Serial Murders Los Angeles County

Former respiratory therapist Efren Saldivar was formally charged Wednesday with six counts of murder, which could carry the death penalty, for allegedly injecting the paralyzing drug Pavulon into elderly patients at Glendale Adventist Medical Center over an eight-month period. Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley said his office will not decide whether to seek that penalty against Saldivar--for the special circumstance of "multiple murder"--until after a preliminary hearing.

Eleanora Schlegel was not well, her son knew. At 77, she suffered from multiple sclerosis, and other ailments. And pneumonia had sent her to Glendale Adventist Medical Center on Dec. 30, 1996. But she also was improving steadily at the hospital and the next day--New Year's Eve--she spoke to him about going home. The problem was that she lived in Pasadena. "You know how that's a crazy place on New Year's," Larry Schlegel said.

Almost three years after respiratory therapist Efren Saldivar told authorities he was an "angel of death" who had killed as many as 50 patients, the former Glendale hospital worker was arrested Tuesday and accused of murdering at least six people under his care. Glendale Police Chief Russell Siverling said that six murder counts will be filed today against Saldivar, 31.

Eleven years after an Orange County jury convicted Randy Kraft of murdering 16 people, the California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld his death sentence in what officials described as an important advance in the effort to execute the notorious serial killer. The justices unanimously rejected Kraft's claims that he received an unfair trial, saying he should die for the decadelong murder spree.

William George Bonin, Los Angeles' notorious "Freeway Killer," may face execution within two months, according to state prosecutors. Bonin, who was convicted of killing 14 teen-age boys in the Los Angeles area in 1979 and 1980, has a final appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. If the justices deny the appeal Monday--which is likely--prosecutors say they will be free to set an execution date, possibly as early as February. "His case is furthest along," said California Deputy Atty. Gen.

Police officers from across the country gathered in Kentucky on Wednesday, jockeying for a chance to prosecute Glen Rogers, suspected in the slayings of women he romanced in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Van Nuys. Authorities from six states compared notes Wednesday about Rogers, 33, who is suspected of strangling or stabbing at least four women in the past two months. He also is a suspect in other slayings, including one in Kentucky.

They were waitresses and maids, mothers at an early age who had hard lives and harder deaths. Bound by their reddish-brown hair and grisly fates, they also shared failed marriages, a love of country-Western music, and an ease with strangers less common among women of greater means. All felt at home at their neighborhood bars or a nearby fair--normally safe havens. All had been seeking some simple fun when they ran into Glen Rogers, whom police have linked to their deaths.

The FBI on Friday intensified a nationwide search for alleged serial killer Glen Rogers, a laborer whose blond good looks and free-spending charm may have lured at least four women to their deaths in California, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana.

The slaying of a woman whose body was discovered in an Ontario park is being investigated for links to three other killings in which the bodies of black women in their 30s were dumped in the East San Gabriel Valley. The Ontario victim, whose name was not released, was discovered fully clothed in San Antonio Park at 5 a.m. Wednesday, Ontario police said Thursday.

When the bodies of four women were found in the East San Gabriel Valley and nearby Chino last fall, authorities said the killings did not appear to be linked. The victims were all black and in their 30s, they had been strangled and their bodies had been thrown in business parks or by roadsides. But investigators said the similarities were happenstance and not the work of a serial killer. They said that the bodies of eight slain women had been found dumped in Los Angeles in November alone.