By Lindsay Lowe and Chloe Melas —
TODAY
Almost three decades after the death of Selena Quintanilla Pérez, the woman convicted of her murder speaks in a new documentary.
Yolanda Saldívar, 63, has been in prison since 1995 for the murder of the iconic Mexican-American singer, known to her fans as the “Queen of Tejano music.”
Saldívar will be eligible for parole in 2025 and shares her story in an Oxygen docuseries,
Selena & Yolanda: The Secrets Between Them
.
(Oxygen is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of TODAY.com.)
The three-part series, which aired February 17 and 18, features new interviews with Saldívar, as well as interviews with prosecutors, the hostage negotiator who spoke with Saldívar after Selena's death, and the police detectives who were involved. at the scene after the murder, according to the
streaming
site .
Selena & Yolanda: The Secrets Between ThemOxygen
In the series, Saldívar claims that he did not intentionally kill Selena that fateful day at a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Saldívar, who served as president of the singer's fan club and manager of two of her clothing boutiques, dismissed the theory that she was embezzling money.
Instead, Ella Saldívar alleges that Selena was having an extramarital affair and she tasked Saldívar with making purchases on her behalf to help cover up the tryst.
Saldivar says he was simply getting revenge and that Selena was conscious.
But in the docuseries, Saldívar did not provide any evidence to substantiate his claims.
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“After so many years, I think it's time to clarify the story,” Saldívar said in a preview of the series.
“I knew his secrets,” Saldívar said later in the trailer.
“And I think people deserve to know the truth.”
Before the documentary aired, it received backlash on social media, with some fans calling the project disrespectful to Selena's memory.
“I am not supporting anything that has to do with Yolanda Saldívar.
I will never watch or support Yolanda Saldívar's series on Oxygen and I highly recommend that if you really love Selena, you don't either.
“I don’t care about Yolanda’s life or story,” wrote one person on the X platform.
“It's vile that Oxygen is giving Yolanda Saldívar a documentary moment when she clearly doesn't need it,” another person wrote on ”.
After the documentary aired, viewers reacted online, with one commenting on X that Yolanda was “acting like the victim.”
“You were not guilty in the court of public opinion,” the person wrote.
“You literally admitted to killing Selena and Selena confessed that you did it on her deathbed.”
Another added that Yolanda's family was "in deep denial" about Yolanda's actions.
"Who cares if he got a new job! HE SHOT AND KILLED SELENA, HELLO?!" the person wrote on the damn gun to Selena AND KILLED HER. Period."
Selena's family also criticized the docuseries for giving Saldívar a platform.
“Anyway, no one is going to believe what she has to say.
“Everyone knows there is no truth to anything that comes out of her mouth,” Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., told TMZ.
Selena's family refused to participate in the docuseries.
NBC News has reached out to the family spokesperson, as well as Abraham Quintanilla Jr. directly, for comment on Saldívar's claims.
Who is Yolanda Saldívar?
Yolanda Saldívar was a registered nurse who founded and served as president of Quintanilla's fan club and later managed two of the singer's clothing boutiques.
Saldívar was fired in early 1995 after the singer's family accused her of embezzling money from Selena's fan club and boutiques, according to NBC News.
Selena's widower, Chris Pérez, testified in court that he and Selena had removed Saldívar from the singer's checking accounts because they "did not trust her," according to a court document from the Texas Court of Appeals from 1998, when Saldívar unsuccessfully appealed his murder conviction.
“There were a lot of things that were coming up, you know, things missing, and we couldn't get an explanation that we were satisfied with for some of those things,” Perez told prosecutor Carlos Valdez, according to the 1998 court document.
Pérez also testified that Saldívar was removed from the accounts about two weeks before his late wife's death.
For what crime was Saldívar convicted?
On March 31, 1995, Saldívar shot and killed Selena at a Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, Texas.
The singer was 23 years old.
According to the 1998 Texas Court of Appeals case document, Selena “ran from the room into the motel lobby, screaming” and Saldívar “followed in pursuit, armed.”
Selena collapsed in the motel lobby and was able to identify Saldivar as the person who had shot her before she passed out, according to the 1998 court document.
Then, for more than nine hours, Saldívar sat in her truck in the motel parking lot and threatened to commit suicide, the same court document states.
After hours of conversation with a hostage negotiation team, she surrendered to police.
A Houston, Texas, jury found Saldívar guilty of first-degree murder on October 23, 1995. Three days later, she was sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
Yolanda Saldívar will tell her version of the tragic death of Selena QuintanillaAt Home with Telemundo
Saldívar is currently incarcerated at the Patrick L. O'Daniel Unit prison in Gatesville, Texas, according to her inmate record from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
He will be eligible for parole on March 30, 2025.
What has Saldívar said about Selena in the past?
Saldívar has said that she did not kill Selena deliberately.
“They made me out to be a monster and I just want to say that I didn't kill Selena.
It was an accident and my conscience is clear,” she said in a 1995 interview with ABC’s “20/20” program.
In the same interview, Saldívar offered his version of what happened the day Selena died.
Saldívar claimed that she and Selena were having a dispute at the Days Inn motel and that in a heated moment, she (Saldívar) put a gun to her head and threatened to take her own life.
Saldívar claimed that she then waved her gun in the direction of the door and accidentally shot Selena.
The prosecutor at the singer's trial argued that Selena's murder was not accidental, according to the 1998 court document.
In an interview with “Behind the Music” that same year, Saldívar spoke about his relationship with Selena in the early '90s and explained why he had founded a fan club dedicated to the singer.
Yolanda Saldívar could be released from prison in 2025. Instagram/ @oxygen
“During my college years, I had no social life.
I didn’t have any because I dedicated myself to my university, to my career, to my license,” she said.
“Now it was time to have fun.”
Selena's father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., also shared his past memories of Saldívar in the
Behind the Music
special .
“There was a time when my whole family liked Yolanda,” he said.
“We invited her to come eat at our house.
“We would meet and invite her.”
Saldívar said his connection with Selena “had gone from just being a fan to this kind of personal relationship.”
In her 1995 “20/20” interview, she also said that Selena sometimes even called her “mom.”
“She was like a teddy bear, a teddy bear, that allowed you to love her,” Saldívar said.
“I told her I loved her like a daughter.
And she says, 'You know, I give you that right.'
She called me 'mom' on the phone.”
The singer's family has questioned whether Selena ever called Saldívar “mom,” according to “20/20.”
In the trailer for Oxygen's upcoming documentary, Saldívar appears to suggest that he previously had undisclosed information to share about the circumstances of Selena's death.
“My family gathered the evidence and showed different versions of what was happening,” Saldívar says in the trailer.