Selena Quintanilla’s Killer Is Up For Parole Soon

Netflix’s Selena: The Series is a mostly lighthearted exploration of singer Selena Quintanilla’s rise to fame. But there’s a bit of a pall cast over the show, because fans know the story ends in tragedy. In 1995, when Selena was 23, she was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldivar, who is still serving life in prison for the murder.

According to Texas Monthly, Saldivar was known to many as “Selena’s No.1 fan.” She founded the official Selena Fan Club in 1991 after getting permission from the Quintanilla family, and she became good friends with Selena. Eventually, Saldivar worked her way up to running Selena’s clothing boutiques, but as Texas Monthly reported, she at times took her passion for Selena to “obsessive” levels; former roommate of Saldivar’s claimed that her house was “like a shrine” to the singer.

Per The New York Times, Saldivar was fired from her job weeks before Selena’s death for allegedly stealing money from the boutiques. Selena’s father, Abraham, said that Selena had gone to meet up with Saldivar to retrieve some financial records and that’s when things turned deadly. Per CNN, Saldivar has maintained that she accidentally shot Selena while trying to harm herself. But prosecutors at the murder trial questioned why Saldivar — a trained nurse — wouldn’t have called 911 or attempted to stop Selena’s bleeding if it was indeed an accidental shooting.

The jury delivered a guilty verdict in October 1995, and Saldivar was sentenced to life in prison. At the time, a life sentence in Texas carried a 30-year prison term before parole eligibility. According to Texas inmate records, Saldivar is nearly finished with her prison term. She will be up for parole on March 30, 2025, at which point she’ll be 65 years old.

In 2018, Selena’s father Abraham gave a Primer Impacto interview and said that he was fine with Saldivar getting parole. “We do not care if they release her today,” he said. “Nothing is going to give us back my daughter.”