Convicted murderer of Tejano icon Selena seeks parole after nearly 30 years in prison

Yolanda Saldívar, the woman serving a life sentence for the 1995 murder of Tejano icon Selena, has filed for parole.

The 64-year-old, who has spent nearly three decades behind bars, has a parole hearing scheduled for March 2025.

But while her legal team pushes for her release, sources within the Texas prison system revealed to the New York Post that Saldívar’s life is far from peaceful. According to fellow inmates, there’s a “bounty on her head,” and she’s a constant target of hostility.

Saldívar, who shot and killed the 23-year-old “Queen of Tejano” on March 31, 1995, in Corpus Christi, was convicted of murder after a jury rejected her claim that the killing was accidental. Selena had been planning to fire Saldívar, a former confidante and the head of her fan club, after uncovering she had embezzled more than $60,000 from the singer.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed to the New York Post that Saldívar has maintained a clean record during her incarceration, meaning her parole hearing will proceed as scheduled. A family member of the convicted killer told The Post that Saldívar views herself as a “political prisoner” who has “paid her debt to society.”

In an interview for the 2023 Peacock documentary “Selena and Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them,” Saldívar repeated her claim that the shooting wasn’t intentional. She maintains she had meant to take her own life, not Selena’s and the public trial process convicted her long before evidence was presented.

In 1995, she said in an interview with ABC’s “20/20” that she did not deliberately kill Selena.

During the interview, she said she and Selena were having an argument at the Days Inn motel and in a heated moment, Saldívar put a gun to her head and threatened to take her own life. She then said she waved her gun in the direction of the door and accidentally shot Selena.

But according to the appeal document, Saldívar said after Selena had dumped a bag full of bank files on the bed and continued arguing with her she “took the gun from my purse and Selena started walking toward the door which was opened. I pulled the hammer back and I shot at her as she was walking towards the door which was open.”

She confessed in court to buying the gun in San Antonio two weeks prior to the murder.

Selena’s widower, Chris Pérez, testified he and Selena removed Saldívar from the singer’s checking accounts two weeks before his wife’s death because they “didn’t trust her,” according to a court document from the Texas Court of Appeals from 1998 when Saldívar unsuccessfully appealed her murder conviction.

Several witnesses saw Selena run into the lobby of the motel with Saldívar chasing her waving the gun, according to the appeals court’s decision to uphold her murder conviction. The singer collapsed in the motel lobby and was able to identify Saldívar as the person who had shot her before passing out, according to a description of events in the Texas appeals court document.

Saldívar was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. Whether the parole board will grant her a second chance remains to be seen.

According to sources inside the Patrick L. O’Daniel Unit in Gatesville, Texas, where Saldívar is currently housed, the convicted killer’s notoriety has made her a marked woman. Former inmate Marisol Lopez, who was incarcerated alongside Saldívar from 2017 to 2022, told The Post that “everyone knows who Yolanda Saldívar is.”

“There’s a bounty on her head, like everyone wants a piece of her,” Lopez said. “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.”

Yesenia Dominguez, another former inmate, echoed Lopez’s sentiments.

“Everyone wanted to get justice for Selena. There’s a target on her back,” she said.

As Saldívar awaits the fate of her parole hearing, she claims she is ready to reintegrate into society. If released, she plans to live with family and find a job.

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