An almost perfect murder with a hit on the head and a garrote
Patty
By Howard Breuer, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Daily News
The unraveling of murder suspect Dr. Kevin Paul Anderson's "perfect"
plot to kill his colleague and lover started with a simple human
mistake -- not his, but that of a stranger who had no connection to the
crime or the victim, officials say.
Schoolteacher Jay La Riviere, 35, had locked his keys in his car when
he visited a friend in Juniper Hills on the north side of the Angeles
National Forest and was running 90 minutes late on the way home to Long
Beach.
It was the night of Nov. 11, and he was driving along Angeles Crest
Highway when he spotted two cars at a turnout in the mountain road. He
would later learn one was Anderson's and the other, a Mercedes SUV,
belonged to Glendale pediatrician Deepti Gupta.
As he drove past, he saw the Mercedes roll down a cliff. As he turned
back, he saw the second car, Anderson's Toyota 4-Runner, drive off.
Suspecting some kind of insurance scam, he followed it and soon led
deputies to the suspect -- who confessed, according to grand jury
transcripts.
"The perfect plan, the perfect murder, unraveled for this particular
doctor because of the passing motorist," Deputy District Attorney
Marian Thompson told the grand jury.
Interviewed last week, La Riviere said: "It really hasn't hit me. What
I did came natural. I don't know if I'm a hero or not. I just feel like
I did my good deed for the day."
According to transcripts obtained under court order, Thompson persuaded
the grand jury to indict Anderson, 40, of La Verne for first-degree
murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait, which carries a
potential death penalty.
Anderson planned the murder so he could take over Gupta's clients and
solve concerns that the baby she was carrying might be his, the grand
jury was told.
Both doctors were married to other people. DNA tests to determine the
paternity of Gupta's baby also are not complete. Pretrial hearings are
now under way, and the trial could be months away.
A private practice
Before the grand jury, Thompson portrayed Gupta as a spiritual woman
who practiced pediatrics out of her love for children. Anderson, she
said, was a lost soul who was angry over setbacks in his career.
She presented letters from Anderson to Gupta that expressed his
passions for her and frustrations over marital and professional
problems.
"Emotions are not always in our control, and to expect otherwise is to
have a life filled with frustration and disillusionment," he said in a
letter three months before the murder.
The two had known one another for nearly a year and were having an
affair for at least a few months.
In December 1998, Gupta joined the Eaton Canyon Pediatric Group in
Pasadena, where Anderson also worked. She also was on call at St. Luke
Medical Center in Pasadena, where Anderson coordinated pediatric
assignments.
In April 1999, she went to work in private practices in Montebello and
Encino, remaining on call at St. Luke.
Gupta consulted her Hindu priest and spiritual consultant as many as
100 times in the three months before her death, the priest testified.
He said he encouraged her to end her affair with Anderson and suppress
her feelings for him.
Four days before her death, on Nov. 7, she told her husband Vijay she
was pregnant. She seemed pleased, and also told her younger sister, he
testified.
Witnesses said Anderson seemed particularly frustrated that Gupta
backed out of their plans for a joint practice on Green Street in
Pasadena. Gupta wanted her patient list back, but Anderson wouldn't
provide it.
A perfect plan
The two pediatricians met the evening of Nov. 10 at a Super 8 Motel and
agreed to meet again the following night to discuss business, Thompson
told the grand jury.
Early that following morning, Gupta called St. Luke to speak with
Anderson. Nurse Jacqueline Cocker testified she took the call as
Anderson stood nearby, gesturing and saying, "Don't tell her I'm here."
"So the nurse lies for him and tells Dr. Gupta that he is not there,"
Thompson told the grand jurors. "And it is all part of his plan to
avoid speaking with her during the day and to make sure that she meets
with him that night.
"So he begins setting up his alibi at 7 o'clock that morning at the
nurses' station."
At 5:45 p.m. that afternoon, Anderson called his wife to say he was
going to St. Luke for a delivery.
That way, "if the police ever question his wife, (she could say), oh,
he was on his way to do a delivery at St. Luke," Thompson said.
