Gretchen Hoffman
GLENDALE -- Efren Saldivar told police he killed "sporadically" and
slowed the frequency of his murders in 1997 because he was happy with a
girlfriend, according to transcripts of his Jan. 9, 2001, confession to Glendale Police.
Saldivar, 32, was sentenced Wednesday to six consecutive life terms in
prison for killing six patients at Glendale Adventist Medical Center in
1996 and 1997. He also was sentenced to 15 years to life for trying to
kill a seventh patient.
But he told police the real number of victims was much higher,
according to transcripts. He lost track in 1994 after he'd killed 60
people, and estimated he killed more than 100, he stated in the
transcripts.
He killed most frequently between 1994 and 1996, and time between the
murders varied from several weeks to the next day, he told police.
The rate of killing slowed in 1997 due to what Saldivar called a "new
lease on life."
He was dating Ursula Anderson, a fellow respiratory therapist at
Glendale Adventist who told police they often had sex at work, according
to the transcripts.
"[1997] was like a new leaf," he stated. "I slowed down because I was
happy. I was seeing Ursula.
"I preferred [killing patients] when Ursula wasn't there because I --
I preferred spending time with her," he stated. "Because if she was
there, then I would be with her and I wasn't worried about the patients."
The two broke up after hospital officials went to Glendale Police in
March 1998 with their suspicions of Saldivar, he stated in transcripts.
On March 11, 1998, Saldivar told police he targeted elderly patients
with "do not resuscitate" orders. He readily said "yes" when
investigators asked him if he considered himself an "angel of death."
But in a second confession nearly a year later, he told police he
killed patients who complained or required a lot of effort.
Saldivar was in charge of staffing issues on his shifts, he told
police.
"We had too much work," he stated. "Only when I was only at my wits'
end on the staffing, I'd look on the board. Who do we gotta get rid of?
OK, who's in bad shape here?"
He targeted patients who required a lot of work by respiratory
therapists, he stated.
"They had to be a burden on us," or it would be a "waste" of the
paralyzing drug he injected them with, a drug that could be hard to get
hold of, he stated.
"I just did it without thinking," he told police in transcripts,
comparing it to shoplifting a piece of gum. "You don't plan it. After
that moment, you don't think about it for the rest of the day, or ever."
