a dog in her own bloody clothes. No one cared about her health," Kossick said.
Sweeney said rescuers wouldn't make a mother a higher priority than a newborn abandoned in 19-degree weather for more than an hour.
"Perhaps they felt a sense of urgency that prompted them to be less patient than they ordinarily would," he wrote in an email.
The prosecution's filing noted that the baby had cried, and Eckersley admitted to misleading the rescue team.
Rescuers warmed the baby, performed CPR and ran him back to the ambulance, continuing with CPR, the filing read.
His condition improved marginally while en route to the hospital. Eckersley "agreed to speak to police in exchange for some food and for a light of her cigarette," the filing read.
Under state law, people arrested on felony charges have a right to a probable cause hearing. Such a hearing allows a defense attorney to challenge the state's case and to encourage a judge to dismiss charges.
But such hearings aren't allowed once a case goes before a grand jury.
"He (Sweeney) can go to the grand jury in secret and no one knows what he told them," Kossick said.
Sweeney said indictments are the ordinary course in such a case, as Kossick knows.
Eckersley has been released into a treatment program and is in contact with her family, Kossick said.
"Her family loves her very much and is very upset with how police characterized their conversations," she said.
Eckersley is the adopted daughter of former Red Sox pitching great Dennis Eckersley and his second wife, Nancy. She has struggled for years with homelessness and mental illness, according to previous articles.
She faces two felony assault charges, one felony falsifying evidence charge, and misdemeanor charges of child endangerment and reckless conduct.
