Tragic reason daughter of MLB Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley left her minutes-old baby to freeze in woods – as court hears bombshell claim about a SECOND newborn

The tragic reason why the daughter of Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley left her newborn baby in the woods to die on Christmas Eve 2022 has been revealed.

Alexandra Eckersley, 27, thought her son would die almost immediately after giving birth in a tent in the New Hampshire woods, her attorney Jordan Strand alleged during opening statements at her trial on Thursday.

She noticed that Eckersley was bleeding profusely and that her boyfriend, George Theberge, had no pulse after the baby was born.

Prosecutors say she then abandoned the child and misled police about the newborn’s whereabouts.

Alexandra, who was adopted in 1996 by the famed pitcher and his ex-partner Nancy O’Neill, now faces charges of endangering the welfare of a child, reckless endangerment, second-degree assault and tampering with physical evidence.

She has denied the charges, arguing her lawyers said she did not know she was pregnant and that she suffered from substance abuse and bipolar disorder, which she was diagnosed with as a child.

“She was in a heightened emotional state, unable to think clearly and suffering from symptoms of her bipolar disorder,” Strand argued.

She said Eckersley and George Theberge, who had been living in a tent in the woods for years, had no cell phone reception and were unable to call for help. Instead, they walked to an ice rink.

Eckersley suffered an afterbirth along the way, but she thought she had simply had another child, Strand claimed Thursday.

Eckersley then told the emergency services that she had given birth to two children, one of whom had lived less than a minute, while the other had died instantly.

But when police arrived, Eckersley allegedly misled them for 73 minutes, telling them she was going to see the baby, who she said was born around midnight near the West Side Ice Arena.

Officers eventually found the baby lying on the floor in the tent she shared with Theberge, next to the bed. They saw “a trail of blood that appeared to be running down the side of the bed,” according to the police report, which was seen by the Boston Globe.

According to police, the baby was found “without clothing” and having difficulty breathing in temperatures that dropped as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit.

The police file also shows that Eckersley was found with bloody clothes and under the influence of drugs.

When asked why she didn’t take her baby to the bridge to meet the police after calling 911, she replied, “What do they say when a plane crashes? Save yourself first.”

Eckersley was subsequently hospitalized and arrested by officers, while her baby was rushed to Catholic Medical Center and then airlifted to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

Eckersley later claimed that Before the police arrived, she and Theberge had agreed not to lead the officers to their tent, for fear that it would be torn down and taken away, leaving them without shelter during the winter.

“Eckersley admitted that she had a conversation with George in which they agreed to tell police that the incident had occurred on the soccer fields so that police would not find and take their tents,” police said in Alexandra’s arrest report.

‘Eckersley said it’s very difficult to survive after losing their tent due to the cold temperatures in Manchester’s winter. Eckersley said that’s why they turned off the propane heater.’

Prosecutor Alexander Gatzoulis now alleges that Eckersley deliberately led rescuers away from the baby because she didn’t want to get into trouble.

“Almost an hour after she gave birth, she told them something new for the first time: the baby cried when she gave birth,” he told the jury Thursday as he played body camera footage of rescuers discovering the newborn.

“This completely changed the way the search was conducted and increased the sense of urgency for everyone, because now they were looking for a baby and not a dead body.”

He added that the defense can discuss Eckersley’s history of mental illness and substance abuse, “but that does not detract from her deliberate actions here in lying about where the baby was and leading the search team away from her child for well over an hour.”

However, Strand argued that Eckersley had tried to tell emergency responders where the baby was when they arrived on the scene, but no one would listen to her.

“No one walked across the bridge where she told the dispatcher the fetus was,” the attorney alleged, according to WMUR.

“Instead, they put a headlamp on Allie’s forehead and followed her around as she bled through her clothes and experienced everything a person experiences after giving birth.”

Eckersly has since been reunited with her son after completing a rehabilitation program.

Her attorney Kim Kossick said Eckersley had been sober since the day she gave birth and the two are now living with her family in Massachusetts.

“She did everything she was supposed to do,” Kossick said told WMUR in March. ‘She’s been in treatment. She’s done everything she was asked to do.

“That’s why she’s been reunited with her child. She’s been to rehab. She’s done all the counseling.”

Meanwhile, Theberge, who was also arrested after her birth, was sentenced to at least a year in prison last August for endangering the baby’s life.

He pleaded guilty to the crime of child abuse after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Theberge was also sentenced to an additional six months in prison for violating his probation following his arrest and a drug charge.

Eckersley’s trial is expected to last five days, with Theberge testifying.

Her father, Dennis Eckersley, nicknamed “Eck”, was an American professional baseball pitcher and former commentator.

Between 1975 and 1998, he pitched in the MLB for the Cleveland Indians, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals.

The 69-year-old rose to prominence after becoming the first of two pitchers in Major League history to record both a 20-win season and a career-high 50 saves.

He played 24 seasons and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2004.