By John MacLauchlan
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MIAMI, Florida (WFOR) — An Oklahoma mother accused of murdering her four-year-old daughter, after the child’s body was found floating in a backyard pool in South Florida last month, is now in jail in Miami-Dade, authorities said.
Dr. Neha Gupta, a pediatrician from Oklahoma City, was extradited back to South Florida and booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center early Thursday morning on a charge of first-degree murder.
Gupta, 36, is accused of killing her 4-year-old daughter Aria Talathi and staging her death as a drowning on June 27th at a short-term rental home in El Portal, a village just north of Miami city limits, authorities said.
Gupta practiced medicine at OU Health and the University of Oklahoma. She was suspended from patient care and terminated from her position on May 30, according to a statement from her employer.
Mother was in the midst of a custody battle with her ex-husband
According to investigators, Village of El Portal Police officers responded to reports of a drowning child in a residential pool near NW 90 Street and NW 1 Avenue around 3:40 a.m.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue also responded to the scene and took the girl to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she died.
According to the arrest documents, Gupta told police she and her daughter were asleep when, around 2:30 a.m., she heard a loud noise, woke up and saw the sliding door open. Once outside, she saw her daughter at the bottom of the pool. Gupta claimed that she tried to help for about 10 minutes before calling the police, according to investigators.
Gupta and her ex-husband were in the middle of a custody battle. The girl’s father didn’t know she was visiting from Oklahoma and staying at the rental home where the alleged drowning happened, according to the arrest document.
Autopsy results counter drowning theory
An autopsy was performed on the girl.
According to report by the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department, the child’s lungs and stomach did not contain water and were considered “dry.” The exam found she had cuts within her mouth and bruising within her cheeks, which were injuries consistent with “asphyxiation and smothering,” the arrest document said.
“As a result, based on the totality of the circumstances, [Gupta] was a caregiver of the ‘deceased victim’ — a minor child — who caused death to the ‘deceased victim,'” the arrest document said. “Furthermore, ‘the subject’ attempted to conceal the killing of the ‘deceased victim’ by staging an accidental drowning within the swimming pool of a rental property.”
Hunter Geisel contributed to this report.
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