Jury Told 2 Versions of Slaying of Doctor

The question of whether a Pasadena pediatrician plotted the killing of a pregnant colleague or killed her in a rage was turned over to a jury Wednesday after seven hours of impassioned closing arguments.

The Pasadena Superior Court jury must decide whether Kevin Anderson, who has admitted strangling his lover, dousing her body with gasoline and shoving her car off a cliff in the San Gabriel Mountains, should be convicted of manslaughter or face a possible death sentence for murder.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Marian M.J. Thompson told jurors that Anderson committed first-degree murder by luring Dr. Deepti Gupta, 33, to a remote turnout on Nov. 11, 1999, where he killed her to cover up his illicit affair and her pregnancy with his child, which threatened his marriage, career and financial future.

“It is a crime as old as time itself. The murder of an inconvenient lover,” Thompson said. It was a premeditated act, she said, aided by a murder kit that included a tie and a rope, gloves and a full can of gasoline.

That evidence, she said, proves that Anderson was lying in wait, which would qualify him for the death sentence.

After strangling Gupta with his tie, Thompson said, Anderson sat with the body for an hour, waiting for traffic to subside, before shoving her SUV off the cliff.

Anderson, 41, had decided to kill Gupta after she told him on Nov. 9 that she was pregnant, Thompson said.

“If his wife ever found out Dr. Gupta was pregnant with his child, that would be the end of it,” she said. His wife, she added, already had scuttled his proposed business partnership with Gupta out of jealousy.

The plan unraveled, Thompson said, when Gupta’s car slipped off the cliff edge before Anderson could light the gasoline.

Defense attorney Michael Abzug told jurors, however, that this was a case of manslaughter.

“It’s not a perfect murder. It’s a perfect tragedy,” he said.

He reminded jurors that Anderson testified that he flew into a rage when Gupta made an implied threat against his wife and then his daughter. This, Abzug said, followed months of provocation by Gupta, who had driven a wedge between Anderson and his wife, berated him over their failed partnership and blamed him for her career problems.

The turnout where Anderson went to stargaze with Gupta was a popular spot just 20 feet from a well-traveled road between La Canada and Palmdale, Abzug said, not the place for an ambush. Nor was the hour, 7:30 p.m. when traffic was still brisk, ideal for a planned killing, he said.

Anderson did not resuscitate Gupta, tried to make it look like a traffic accident and fled before crashing a few miles away “because he was scared,” the attorney said. “He is a weak human being.”

As for the so-called murder kit, he said, it contained items Anderson normally carried in his car.

And, he argued, his client never believed Gupta was pregnant.

But prosecutor Thompson said Anderson clearly had tried to establish an alibi beforehand.

The jury begins deliberations on Monday.