Parents arrested for infant’s motel death, says Harris County sheriff
The parents of three-month-old Brooklyn Fancher were reportedly arrested and charged with murder for the infant’s 2024 death.
Fox – 26 Houston
An Oklahoma pediatrician was arrested after authorities accused her of smothering her 4-year-old daughter to death during a Florida vacation and staging it as a drowning.
Dr. Neha Gupta, 36, was arrested in Oklahoma City and is expected to be extradited to Florida to be charged with first-degree murder, according to the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office.
On Friday, June 27, at around 4:30 a.m. local time, authorities responded to a 911 call of a residential drowning and found an unresponsive 4-year-old child in a pool in El Portal, about 10 miles north of Miami. The child received CPR and was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said.
Investigators learned that Gupta and her daughter, Aria Talathi, traveled from Oklahoma City to stay at a short-term rental, the sheriff’s office said. Authorities later obtained a warrant for Gupta’s arrest and traveled to Oklahoma City to bring her into custody.
As of July 3, it is unclear if Gupta has legal representation.
Aria’s father did not know the two were out of state
Dr. Saurabh Talathi, Gupta’s ex-husband, who shared custody of their daughter, told officials he had no idea the two left the state, according to the Miami Herald and ABC News. The two parents were in the midst of an ongoing custody battle following their divorce last year, per the outlets.
On June 26, the night before the 911 call, Gupta and her daughter spent a day jet skiing at the beach and arrived at the Airbnb property between 7-8 p.m., ABC News reported, citing an arrest affidavit. Gupta told police she and her daughter slept on the same bed and that Aria fell asleep at around 12:30 a.m. early June 27.
Gupta said she woke up around 3:20 a.m. after she heard an “unidentified noise,” lost sight of her child, and noticed the glass sliding door leading to the patio was open, according to the affidavit, per ABC News. She claimed she found her daughter in the pool, attempted to rescue her for 10 minutes, but couldn’t because she doesn’t know how to swim, the outlet reported.
However, an autopsy report completed June 29 found no evidence of water in the child’s lungs and stomach, hence ruling out drowning as a cause of death, the Miami Herald reported. The autopsy indicates that Aria died by asphyxiation caused by smothering before she entered the pool, the outlet added.
Investigators concluded that Gupta staged the death as an accidental drowning within the swimming pool to conceal the alleged murder, per ABC News.
USA TODAY contacted the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office on July 3 but has not received a response.
