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Selena Murder: Crime Scene Photos, 911 Call and Open …
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (Spanish:*[seˈlena kintaˈniʝa ˈpeɾes]; April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995) was an American singer, songwriter,
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Murder of Selena – Wikipedia
Selena Quintanilla Pérez was an American singer who achieved international fame as a member of Selena y Los Dinos and for her subsequent solo career in both …
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Selena Murder: Crime Scene Photos and Open Casket Funeral
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez (Spanish:*[seˈlena kintaˈniʝa ˈpeɾes]; April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995) was an American singer, songwriter, …
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11 Chilling Details Behind Selena’s Murder in 1995 – Ranker
The shocking murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez on March 31, 1995, stunned audiences all around the world. As one of the best Tejano …
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Rare pictures of Selena’s murder – YouTube
KHOU 11 newscast the night that music superstar Selena died · The day my pop star wife Selena was killed – Witness – BBC News · Selena – Como La …
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The Queen Is Dead – Texas Monthly
When Selena Quintanilla Perez was killed on March 31, Texas mourned—and around the world, the veneration began.
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Free Selena famous crime scene part 1 of 4 Photos – Pexels
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25 claims from ‘Selena’s Secret’ on what would have been her …
1. At the murder scene of Days Inn room 158, a suitcase labeled with Chris Perez’s name but filled with Selena’s clothes was found. A work …
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Murder of Selena
Murder of the American singer, March 31, 1995
Selena Quintanilla Pérez was an American singer who achieved international fame as a member of Selena y Los Dinos and for her subsequent solo career in both Spanish and English.[nb 1] Her father and manager, Abraham Quintanilla Jr, appointed Yolanda Saldívar president of Selena’s fan club in 1991 after Saldívar had repeatedly asked permission to start one. In January 1994, Saldívar was promoted to manager of the singer’s boutiques. Soon Selena’s employees, fashion designer, and cousin began complaining about Saldívar’s management style. In January 1995, Quintanilla Jr. began receiving telephone calls and letters from angry fans who had sent membership payments and had received nothing in return. He began investigating their complaints and found evidence that Saldívar had embezzled $60,000 from the fan club and the boutiques using forged checks. After the Quintanilla family confronted her about this, Saldívar fatally shot Selena with a .38 special revolver on the morning of March 31, 1995 at the Days Inn in Corpus Christi, Texas. Although the healthcare team tried to revive Selena, she died of hypovolemic shock.
The Latino community was deeply affected by the news of Selena’s death; some people traveled thousands of miles to visit her home, boutiques, and the crime scene, while churches with large congregations of Latinos held prayers in her name. All major television networks in the United States interrupted their regular programming to break the news. The public’s reaction to Selena’s death was compared to those that followed the deaths of John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, and John F. Kennedy. Some Americans who were unaware of the singer and her popularity criticized the attention she and her murder received from both the media and the Latino community. Radio personality Howard Stern mocked Selena’s murder, burial, and her mourners, and criticized her music, playing her songs with gunshots in the background, causing an uproar among the Latino population. On April 12, 1995—two weeks after her death—then-Texas governor George W. Bush declared her birthday Selena Day in Texas, offending some Americans because Selena Day that year coincided with Easter.
At the time of Selena’s death, Tejano music was one of the most popular Latin music subgenres in the United States. She was called the “Queen of Tejano music” and became the first Latina artist to have a predominantly Spanish-language album—Dreaming of You (1995)—debut and peak at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. After her death, the popularity of Tejano music waned. During Saldívar’s trial for the murder—called the “trial of the century” and the most important trial for the Latino population—Saldívar said she accidentally shot Selena while attempting suicide. Saldívar was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Jennifer Lopez was cast as Selena in a 1997 biopic film about her life and achieved fame after the film’s release.
Background [ edit ]
The Selena fan club [ edit ]
Selena was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas, to Abraham Quintanilla, Jr., a former musician, and Marcella Ofelia Quintanilla (née Samora).[2] Selena was introduced to the music industry by her father, who saw “a way back into the music business” after discovering Selena’s “perfect timing and pitch”.[1] He quickly organized his children into a band called Selena y Los Dinos, which included A.B. Quintanilla III on bass, Suzette Quintanilla on drums, and Selena as the lead singer.[1] The band became the family’s main source of income after they were evicted from their home during the Texas oil bust of 1982.[1] They filed for bankruptcy after Quintanilla, Jr.’s Mexican restaurant suffered as a result of the oil bust. The family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, and Selena y Los Dinos began recording music professionally.[1][3] In 1984, the band released its first LP record, Selena y Los Dinos, with a small, independent record company.[4] Quintanilla, Jr. wanted his children to record Tejano music—a male-dominated music genre popularized by Mexican-Americans in the United States.[6] Selena’s popularity as a singer grew after she won the Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist of the Year in 1987.[7] She landed her first major record deal with Capitol EMI Latin in 1989.[8]
Yolanda Saldívar became a fan of Tejano music in the mid-1980s. She originally disliked Selena because Selena had won awards that Saldívar’s favorite Tejano musicians were nominated in. In mid-1991, Saldívar attended one of Selena’s concerts in San Antonio, Texas, with her niece. She became an ardent Selena fan; she particularly enjoyed the singer’s stage presence and especially liked the song “Baila Esta Cumbia”. The day after the concert, Saldívar unsuccessfully searched news stands for a souvenir of the event. She got the idea of starting a Selena fan club in the San Antonio area to promote the singer. According to Quintanilla, Jr., Saldívar tried contacting him and left him fifteen messages; she said she left only three. Quintanilla, Jr. contacted her to discuss her idea of starting a fan club. After meeting with Saldívar, he approved of her idea and gave her permission to proceed.
Saldívar became the founder and acting president of the Selena fan club in San Antonio in June 1991. As president, she was responsible for membership benefits and collecting $22 in exchange for products promoting Selena, a T-shirt bearing the singer’s name, exclusive interviews with the band, a fact sheet about Selena y Los Dinos, and notifications of upcoming concerts. Proceeds from the fan club were donated to charities. Suzette was the contact person between Saldívar and the Quintanilla family; Saldívar did not meet Selena until December 1991. The two became close friends and the Quintanilla family trusted her. By 1994, Saldívar had signed up more than 8,000 fans. According to television news reporter and anchorwoman María Celeste Arrarás, Saldívar had become the “most efficient assistant” the singer ever had. Arrarás wrote that people noticed how eager Saldívar was to impress Selena, and did anything the singer told her to do. One person told Arrarás, “if Selena would say, ‘Jump!’, [Saldívar] would jump three times”. Saldívar gave up her career as an in-home nurse for patients with terminal cancer and respiratory diseases. She decided to fully invest her time in running the Selena fan club, although she was earning less than she had as a nurse.
Selena Etc. boutiques [ edit ]
In 1994, Selena opened two boutiques called Selena Etc. in Corpus Christi and San Antonio; they were equipped with in-house beauty salons. Quintanilla, Jr. thought Saldívar was a potential candidate to run the businesses because the family would be touring the country. He believed she was the best choice because of her success running the fan club. The family agreed; in January 1994, Saldívar became the manager of the boutiques. In September 1994, Selena signed Saldívar as her registered agent in San Antonio. After being hired to run the boutiques, Saldívar moved from South San Antonio to Corpus Christi to be closer to Selena. In an interview with Primer Impacto in 1995, Quintanilla, Jr. said he “always mistrusted Saldívar”, though the family never found anything odd about Saldívar’s behavior. Saldívar was authorized to write and cash checks, and had access to bank accounts associated with the fan club and boutiques.
