Doctor Convicted of 2nd-Degree Murder

Pediatrician Kevin Anderson was convicted of second-degree murder by a Pasadena jury Monday for strangling a colleague pregnant with his child, dousing her body with gasoline and shoving her car off a cliff in the San Gabriel Mountains.

After five days of deliberation, jurors rejected the contention that Anderson committed premeditated murder worthy of the death penalty. Prosecutors had argued that he lured Dr. Deepti Gupta, 33, to her death at the turnout on Nov. 11 under the pretext of stargazing, because their affair threatened his marriage and career.

But jurors also rejected the defense’s argument that the crime was voluntary manslaughter because Anderson, 41, snapped in the heat of passion after Gupta made an implied threat against his daughter.

The jurors apparently decided that Anderson committed second-degree murder because he should have known that by tightening his tie around her neck, he would kill her.

Anderson, who never denied he killed Gupta, showed signs of relief, smiling slightly after the clerk read the verdict and nodding repeatedly as Pasadena Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz thanked the jurors for their service.

But Gupta’s husband, Vijay Gupta, a UCLA professor of engineering, said outside court that he “will pray every day that [Anderson] goes to hell.”

“Ask a 10-year-old whether this evidence points to anything other than first-degree murder with special circumstances,” he said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Marian M.J. Thompson also expressed disappointment.

‘How many people do you know who drive around with a full gas can for two months,” she said, referring to the prosecution argument that Anderson brought a murder kit to the scene on Angeles Crest Highway that included a rope, tie, gloves and matches, because he planned to make the death look like a traffic accident.

But that plan fell apart when Anderson drove Gupta’s vehicle too close to the edge of the cliff and it slid down before he could ignite it, and a passing motorist then saw him, she said.

Thompson said it was a hard case for jurors, who tend to believe doctors.

“He had his head down most of the trial, with his hands in his lap, as if he was praying. And that certainly had some impact on the jury. So we’re disappointed. Nevertheless, they found that he was a liar, as far as I’m concerned.”

She said Anderson will face 15 years to life for Gupta’s murder and another five years because she was pregnant and he knew it.

Anderson was a prominent Pasadena doctor and head of pediatrics at St. Luke Medical Center.

“His life is over,” Thompson said. “He will be going away for an extremely long time.” Sentencing is set for Feb. 21.

Jurors would not comment on the trial.

But Vijay Gupta, who had watched most of it, criticized the defense’s efforts to cast his wife as a woman in pursuit of Anderson, whom he called a “sexual predator.”

“It’s a travesty of the American justice system that put the victim on trial,” Gupta said. “I just can’t imagine that she is gone. . . . [It’s] a complete loss to everybody in this world.”

Anderson’s attorney, Michael Abzug, said he was “not disappointed by anything the jury did.” He said the case “should never have been filed as a first-degree murder with special circumstances.”

Despite a year of preparation, 188 exhibits and extensive giant post boards laying out the crime, Abzug said, prosecutors “came up very short in this case.”

Ultimately, he said, two families were shattered.