PALMER — A man arrested last week on charges he’d slapped his infant daughter to death made his first appearance in court Monday, entering a not guilty plea.

A Palmer grand jury indicted Clayton Phillip Allison last week on three charges, including second-degree murder. He was arrested Nov. 17. On Monday he entered his plea. His bail remained as set at $50,000 and the case was assigned to Judge Gregory Heath with trial set for February.

Though charges were filed just recently, the child died in September 2008. Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said complicated cases sometimes simply take longer to find their way into court. “Any time there’s an investigation where we’re looking at cause of death and different kinds of trauma and getting medical results and consulting experts, all of that takes time,” she said. “Even fatal wrecks on the highway can take a year easily for charges to be filed. We don’t rush into things.”

According to an affidavit Alaska State Trooper Sherry Ferno filed in the case, troopers were called to Allison’s home on Philie Drive at 4:20 p.m. on Sept. 24, 2008.

Allison told troopers at the time that the 15-month-old girl had fallen down a flight of stairs. He said he’d left the girl in the living room while he went to use the bathroom.

“Clayton stated he clogged the toilet up and was in the process of unclogging the toilet when he heard (his daughter) screaming and crying at the bottom of the stairs,” Ferno wrote.

Allison summoned his mother to check on the girl, who by then was having trouble breathing. She was airlifted to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, where she underwent surgery but didn’t survive.

Ferno wrote that troopers talked to the girl’s mother, who said her daughter had trouble gaining weight and had poor muscular development. She told troopers the girl had trouble standing up on her own and was just recently starting to pull herself up.

The injuries the girl sustained included blunt force trauma to the head and neck with multiple hemorrhages in various parts of the brain. In short, Ferno wrote, experts concluded they were much more serious than injuries that would result if the accident had occurred the way Allison said it did.

“The injuries do not match a fall down 8 carpeted steps,” Ferno wrote.

In late January, Ferno wrote, a pair of troopers talked again to the girl’s mother, who quickly became uncooperative.

Soon thereafter, a second pair of troopers interviewed Allison.

“Clayton initially stated he had done nothing wrong. Later during the interview Clayton said he was slapping his daughter over a period of time, and began striking (her) harder with time,” Ferno wrote.

According to the affidavit, Allison said he wasn’t mad at the girl, but had trouble getting her to eat. She was underweight and when he tried to feed her a mixture of oatmeal and peas that seemed to be putting weight on her she would throw it on the floor.

The slaps, Clayton told troopers, were an attempt to get her to eat. The slaps got harder over time. Eventually he was hitting her hard enough to snap the girl’s head back. When that happened, her head would often smack the back of her highchair.

“Clayton said he felt like a failure as a father,” Ferno wrote.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.