Salbi Asatryan was a 75-year-old Armenian American woman who died unexpectedly on December 30, 1996, while under care at Glendale Adventist Medical Center in California. She had been admitted three days earlier with severe breathing difficulties, improved enough to breathe and feed herself, and was expected to be discharged, but was found dead in her hospital bed days later. Her family and hospital staff described the death as sudden and unexplained.

Investigations into a cluster of sudden deaths at the hospital focused on a night-shift respiratory therapist, Efren Saldivar. In 1998 Asatryan’s body was exhumed; toxicology detected Pavulon, a paralytic drug not prescribed for her care. Investigators later found Pavulon in multiple exhumed elderly patients, and prosecutors charged Saldivar with six counts of murder, including Asatryan’s death.