By: Patti Weaver

(Stillwater, Okla.) — A Cushing man accused of strangling his girlfriend, who had recently learned she was pregnant, has been jailed on $25,000 bail pending a March 1 court appearance when he can seek a preliminary hearing on the felony domestic violence charge.

Colton Dirk Pool, 23, was arrested about 11 minutes after Cushing Police Officer Kurt McKean was sent to the couple’s apartment on Quail Creek Drive at 2:47 pm on Feb. 9, an affidavit said.

After Pool’s girlfriend was taken by ambulance to the Cushing hospital, Sgt. Matt Piatt notified McKean that a physician told her “her unborn child did not have a pulse,” an affidavit said.

The doctor said “he could not confirm the unborn child’s death because he was not a specialist, but advised she should follow up with a specialist in a few days or so,” the affidavit said.

“Upon hearing this new development, I made notifications to Detective Jerrod Livergood and Deputy Chief Nick Myers,” who contacted the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, McKean wrote in his affidavit.

Pool’s girlfriend had told Cushing Officer David Smith “Pool grabbed the back of her neck and forced her head into a pillow until she lost consciousness and suffered a possible broken finger during the physical struggle with Pool,” the affidavit alleged.

At the hospital, Pool’s girlfriend “willingly signed a medical release form to aid our investigation,” the affidavit alleged. After Pool’s girlfriend was discharged from the hospital, “I returned to her apartment with her where she cooperated with me in documenting evidence in the living room of her apartment in efforts to see if there was any physical evidence of a struggle,” McKean alleged in his affidavit.

Earlier, when the officer had spoken to Pool outside the apartment, “I started the investigation by asking Pool what happened and he advised he and (his girlfriend) were arguing and (she) had recently found out she was pregnant,” McKean wrote in his affidavit.

“Pool immediately began to tell me that sometimes their arguments turn physical without me asking him. I asked Pool to explain what he meant and he told me sometimes he will take (her) to the ground and hold her down out of fear of her hitting him.

“I asked Pool if anything physical took place that day and he advised me it did not. Immediately after telling me nothing physical took place, Pool told me he grabbed (her) by the neck and forced her down and choked her, but did not mean to choke her and did not know he was doing so,” McKean alleged in his affidavit.

“Pool then told me he was willing to go to jail if I wanted to take him,” McKean alleged in his affidavit.

“While I was taking Pool into custody, (his girlfriend) walked over towards us and Pool said to her that he had told me what happened. Pool then asked (her) if he could come back after he got out of jail,” McKean alleged in his affidavit.

If convicted of domestic assault and battery by strangulation, Pool could be incarcerated for one to three years and fined as much as $3,000, court records show.

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