Glendale Adventist Hospital and the Angel of Death – Part 2

Last week we heard the twisted tale of Efren Saldivar, a hospital respiratory therapist who injected his patients with drugs that would kill them. He was a self-professed “angel of death.” He did this for 10 years, from 1988 to 1998. He did this without suspicion while working the quiet graveyard shift. But in 1997, issues began to be raised about him and the police began to follow the very faint trail he had left.

The Glendale PD’s initial investigations were dead ends but, covering all bases, they called Efren in for questioning, basically just to gauge his reaction to direct questioning. They weren’t disappointed. In fact, they were amazed.

He almost immediately began recounting patients he had killed detailing a patient he had killed soon after he started work at the hospital back in 1988. He said she had terminal cancer with no hope of recovery and that the family had already given permission to disconnect her from life support. Efren recounted that, after everyone had left for the night, he went into her room. She was unconscious but still breathing via a machine. He said he felt sorry for her so he went ahead and undid the breathing hoses. He then recounted other patients he had killed with a lethal injection. He said it was just two, and that it was very recent, in 1997. He said he had injected them with a muscle relaxant, Pavulon.

The astonished detectives read him his rights, including his right to remain silent. But he didn’t remain silent. He talked for two hours as his admission of victims went from the initial three to 40, and then to 50. He detailed his reasons for the murders, feeling sorry for patients who were kept alive beyond all hope of recovery.

The detectives booked Saldivar at the Glendale police station and started hunting for evidence. But this was going to prove elusive. Saldivar had gotten rid of anything incriminating in his possession so a warranted search turned up nothing. All of his victims had been either cremated or buried and what’s more the drugs he had used were hard to detect in a dead body. They had his confession but they had no murder weapon, no victims and no witnesses. They had no case. A confession alone was not enough to charge him. Regrettably, after 48 hours, they had to release Saldivar.

The hospital fired Efren and suspended most of the respiratory department as they tried to clean up the mess.

Efren, meanwhile, enjoying new fame went on ABC’s “20/20” news show and recanted his confession, saying he was suicidal and trying to get the state to kill him with the death penalty.

The police began the monumental task of building a case, even renting a house near the hospital to house the six-man investigative task force. First, they got up-to- speed on the psychology of “angels of death,” a phenomenon in the medical field. Some did it out of mercy, some for the thrill of swooping in and “saving” the patient and some for the sadistic power. Efren even admitted later that some patients were simply inconvenient.

Although Efren claimed to be killing patients for merciful reasons, his drug of choice was not always merciful. He used Pavunol, or pancuronium bromide, which was based on the legendary South American poison curare. Natives tipped their arrows and blowgun darts with the drug to immobilize their prey. Pavulon was used in hospital settings to depress the breathing reflex during operations where the patient is breathing mechanically. Those who were conscious when Efren injected them with Pavulon, and there may have been some, would be horribly aware of their suffocation and inability to summon help.

If the detectives were going to pin any murders on Saldivar, they were going to have to dig up evidence – literally. About a thousand patients had died on Saldivar’s watch; perhaps some buried bodies still had minute traces of Pavulon. You get the picture. The summer of 1998 was going to be a grisly one for these detectives.