DEFENDANT'S WIFE TESTIFIES TO OBSESSION VICTIM RELENTLESS, SHE SAYS.

Byline: Howard Breuer Staff Writer

PASADENA - The wife of a pediatrician on trial in the slaying of a pregnant colleague tearily told jurors Tuesday the victim was obsessed with her husband.

Heidi Anderson of La Verne - the wife of Dr. Kevin Paul Anderson - reinforced her husband's defense that Dr. Deepti Gupta was an aggressive, controlling woman who wanted to be with her husband badly enough to threaten to harm his child, marriage and career.

She told jurors Gupta, 33, of Glendale, meddled in the couple's affairs and often glared at her.

``If looks could kill, I wouldn't be here,'' she testified.

Anderson, 41, told detectives that when Gupta threatened his child, he strangled her in the heat of passion, doused her with gasoline and pushed her and her SUV off a 450-foot cliff to make her death appear accidental.

The prosecutor, who is seeking the death penalty, maintains Anderson planned the Nov. 11, 1999, homicide to eliminate evidence of an inconvenient lover who was pregnant with his son. She says Anderson lied about Gupta's threats to portray himself as the victim.

Several defense witnesses have portrayed Anderson as a peaceful, sensitive man who avoided violence.

But Anderson's wife also recalled how her husband got physical a few times during heated arguments.

She said Anderson grabbed her and tried to throw her out the door as she held on to the door frame. She testified that she told him to stop or he would break her arm.

She smiled warmly at her husband, and both seemed to fight back tears as she testified she knew that her husband was cheating on her with Gupta, got her pregnant and killed her.

Several friends and relatives of the defendant listened intently, held hands and mouthed words of support.

She said - despite the prosecution's assertions that news of the affair would destroy their marriage - that she and her husband remain close, and she has not filed for divorce.

She says she speaks and writes to her husband daily, visits him in jail at least once a week and makes sure that someone close to him visits him every day.

In response to questions by defense attorney Michael Abzug, Heidi Anderson also attacked the prosecution's theory that before the slaying, Anderson assembled a ``murder kit'' in his SUV with matches, maps, gloves, a full gasoline can and a piece of rope.

She was one of several witnesses Tuesday who said Anderson frequented the Angeles National Forest to hike and look at the stars. She said matches were always kept in the glove box, and the gas can was kept around because they used the SUV to tow their speedboat on waterskiing trips across the West Coast.

She also said she tried to be friendly to Gupta, whom she met in December 1998 at a Christmas party for employees at the Eaton Canyon Pediatric Group, where Anderson and Gupta saw patients.

``I talked to her about what it was like to be in an arranged marriage,'' Anderson said. ``She said she was unhappy. I said, I know marriage is hard. We had trouble, too.''

She testified she initially supported her husband and Gupta's plans for a joint practice and even sat in the back seat as they drove to tour potential office space in Glendora.

The doctors later agreed to open a joint practice on Green Street in Pasadena. But Anderson's wife said she opposed the plan because her husband told her Gupta had confessed to having a crush on him.

``He said, You're right. She said she wants to be with me no matter what, and if she can't be with me romantically, she wants to be with me in a business.

``I just said, Well, you just can't start a business with someone who has a romantic interest in you. It's not going to work.''

But she said Gupta was relentless, pressuring Anderson to be with her and even coming to the Anderson home with her husband and daughter to make a case for the joint practice.