Indian American mother accused of drowning baby
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A 30-year-old Indian American pharmacist, suffering from postpartum depression, allegedly killed her one-year-old son she hated by drowning him in a bathtub.
According to police reports, Neha Patel, of Florida allegedly drowned her infant son Ishan on February 16, then wrapped him in a blanket and went on a 13-hour drive through Florida, including the Tampa International Airport, where she intended to jump from the parking structure.
According to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, from the day her son was born, Neha said she hated him and the hatred reached a fatal level on that day, when she first slapped him and then purposefully left him alone to drown in a bathtub half full of water.
When she returned 10 minutes later and found him unconscious, she refused to perform emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation, even though she knew the procedure, the sheriff's office said.
Patel had reportedly been diagnosed with postpartum depression but was apparently not taking her medication, according to police and media reports.
When Patel returned home at 2 AM the next morning, she told her husband Rasesh Patel, a quality assurance manager at J.P. Morgan in Tampa, that Ishan was dead, handed the lifeless body to the father and again drove off in the car, telling her husband she planned to kill herself.
Neha was arrested that afternoon at the Tampa International Airport, sitting in her car on the fourth floor of the parking structure.
She is being held without bail in a medical dormitory at a county jail, according to Carrie Eleazer, public information officer for the Polk County Sheriff's Office.
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