Lab Breakthrough Unmasks Hospital's 'Angel of Death' Years After the Murders

Forensic chemists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Forensic Science Center developed a new method to extract Pavulon from decomposed tissue, allowing exhumed bodies to be tested and confirming six victims of Efren Saldivar, a Glendale Adventist Medical Center respiratory therapist, as having lethal Pavulon in their systems. Despite Saldivar’s confession and the lack of immediate corpus delicti, the lab’s breakthrough provided the crucial evidence, leading to charges in 2001 and a guilty plea in 2002 and highlighting the pivotal role of the so-called Lab of Last Resort in turning the case into a conviction.