Doctor Says He Didn’t Think of Reviving Victim

Under cross-examination Monday, Pasadena pediatrician Kevin Anderson said it never occurred to him to try to revive a pregnant colleague he had just strangled with a Snoopy tie.

“I didn’t think about resuscitation,” Anderson testified at his first-degree murder trial in Pasadena. “She appeared dead to me.”

He said he did not check the pulse of Dr. Deepti Gupta, 33, who authorities say was pregnant with his child. “If I had it to do it all over again, I probably should have checked,” he said.

Anderson, 41, is accused of strangling Gupta while they were stargazing Nov. 11, 1999, on Angeles Crest Highway, putting her body in her car and dousing her with gasoline, then pushing the car over a 450-foot cliff.

He has admitted killing her but said it was not premeditated.

At the close of Monday’s proceedings, Anderson’s attorney asked for a mistrial based on Deputy Dist. Atty. Marian M.J. Thompson’s question to Anderson: “Did you think about Dr. Gupta’s 2 1/2-year-old daughter as you strangled her?”

Attorney Michael Abzug told the judge the question was clearly inflammatory and designed to produce an image of a motherless child. Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz took the motion under advisement.

Throughout the trial, Abzug has maintained that his client killed Gupta in an impulsive act after she made an implied threat against his 8-year-old daughter at the height of an argument over their professional and personal relationship.

Anderson has told jurors Gupta said, “I know where your daughter goes to school.”

Prosecutors allege that the stargazing trip was a murderous ruse to cover up their affair and the pregnancy that threatened his marriage, career and financial success.

Asked Monday if he had contemplated killing Gupta, Anderson said, “I just remember saying ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ and pulling harder and harder” on the tie as he choked her. “I was in a rage.” He couldn’t recall if Gupta struggled as he pulled the tie tighter, but did remember it was a crescent moon that night.

Anderson testified he learned Gupta was pregnant the day before but did not believe her. He also said that on the day of the killing, he paged himself and told his wife he had to go to Pasadena St. Luke’s Medical Center to deliver a baby when, in fact, he was going to meet Gupta.