Selena gave Saldívar her American Express card for the purpose of conducting company business. Saldívar, however, instead used it to rent Lincoln Town Cars, entertain associates in upmarket restaurants, and buy two cellular telephones which she carried. Staff at Selena Etc. complained that Saldívar was always “nice” when Selena was around, but treated everyone terribly when Selena was away. In December 1994, the boutiques began to suffer. The company’s bank accounts lacked sufficient funds to pay bills. Staff levels at both stores had been reduced from thirty-eight to fourteen employees, mainly because Saldívar fired those she did not like. The remaining employees began complaining to Selena about Saldívar, but Selena did not believe her friend would hurt her or her business. Employees reportedly told Selena that Saldívar was “two-faced [and] was unstable”.[24] The employees then began to take their concerns to Quintanilla, Jr. who warned Selena that Saldívar might be a dangerous person. Selena did not believe Saldívar would turn on her; her father had a habit of distrusting people.
In January 1995, Debra Ramirez, Selena’s cousin, was hired to work in the boutiques and to help Selena expand the business into Mexico. Ramirez quit within a week, telling Saldívar she was dissatisfied with the failure of staff members to report sales. Ramirez also found receipts were missing from the sale of several boutique items. Saldívar told her to “mind [her] business” and that it was not her concern. Saldívar frequently clashed with Martin Gomez, Selena’s fashion designer, who complained that Saldívar was mismanaging Selena’s affairs. Their animosity intensified during Selena’s fashion shows; Gomez accused Saldívar of mutilating or destroying some of his original creations and said she never paid bills. Gomez stated that Saldívar had “established a reign of terror”; the two were constantly complaining about each other to Selena. Saldívar began recording their conversations without Gomez’s consent to persuade Selena he was not working for the boutiques’ best interests. Gomez was relegated to a supporting role when Selena decided to design her clothes herself. Between late 1994 and early 1995, Saldívar often traveled to Monterrey, Mexico, to expedite the process of opening another Selena Etc. store. When Saldívar visited the factory in Mexico, she intimidated the seamstresses by telling them to either side with her or leave.
Selena and Saldívar’s relationship [ edit ]
Saldívar was receiving “tokens of affection from [Selena]”, which she was not accustomed to. Her room was covered with Selena posters and pictures, burning votive candles, and a library of Selena videos which she played to entertain guests. During an interview with Saldívar in 1995, reporters from The Dallas Morning News said her devotion to Selena bordered on obsession. Saldívar told employees at Selena Etc. she wanted to “be like Selena”. According to an unnamed former employee, Saldívar was “possessive” of her relationship with Selena, and tried to distance Selena from the other employees. This person believed that Saldívar’s goal was to “have more control over [the employees] and over Selena”. Saldívar said her reason for distancing the employees from Selena was to “shield” the singer from the “petty issues” of managing her boutiques. Along with the responsibility of running the boutiques, Saldívar accompanied Selena on trips and had keys to the singer’s house.
When Saldívar became a business associate, their relationship began to deteriorate. In September 1994, Selena met Ricardo Martinez, a doctor who lived in Monterrey, Mexico. Selena wanted to expand the number of boutiques by opening a Selena Etc. store in Monterrey. Martinez said he had contacts in Mexico who could help her grow her business. Martinez became a business adviser to Selena, though her family said he was simply a fan who posed in several pictures with her.[nb 2] Saldívar became envious of Selena’s dependency on Martinez. He began sending flowers to Selena’s hotel room. Saldívar warned the singer that Martinez might have unprofessional intentions. Selena began visiting Monterrey more frequently, often in disguise. Sebastian D’Silva, Martinez’s assistant, would pick up Selena at the airport; he said he noticed she was wearing wigs and using her husband Chris Pérez’s surname so others would not identify her. According to Martinez, he had lent several thousand dollars to Selena because she was short on cash.
Saldívar’s termination of employment [ edit ]
Starting in January 1995, Quintanilla Jr. began receiving telephone calls and letters from angry fans who claimed to have paid their enrollment fees for the fan club, but had not received the promised memorabilia. Meanwhile, at both of Selena’s boutiques in San Antonio and Corpus Christi, employees noted an influx of unpaid or overdue bills arriving in the mail, for which Saldívar could provide no plausible explanation.[32] Upon investigation, Quintanilla, Jr. discovered Saldívar had embezzled more than $60,000 using forged checks from both the fan club and the boutiques. Saldívar’s brother, Armando Saldívar, supposedly contacted Gomez and “made up a story” that Saldívar was stealing money from the fan club. Gomez then contacted one of Selena’s uncles by telephone; the uncle told Quintanilla, Jr. Armando said he was angry with Saldívar but did not want the reason to be made public; later he said he felt guilty for starting the rumor. He appeared on the Spanish-language television news program Primer Impacto but reporters found his comments illogical.
Quintanilla, Jr. held a meeting on March 9, 1995, with Selena and Suzette Quintanilla at Q-Productions to confront Saldívar. Quintanilla Jr. presented Saldívar with evidence concerning the missing funds. He said Saldívar simply stared at him without answering any of his questions. He further stated that Saldívar did not deny the accusations or say anything during the meeting, but was “emotional at times [and at other times] just cool as ice.”[35] Quintanilla, Jr. told Saldívar he would involve police if she did not produce evidence that disproved his accusations. When Quintanilla, Jr. asked her why fans were not receiving the promised gift packages, Saldívar said those fans were trying to get the items for free. Quintanilla, Jr. discovered Saldívar had opened the fan club’s bank account under her sister’s name, “Maria Elida”. When asked why she had done this, she replied that the bank would not allow her to open an account in her name; she did not know the reason for this refusal. Saldívar abruptly left the meeting. Quintanilla, Jr. then banned Saldívar from contacting Selena. However, Selena did not want to end their friendship; she felt Saldívar was essential to the success of her clothing line in Mexico. Selena also wanted to keep Saldívar close because she had bank records, statements, and financial records necessary for tax purposes. Saldívar’s name remained on the payroll after the meeting, though her termination was pending on the retrieval of the financial records that were stolen.[37][38] On March 25, Selena told Suzette that she was planning on terminating Saldívar’s employment “soon”.[38]
After the meeting, Quintanilla, Jr. discovered the fan club’s checks were signed with Maria Elida’s signature in handwriting identical to Saldívar’s. He concluded that Saldívar was writing forged checks using her sister’s name then cashing them and keeping the funds. When Quintanilla, Jr. was trying to retrieve the fan club’s bank statements, he said they had “vanished”. He found a letter in Saldívar’s handwriting stating that Maria Elida had to close the bank account because of a major problem. According to the letter, a member of the fan club, Yvonne Perales, was sent to the bank to deposit $3,000 but Perales did not deposit the money and could not be found. The letter stated that Maria Elida found out about the situation “too late” and that Perales and the money were missing. Maria Elida then wrote checks to be cashed by Saldívar, even though the bank account had no funds. The letter said Maria Elida was closing the account for that reason and that the bank would have to cover the checks. Quintanilla, Jr. confronted Saldívar about Perales’ identity; he said Saldívar knew nothing about her. Quintanilla, Jr. said Saldívar did not trust the treasurer of the fan club but she had trusted a complete stranger to deposit $3,000. He told Saldívar to “tell that lie to someone else”. He concluded that Perales did not exist, since none of the fan club workers had ever met her.
Failed attempts to kill Selena [ edit ]
The day after Saldívar was banned from contacting Selena, Quintanilla, Jr. drove to Q-Productions and chased her from the premises and told her she was no longer welcome there. The same day, Selena and Saldívar argued by telephone; Selena hung up and told her husband she could no longer trust Saldívar. The singer and Pérez were unsatisfied with Saldívar’s explanation for why the items were unaccounted for.[41] According to Quintanilla, Jr. there were four attempts to murder Selena. Selena removed Saldívar’s name from the boutique’s bank account on March 10, 1995; she was replaced as fan club president by Irene Herrera. The next day, Saldívar purchased a gun at A Place to Shoot, a gun shop and shooting range in San Antonio. She bought a Taurus Model 85 snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver and .38 caliber hollow-point bullets; the bullets were designed to cause more extensive injuries than normal bullets. Saldívar told the clerk she needed protection in her job as an in-home nurse because a patient’s relatives had threatened her.
