Selena Quintanilla Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who shot and killed Selena Quintanilla-Perez in 1995, “feels like she’s a political prisoner,” a relative says.
While speaking to the New York Post in an interview published on Wednesday, March 4, the unnamed person added, “Enough is enough” in regards to Saldivar’s life sentence.
“She’s ready to get out of jail, because she believes she has more than served her time,” the family member told the outlet.
In December 2024, Us Weekly confirmed that Saldívar had begun the parole review process ahead of her eligibility date of March 30, 2025.
Quintanilla-Perez was shot by Saldívar in March 1995 in a Texas hotel. The iconic singer died at the age of 23 of hypovolemic shock as paramedics worked to revive her.
Saldívar, the then-president of the singer’s fan club, was arraigned in connection to the killing and ultimately pleaded not guilty. She also claimed she intended to die by suicide and did not mean to shoot Quintanilla-Perez. Saldívar was found guilty of first-degree murder in October 1995 and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
“They made me out to be a monster, and I just want to say, I did not kill Selena,” Saldívar claimed in an interview with 20/20 in 1995, maintaining her innocence despite the guilty verdict. “It was an accident, and my conscience is clear.”
Quintanilla-Perez’s fans have kept her legacy alive in the years since her untimely death. Her first English-language album, Dreaming of You, was released in the months that followed, and the singer became the first Latina artist to debut on the Billboard 200 while the album sold more than one million copies.
Jennifer Lopez starred in a movie about Quintanilla-Perez’s life two years later. The movie, titled Selena, catapulted the actress into superstardom, making Lopez a household name she is today.
Selena has sold approximately 18 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling female artists in Latin music history. In 2021, the “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” singer was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award at the Grammys. Three years later, Selena was selected as one of the National Medal of Arts recipients by then-President Joe Biden.
A new documentary about the singer’s life will debut at SXSW this year after winning the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling at Sundance. Selena y Los Dinos tells the story of the singer’s death and dives into the impact she continues to have on fans around the world. The movie will be shown at the festival on March 12 and again on March 15, nearly 30 years to the day that Quintanilla-Perez was killed.
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