OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
1:33 PM – Monday, March 4, 2024
Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who was given a life sentence in 1995 for killing Tejano musical icon Selena Quintanilla-Perez, reiterated her claim that the shooting was an “accident” and that she should be freed from prison.
Now, at 62-years-old, Saldívar hopes to be released when she becomes eligible for parole in March 2025.
“Enough is enough,” a relative of Saldívar explained to the New York Post. “She feels like she’s a political prisoner at this point. She’s ready to get out of jail, because she believes she has more than served her time.”
In the documentary Selena and Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them, which debuted last week on the television channel Oxygen, Saldívar made a similar argument.
In a prison interview, Saldívar stated, “I was convicted by public opinion even before my trial started,” but she insisted that she had “no intention” of killing the 23-year-old celebrity.
Saldívar, who was also the founder of Selena’s fan club, has been incarcerated since March 31st, 1995, when she fatally shot the singer in a hotel room in Corpus Christi, Texas. Selena believed that Saldívar had embezzled over $60,000, and the singer intended to fire her.
During the encounter, Saldívar shot Selena, who is known as the “Queen of Tejano,” in the back. Later that day, the singer passed away in a hospital from blood loss.
Saldívar’s lawyers argued during the trial that Selena had intended to kill herself and that the shooting was an accident. However, a jury disagreed, sentencing her to life in prison with the potential of release in 30 years.
Saldívar ia now alleging that she did not steal the money. The prisoner admitted in the documentary that she previously wrote and signed checks to herself, however, she maintained the claim that Selena “asked her to do so” in order to pay for plane tickets to travel to Mexico “to see a plastic surgeon,” with whom Selena was allegedly having an affair with.
A family representative for Selena did not respond to the media’s request for comment. Nevertheless, Selena’s own father has previously called Saldívar “a liar” and refuted the majority of her claims.
The media has acquired detailed documentation of Saldívar’s confinement at Gatesville, Texas’s Mountain View Unit, a maximum-security women’s jail.
Saldívar has recorded several complaints with the jail administration and, in 2017, she filed a federal lawsuit alleging that her housing arrangements were “unsafe and dangerous” after sustaining an injury from a fall off her top bunk.
When Saldívar’s parole hearing commences in 2025, she intends to use her concerns about safety as one of her reasons for release, according to information obtained by the New York Post.
According to a representative for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Saldívar’s record is clear of any issues that would prevent the board from holding a parole hearing. A formal hearing request may be made by her up to 90 days before the date of her eligibility.
“She knows it’s an uphill battle,” Saldívar’s relative confessed, “but she’s hoping that the parole board will have a heart and will parole her. She thinks she deserves it.”
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