On March 13, Saldívar went to her lawyer and wrote her resignation, which Quintanilla, Jr. believed was her alibi. The same day, Saldívar drove to Corpus Christi and checked into the Sand and Sea Motel. Selena was in Miami, Florida, at the time. Quintanilla, Jr. believed this would have been the first attempt to kill Selena. When Selena arrived in Corpus Christi on March 14, Saldívar contacted her to schedule a meeting. Saldívar told Selena there was too much traffic and asked her to meet her at a parking lot twenty-five miles (40 km) away from Corpus Christi. Upon arriving, Selena told Saldívar she could remain in charge of her business affairs in Mexico. According to Quintanilla, Jr. Selena wanted to continue employing Saldívar until she could find a replacement. Saldívar showed Selena the gun she had bought; Selena told her to “get rid of it” and said she would protect Saldívar from her father, according to Saldívar and Pérez.[46] This, Quintanilla, Jr. believed, had calmed Saldívar and was the reason she did not kill Selena in the parking lot. The next day, Saldívar returned the gun to the shop saying her father had given her a .22-caliber pistol. On March 26, Saldívar stole a perfume sample and more bank statements from Selena in Mexico.
Saldívar accompanied Selena on a trip to Tennessee while the singer finished recording a song for her crossover album. Selena told Saldívar some bank statements were missing and asked her to return them as soon as they returned to Texas. Saldívar re-purchased the gun on March 27 and asked Selena to meet her alone at a motel room; this was her second attempt to kill Selena. News of Selena’s arrival spread and she was soon mobbed by fans. Quintanilla, Jr. believed her fans saved her that day, as there were “too many witnesses”. According to him, the third attempt to kill Selena was during Saldívar’s trip to Monterrey in the last week of March. Dr. Martinez received telephone calls from Saldívar crying hysterically and saying she had been raped on March 29. The next day, Saldívar again called Dr. Martinez, who said the calls sounded as though someone was trying to snatch the telephone away from Saldívar. He sent an employee to her motel room to investigate; the employee found she had left a few minutes earlier.
On March 30, Saldívar returned from her Monterrey trip and checked into a Days Inn motel. She contacted Selena and told her she had been raped. According to Quintanilla, Jr. this was the last message they received from Saldívar; he believed this claim was her new alibi. Saldívar asked Selena to visit her at her motel room alone, however, her husband, Chris Pérez, accompanied her. According to Pérez, he waited by his truck as Selena went alone to Saldívar’s motel room. As Pérez was driving back to their house, Selena noticed Saldívar had failed to give her the correct bank statements she needed. Saldívar tried contacting Selena through her pager; she desperately wanted Selena to take her to a hospital that night. She told Selena she was bleeding due to her rape. Quintanilla, Jr. believed Saldívar was trying to get Selena to return to the motel alone. Pérez told Selena it was “too late” and did not want her to go out alone. Unbeknownst to Pérez, Selena agreed to meet Saldívar the next morning.[50]
Murder [ edit ]
On March 30, 1995, Selena contacted Leonard Wong about the perfume samples he had made for her. According to Wong, Selena told him she would be meeting Saldívar the next morning to pick up the samples that had been stolen from her. The same day, she told another employee at the boutique she was expecting to fire Saldívar. The employee followed Selena to her home that night because she was concerned over the singer after their discussion about Saldívar.[53] At 7:30 a.m. (CST) on March 31, Selena left for Saldívar’s motel room. At the motel, Saldívar told Selena she had been raped in Mexico.[56] Selena took her to Doctors Regional Hospital,[nb 3] where medical staff noticed Saldívar showed “clear symptoms of depression”. Saldívar told medical staff she had bled “a little”. The staff noticed Selena angrily respond that Saldívar had told her the opposite, that she was bleeding copiously the day before. Nurse Carla Anthony informed Saldívar she needed to travel to San Antonio to obtain a gynecological examination because Saldívar “was a resident of San Antonio, the hospital was in Corpus, and the rape occurred outside the country”.[59] While driving back to the motel, Selena told Saldívar it would be best if they stayed apart for a while to avoid upsetting Quintanilla, Jr. According to Dr. Martinez, Selena had tried to contact him that morning but he could not speak on the telephone because he was performing surgery. At 10:00 a.m. (CST), Quintanilla, Jr. contacted Pérez to determine Selena’s whereabouts; she was due to record a song at Q-Productions that morning and had not arrived. Pérez called Selena on her mobile phone[nb 4] and reminded her of the scheduled recording. She told him she had forgotten the session and she was “taking care of one last [item of] business” and would be at Q-Productions soon after. This was the last telephone call Selena answered and was the last time Pérez spoke to his wife.
At the motel room, Selena and Saldívar began arguing. Motel guests complained about loud noises coming from Saldívar’s room. They said they heard two women arguing about business matters. Selena told Saldívar she could no longer be trusted,[61] and demanded Saldívar return her financial papers.[3] Selena then dumped Saldívar’s satchel containing bank statements onto the bed and saw the gun. At 11:48 a.m. (CST), Saldívar pointed it at Selena.[3] As Selena tried to flee, Saldívar shot her once on the lower right shoulder, puncturing an artery and causing a massive loss of blood.[61] Trinidad Espinoza, the hotel’s maintenance man, reported hearing a “loud bang”, which he likened to a car engine misfiring.[63] Selena was critically wounded; she ran towards the lobby, leaving a trail of blood 392 feet (119 m) long.[61] She was seen clutching her chest screaming, “Help me! Help me! I’ve been shot!”; Saldívar was still chasing after her, pointing the gun at her, and calling her a “bitch”.[65] According to motel staff, Saldívar seemed “calm” and went back in her room after chasing Selena.[53] According to Carlos Morales, who was waiting outside the motel, he heard screaming and saw Selena running towards him.[67] She grabbed Morales and screamed, “They’ll shoot me again!”.[67][68] Motel staff noticed her clothes were “soaked in blood” when she approached the lobby.[68] Selena collapsed on the floor at 11:49 a.m. (CST) as hotel general manager Barbara Schultz telephoned the emergency services. Selena screamed at the staff, telling them, “Lock the door! She’ll shoot me again!” [68] The singer identified Saldívar as her assailant and gave the number of the room where she had been shot.[70] She was “mortally wounded [and] terrified” when she identified Saldívar, having said her last words “Yolanda… (room) 158.”[68] Shawna Vela and hotel sales manager Ruben DeLeon tried to stop the flow of blood. Selena’s condition began to deteriorate rapidly as motel staff attended to her. DeLeon tried to talk to Selena but noticed she was beginning to lose consciousness; he said she was moaning and moving less often.[61] DeLeon noticed Selena’s eyes had rolled back and that she went limp.[63]
An ambulance arrived at the scene in one minute and 55 seconds.[61] The paramedics tore away the green sweater where the bleeding was taking place and applied a Vaseline gauze to Selena’s wound, which stopped the surface bleeding.[61] Selena’s heartbeat was now very slow; a paramedic performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation to keep her blood circulating.[61] Paramedic Richard Fredrickson said “it was too late” when he arrived in the lobby. He found a “thick [pool of blood] from her neck to her knees, all the way around on both sides [of her body]”. Fredrickson could not locate a pulse; when he placed his fingers on her neck, he felt only muscle twitches.[73]
