1st of 20 Bodies Exhumed

Shrouded in an early morning mist Friday, authorities unearthed the first of 20 bodies to be exhumed in connection with the probe of a man who worked as a respiratory therapist at Glendale Adventist Medical Center.

The body was removed from a grave in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Hollywood Hills about 7 a.m. Glendale police and coroner’s investigators had begun digging before dawn and 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 Glendale police spokesman Sgt. Rick Young.

Citing the family’s request for privacy, Young declined to identify the dead person.

Efren Saldivar told police last year that he used drugs to hasten the deaths of as many as 50 patients while he worked at the Glendale hospital.

Saldivar, who later recanted his confession of mercy killings during a nationally televised interview, said he was angry at seeing terminally ill patients’ lives unnecessarily prolonged. He told police that he killed those who were unconscious, appeared ready to die and had standing orders that they not be resuscitated.

At a news conference earlier this week, the leader of the Glendale police task force investigating Saldivar said authorities will exhume bodies of people who were hospitalized under conditions matching those outlined by Saldivar.

Scott Carrier, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County coroner, declined to comment on the Saldivar investigation. But he described how exhumations are typically performed.

A coroner’s investigator accompanies police to the grave site, Carrier said, and immediately places a plastic seal on the coffin when it is pulled from the grave.

The seal is to ensure that no one tampers with the body before it arrives at the coroner’s office and the seal is removed by the examining physician.

Once at the coroner’s office, the body is removed from the casket, disrobed and examined. Tissue samples can be taken for later testing.

The bodies exhumed in connection with the Saldivar case will be tested by forensic experts for traces of succinylcholine chloride and Pavulon, drugs that paralyze muscle tissue.

Experts are divided on whether the drugs would be detectable in the bodies. Some have been buried for as long as two years.

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. Saldivar’s job was to tend patients’ breathing equipment.

Those being exhumed were selected, in part, because authorities determined that they were never prescribed succinylcholine chloride or Pavulon.

“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.

Authorities will perform one or two exhumations a week over the next several months. It may be as long as nine months before testing is completed.

Saldivar, who went into seclusion last year after television interviews on “20/20” and “Extra,” could not be reached for comment. He has not been charged with any crime.

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