According to the New York Post, Yolanda Saldívar, the woman convicted of murdering Tejano music icon Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in 1995, has officially filed for parole and could be eligible for release next year.
Currently serving a life sentence, the 64-year-old will have a parole hearing in March. The news of her potential release has sparked intense public interest and concerns over her safety in prison.
The former nurse and founder of Selena’s fan club shot the 23-year-old superstar on March 31, 1995, during a confrontation in a Corpus Christi, TX hotel room. The Tejano star discovered that Saldívar embezzled more than $60,000 and was planning to fire her. The convicted shooter claimed that the act was accidental, and she intended to take her own life.
Following a short trial, a jury convicted her of first-degree murder, and she was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
A relative of Saldívar recently told the Post that the killer feels as if she is a “political prisoner” behind bars and that she believes she has paid her debt to society.
“Keeping her in prison isn’t going to do any good,” said the cousin. “It’s time for her to get out.”
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) confirmed that Saldívar has maintained a clean disciplinary record, which allows the parole board to consider her case in March 2024.
In 2018, Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, told Univision’s Primer Impacto that other inmates had been threatening Saldívar’s life.
“To this day, we still receive letters from women who are in the same prison where they say they are waiting for her,” he said at the time. “They say that they are going to kill her. There are bad women in there. Women who have murdered other people in the past. That is why they are in there. They have nothing to lose.”
Saldivar claims that she will live with relatives and find a job if she’s set free.