Netflix
Selena Quintanilla-Perez died on March 31, 1995. Yolanda Saldivar, a friend and president of her fan club, was found guilty of shooting Selena in the back and was sentenced to life in prison. Today she is alive and still serving her life sentence, but is eligible for parole in 2025. Saldivar still says that she accidentally shot Selena. Here is what you need to know about where Saldivar is today and what she is doing now.
Yolanda Saldivar Is Eligible for Parole in 2025
Texas Department of Criminal JusticeYolanda Saldivar prison records
According to records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which you can see in the photo above, Yolanda Saldivar is currently 60 years old and serving a life sentence at Mountain View in Gatesville, Texas — a maximum-security prison. However, she’ll be eligible for parole on March 30, 2025 — just a little more than four years from now.
She was sentenced in Harris County on October 26, 1995, on charges connected to murder with a deadly weapon. The shooting happened on March 31, 1995, according to her court records.
She is currently eligible for in-prison visitation.
In 2015, hoax websites spread the false information that Saldivar had died in prison, KSAT reported. The hoax website claimed that she was found dead in her cell by prison guards during a routine walk through the prison. Another hoax site claimed that Saldivar was going to be released early in 2015 because of health issues. All those claims were incorrect.
Saldivar’s job at the prison is passing food trays to other offenders, Radar Online reported.
Saldivar Tried To Get a New Trial in 2019
Saldivar still claims the shooting was an accident, In Touch Weekly reported in 2018. Selena was 23 when she was killed.
In March 2019, Saldivar requested a new trial, Radar Online reported. She claimed that prosecutor Carlos Valdez had evidence that would be favorable to her, but did not disclose it to the jury or to her attorney. She said that the evidence, which consisted of shoes worn by Selena when she was killed, would have somehow helped prove that she accidentally shot Selena. However, her request for a new trial was denied, Radar Online reported.
Saldivar had been the president of Selena’s fan club and managed her clothing stores in Texas called Selena Etc., but was fired just weeks before the shooting, The New York Times reported at the time. Customers had been complaining that they weren’t receiving items they bought from the clothing stores, and employees thought that Saldivar was stealing money. She was fired after money went missing from the store.
Selena met Saldivar at the Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi off I-37. Selena had met Saldivar at the motel to get financial documents from her related to the boutique. Saldivar first told Selena that she had been raped and so Selena and Saldivar went to an emergency room in Aransas Pass, Texas. Carla Anthony, a registered nurse there, testified that she saw Saldivar and Selena that morning around 10 a.m. on March 24. Saldivar looked depressed and said she was raped in Mexico. They instructed Saldivar to speak to the police in San Antonio because the case was out of their jurisdiction, she said.
She was shot at a room at the Days Inn just shortly before noon. Saldivar still claims today that she accidentally shot Selena. However, the prosecution said that Saldivar didn’t call 911 or try to help Selena, despite being a trained nurse, CNN reported. She was found guilty of murder.
After Selena was shot, she ran to the motel lobby and collapsed. She was pronounced dead by the time she arrived at Memorial Medical Center in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Saldivar surrendered to police after a more-than-nine-hour standoff at the motel parking lot, Houston Chronicle reported. She sat in her truck with a gun pointed at her head, surrounded by police.
Amber Guyger Was Transferred to Saldivar’s Prison Last Year & Saldivar Became Friends with Diane Zamora
In October 2019, after Amber Guyger was convicted of murdering Botham Jean in his apartment, she was transferred to the Mountain View Unit, Caller Times reported. The unit also houses women’s death row inmates and is situated on 97 acres of land.
The Associated Press reported in 2018 that Saldivar had become close friends with Diane Zamora in jail, a woman known as the “Texas cadet murderer.” She was convicted in a December 1995 murder of Adrianne Jones. Zamora said that she and Saldivar were protecting each other in prison. Zamora was later transferred out of that prison.
READ NEXT: The latest COVID-19 deaths, cases, and updates