Woman who killed musician Selena asks for parole amid claims she has a ‘bounty’ on her head

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Yolanda Saldívar, serving a life sentence for the 1995 murder of pop star Selena, is seeking parole after three decades in prison, as her fellow inmates claim the woman has a “bounty” on her head for killing the “Queen of Tejano Music.” “

Saldivar was sentenced to life in prison on first-degree murder charges in October 1995 for fatally shooting Selena Quintanilla-Perez with a revolver at a Corpus Christi, Texas, motel earlier that year.

This is the first time Saldívar has requested parole. A hearing on his situation is scheduled for March 30, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records.

Saldívar, a nurse and founder and president of the Selena fan club, of shooting Quintanilla-Pérez after the musician accused her of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars. Saldivar maintains the shooting was an accidentand pleaded not guilty during his high-profile trial, which was moved to houston given the public’s attention.

When police arrested Saldívar, they found her in a parking lot. suicide threatand said that she had the gun to commit suicide, not Selena.

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“Public opinion condemned me before my trial even began,” Saldívar said in a Peacock documentary last year.

Fellow inmates who served with Saldívar said his crimes have put a target on his back inside the prison.

“Everyone knows who Yolanda Saldívar is,” said Marisol López, who served time with the woman from 2017 to 2022. said 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 they hate her so much. “If she was out (in the general population), someone would try to take her down.”

“Everyone always said, ‘Let me have five minutes with that bitch,’” another former inmate told the newspaper. “Everyone wanted justice for Selena. “There is a target on his back.”

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Members of Selena’s family have also described Saldívar facing threats in prison.

The murder took place just as Quintanilla-Pérez was gaining popularity in the mainstream English-speaking market for his Tejano music, which blends 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 and Yolanda: The secrets between them.

In the documentary, Saldívar claimed that Selena persuaded her not to kill herself, only for the gun to go off anyway while she was “hysterical.”

“Selena, when she entered the (hotel) room, kept trying to make me feel guilty for not continuing with her, and how everything was going to fall apart,” Saldívar said in the series. “My emotions were running high and it hurt.”