At around the same time, Anderson entered the maternity area and
announced to the nurses, "Oh, I am here for a C-section."
They looked at him curiously, nurse Veronica Loving testified. They
told him nothing was scheduled.
"And when they tell him, he doesn't even act surprised," Thompson
said. "He says, `Oh, I am going to see some patients ... I am going to
come back and check in with you.'
"There is a strong suspicion again that the defendant is attempting to
create an alibi for himself. What did the nurse testify to? As far as
she was concerned, when she got off at 7 o'clock, he was still there
doing rounds with his patients. So if she was subsequently questioned
by police concerning (his) whereabouts, had he gotten away with this
murder, the nurses would have said, oh, well, he was here sometime
after 5 o'clock. He came in to see his patients and we didn't see him
again."
Anderson and Gupta met shortly afterward. They soon headed up the
Angeles Crest Highway toward Mount Wilson to gaze at stars with his
telescope, Thompson told the grand jury.
"It was part of his plan that they drive in separate vehicles,"
Thompson said. "Why? So he could stage her death, so he could make it
look like a traffic collision (sent her) over the side of the cliff."
No way out
At a turnout overlooking a 230-foot cliff and a sweeping view of the
city, "he tells her that he was going to set up the telescope in his
car, and I suggest to you that's about the time when he is going to
kill her," Thompson told the grand jury. "And she ends up going to his
car. And that's when he takes her by surprise, ladies and gentlemen."
According to Anderson's statement to investigators, Gupta sat in the
passenger seat, Thompson said.
"He took her head and slammed it against the dashboard and struck her,"
causing what a deputy coroner later described as blunt-force trauma to
the left side of her head.
"He was trying to stun her in some fashion so he could put his hands
around her neck and start choking her. "The evidence from the coroner's
office demonstrates that the defendant placed his thumbs around her
neck in the carotid artery area -- and as a physician he would know
exactly where to place his hands. As a physician, he would know exactly
what type of pressure to exert, all for the purpose of rendering her
unconscious so she doesn't struggle and fight.
"Now, after he manually strangles her and renders her unconscious, he
then takes off the tie, garrotes her and finishes her off."
She said he poured gas on her and planned to set her on fire.
"If her body is totally consumed by fire, there is no evidence of
strangulation," she said. "So not only was his intent to stage an
accident, he wanted to destroy any possible connection to himself and
any likelihood that the investigators would determine that this was a
homicide. And again, this is a very committed man, I submit to you, a
very egotistical man who intended to get away with it."
Two things went wrong, she said.
He drove Gupta's car a little too close to the cliff's edge and it
started sliding down before his work was done.
"He has to jump out before he can even light the victim on fire and her
car."
And a schoolteacher who loved the outdoors happened by.
A man with spirit
La Riviere recalled for the grand jury what he saw as he drove back to
the turnout.
"Right as I approached, as I stopped, he backed up and got on the
highway," La Riviere testified. "He drove off with his lights off for
quite a ways and then he turned on his lights once he was on the
highway."
La Riviere looked over the cliff.
"I noticed something down there, but I couldn't make it out," he said.
"I yelled for anyone down there. It could be someone or some accident.
And then I walked over to the other side of the road."
He said he thought, "Should I go after him or should I just go home?
"I went with my gut feeling. I just followed him."
With each corner, La Riviere got closer to the 4-Runner.
Just when he thought he would close in, the 4-Runner disappeared.
La Riviere backtracked and found the vehicle stuck in a dirt berm next
to the road. A man was standing near it.
The man said he didn't need help. La Riviere casually took note of the
license plate: 1UAF710. He drilled it into his memory: One. United
States Air Force. The 710 Freeway he takes home.
He found a ranger station nearby.
Sheriff's deputies and other authorities went down the cliff, where
they found the vehicle and the body.
A mile away, authorities found Anderson with another passer-by who was
trying to help him get his truck back on the road.
When Deputy Michael Brandriff confronted them, he said Anderson
shouted: "The guy next to me is not involved. I'm the guy you want."
