First Body in Hospital Deaths Case Is Exhumed

Shrouded in an early morning mist, authorities Friday quietly unearthed the first of 20 bodies to be exhumed in connection with the probe of purported mercy killer Efren Saldivar.

The casket was removed from its grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Hollywood Hills about 7 a.m.

Glendale police and coroner’s investigators began digging before dawn. They left the cemetery before it opened to the public at 8 a.m.

“We attempted to keep it as unobtrusive as possible and to respect the dignity and rights of all concerned,” said Sgt. Rick Young, a police spokesman.

Young declined to identify the deceased, citing the family’s request for privacy.

The body is one of 20 that investigators intend to test for the presence of drugs Saldivar once said he used to hasten the deaths of as many as 50 patients while he worked as a respiratory therapist at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.

Saldivar, who later recanted his confession on national TV, said he was angry at seeing terminally ill patients’ lives unnecessarily prolonged. He told police he killed only those who were unconscious, had a “do not resuscitate” order on their charts and appeared ready to die.

At a news conference earlier this week, the leader of the Glendale police task force investigating Saldivar said that bodies scheduled to be exhumed “match certain criteria that [were] outlined by Mr. Saldivar.”

Scott Carrier, spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner, declined comment on the Saldivar investigation. But he described the circumstances of an exhumation.

Carrier said a coroner’s investigator would accompany police at the grave site and would immediately place a plastic seal on the coffin when it is pulled from the grave. The seal is designed to ensure that no one opens the casket or tampers with the body before it arrives at the coroner’s office and is removed by the examining physician.

After the body is removed from the casket, it is disrobed and examined. If needed, tissue samples would be taken for later testing.

In the cases of the bodies scheduled for exhumation in the Saldivar case, forensic experts will be testing for traces of succinylcholine chloride and Pavulon, drugs that paralyze the muscles.

Experts are divided on whether the drugs will be detectable in the suspected victims’ bodies as long as two years after some died.

Task force members have spent the past year poring over the medical charts of hundreds of Glendale Adventist patients who had contact with Saldivar and later died. In the cases of those being exhumed, detectives have determined that neither succinylcholine chloride nor Pavulon was used on the patients for a legitimate medical purpose.

“If we find [these] chemicals in the tissues . . . the only logical conclusion would be they were given illegally,” Sgt. John McKillop, the task force supervisor, said earlier this week.

The exhumations, authorized by a court order, are scheduled to be done at a rate of one or two per week for the next several months, police said. It may take as long as nine months to complete the testing of the samples.

Saldivar, who went into seclusion last year following interviews on “20/20” and “Extra,” could not be reached for comment.

His lawyer, Terry Goldberg of Woodland Hills, said Saldivar maintains his innocence.