In the early morning hours of June 27, 2025, Dr. Neha Gupta, a 36-year-old pediatrician from Oklahoma City, dialed 911 from a short-term vacation rental in El Portal, Florida. She reported that her 4-year-old daughter, Aria Talathi, was unresponsive at the bottom of the backyard pool.
According to the audio released by authorities, Gupta told the dispatcher, “I tried to get her out… We were sleeping and I heard some noise. She was in the pool, I tried to save her but I don’t know how to swim. She went down in the pool.” When asked about tools to reach the child, such as a pool stick, she inquired about the arrival time of emergency services, who were reportedly en route.
First responders located the girl in the pool, performed CPR, and transported her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
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Gupta, who is of Indian origin, explained to investigators that she and Aria had traveled from Oklahoma for the trip. She claimed the two had gone to sleep around 12:30 a.m., but she later awoke to find her daughter missing from bed, presuming the child had wandered out and fallen into the water.
However, an autopsy conducted by the medical examiner contradicted this account. The child’s lungs and stomach contained no water—described as “dry”—ruling out drowning as the cause of death. Instead, examiners identified cuts inside the mouth and bruising on the cheeks, findings consistent with asphyxiation by smothering. Authorities determined that Aria had died before being placed in the pool.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office (MDSO) Homicide Bureau arrested Gupta on July 2, 2025, initially on murder charges. She was apprehended in Oklahoma with assistance from the Oklahoma City Police Department’s Homicide Unit and the United States Marshals Service, then extradited to Florida.
Gupta now faces a second-degree murder charge in Miami-Dade County. Her ex-husband, Dr. Saurabh Talathi—who shared custody of Aria—reportedly told authorities he was unaware the child had been taken out of Oklahoma amid an ongoing custody dispute.
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