An Indian-origin doctor was booked for allegedly killing her four-year-old daughter in South Florida, US.
Dr. Neha Gupta, a 36-year-old pediatrician, was booked into the Oklahoma County Jail in Oklahoma City.
Gupta was on vacation in El Portal village in Miami with her daughter, Aria Talathi, when she dialled 911 at around 3.30 am on June 27 about a drowning in the pool at their short-term rental, the New York Post reported, citing the Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Office.
Upon arrival at the scene, officers and fire rescue personnel found the 4-year-old unresponsive in the pool, promptly removed her, and began administering CPR. She was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s Ryder Trauma Centre, where she was pronounced dead.
A Miami-Dade sheriff’s homicide detective in an affidavit which was obtained by news agency Associated Press said that Gupta “attempted to conceal the killing of the deceased victim by staging an accidental drowning within the swimming pool of a rental property.”
According to jail records, n addition to facing the murder charge in Florida, she is accused of fleeing to the Oklahoma City area where she lives to avoid prosecution in Florida,
Gupta told investigators that she was sleeping with her daughter Aria at the Airbnb rental home when she heard a noise around 3:20 am on June 27.
She noticed a sliding-glass door in the bedroom that led to the outdoor patio was open.
When she got up and went outside, she found her daughter in the water and unresponsive in the deep end of the pool, the affidavit states.
Gupta told the investigator that she tried to save the girl, but she doesn’t know how to swim and was unable to get Aria out of the water.
Police and firefighters arrived and performed CPR on the girl, but Aria was pronounced dead at a hospital before dawn.
However, a doctor who performed an autopsy at the medical examiner’s office did not find water in the child’s lungs or stomach and ruled out drowning as being the cause of death.
The doctor advised authorities that she believes the child was dead before being placed in the pool.