ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 24, 1996 TAG: 9601240050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PETOSKEY, MICH.
SOURCE: Associated Press
CHIP KLOOSTER claims he is trying to keep his ailing father away from 'Suicide Doctor' Jack Kevorkian.
A man trying to keep his Alzheimer's-stricken father away from Dr. Jack Kevorkian won custody Tuesday of the ailing 69-year-old in a court battle against his own mother.
Probate Judge Fred Mulhauser ruled in favor of Chip Klooster, who feared his mother and siblings were arranging for his father, Gerald Klooster, to kill himself.
``Chip Klooster was apparently the only person who felt bold enough to act,'' the judge said. ``Through his efforts, it is not too dramatic to say that his father's life may have been spared.''
Legal experts said it may be the first time someone has gone to court to prevent an assisted suicide by a relative.
Mulhauser ruled that returning Gerald Klooster to his Castro Bay, Calif., home would be dangerous because his wife, Ruth, could pursue her ``determined plan'' to persuade him to kill himself. The judge extended a temporary order issued in December that gave custody of the elderly man to Chip Klooster.
The judge rejected a request by Gerald Klooster's daughter Kristin Hamstra to return her father to California, where she would act as his conservator.
Gerald Klooster sat quietly through the hearing and showed no reaction. He has been described as mentally incompetent, but his attorney, Scott Eckhold, said the man has some sense that the family is fighting over him.
The elder Klooster retired as an obstetrician and gynecologist after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's six years ago.
Chip Klooster said he learned last summer that his mother had joined the Hemlock Society, which supports physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill people who want it, and that she had spoken with Kevorkian.
In November, Chip Klooster went to Florida, where his parents were visiting friends, distracted his mother with a phone call and spirited his father away to Michigan.
Testimony showed Ruth Klooster had reserved plane tickets for herself and her husband to fly to Detroit last November and had booked a room in a motel near Kevorkian's home. Also, friends of the Kloosters testified that she had sought their help in getting pills that could be used for a suicide.
Last month, Ruth Klooster told an Alameda County, Calif., court that he occasionally spoke of committing suicide when his illness reached the advanced stages.
She ``was only acting as a good wife, cooperating with her husband's wishes,'' when she spoke with Kevorkian, said her lawyer, Nathaniel Stroup.
Ruth Klooster also had testified that she had no intention of seeking her husband's suicide now that he can no longer make that decision for himself.
She was not in court Tuesday.
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Klooster. color.<by CNB