A paramedic tried inserting an intravenous needle into Selena, but her veins had collapsed because of the massive blood loss and low (or no) blood pressure, making the insertion extremely difficult. Local police closed off Navigation Boulevard.[61] When paramedics delivered Selena to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital at 12:00 p.m. (CST), her pupils were fixed and dilated, there was no evidence of neurological function, she had no vital signs, and was declared clinically brain dead.[75] Doctors were able to establish an “erratic heartbeat” long enough to transfer her to the trauma room.[76] Doctors began blood transfusions in an attempt to re-establish blood circulation after opening Selena’s chest and finding massive internal bleeding.[61] Selena’s right lung was damaged, her collarbone was shattered, and her veins were emptied of blood. Doctors widened her chest opening, administered drugs into her heart, and applied pressure to her wounds.[77] Dr. Louis Elkins, cardiac surgeon, arrived at Memorial Hospital and said he saw doctors making “heroic efforts” to revive Selena.[75] He described the singer as being “extremely contused and shredded. The right side of her chest, all the tissue was ripped.”[78] By the time Elkins arrived, an emergency doctor began “massaging her heart” after it had stopped beating.[79] Elkins reported how all efforts were futile and said had he been the receiving doctor, he would not have made any treatments on Selena. He felt “obligated to continue” after the emergency room doctor made the decision to reanimate the singer.[80] Elkins said a “pencil-size artery leading from the heart had been cut in two by the hollow-point bullet” and that six units of blood from the transfusion had spilled out from her circulatory system.[77] A breathing tube was administered after Selena stopped breathing on her own, while a clamp was placed on her “gushing” pierced artery on her collarbone.[79] After 50 minutes, the doctors realized the damage was irreparable.[61] Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was pronounced dead at 1:05 p.m. (CST) at age 23, 16 days before her 24th birthday, from blood loss and cardiac arrest.[61][81]
During the third hour after the shooting, an autopsy was performed due to overwhelming media interest.[84] It revealed that the bullet had entered Selena’s upper right back, near her shoulder blade, passed through her chest cavity, severed the right subclavian artery, and exited her right upper chest.[61] It took minutes from the point of impact of the bullet that Selena lost “virtually all the blood in her body” which contributed to her rapidly bleeding to death.[85] Doctors said that if the bullet had been only one millimeter higher or lower, the wound would have been less severe.[61]
Standoff [ edit ]
After the shooting, Saldívar entered her pickup truck and tried to leave the motel parking lot.[67] Motel employee Rosario Garza saw Saldívar leave her room with a wrapped towel. It was later thought she was going to Q-Productions to shoot Quintanilla, Jr. and others who were waiting for Selena. However, she was spotted by a responding police officer in a vehicle. The officer left his vehicle, drew his gun, and ordered Saldívar out of the truck. Saldívar did not comply; she backed up and parked adjacent to two cars. Her truck was then blocked in by the police vehicle.[61] Saldívar picked up the pistol, pointed it at her right temple, and threatened to commit suicide.[67] A SWAT team and the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit were brought in. Musicologist Himilce Novas later said the event was reminiscent of O. J. Simpson’s planned suicide ten months earlier.
Larry Young and Isaac Valencia began negotiating with Saldívar. They ran a telephone line to their base of operations adjacent to Saldívar’s pickup truck as the standoff continued. Lead negotiator Young tried to establish a rapport with Saldívar and persuade her to give herself up. Valencia suggested the shooting was accidental. Saldívar later changed her story, saying the “gun went off” by itself.[61] She spoke to relatives in addition to speaking with police.[67] Motel guests were ordered to remain in their rooms until police escorted them out. Later that afternoon, police drained the gasoline from the gas tank of Saldívar’s car and turned on floodlights.[67]
After the standoff entered its fourth hour, Valencia succeeded in getting Saldívar to confess that she had intended to shoot herself. Saldívar said when she placed the gun to her own head, Selena tried to tell her not to kill herself. When Selena opened the door to leave, Saldívar said she told her to close it.[61] She also said the gun went off when Selena left. During the sixth hour, Saldívar agreed to give herself up, but when she saw a police officer pointing a rifle at her, she panicked, ran back to her truck, picked up the revolver, and pointed it at her head again.[61] Saldívar surrendered after more than nine hours.[3] By then, hundreds of Selena’s fans had gathered at the scene; many wept as police took Saldívar away.[3][61] A press conference was called within hours of Selena’s murder; Saldívar had not yet been named in media reports. Assistant Police Chief Ken Bung and Quintanilla, Jr. told the press the possible motive was Selena’s intention to terminate Saldívar’s employment.[91][92]
Impact [ edit ]
Media response [ edit ]
When radio station KEDA-AM broke the news of Selena’s death, many people accused the staff of lying because the next day was April Fools’ Day. In San Antonio, major Spanish-language radio stations including Tejano 107, KXTN-FM, KRIO-FM and KEDA-AM, began monitoring developments. Radio stations in Texas began playing Selena’s music non-stop and taking telephone calls from distressed fans.[94] All major U.S. networks interrupted their regular programming to break the news.[95] The lead item on national television network evening news programs in Corpus Christi had been the end of the 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike; within thirty minutes of its announcement, Selena’s murder was the lead item on all television stations in South Texas. Her death was front-page news in The New York Times for two days, and was featured prominently on BBC World News. News of the singer’s death reached Japan, where David Byrne first heard of the shooting. Univision and Telemundo were among the first national news stations to arrive at the crime scene. Coverage of the singer’s death and the murder trial dominated American newscasts in 1995.[100] Carlos Lopez of KMIQ-105.1 told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that “Tejano music is dead for at least today” and compared the reactions to Selena’s death to reactions to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and called March 31, 1995, “Black Friday”.[67] The media response Selena received was “unprecedented” for a Latin artist, and Hispanic writers expressed how the mainstream media typically ignores “people from the border”.[101][102]
Newsstands were swarmed by people looking for items concerning Selena.[103] A line for the edition of April 1, 1995, of the Corpus Christi Caller Times formed; the company added 11,000 copies to their print run and later printed 20,000 more copies to meet continued demand for the paper.[104] Texas newspaper The Monitor, sold out two issues in the days following the singer’s death, “a truly remarkable feat” said writer Daniel Cavazos. He continued that the event of a newspaper issue selling out happens once every two-three decades.[102] A People magazine issue was released several days after her murder. Its publishers believed interest would soon wane; they released a commemorative issue within a week when it became apparent that interest was growing. The issue sold nearly a million copies,[105] selling the entire first and second run within two weeks. It became a collector’s item—a first in the history of People.[106] Betty Cortina, editor of People, told Biography, “it was unheard of” for an issue to completely sell out.[106] In the following months, the success of the Selena issue led the company to release People en Español aimed at the Latino market.[106] This was followed by Newsweek en Español and Latina magazine.[107]
American actress Jennifer Lopez was cast to play Selena in the 1997 biopic film about her life; this choice drew criticism because Lopez’ ancestry is Puerto Rican rather than Mexican. After the film’s release, fans changed their views on Lopez after seeing her performance in the movie.[108][109] Lopez became famous after the film’s release.[110][111][112][113][114] Selena: The Series is an American biographical drama streaming television series created by Moisés Zamora and starring Christian Serratos.[115] The series was released on Netflix on December 4, 2020.[116][117] The second and final part of the series premiered on May 4, 2021.[118]
Selena’s life and career were covered by a number of television programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show,[119] E! True Hollywood Story, VH1’s Behind the Music, American Justice, Snapped, and Famous Crime Scene.[120][121][122] Other networks including MTV,[120] Investigation Discovery, The Biography Channel, and A&E Network have aired special programs about Selena,[121][123] while Spanish-language networks regularly show documentaries to commemorate the anniversary of her death.[124] These Spanish-language documentaries often score record ratings for Spanish networks.[125][127] A documentary titled Selena, A Star is Dimmed—one of the first about her—was broadcast on Univison’s Primer Impacto on April 22, 1995; it was watched by 2.09 million people and became the second-most-viewed Spanish-language show in the history of American television at the time. Networks competed with each other to interview Saldívar about the shooting. When the news came out that Arrarás was able to interview her, Univision was inundated with requests to use the interview from major networks as far away as Germany. The interview on Primer Impacto was watched by 4.5 million viewers; it was the most-watched program that night according to the Nielsen ratings, and became one of the most-watched Spanish-language programs in American television history.
