DOCTOR'S OVERDOSE RAISES QUESTIONS : ALZHEIMER'S PATIENT FOCUS OF CUSTODY BATTLE.

Byline: Martha Irvine Associated Press 

An Alzheimer's patient whose son feared he was being pushed by other family members to kill himself with Dr. Jack Kevorkian's help remained hospitalized Wednesday after apparently overdosing on sleeping pills and whiskey.

Criminal detectives are investigating the incident, which left Dr. Gerald Klooster unconscious and breathing with the help of a ventilator. He was listed in critical condition, family members said Wednesday.

``For a lack of a better way to describe it, we're calling it an attempted suicide with suspicious circumstances,'' said Alameda County sheriff's Lt. Dave Hoig. ``We don't have anything to indicate a crime was committed, but there are many unanswered questions.''

Alameda County Superior Court Judge William McKinstry issued an emergency order returning care and custody back to daughter Kristen Hamstra, who is Klooster's conservator. He had been living with his wife, Ruth, since June in their Castro Valley home.

Ruth Klooster told authorities she found her 69-year-old husband unconscious and slumped against a kitchen cabinet Tuesday. Nearby were a bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey, an empty 100-tablet medicine bottle labeled busitol sodium, a barbiturate, and a coffee cup with some whiskey in it. He was wearing a robe and underwear.

Authorities said the bottle of barbiturates was a doctor's sample with an expiration date of January 1978. The bottle came from an old doctor's satchel that Klooster, a retired obstetrician, used on house calls in the 1970s, said his son-in-law, Bill Hamstra.

``I'm in shock. . . . All I can say is I told everybody this was going to happen,'' said the Kloosters' physician son, Chip, who took his father to his Petoskey, Mich., home last year after learning that his mother had contacted Kevorkian.

A custody dispute lasted nine months until a judge ordered Klooster returned to his daughter's home in Discovery Bay and then to his wife's home. The reunited couple celebrated their 45th anniversary in June.

Ruth Klooster told officers she found her husband and called 911, but she told paramedics that her husband's living will stated he should not be resuscitated, Hoig said. Paramedics continued trying to revive Klooster, then took him to the hospital.