The Murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, known to music fans around the world as Selena, was shot at a Days Inn Motel by Yolanda Saldívar on March 31, 1995. The outpouring of grief from around the world would cement Selena’s legacy as an icon.
Born on April 16, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas, Selena Quintanilla embraced the uniquely Mexican-American Tejano music style. Selena’s father Abraham taught Selena and her two siblings, Suzette and Abraham, everything he could about music. They quickly formed the band Selena y Los Dinos and it quickly became the main focus for the family.
When she was 15, Selena won female vocalist of the year at the Tejano Music Awards. In 1989, she released her first album titled Selena. As time passed, Selena released hits like “Como La Flor” and “Amor Prohibido.” In 1990, she would marry her husband Chris Perez, who was also her guitarist.
Although she initially struggled to speak Spanish, she was the first of her siblings to learn the language. Not only was she afraid of Mexican fans dismissing her, but she also wanted to connect with them.
In 1994, Selena’s album Selena Live! would win a Grammy for best Mexican-American album. By 1994, Selena was considered the “undisputed queen of Tejano music.” Already a megastar within the Spanish speaking world, Selena’s popularity throughout the rest of the United States and world was growing rapidly at the time of her death.
Selena opened multiple boutiques called Selena Etc. and had a massive fan club. Yolanda Saldívar first met Selena and her family as the president of Selena’s fan club. Saldívar and Selena grew so close that she promoted Saldívar to be the manager of her boutiques.
According to those who knew Saldívar, she was possessive and devoted her entire life to Selena. A woman who moved into an apartment with Saldívar for a period of time claimed the “whole place was like a shrine to Selena.” Martin Gomez, the fashion designer for Selena’s boutiques, eventually quit his job because of Saldívar’s behavior.
Soon, customers began complaining of unfilled orders. Not only was it discovered that Saldívar was mismanaging the boutiques, but she was also likely embezzling money. These suspicions were confirmed when Selena’s father Abraham found evidence that she stole money from both the boutiques and the fan club.
On March 9, 1995, the family confronted Saldívar about the evidence they found. On March 13, she and a lawyer drafted a resignation letter despite the fact she was essentially terminated. An employee at one of Selena’s boutiques claimed Selena would officially fire Saldívar once she received all the missing financial documents.
Saldívar also bought a .38 caliber gun to “protect herself from Abraham.” She then returned the gun to the store, then repurchased it two days later.
The two women met on March 30, where Selena was given some financial documents, but not all. On the morning of March 31, Selena went alone to visit Saldívar to retrieve the final financial documents. During one of these two meetings, Saldívar revealed to Selena that she’d been raped on a recent trip to Monterrey, Mexico.
Selena took Saldívar to a local hospital where they would not perform a rape kit examination because she was not a resident of Corpus Christi and the alleged assault took place outside of their jurisdiction. A nurse interviewed after Selena’s death recounted how parts of Saldívar’s accounts were inconsistent. When Selena and Saldívar returned to the Days Inn Motel, the women began to argue.
Soon after their return, a maintenance worker said he heard what he thought was a “loud boom” before he saw a woman running and screaming. Selena was shot in room 158 by Saldívar, then ran to the motel lobby asking for the women working to lock the door, terrified she would be shot again. When asked who shot her, she quickly identified Saldívar and then lost consciousness.
The women called 911, with ambulances arriving within two minutes. Employees Shawna Vela and Rueben DeLeon tried to stop the massive amounts of blood loss before paramedics arrived to no avail. When paramedics arrived to Corpus Christi Medical Center at noon, Selena was showing no vital signs and was considered clinically brain dead.
Despite the efforts of medical staff, Selena was pronounced dead at 1:05 p.m. at only 23 years old, 16 days before her 24th birthday.
After the shooting, Saldívar tried to leave the motel in her pickup truck. When a police officer spotted her and told her to exit her vehicle, she began an hours long standoff where she kept a gun held to her head.
During the standoff, Saldívar said she did not mean to kill Selena. She told police she was meaning to commit suicide and accidentally struck Selena, although she did change her story multiple times. She eventually surrendered after a nine-hour standoff.
Saldívar was arrested and plead not guilty to the charges of murder. She was held on suicide watch before the trial and was later found guilty. The jury deliberated for only two hours before they reached their verdict. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 30 years. She will be up for parole in 2025.
The reaction to Selena’s death was swift and heartbreaking. Major television networks within the United States broke normal programming to report her death. Radio stations in Texas and across the country played Selena’s music for days in her honor. Some traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to visit the crime scene and her boutiques.
Then Texas Governor George W. Bush declared Selena’s birthday to be “Selena Day” throughout Texas. In 1997, a movie titled Selena was released accounting her life and her tragic death. Jennifer Lopez starred as Selena and shot into stardom once the film was released.