Latino community [ edit ]
I grew up around these people. The reaction was typical of the majority of Texans, to whom the murder of Selena was just another senseless shooting. To those people, though, the five million Texans of Mexican descent, the death of Selena was Black Friday, a day of infamy even darker and more evil than the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A European-American Selena fan, explaining differences in reaction to the death of Selena between European-Americans and Mexican-Americans in Texas.
The news of Selena’s death deeply affected the Latino community; many people traveled thousands of miles to visit Selena’s house, boutiques, and the crime scene.[131] Hispanics throughout the United States reportedly mourned the singer as far away as New York City and Los Angeles.[132] By mid-afternoon, police were asked to form a detour as a line of automobiles began backing up traffic from the Quintanillas’ house. On the street where Selena had lived, gang graffiti and cacti distinguished the blue-collar community from other subdivisions across America. A chain-link fence in front of Selena’s house became a shrine festooned with mementos as fans from across America left messages to Selena and the Quintanilla family. Most car drivers in Corpus Christi, and those driving cars on Interstate 37 from Mexico, turned their headlights on in her memory. Fans scribbled notes and messages, and placed them on the door and doorstep of the room in which Selena had been shot.
Soon after learning of Selena’s death, people began speculating about the identity of her murderer. Some fans thought Emilio Navaira’s wife had shot Selena; they believed she was jealous of Selena and Navaira’s relationship. Johnny Pasillas, Emilio’s brother-in-law and manager, frantically called radio stations in an attempt to quash the rumor. Among the celebrities who believed the rumor were record producer Manny Guerra, Pete Rodriguez, and American singer Ramon Hernandez. According to anchorwoman Arrarás, Selena’s death became “the most important news [story] of the year for Latinos”. Texas Monthly editor Pamela Colloff wrote that reactions to her death were equivalent to those following a political assassination.[138] Reactions were compared to those that followed the deaths of John Lennon, Elvis Presley, and John F. Kennedy.
Selena had a “cult-like” following among Latinos; after her death she became a household name in the United States and a part of the American pop culture. She was more popular after her death than when she was alive.[138] Selena became a cultural icon for Latinos and was seen as “a woman who was proud of her roots [who had] achieved her dreams”.[145] According to Antonio Lopez of The Santa Fe New Mexican, the day Selena was killed “is a bookmark in time in the memories of many Latinos”.[146] According to Arrarás, “women imitated her, men worshiped her”. In the aftermath of Selena’s murder, two linked deaths in California were reported. A drag queen planned to dress as Selena for a performance; he was hit by a car and left to die. Actress Gloria de la Cruz auditioned for the role of Selena; her body was later found in a dumpster in Los Angeles. Her killer had strangled her and set her body on fire.
Celebrities’ and politicians’ reactions [ edit ]
Spanish singer Julio Iglesias interrupted a recording session in Miami for a moment of silence. Among the celebrities who contacted the Quintanilla family following the news were Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, Julio Iglesias, and Madonna. Concerts throughout Texas were canceled; La Mafia canceled their concert in Guatemala and flew back to Texas. Tejano singer Ramiro Herrera and dozens of other Tejano artists also canceled their concerts.[149] Ben Benavidez, radio personality and owner of Tejano Review, told Corpus Christi Caller Times that March 31 would be remembered as “the worst day in Corpus Christi history”.[94] American singer-songwriter Rhett Lawrence published an advertisement in Billboard magazine’s April 22, 1995 issue; it said, “music I heard with you was more than music. You will be deeply missed.”[150] Other celebrities interviewed on radio stations, including Stefanie Ridel, Jaime DeAnda (of Los Chamacos), Elsa Garcia,[94] and Shelly Lares, expressed their thoughts about Selena’s death. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey called Selena’s life “short but significant” during a March 1997 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.[119] American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey told MTV Selena’s death was shocking to her because of “the way it had happened so abruptly in a young life”.[151] American singer Marc Anthony dedicated his album Todo a Su Tiempo (which was released two months after Selena’s death) to Selena.[152] State senator Carlos Truan and state representative Solomon P. Ortiz reportedly mourned Selena’s death.[153] American music industry executive Daniel Glass told Texas Monthly he believed Selena would have enjoyed greater career success had it not been for her death.[138] A few days after her death, president of the United States Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary sent a letter of condolence to Selena’s husband Chris Pérez.[154]
A few days later, Howard Stern mocked Selena’s murder, burial, and mourners, and criticized her music. Stern said, “This music does absolutely nothing for me. Alvin and the Chipmunks have more soul … Spanish people have the worst taste in music. They have no depth.” He then played Selena’s songs with gunshot noises in the background.[156] Stern’s comments and actions outraged and infuriated the Latino community in Texas. After an arrest warrant for disorderly conduct was issued for him, Stern made an on-air statement, in Spanish, saying his comments were not made to cause “more anguish to her family, friends and those who loved her”.[158][159] The League of United Latin American Citizens found Stern’s apology unacceptable and urged a boycott of his show.[160] Texas retailers removed products related to Stern. Sears and McDonald’s sent a letter expressing their disapproval of Stern’s comments to the media because fans believed they sponsored his show. Within a week, on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Stern and his co-host Robin Quivers were asked if Stern’s remarks about Selena were acceptable. Quivers decided not to talk about the situation to avoid arguing with Stern. When Linda Ronstadt, a pop singer of Mexican-American heritage, appeared on the show, she defended Selena, and argued with Quivers over the matter.
Other reactions [ edit ]
On April 12, 1995, two weeks after Selena’s death, Texas governor George W. Bush declared her birthday Selena Day in Texas.[163][164] Bush said Selena represented “the essence of south Texas culture”. On Selena Day, approximately a thousand fans gathered at her grave and began singing traditional Mexican folk songs; police were brought in to control the crowd. On the same day, a crowd of three thousand attended an organized mass of the resurrection for Selena at Johnnyland Concert Park.
