By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A 26-year-old father, who was originally accused of abusing his 4-month-old daughter at the family’s rural Stillwater home on Eden Chapel Lane, has accepted a plea agreement with the prosecution on two counts of child neglect, court records show.
Alexander Martin Kloster, who admitted his guilt, was sentenced on Jan. 26 to eight years in prison followed by 12 years of probation by District Judge Phillip Corley, who ordered him to register as a violent offender.
Kloster has been jailed since his arrest on April 29, 2022, at a Tulsa hospital to which Payne County Sheriff’s Investigator Tomm Edwards and state Department of Human Services employee Denise Armstrong were sent on a “priority one child abuse call,” an affidavit said.
Dr. Garrett Jones said that the infant “had been admitted to the hospital to determine why she was not gaining weight,” the affidavit said.
The pediatric physician discovered that the baby “had a fractured right radius, fractured right ulna, fractured right tibia, fractured fibula, and a midline subdural conjunctive hematoma bleeding in the right eye, and a bruise to the left cheekbone,” the affidavit said.
Dr. Jones said that the injuries were less than a week old and consistent with “shaken baby syndrome,” the affidavit said.
When the sheriff’s investigator interviewed the infant’s father at the hospital, “Initially, Alex stated that he had no idea what had happened and would not ever hurt (the baby) on purpose. While speaking with Alex, he stated he had not been sleeping well, and he takes care of the kids while his wife is at work,” the affidavit said.
Asked if taking care of the children was stressful, “Alex stated sometimes when (the baby) is fussing and crying, he gets stressed and feels bad about himself because he doesn’t have a job and can’t take care of his family,” the affidavit said.
Asked again if he could explain the baby’s injuries, “Alex stated that it probably happened one time when he had to change diapers one right after the other because (the baby) just kept getting them dirty. Alex stated he could have grabbed her too hard in order to change her.
“I asked Alex again if that is what happened — did he grab (the baby) to change her diaper and hurt her. Alex stated that is the only thing that could have happened, and he didn’t mean to hurt,” her, the sheriff’s investigator wrote in his affidavit.
