JUDGE CALLS FOR FINISH.

Byline: Donna Huffaker Staff Writer

BURBANK - A Burbank judge said Friday the investigation into the 2 1/2- year-old ``angel of death'' case has dragged on too long and needs to be resolved soon.

Burbank Superior Court Judge Carl J. West ordered documents regarding the investigation, filed by the city of Glendale, be sealed and told city officials they must also submit a detailed log of those documents. West further told Carmen Merino, Glendale's senior assistant city attorney, he is concerned about Glendale police Sgt. John McKillop's inability to estimate how much longer the investigation will continue.

``It cannot go on indefinitely,'' West warned.

No charges have been filed against Efren Saldivar, a former respiratory therapist for Glendale Adventist Medical Center who told police in March 1998 he euthanized up to 50 terminally ill patients at the hospital between 1989 and 1997. Saldivar later recanted the confession on a national news magazine TV show.

Authorities have exhumed 20 bodies since the investigation began and have tested for drugs Saldivar told police he used in killing the patients.

Saldivar's attorney Terry Goldberg, who is representing the Tujunga resident in a civil lawsuit filed by the family of John N. Schwartz, has requested autopsy and toxicology reports of alleged victims. Goldberg insists such reports will prove his client's innocence. The body of Schwartz, a 91-year-old Alzheimer's patient who died at Glendale Adventist in 1993, was not one of those exhumed.

West said he wants the documents submitted by Oct. 12 and will review them for an Oct. 20 hearing. At that hearing, he said, he will decide whether the documents should remain under seal or if turning them over to Goldberg, and thereby making them public, would compromise the investigation. Nothing, however, will be released before Oct. 20, West said.

Police refuse to comment on the investigation except to say it is continuing.