30 Years After Being Found Guilty of Killing Selena, Yolanda Saldivar Remains Unapologetic

On October 23, 1995, then-35-year-old Yolanda Saldivar was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of 23-year-old Tejano music sensation Selena Quintanilla, known to most as simply Selena. It was the culmination of a bizarre story that, 30 years later, leaves many feeling stunned and confused.

It all began on March 31, 1995, at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Texas. That morning, Saldivar, who served as the president of Selena’s fan club, lured the Grammy winner to her room under the pretense that Saldivar was there to return essential business documents for Selena’s boutique business. Earlier in the year, Saldivar was accused by Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, of embezzling thousands of dollars from the boutiques and fan club, a charge that Saldivar had long denied.

When Selena arrived at the motel, Saldivar alleged that she had been sexually assaulted during a trip to Mexico. Selena accompanied her to the hospital, and doctors found no physical evidence of a sexual assault. Later, Selena took Saldivar back to the motel, where the singer reportedly confronted her about the documents.

During the confrontation, Saldivar shot Selena in the back, severing an artery near her heart. Selena subsequently ran to the lobby of the motel as Saldivar made her way to her red pickup truck. The staff at the motel called 911 as Selena identified Saldivar as her assailant before she collapsed.

Later that afternoon, Selena died at the age of 23. Meanwhile, Saldivar waited in her pickup for nine hours, threatening to kill herself, before she gave herself up and was taken into custody.

The tragedy of Selena’s killing stunned the world but especially hit home in the Latino community. Selena had emerged as a bicultural icon, blending traditional Mexican Tejano music with contemporary pop, enabling her to cultivate a widespread following across age groups in the United States and Mexico.

Selena’s ascendence was of great importance at a time of enhanced anti-immigrant sentiment as legislation was passed that restricted undocumented immigrants from accessing public benefits such as Medicaid. Instances of racial profiling and increased calls for tightening of security at the Mexican border also plagued the era.

Through all this, Selena was a shining light for many.

As a result, her death sparked mass mourning among Latinos, reminiscent of how fans responded with grief at the loss of Elvis Presley and John Lennon years prior.

Immediately, Saldivar was charged with first-degree murder. For many years, she maintained that the shooting was an accident, claiming that she was intent on killing herself, but that as she was trying to tell Selena not to close her motel room door, the gun was mistakenly discharged.

Her trial gripped the nation and the Latino community in Texas. Selena fans would stand outside the courthouse en masse, calling for the harshest possible punishment to be handed down. Ultimately, Saldivar was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

This past March, Saldivar was eligible for parole but was denied given the severity of the crime. She will be eligible again in March 2030, and by then, she will be 70 years old.

The case shed light on the tragic consequences of celebrity obsession. It later emerged that Saldivar was extremely possessive of Selena and was virtually always around her in public.

In 1991, Saldivar was a registered nurse who became a Selena fan after attending one of her concerts. Afterward, she pushed to start a fan club in San Antonio and eventually found herself in Selena’s circle.

She quit her nursing job to manage Selena’s boutique business, even though she had no business experience. Eventually, employees would complain about Saldivar’s behavior towards them and her obsession with Selena. Selena’s fashion designer, Martin Gomez, ultimately quit his job over Saldivar, who he described to the Washington Post as “very vindictive” and very possessive of Selena.” A roommate of Saldivar’s once found a makeshift shrine to Selena in her home and moved out after two weeks .

In the years that followed, Saldivar has made claims that somehow Selena was partly to blame for her own death.

Saldivar, speaking from prison in a 2024 docuseries, claimed that Selena had confronted her aggressively in the motel room and acted in self-defense, marking a dramatic shift from her longstanding contention that it was an accidental shooting. Furthermore, Saldivar said that she made purchases to cover up a supposed extramarital affair Selena was having and had been paying herself back for those purchases—which Selena allegedly knew about—rather than embezzling money from the business.

Before that, Saldivar did an interview with VH1’s Behind the Music in which she said that a mysterious man named “Lorenzo Selenas” had in his possession diaries and videotapes that portrayed Selena in a negative light, and when Saldivar went to retrieve the alleged items, she was attacked but escaped.

In the interview, Saldivar claimed that those items were stashed away in a safe deposit box in Monterrey, Mexico, and she hired a legal team to retrieve the evidence. However, no such evidence was ever found, and Saldivar couldn’t make the connection between said evidence and the murder itself.

Thirty years later, Selena’s legacy still lives on. After her death, her debut English-language album Dreaming of You reached the top of the charts and went on to sell over 7 million copies, making it the best-selling Latin record in the United States.

In 1997, the biopic Selena starring Jennifer Lopez became a smash hit on the big screen and earned Lopez a Golden Globe nomination.

In death, Selena helped spark what would later become the “Latin Explosion,” which captured popular culture in the late 1990s when artists such as Lopez, Marc Anthony, Marc Anthony, Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin and Shakira dominated the musical landscape.

Additionally, Selena’s fashion sense and choreography continue to be emulated by fans and artists worldwide. Tribute concerts and murals have been erected in her honor, and the Selena Museum in Corpus Christi gives fans a space to reflect on her life.

In 2017, Selena was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2021, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Grammy Awards.