In April and May that year, some European-Americans in Texas wrote to the editor of the Brazosport Facts questioning the fuss over her death; some were offended because Selena Day coincided with Easter Sunday. Others said, “Easter is more important than Selena Day,” and believed people should let Selena rest in peace and get on with their lives. Mexican-Americans living in Texas also wrote to the newspaper; some felt that others were too critical of Selena Day, stating they did not need to celebrate the day and should not have responded to its announcement so rudely. This was also seen by the Corpus Christi Caller Times, which said it had printed several of the negative comments left by people and that many other comments were “unprintable”.[104] Latino filmmaker Lourdes Portillo said she did not know who Selena was when she heard about the shooting.[169] The Monitor received negative backlash from some readers who felt it was “enough” of having Selena featured on the front page of their newspaper. A reader called The Monitor and stated that intelligent people had no interest in Selena.[102] In response, an editor said “I hope not. That would make for a lot of idiots in [South Texas].”[102]
When the news of Selena’s death broke, some Americans asked who she was and said she was “not that important”, suggesting Latinos “get over it”.[171] Author and Texas Monthly magazine contributor Joe Nick Patoski said Anglo-Americans and Mexican-Americans were divided in their reactions to Selena’s death. Patoski said that Anglo-Americans “didn’t understand what all the fuss was about”.[138] This was echoed in the Corpus Christi Caller Times, where they found racial divisions in the reactions to Selena’s death. Educators who had observed the reactions said, “the emergence of an icon in a minority culture can be both bewildering and threatening to Anglos”. Melicent Rothschild said some Americans often do not understand “the cultural role models of groups who have felt discriminated against”. Following Selena’s death, cultural confrontations were reported. Some vocally opposed any memorials to the singer, feeling they would be paid for by taxpayers. Others complained to newspapers about the media interest in Selena’s death. Many media outlets received negative comments from people around the country. Some were baffled that the Rossler massacre, which occurred around the same time of Selena’s death, did not generate the same amount of media exposure. Mayor Mary Rhodes said many of the people complaining about the media exposure Selena was receiving had never heard of her.[172] Ramiro Burr of the San Antonio Express-News confirmed that the reactions of non-Hispanics were due to a language barrier.[173] Dolph Tillotson, a columnist in The Galveston Daily News, was “mystified” about his newspaper’s coverage on Selena’s death, whom he never heard of. Tillotson was baffled that the singer was important to Hispanics and relatively unknown to most European-Americans. He wrote how grateful he was to the newspaper’s Hispanic staff who explained the singer’s cultural importance to him.[174]
In the 1997 biopic film about Selena, a store manager asks Latinos running towards the singer for an autograph, “Who’s Selena?”[175] European-Americans felt the scene was “irrelevant” and “over dramatized”. One Selena fan said the event depicted in the scene “happens all the time” to Latinos and their friends, and that they felt their community had been “ignored”. Lauraine Miller said, “Selena has opened my eyes”, and that Miller had become “more American”. Another fan said, “nobody ever lets you forget you are Mexican American” in the U.S.[176]
Music industry [ edit ]
At the time of Selena’s death, 52% of all Latin music sales were generated by regional Mexican music; most of this was Tejano, which had become one of the most popular Latin music genres.[177] Selena’s music led the genre’s 1990s revival and made it marketable for the first time.[149][180] Many media outlets described her as the “Queen of Tejano music”.[nb 5] Major record companies including EMI Records, SBK Records, Warner Music Group, CBS Records, and Sony Music began signing Tejano artists to compete in the Latin music market.[189][190] Following Selena’s death, the Tejano music market suffered and its popularity waned. Radio stations in the United States that played Tejano music switched to regional Mexican music, and by 1997, KQQK was the only radio station playing non-stop Tejano music.[177] By the mid-2000s, radio stations in the United States no longer played Tejano music, large auditoria stopped hosting Tejano artists by 2007,[191] and major record companies abandoned their Tejano artists after 1995. Selena remains the best-selling Tejano artist of all time, and continues to outsell living Tejano artists.[189] She remains the only Tejano musician whose recordings continue to chart on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart.[nb 6] After her death, Tejano music was replaced with Latin pop as the most popular Latin music genre in the United States.[189]
Within hours of Selena’s murder, record stores sold out of her albums; EMI Latin began pressing several million CDs and cassettes to meet the expected demand.[149] Gloria Ballesteros, a sales representative of Southwestern Wholesalers in San Antonio, told Billboard their inventory of 5,000 copies of Selena albums was sold out by the afternoon of her death.[149] Record stores ordering more copies of her recordings were told by EMI Latin representatives they would not be able to restock for a few days.[149] EMI Latin shipped 500,000 units of Selena’s recordings to stores in the two weeks following her death.[150] Her song “Fotos y Recuerdos” was number four on the US Billboard Hot Latin Tracks chart the day she was killed; it peaked at number one on April 15, 1995.[149] Selena’s singles “No Me Queda Más”, “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom”, “Como la Flor”, and “Amor Prohibido”, re-entered the Hot Latin Tracks and the Regional Mexican Airplay chart in the issue of Billboard magazine dated April 15, 1995.[149] Selena’s 1994 album Amor Prohibido re-entered the Billboard 200 chart at number 92, representing a 520 percent increase in sales. 12,040 units sold the week Selena was murdered.[149] The following week, the album rose to number 32 with 28,238 units sold representing a 135 percent increase.[150] Amor Prohibido, which was positioned at number four on March 31, peaked at number one on the Top Latin Albums chart in the issue dated April 15, 1995.[149] Three albums, Entre a Mi Mundo (1992), Live! (1993), and 12 Super Éxitos (1994), re-entered the Top Latin Albums chart, while Selena’s albums took chart positions one to four on the Regional Mexican Albums chart that same week.[149] Her albums sparked a buying frenzy for Latin music in Japan, Germany, and China.
Dreaming of You, the crossover album Selena was working on at the time of her death, was released in July 1995. On the day of its release, 175,000 copies were sold in the U.S.—a record for a female vocalist—and 331,000 copies sold in its first week.[197][198] Selena became the third female artist after Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey to sell over 300,000 units in one week.[199] It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the first album by a Latino artist to do so.[200][201][202] Dreaming of You was the first posthumous album by a solo artist to debut at number one.[203] The recording was among the top ten best-selling debuts for a musician, and was the best-selling debut by a female act.[204] Dreaming of You joined five of Selena’s studio albums on the Billboard 200 chart simultaneously, making her the first female artist in Billboard history to accomplish this feat.[205] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it 59x platinum for sales of 3.54 million album-equivalent units in the U.S.[206][207] As of October 2017 , it has sold over 2.942 million copies in the United States, becoming the best-selling Latin album of all-time in the country according to Nielsen SoundScan.[208] As of 2015, the recording has sold five million copies worldwide.[209] Five of Selena’s albums generated $4 million in sales within five years. Selena was inducted into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame,[211] the Hard Rock Cafe’s Hall of Fame in 1995, the South Texas Music Hall of Fame, and the Tejano Music Hall of Fame in 2001. In December 1999, she was named the “top Latin artist of the ’90s” and “best-selling Latin artist of the decade” by Billboard for her fourteen top-ten singles—including seven number-one hits—in the Top Latin Songs chart.[215]
Funeral and tributes [ edit ]
On the day Selena was killed, vigils and memorials were held throughout Texas and California. In San Antonio, radio station Tejano 107 sponsored a candlelight vigil at the Sunken Gardens, while KRIO-FM sponsored another at South Park Mall on March 31 which was attended by 5,000 people. Radio stations in Texas played her music non-stop.[56] On April 1, Bayfront Plaza in Corpus Christi held a vigil which drew 3,000 fans.[217] During the event, it was announced that a public viewing of the casket would be held at the Bayfront Auditorium the following day. Fans lined up for almost a mile (1500 m). An hour before the doors opened, rumors that the casket was empty began circulating, which prompted the Quintanilla family to have an open-casket viewing.[218] About 30,000 to 40,000 fans passed by Selena’s casket.[218][219][220] More than 78,000 signed a book of condolence. Flowers for the casket viewing were imported from The Netherlands.[222] At the request of Selena’s family, video and flash photography were banned.[222] The same day, an unannounced bilingual Sunday morning mass for Selena featuring a mariachi choir was held at the San Fernando Cathedral in downtown San Antonio. In the United States, churches with a high proportion of Latino worshippers held prayers for Selena. A reporter noticed that many “mythic symbols” such as the Christian symbols of angels, saints, healers, and saviors, were “attached to Selena” by fans. There was a tribute for the singer during a St. Patrick’s Day celebration in a Catholic church in Houston, Texas. Priest Father Sal DeGeorge decided to hold a tribute to Selena that day after people—especially children—asked him what was being planned for the singer. That same day, a disc jockey played Selena’s music near the church in a small park.[225]
