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Dr. Brian Andresen's lab notebook, May 1, 1999-December 11, 2001
Dr. Brian Andresen's lab notebook, May 1, 1999-December 11, 2001
Dr. Brian Andresen's lab notebook, May 1, 1999-December 11, 2001
Brian Andresen with a sample vial, July 2004
Hospital pharmacy records for one patient, September 18, 2000
Laboratory Sample Analysis Check Sheet, about 1999
Vials and evidence, July 2004
Respiratory therapist Efren Saldivar appears in court, 1998
Dr. Brian Andresen's lab notebook, May 1, 1999-December 11, 2001
Dr. Brian Andresen's lab notebook, May 1, 1999-December 11, 2001
While investigating the Saldivar case, Dr. Andresen kept his records and notes in this lab book. Once he had developed a successful protocol for extracting Pavulon from pig livers, he used it on exhumed tissues from the bodies of the Glendale hospital patients.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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A "lab of last resort" solving the Efren Saldivar case

"I got a hit…and it took the wind out of my lungs. It was a real homicide…The patients had died a terrible death."

—Brian Andresen, Ph.D., American forensic chemist, 2004

In 1998 a respiratory therapist at a Glendale, California hospital told police that he had ended the lives of 50 patients. Efren Saldivar stated that he had deliberately overdosed patients with pancuronium bromide (Pavulon) or succinylcholine chloride. But, when he recanted his confession, police were forced to release him for lack of evidence.

Experts then referred detectives to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Forensic Science Center, sometimes called the "lab of last resort." There, Dr. Brian Andresen said Pavulon might still be detectable in the victims' bodies. If so, police could prove that murder had been committed.