"Do you know what this is about?" Brandriff recalled asking.
"Unfortunately, I do," Anderson replied.
Anderson was taken to the sheriff's station, where he confessed to
killing Gupta, according to court documents.
For La Riviere, the memory of the night has stayed with him.
That weekend, he returned to the scene of the crime and hiked down the
same steep cliff.
As he looked around, he spotted a piece of paper. There was no
handwriting in it. No names. No addresses.
It was a thank-you card.
"It had a really warm feeling," he told the grand jury. "I felt like
someone was there. It was really spiritual. Weird."
He opened the card. It read simply, "Hope you know how much it's
appreciated."
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
PattyC4303
Thanks for this post, Patty. YOU do come up with some interesting stuff. Is
it just me, or do there seem to be a HELL of a lot of doctors who do murder?
PattyC
Patty
PattyC4303 <patty...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000402193628...@nso-fo.aol.com...
: In article <8c8fkq$3os$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Patty <patt...@my-deja.com>
writes:
: Thanks for this post, Patty. YOU do come up with some interesting stuff.
Is
: it just me, or do there seem to be a HELL of a lot of doctors who do
murder?
:
: PattyC
I've seen a number of stories of doctors who have murdered. Does seem to be
in violation
of saving lives, doesn't it. I have been following this case since it
happened. I know the victim
had only taken a home pregnancy test when she announced her pregnancy to her
husband and sister. She must have just missed her period because the
autopsy said she was only four weeks pregnant. Results are not in as to
paternity. The accused doctor is African-American so if the child was his,
her husband would have probably found out sooner or later.
: >
:
:
Teresa/Colorado
> PattyC4303 writes:
> : Thanks for this post, Patty. YOU do come up with some interesting
stuff.
> Is
> : it just me, or do there seem to be a HELL of a lot of doctors who do
> murder?
> :
> : PattyC
> :
> I've seen a number of stories of doctors who have murdered. Does seem to
be
> in violation
> of saving lives, doesn't it. I have been following this case since it
> happened. I know the victim
> had only taken a home pregnancy test when she announced her pregnancy to
her
> husband and sister. She must have just missed her period because the
> autopsy said she was only four weeks pregnant. Results are not in as to
> paternity. The accused doctor is African-American so if the child was
his,
> her husband would have probably found out sooner or later.
>
**Not necessarily. I know a doctor with the last name of Gupta (like the
female doctor in this story). He is very dark skinned - from India
originally.
So, if the victim is from India, the child would have dark skin anyway.
Teresa
Patty
> > I've seen a number of stories of doctors who have murdered. Does
seem to be in violation > of saving lives, doesn't it. I have been
following this case since it happened. I know the victim
> > had only taken a home pregnancy test when she announced her
pregnancy to her husband and sister. She must have just missed her
period because the autopsy said she was only four weeks pregnant.
Results are not in as to paternity. The accused doctor is African-
American so if the child was
> his, her husband would have probably found out sooner or later.
> >
>
> **Not necessarily. I know a doctor with the last name of Gupta (like
the female doctor in this story). He is very dark skinned - from India
> originally. So, if the victim is from India, the child would have
dark skin anyway.
>
> Teresa
I thought that, too. I've worked with many Indians. I met this one
woman whose nationality I could not guess. She almost looked Hispanic
(Mexican in California) to me but her name was definitely not Spanish.
It turned out that she was a lighter skinned Indian. We became friends
and she told me that color of skin depends on the region in India.
Now, she also told me that she could usually make a reasonable guess on
where a person is from just by looking at their name. So if you say
the person that you know is a Gupta and is dark skinned, I would gather
that this woman also might be, if she married a man from her region.
One time we were at a restaurant and she was looking for another Indian
friend, a male, whom I had never met. I pointed out a guy thinking he
might be her friend. She laughed, "He's not Indian, he's black." Ever
see "Mississippi Masala" with Denzel Washington - love story between an
African-American and an Indian woman. Her parents can't come to terms
with the relationship and Denzel says something like "Hey some of your
people are darker skinned than mine." Can't remember the line but it
went something like that.