On April 3, 1995, six hundred guests—mostly family members—attended Selena’s burial at Seaside Memorial Park, which was broadcast live by a Corpus Christi and San Antonio radio station without the consent of her family. A Jehovah’s Witness minister from Lake Jackson preached in English, quoting Paul the Apostle’s words in 1 Corinthians 15. Hundreds of people began circling the area in their vehicles. Among the celebrities who attended the funeral were Roberto Pulido, Bobby Pulido, David Lee Garza, Navaira, Laura Canales, Elsa Garcia, La Mafia, Ram Herrera, Imagen Latina, and Pete Astudillo.[227] A special mass held the same day at Los Angeles Sports Arena drew a crowd of 4,000.[228] Selena had been booked to play there that night for her Amor Prohibido Tour. The promoter charged an admission fee, which upset Quintanilla, Jr. Modesto Lopez Portillo drove from El Salvador to Los Angeles to be the officiating priest for the gathering; the consul general of El Salvador attended as well.[228] In Lake Jackson, a thousand fans and friends of Selena gathered at the municipal park in neighboring Clute, where she had played at the Mosquito Festival in July 1994.[229] The next day, Our Lady of the Pillar, a church in Zaragoza, Spain, held a mass for Selena which drew 450 people to the 225-seat church. In the weeks following her death, cars throughout Texas were seen with pictures of Selena painted on them.[225] On April 28, during a fireworks display for Buccaneer Days in Corpus Christi, the music was reworked to include “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” in her memory. Selena Etc. boutiques became shrines to the singer as fans left balloons, flowers, pictures, and poems. Street murals of Selena were found across Texas after her death.[176] In the months following Selena’s death, an average of 12,000 people visited her grave site and the Days Inn motel where the shooting occurred. The motel’s manager rearranged its room numbers so guests would not know in which room Selena had been shot. The singer became part of the Day of the Dead celebration.[176] In 1997, Selena was commemorated with a museum and a life-sized bronze statue, Mirador de la Flor, in Corpus Christi, which are visited by hundreds of fans each week.[232] Fans flocked to her statue and murals, seeing them as a symbols of self-identity, unionism, religious expression, resistance, self-expression, equality, liberation, passion, optimism, possibility, and “encouragement and hope to the poor”.[176]
Musicians used music to express their thoughts about Selena or recorded compositions as tributes to her. These included American country artist Tony Joe White,[233] Haitian singer-songwriter Wyclef Jean,[234] American Tejano artist Pete Astudillo, Puerto Rican group the Barrio Boyzz, Mexican American singer Graciela Beltran, American Tejano artist Jennifer Pena, American hip-hop singer Lil Ray, American Tejano artists Emilio Navaria, Bobby Pulido,[235] Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz, Dominican salsa singer José Alberto “El Canario”, Puerto Rican salsa singers Ray Sepulveda, Michael Stuart, Manny Manuel, Puerto Rican jazz singer Hilton Ruiz,[236] American singer Jenni Rivera,[237] Mexican singer Lupillo Rivera,[238] Venezuelan rock singer Mikel Erentxun,[239] Puerto Rican singer Tony Garcia,[240] and American rapper King L.[241]
Selena’s family and her former band Los Dinos held a tribute concert a week after the 10th anniversary of her murder on April 7, 2005. The concert, titled Selena ¡VIVE!, was broadcast live on Univision and achieved a 35.9 household rating.[125][242] It was the highest-rated and most-viewed Spanish-language television special in the history of American television.[209] It was the most-watched program—regardless of language—among adults ages 18 to 34 in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco; it tied for first in New York, beating that night’s episode of Fox’s American Idol.[125] Among Latino viewers, figures for Selena ¡VIVE! exceeded those for Super Bowl XLV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers and the telenovela Soy Tu Dueña, during what was the “most-watched NFL season ever among Latinos”.[243][244]
In January 2015, it was announced that a two-day annual event called Fiesta de la Flor would be held in Corpus Christi by the Corpus Christi Visitors Bureau as a tribute to Selena. Musical acts for the first annual event included Kumbia All-Starz, Chris Pérez, Los Lobos, Jay Perez, Little Joe y la Familia, Los Palominos, Stefani Montiel of Las 3 Divas, Girl in a Coma’s Nina Diaz, Las Fenix, and The Voice competitor Clarissa Serna.[245][246][247] The event raised $13 million and was attended by 52,000 people, 72% of whom lived outside Corpus Christi. The event sparked interest from people in thirty-five U.S. states and five countries including Mexico, Brazil, and Ecuador.[248]
Trial [ edit ]
Within twenty minutes of Saldívar’s surrender, she was taken to the downtown police station in Corpus Christi and placed in an interrogation room with investigators Paul and Ray Rivera. Paul Rivera, who had investigated homicides since 1978, informed Saldívar of her right to an attorney, which she waived. When police investigators surrounded Saldívar’s truck, she had cried out, “I can’t believe I killed my best friend”.[250] Within hours, she was saying the shooting was accidental.[251] Saldívar’s bail bond was initially set at $100,000, but District Attorney Carlos Valdez persuaded the presiding judge to raise it to $500,000. When bail was announced, fans asked why the death penalty had not been sought. The Nueces County jail was deluged with death threats and there were public calls for vigilante justice. Some gang members in Texas were reported to have taken up collections to raise the bond for Saldívar so they could kill her when she was released. In prison, she faced more death threats from inmates. The Mexican Mafia, a dominant gang in the Texas penal system, reportedly placed a price on her head and spread the word that anyone who committed the crime would be a hero.
Saldívar’s crime was punishable by up to ninety-nine years in prison and a $10,000 fine.[253] Saldívar was kept at Nueces County Jail under a suicide watch before her trial.[218] The state had difficulty arranging defense counsel for Saldívar; a spokesperson said any lawyer defending Saldívar could face death threats.[254] She was assigned a public defender named Douglas Tinker. Tinker’s wife feared they would suffer from community retribution and asked him not to take the case. Arnold Garcia, a former district prosecutor, was appointed as co-counsel.[256] Valdez, who lived a few blocks away from the Quintanilla family, chose Mark Skurka as the lead prosecutor. Judge Mike Westergren presided over the case, which was moved to the Harris County Courthouse in Houston, Texas, to ensure an impartial jury. According to the Chicago Tribune, the Selena murder trial’s publicity “rivaled that of the O. J. Simpson proceedings”. Westergren ordered that the trial would not be televised or taped, and limited the number of reporters in the courtroom to avoid a “repeat of the Simpson circus”.[258] The Chicago Tribune reported the division of interest in the trial between Latinos and white Americans. Donna Dickerson, a white American magazine publisher, told the Chicago Tribune she had no interest in the trial because of Selena’s “Latinos background”, and said Mexican-Americans had not shown the same enthusiasm when Elvis Presley was found dead.[258] The Selena murder trial was called the “trial of the century” and the most important trial to the Latino population,[176][260][261] and generated interest in Europe, South America, Australia, and Japan.[138]
Saldívar pleaded not guilty, saying the shooting was accidental. In his opening statement, Valdez said he believed Saldívar “deliberately killed Selena”. Valdez also called it a “senseless and cowardly” act because Selena was shot in the back. Tinker said the shooting was accidental and denied rumors Saldívar wanted to be romantically involved with Selena.[258] On October 23, 1995, the jury deliberated for two hours before finding Saldívar guilty of murder.[262] She received the maximum sentence of life in prison with no eligibility of parole for 30 years.[263] On November 22, 1995, she arrived at the Gatesville Unit—now the Christina Crain Unit—in Gatesville, Texas, for processing.[264] As of 2018 , Saldívar is serving her sentence in Gatesville at the Mountain View Unit, which is operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. She will be eligible for parole on March 30, 2025.[265] Because of multiple internal death threats from incarcerated Selena fans, Saldívar was placed in isolation and spends twenty-three hours a day alone in her 9 by 6 feet (2.7 by 1.8 m) cell.[266] In 2002, under a judge’s order, the gun used to kill Selena was destroyed and the pieces were thrown into Corpus Christi Bay.[267][268] Fans and historians disapproved of the decision to destroy the gun, saying the event was historical and the gun should have been in a museum.[269]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Selena Murder: Crime Scene Photos and Open Casket Funeral : eyeblech
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Details Behind Selena’s Murder
The shocking murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez on March 31, 1995, stunned audiences all around the world. As one of the best Tejano artists of all time, Selena was standing at the precipice of a great career right before her death. Born in 1971, the Mexican-American showed an affinity for all kinds of music at a young age. Unfortunately, her family’s restaurant went out of business in 1981, and the struggling Quintanillas decided to hit the road as a band called Selena y Los Dinos. Thus, Selena began performing at the tender age of nine.
