Yolanda Saldívar, who is serving a life sentence for the 1995 murder of pop star Selena, is seeking parole after three decades in prison, as fellow inmates claim the woman has a “bounty” on her head for slaying the “Queen of Tejano Music.”
Saldívar was hit with a life sentence on charges of first-degree murder in October 1995 for fatally shooting Selena Quintanilla-Pérez with a revolver in a Corpus Christi, Texas, motel earlier that year.
This marks the first time Saldívar is up for parole. A hearing about her status is set for March 30, according to records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Saldívar, a nurse and the founder and president of the Selena fan club, of shooting Quintanilla-Pérez after the musician accused her of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars. Saldívar maintains the shooting was an accident, and pleaded not guilty during her high-profile trial, which was moved to Houston given the public attention.
When police arrested Saldívar, they found her in a parking lot threatening suicide, and said she had the gun to kill herself, not Selena.
Yolanda Saldívar was convicted in 1995 of fatally shooting Tejano music star Selena (Texas Department of Criminal Justice)
“I was convicted by public opinion even before my trial started,” Saldívar told a Peacock documentary last year.
Fellow inmates who served with Saldívar said that her crimes have put a target on her back inside of prison.
“Everyone knows who Yolanda Saldívar is,” Marisol Lopez, who served time with the woman from 2017 to 2022, told The New York Post last month. “There’s a bounty on her head, like everyone wants a piece of her. The guards keep her away from everyone else, because she’s hated so much. If she were out [in general population], someone would try to take her down.”
“Everyone was always like, ‘Let me have five minutes with that b****,’” another former inmate told the paper. “Everyone wanted to get justice for Selena. There’s a target on her back.”
The 1995 murder shocked fans and came as Selena was beginning to find crossover success (Getty Images)
Members of Selena’s family have also described Saldívar facing threats in prison.
The killing took place just as Quintanilla-Pérez was gaining popularity in the English-speaking mainstream market for her Tejano music, mixing American pop and Mexican folk styles.
The relationship between Saldívar and Selena has been the subject of recent documentaries, including this year’s Oxygen True Crime series Selena & Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them.
In the documentary, Saldívar claimed Selena persuaded her against killing herself, only for the gun to go off anyway while she was “hysterical.”
“Selena, when she came into the [hotel] room, she kept trying to put guilt in me for not continuing with her, and how everything was going to crumble,” Saldívar said in the series. “My emotions were running so high, and I was hurting.”
