Jurors in Doctor’s Murder Trial Review Part of Transcript

During their second day of deliberation, jurors in the murder trial of pediatrician Kevin Anderson on Tuesday asked that portions of his testimony be read back in open court. The passages involved whether he knew that his lover and colleague was pregnant with his child when he strangled her on Nov. 11, 1999.

A court reporter read the trial transcript in which Anderson testified to having met Dr. Deepti Gupta, 33, the night before at a Pasadena motel where, he said, they engaged in small talk and sex.

Anderson, 41, testified that afterward, he and Gupta got into an argument over their personal relationship and their failed effort to open a practice together.

At the height of the argument, Anderson testified, Gupta told him: “You’re choosing your wife over me? . . . I’m going to be the No. 1 woman. Not your wife. I’ll go to your house and tell her I am pregnant.”

Anderson said he did not believe Gupta was pregnant, but was concerned that she would go to his wife and tell her about the affair.

The doctor has admitted strangling Gupta with a necktie at an Angeles National Forest highway turnout, then dousing her body with gasoline, putting it in her vehicle and pushing it off a cliff. His attorney argues that the killing was an impulsive act that amounts to voluntary manslaughter.

Jurors must decide whether it was manslaughter, second-degree murder or, as prosecutors maintain, first-degree murder.

If the panel settles on first-degree murder, it must also decide whether Anderson led Gupta to the mountain highway so he could kill her. If jurors decide he was indeed “lying in wait,” that could lead to a death sentence rather than life in prison without parole.

Jurors must also decide whether Anderson knew Gupta was pregnant, another legal test that could tack more years onto a sentence. DNA evidence has shown that Gupta was pregnant with Anderson’s child; he testified that she claimed to be using birth control during their affair, which began in August 1999.

Also on Tuesday, jurors asked to hear the testimony of Gupta’s medical assistant, who recalled that Anderson and Gupta went to lunch three days before the killing. She testified that Gupta discouraged her from coming. It was at that meeting that Anderson learned Gupta was pregnant, prompting him to hatch a plan to kill her, prosecutors allege.