Pediatrician accused of 'staging' drowning of 4-year-old daughter found floating in Airbnb pool after no water found in victim's lungs 

Inset: Neha Gupta (Oklahoma City Police Dept.). Background: The Florida property and pool where Gupta’s child was found (KOCO).

A 36-year-old pediatrician from Oklahoma was arrested while staying at a short-term Airbnb rental property in Florida for allegedly killing her 4-year-old daughter — after the child was found floating in a backyard pool on the premises in what authorities believe was a staged attempt to make the death look like an accidental drowning.

Neha Gupta was taken into custody and charged with one count of first-degree murder over her daughter’s death, court records show.

According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Law&Crime, officers with the El Portal Police Department and personnel with Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue responded to a 911 call at about 3:41 a.m. on Friday, June 27, about an unresponsive child at a residence in the 100 block of Northwest 90 Street, just north of Miami.

Upon arriving, first responders made contact with Gupta, who immediately directed them to the backyard where they observed the child “unresponsive and submerged in the deep end of the swimming pool.” The child was immediately extracted from the pool, and life-saving measures were attempted to resuscitate her.

The affidavit says medics “transported the ‘deceased victim’ to Jackson Memorial Hospital where despite all live-saving measures, the victim was pronounced deceased at 4:28 a.m.”

Gupta was the biological mother of the victim, and the two had traveled to Florida from Oklahoma two days earlier and had been the sole occupants at the Northwest 90 Street residence since their arrival, police said.

Investigators soon learned that Gupta shared custody of the victim with her ex-husband, also a doctor, who did not know Gupta had taken their daughter out of Oklahoma. Making matters worse, the father of the victim said there was “an ongoing custody battle” over the child between himself and Gupta.

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Hours after her daughter’s death, Gupta sat for a recorded interview with detectives while accompanied by her attorney. She said she and the victim arrived back at the rental property at about 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 26, after a “full day of riding jet skis” and “spending the day at the beach.” Gupta said her daughter was asleep when they arrived and she woke the child up at 9 p.m. to eat dinner.  The two then went to sleep in the same bed in the master bedroom at about 12:30 a.m., per the affidavit.

“[Gupta] stated at approximately 3:20 a.m., [she] was awakened by an unidentified noise and realized that [her daughter] was not on the bed or within the bedroom,” the affidavit states. “[Gupta] said she then realized the glass sliding glass door located in the bedroom, which leads to the outside patio, was open. [Gupta] stated prior to sleeping. she locked all the sliding glass doors at the residence. [Gupta] stated she then observed [her daughter] submerged underwater within the swimming pool of the residence. [Gupta] stated she attempted to remove the victim from the pool: however, she was unsuccessful due to the fact that she is unable to swim. [Gupta] stated she attempted for approximately 10 minutes to assist [her daughter] before contacting emergency services.”

While the victim’s death may have appeared to be a tragic drowning, an autopsy conducted on Sunday determined that “the deceased victim’s lungs and stomach did not contain water and was considered ‘dry.'”

“[B]ased on these findings, she was able to rule out drowning as being a cause of death,” the affidavit says.

The medical examiner also discovered cuts inside the victim’s mouth and bruising within the cheeks of the child’s face, neither of which were consistent with live-saving procedures.

“In [the medical examiner’s] opinion, the deceased victim was deceased prior to being placed into the swimming pool,” police wrote. “While the official cause and manner of death remain pending further studies, the doctor’s preliminary findings are the injuries are consistent with asphyxiation by smothering.

The autopsy also noted that the child’s stomach was empty, contradicting what Gupta said about them eating dinner together that night.

Following the preliminary investigation, investigators said that the “totality of the circumstances” pointed to Gupta killing her daughter and then attempting to “conceal the killing” by “staging an accidental drowning within the swimming pool.”

Gupta is currently being held in Oklahoma without bond as she awaits extradition back to Florida.

OU Health and the University of Oklahoma issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying that Gupta, as of May 30, 2025, had been “suspended from patient care, given notice of termination, and was no longer seeing patients.” The university had also given her a “notice of termination.”