On March 31, 1995, Selena Quintanilla, the "undisputed queen of Tejano music," was killed by Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who claimed she was her biggest fan.
At the time of her death, 23-year-old Selena was on a trajectory to change the music industry. The first Tejano artist to win a Grammy, Selena had already amassed a devoted fanbase—the kind that could sell out shows at the Houston Astrodome three years in a row. Selena was in the middle of recording her first English-language album, which was set to broaden her popularity even further.
All that momentum—and all it meant for Latinx recording artists—came to a horrific halt when Saldívar, then 34, shot the singer outside of a Days Inn in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Selena's impact and her lost potential has since been explored in tribute concerts, acclaimed biopics starring Jennifer Lopez, Netflix shows, and investigative specials. "Her influence and relevance has only grown through the generations," Suzette Quintanilla, Selena's sister, told NBC.
If she were still alive today, Selena would be 49 years old. And unfortunately, the conversation about Selena's career is inevitably tied up with the story of its end. The second season of Netflix's show, Selena: The Series, starring Christian Serratos as Selena, depicts the singer's relationship with Saldívar, who is played by Natasha Perez.
Ahead, what the series doesn't show about the woman responsible for the icon's death.
Who is Yolanda Saldívar?
While Selena was alive, Yolanda Saldívar had a reputation for being her biggest fan. In fact, she uprooted her life for Selena.
In 1991, Saldívar founded the Selena Fan Club, and eventually quit her job as a nurse to run the club full-time. In 1994, she was promoted to running Selena's two boutiques in Texas, essentially becoming a trusted part of Selena's life. According to an interview Saldívar gave with 20/20, Selena even called her "mom."
But their relationship had a dark side. According to people who knew her, Saldívar was possessive—even obsessed—with Selena. "A woman who moved into an apartment with Yolanda discovered that Yolanda didn’t just have pictures of Selena on her walls—the whole place was 'like a shrine,'" an article in Texas Monthly reads.
Martin Gomez, a fashion designer for Selena's boutiques, shared an office with Saldívar, and eventually quit his job because of her unhinged behavior. "She was very vindictive. She was very possessive of Selena. She'd get, like, very angry if you crossed her. She would play so many mind games, say people had said things they hadn't said," Gomez told The Washington Post. "So many things would happen to the clothing I was working on. I knew that I had finished a certain piece, but I would come back from a trip to New York and the hems would be ripped out. It was very strange."
Soon, customers were complaining about unfulfilled orders. Turns out that, not only was Saldívar mismanaging the boutiques—she was likely embezzling money, too. Abraham Quintanilla, Selena's father, found evidence that Saldívar had stolen from the boutiques and fan clubs. The Quintanilla family confronted Saldívar about her actions on March 9. 'I told her that I was going to go to the police and make an investigation for embezzlement,' Abraham told UPI in 1995.
After that confrontation, Saldívar purchased a revolver. And on March 31, Saldívar and Selena met up—first, to take Saldívar to the hospital. Saldívar alleged she had been the victim of sexual assault during a trip to Monterrey, Mexico. Then, the pair returned to the Days Inn, where Saldívar promised to give Selena missing financial records.
While in Saldívar's room, Selena was shot in the lower right shoulder; her main artery was severed. Selena fled the room, with Saldívar running behind her. She named Saldívar as her assailant before going to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Saldívar was arrested following a nine-and-a-half hour standoff with police. “I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to kill anybody,” she said, while holding a gun to her head, per the L.A. Times.
Saldívar still asserts that she shot Selena accidentally.
To this day, Saldívar maintains that shooting Selena was an accident. “She told me: ‘Yolanda, I don’t want you to kill yourself.’ She opened the door. When I told her to close it, the gun went off,” Saldivar said while speaking to police investigators, per the L.A. Times. Saldívar repeated the story during her interview with 20/20 News.
Saldívar pled not guilty during her trial in October 1995, but the jury felt otherwise–likely agreeing with Abraham, who believed his daughter was killed in a crime of passion. “It was no accident,” he said on Univsion's Primer Impacto. “It was a moment of rage because she was being fired.”
After deliberating for two hours, the 12-person jury convicted Saldívar of first-degree murder.
Today, Saldívar is in prison.
Saldívar, 60, is currently serving her life sentence at the Mountain View Unit, a maximum security women's prison in Gatesville, TX. She'll be eligible for parole in 2025.
“When it comes to my family and I, we don’t care if they release her today," Abraham told Primer Impacto. "They can let her go. Nothing will bring my daughter back.”
She's portrayed in Selena: The Series.
Selena: The Series is Netflix's show about Selena's legacy. The show's first batch of episodes are set in the province of Selena's childhood, back when she was the centerpiece of an increasingly popular family band, Selena y Los Dinos. In the first season's final episode, Abraham (Ricardo Chavira) gets a call from a woman named Yolanda (Natasha Perez), pleading to run the fan club. Yolanda's role will be more prominent in season 2 as the series comes to its inevitable conclusion.
Natasha Perez as Yolanda Saldivar.
Pérez opened up about playing Saldívar in the show.
Though Saldívar is alive, Pérez never met her. "I requested permission to meet her, but to honor the family we decided it would be best for me not to," she told Entertainment Weekly. Instead, Pérez turned to an array of sources, like internet articles and microfiche at the library in Laredo, TX, to prepare for the role.
When it came to actually transforming into Saldívar, Pérez's methods are surprising: She turned to a clown teacher for help mastering Saldívar's mannerisms. “I told him, ‘This is a hard one for me to portray,’” Pérez said. “Her head has different movements than her body. She also speaks like a little girl. So, I studied with him over Zoom," she told Remezcla.
Elena Nicolaou
Elena Nicolaou is the former culture editor at Oprah Daily.
