Yolanda Saldívar fatally shot the singer identified to her followers as merely Selena on March 31, 1995, at a motel in Texas after the singer accused her of stealing cash.
HOUSTON — The girl convicted of killing Tejano music legend Selena Quintanilla-Perez has been denied parole after spending a long time behind bars for fatally taking pictures the younger singer at a Texas motel in 1995, the state’s parole board introduced Thursday.
Yolanda Saldívar is serving a life sentence on the Patrick L. O’Daniel jail unit in Gatesville, Texas. A 3-member panel of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted to not launch her. The panel stated her case will probably be eligible to be reviewed once more for parole in 2030.
The singer identified to her followers as merely Selena was one of many first Mexican-People to make it into the mainstream music scene and was on the verge of crossing over into the English-language pop market when she was killed.
Saldívar based Selena’s fan membership and had been the supervisor of the singer’s clothes boutiques, Selena And many others., till she was fired in early March 1995 after cash was found lacking.
Selena a Corpus Christi native, was 23 years outdated when she was shot within the again with a .38-caliber revolver at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi on March 31, 1995. She was in a position to run to the motel foyer the place she collapsed, and she or he was pronounced lifeless at a hospital an hour later.
Motel staff testified that Selena named “Yolanda” in “room 158” as her attacker.
“I didn’t imply to do it. I didn’t imply to kill anyone,” a sobbing Saldívar stated throughout a nine-hour standoff with police. She instructed police she had purchased the .38-caliber revolver to kill herself.
Greater than 50,000 folks lined as much as view Selena’s physique the day earlier than she was laid to relaxation in Seaside Memorial Park on April 3, 1995, simply 13 days earlier than her twenty fourth birthday.
Saldívar’s trial was moved to Houston due to the publicity surrounding the case. Saldívar testified that she had supposed to kill herself in the course of the confrontation with Selena, however that the gun misfired.
On October 23, 1995, a jury in Houston convicted Saldívar of first-degree homicide. She was sentenced to life in jail with the opportunity of parole after 30 years.
Whereas in jail, Saldívar — a former nurse — obtained her paralegal and affiliate diploma in prison justice and has filed a number of civil rights complaints alleging mistreatment by the state’s jail system, in response to court docket data. She additionally helped different inmates to file petitions.
In court docket paperwork filed in 2016, Saldívar stated she was being held in protecting custody — that means she was segregated from different inmates — as a result of jail officers have been involved for her security because of the “excessive profile” nature of her case. She filed a number of appeals of her conviction however all have been rejected.
Selena — “the Queen of Tejano” — rose to stardom and received a Grammy throughout a Tejano music increase within the early Nineteen Nineties. Her hits embrace “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” “Como la Flor,” “Amor Prohibido,” “No Me Queda Mas” and “Tu Solo Tu.”
“Dreaming of You,” her English-language crossover album launched a couple of months after her dying, topped the Billboard 200, and featured hits “I May Fall in Love” and “Dreaming of You.” Jennifer Lopez performed the singer in “Selena,” a 1997 biopic.
The Grammys awarded Selena a posthumous lifetime achievement award in 2021.
Observe Juan A. Lozano on X at juanlozano70
