A former respiratory care practitioner at a Glendale hospital Efren Saldivar confessed to killing 40 to 50 patients over a eight-year period. A suspected "Angel of Death," he allegedly targeted patients who were already near death. He would kill them with lethal injections of the muscle relaxants Pavulon or succinylcholine chloride, and/or decreasing their oxygen intake if they were on ventilators.
Saldivar allegedly told police that the killings began in 1989, six months after he started working at the hospital, and stopped in August 1997 when he heard that one of his co-workers had seen morphine in his locker. The hospital first heard rumors about hastened patient deaths in April 1997. Although the two-month internal investigation revealed nothing suspicious, a criminal investigation was launched after police received an anonymous phone call on March 3 from a person saying Saldivar "helped a patient die fast." Saldivar told police he might have contributed to "anywhere from 100 to 200" deaths during his 9-year career as a hospital worker and had actively killed up to 50 patients by giving drugs or withholding treatment.
Not a random killer, Saldivar -- who co-workers said had a "magic syringe" -- prided himself on following an ethical set of criteria determining who to kill: they had to be unconscious, they had to have a "Do not resuscitate" order, and they had to look like they were ready to die. In an affidavit, Officer William Currie, who interviewed Saldivar, said: "He talked about his anger at seeing patients kept alive as opposed to the guilt he would feel at the failure to provide life-saving care." He said that a polygraph examiner asked Saldivar if he considered himself an "angel of death" and Saldivar replied: "Yes."
Bizarrely, police could only detain Saldivar for 48-hours after his March 3 confession because of lack of corroborating evidence. When his confession surfaced in the press on March 25, 1998, Saldivar was fired from the hospital and his license was revoked. Efren then went on the ABC-TV news magazine "20/20" were he recanted everything, saying he had lied because he was depressed, suicidal and wanted to be sent to death row. "I wanted the system to do to me what I couldn't do," that is, commit suicide. "I was looking to die, I wanted to die ... but I didn't have the courage."
"I figured, you know, one death isn't gonna be enough for the death penalty so I said two... And then I started to cry because I was ending my life." Allegedly, as the interrogation went on, he started embellishing his murderous tale and the confession snowballed into the 50 deaths that made the front page of newspapers worldwide. As for the co-worker who allegedly found morphine and succinycholine chloride in his locker, Efren said the man hated him and had "a plan to get rid of me."
Glendale police spokesperson Sgt. Rick Young dismissed Saldivar retraction as self-serving and insisted the remarks would not affect the criminal investigation. In fact, Glendale police said for the first time that they believe that at least one murder was committed. However, no arrest warrant has been issued because they still lack necessary evidence.
Investigators reviewed the deaths of 171 patients who died while Saldivar was working at the hospital. Fifty-four cases were eliminated because bodies had been cremated. Of the remainder, 20 deaths were determined to have been suspicious and the bodies were exhumed. Toxicological tests revealed the presence of the drug Pavulon in the remains of the six patients ages 75 to 87. On January 10, 2001, police rearrested Saldivar and charged him with the deaths of six hospital patients.
Hospitals frequently use Pavulon to stop the normal breathing of patients who are put on artificial respiratory devices, said Deputy District Attorney Al Mackenzie, who will handle the case. "If you're going to do surgery, you're going to put the person on an artificial breathing device," Mackenzie said. "If you give the person the drug Pavulon and don't create an artificial means to breathe, they die."
On March 12, 2002, Saldivar, after striking a deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, pleaded guilty to murdering six elderly patients and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. "It still seems so unreal," said Larry Schlegel, whose 77-year-old mother, Eleanora, was found dead in her hospital bed in 1997. "It's just that whole thing that it can never happen to you." Seven lawsuits have been filed against the hospital. Four have been dismissed. The family of Salbi Asatryan, one of the victims, accepted a $60,000 settlement. Another family, that of Jose Alfaro, also settled for an undisclosed amount.