MIAMI (WSVN) - An Oklahoma pediatrician and mother is now behind bars in South Florida.
Dr. Neha Gupta, 36, was extradited to Miami to face a first-degree murder charge. She’s accused of killing her daughter, Aria Talathi, at a rental home in El Portal last month.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. You were arrested pursuant to an arrest warrant charging you with one count of first-degree murder,” the judge told Gupta when she appeared in a Miami court Thursday.
According to the arrest warrant, Gupta claimed the child accidentally drowned after slipping out of bed during the night and wandering outside.
Neighbors, like Deborah Moreau, at the time could not believe the child drowned on her own, believing Gupta was capable of saving her.
“She’s a pediatrician, OK, she should’ve been able to save that child in some regard,” said Moreau.
Paramedics rushed the child to Jackson Memorial Hospital, but it was too late.
Authorities claimed Gupta’s story didn’t add up, saying in the arrest warrant “the deceased victim’s lungs and stomach did not contain water” concluding that “the deceased victim was deceased prior to being placed in the swimming pool.”
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office found “signs of trauma inside the child’s mouth and cheeks, consistent with asphyxiation by smothering,” the warrant states.
Gupta has maintained her innocence, with her attorney, Michael Mirer, sharing this statement with 7News:
What could be more devastating than losing your daughter in a tragic accident, only to then be jailed and accused of causing her death. Dr. Gupta did not kill her daughter.”
“Our concern, judge, is that this is a rush to judgment. There was no official cause in a matter of death,” Mirer told the judge on Thursday.
Investigators said Gupta staged the scene to make the death appear as an accidental drowning.
Gupta is now being held without bond.
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