Selena’s Killer Is Denied Parole 30 Years After Murder

A panel in Texas on Thursday denied parole for the woman who killed Selena, a 23-year-old trailblazing Mexican American singer who was making it big in the popular music scene. The decision came a few days shy of the 30th anniversary of the killing, which shocked her fans and spurred a cultlike following.

Yolanda Saldívar, the woman who fatally shot her, was the founder of Selena’s fan club; she killed Selena after a confrontation in a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas, on March 31, 1995. A jury convicted Ms. Saldívar of first-degree murder, and she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

Ms. Saldívar’s case had gone into the review process approximately six months before she was to first become eligible for parole this Sunday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole said in a statement. She won’t be eligible for parole for five more years.

“After a thorough consideration of all available information, which included any confidential interviews conducted, it was the parole panel’s determination to deny parole to Yolanda Saldivar and set her next parole review for March 2030,” the statement said.

The panel cited the violent nature of the killing as the reason for its denial.

“The record indicates that the instant offense has elements of brutality, violence, assaultive behavior or conscious selection of victim’s vulnerability indicating a conscious disregard for the lives, safety, or property of others, such that the offender poses a continuing threat to public safety,” the statement said.

When she was killed, Selena had just come off a Grammy Award win. She was on the verge of making a breakthrough that could have brought her songs about heartbreak and new love to wider Spanish- and English-speaking audiences.

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