By eighth grade, Selena’s father pulled her out of school so she could devote all of her time to her growing musical career. This may have been a questionable strategy, but it did lead to success. Selena won two Tejano Music Awards in 1987, which opened the door for six hit albums. By 1994, Selena received her first Grammy nomination, sold approximately 500,000 copies of her Amor Prohibido (Forbidden Love) album, and was well-poised to finish transitioning into mainstream success.
However, the very next year, 1995, her friend and fan club manager, Yolanda Saldívar, turned her into a huge news story for all the wrong reasons. Selena was only 23 when Saldívar fatally shot her. Sadly, Selena became one of the greatest musicians who died before 30. The shockwave of Selena’s murder quickly reverberated through the Mexican-American and Latino communities, and the singer’s music became more popular than ever. Saldívar was ultimately convicted and sentenced to prison for life. To find out more about Selena’s unfortunate death, read on below.
The Queen Is Dead
Black Friday
The tragic news arrived the way tragic news often does: by phone. The call came just after lunch from my friend David Bennett, a reporter at the San Antonio Express-News. “Selena has been shot. In Corpus Christi at a Days Inn motel. The woman who did it is sitting in a pickup in the parking lot, holding a gun to her head.” I waited for Bennett, a font of sick jokes about current events, to deliver the punch line. It was, after all, March 31 — the day before April Fool’s. But no punch line came when he called back a few minutes later: “She’s dead. She passed away at 1:05 p.m. at Memorial Medical Center.”
I had met her only once, but it was as though someone close to me was suddenly gone. Selena Quintanilla Perez was a 23-year-old Grammy award-winning singer and the undisputed queen of Tejano music, a Texas specialty that is enjoying unprecedented popularity around the country and the world. A year ago, I’d talked with her on a tour bus in Austin for a Texas Monthly story. For most of the interview, she sat next to her mother, Marcella, who often traveled with her band, Los Dinos, and her father, Abraham, the band’s manager. At one point, her husband, Chris Perez—who was also her lead guitarist—stopped by to say hello. Around midnight, Selena’s sister, Suzette—her drummer—and her brother, A.B.—her bass player, chief composer, and producer—would join her and the rest of the band onstage.
Selena’s family crossed my mind when I heard about her death. She may have dressed provocatively onstage, but after sitting face to face with her in the company of her kin, seeing her without makeup or her sexy costumes, I pegged her as a good girl—not the sort of person who would be involved in a shooting, especially a shooting involving a jealous woman in a crime of passion.
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That, of course, was what the early rumors suggested. A radio deejay somewhere wisecracked that the assailant was “Emilio’s wife”—the spouse of Emilio Navaira, the popular Tejano singer who was Selena’s only real box office competition. That scurrilous suggestion spread so fast that Navaira’s office and home were besieged with death threats. To get the truth, I tuned in two of San Antonio’s Spanish-language stations, KXTN-FM (Tejano 107) and KEDA-AM (Radio Jalapeño), and stayed close to the phone. Soon, another friend called to say that Ramiro Burr, the Express-News’ syndicated Tejano columnist, had heard from Selena’s record company, that the woman in the pickup was Yolanda Saldivar, a 34-year-old nurse whom everyone knew as Selena’s number one fan.
By five that afternoon, San Antonio TV stations—including the affiliates for the Spanish-language Telemundo and Univision networks—had reporters and satellite uplinks at the crime scene. Selena y los Dinos songs were all over the radio. Grieving callers to radio stations read poems on the air. Other Tejano artists, such as Stefani, the All-American Sweetheart, phoned in to share memories. Dances at Tejano venues were called off in cities across Texas.
When I heard that Tejano 107 would be holding a candlelight vigil at the open-air Sunken Gardens Theatre in San Antonio at seven that night, I jumped into the car. My first stop was Selena’s boutique and salon, Selena Etc., on a tiny strip of Broadway by Brackenridge Park. Last year, Selena had opened this boutique and one in Corpus Christi; music may have been her living, but fashion was her life. When I pulled into the parking lot, four other cars were there. Two had messages painted on their windshields in white shoe polish: One read “Selena Lives On,” the other, “Missing You Selena.” A bouquet of flowers had been placed by the door of the boutique, alongside a picture of a smiling Selena and several notes. A few adults, four teenage girls, three younger boys, and an abuela (“grandmother”) were milling about, studying the flowers, reading the notes, peering in the boutique’s window at the photos and posters of Selena that hung among the designer outfits. Their faces were not animated or emotional but solemn and blank. They wanted to see, to touch, to connect somehow.
Across the park, Sunken Gardens was filling up fast. A small truck, the Tejano 107 mobile studio, was parked in the middle of the stage. Two life-size cutouts of Selena holding a Coca Cola were placed nearby. The event had been haphazardly organized—when someone from the station began handing out candles, a small stampede broke out—and at first, it seemed as though it might never come together. Then disc jockey Jonny Ramírez emerged from the truck to tell the nearly five thousand people in attendance that they were there because “somebody stupid had a gun.” A few people laughed when he recounted first meeting Selena (“I said to myself, ‘Yes! This lady makes me want to go home and take a cold shower!’”). Then he said what almost everyone else who had ever known her had said: “She never behaved like a superstar.”
By seven-thirty, candlelight illuminated the whole place. Kids still skittered under their parents’ legs, and friends still greeted friends with smiles. But a sober, respectful serenity prevailed. Facing the stage, a teenage boy and girl (brother and sister? boyfriend and girlfriend?) stood rigidly, holding a candle and clutching a white banner that read “Honk If You Love Selena.” I didn’t realize it then, but the veneration had begun.
Who She Was
On Saturday Selena’s death came up during a conversation with a neighbor in my predominantly Anglo Central Texas community. “I never heard of her,” she told me, “and I’m from Refugio. I grew up around those people.” Her reaction echoed that of many Texans, who saw this as just another senseless shooting.
Yet to “those people”—the five million Texans of Mexican descent—March 31 was a darker day than November 22, 1963. To “those people,” Selena was more than a celebrity. She was an icon. Her status as an entertainer who was a millionaire at age nineteen; her positive personality; her devotion to God, family, and home; and her willingness to talk to kids about staying in school and avoiding drugs made her a hero to brown-skinned people—especially Hispanic girls—who had precious few role models.
Her music validated the cultural duality of the majority of her fans, proving you could embrace the traditions of the land you came from while still being hip and modern. Like most Mexican Americans who have assimilated into the mainstream, Selena’s first language was English—and yet she opted to sing in the native language of her parents, proving that who you are and where your family came from are sources of pride, not sources of shame.
Selena was a total package. She could work a crowd. She could dance. She was sexy. She knew how to make time for industry types backstage. And, of course, she could sing. She was equally comfortable with the fancy streamlined polkas that are the backbone of all Tex-Mex music, the histrionic boleros from Northern Mexico (such as the “Que Creias,” in which she scorches a lover who has taken her for granted), and the mambo-derived cumbias popular throughout Latin America. She reinterpreted the sixties-era Japanese pop song “Sukiyaki” into a sentimental Spanish-language version. She re-worked the Pretenders’ eighties rock classic “Back on the Chain Gang” into “Fotos y Recuerdos” on her latest album, Amor Prohibido. She was savvy enough to write and record the nonsensical but eminently hummable, “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom,” which received heavy airplay here and in Latin America last year but would have been a hit in any language.
Despite those accomplishments, it was the forthcoming release of Selena’s first English-language album that had her fans and business associates giddy with anticipation. Instead of competing with Emilio Navaira (Tejano’s George Strait), La Mafia, Grupo Mazz, La Diferenzia, or Gary Hobbs (Tejano’s Vince Gill), she would be taking on the likes of Whitney Houston, Gloria Estefan, and Madonna. Her rivals were cheering her on. She was going to lift all of Tejano with her.
Then the dream ended—at the hands of the one person outside her family who stood to benefit most from her success.
The Killer
Yolanda Saldivar fit the classic stereotype of la dueña, the faithful chaperone or assistant. Neither attractive nor charismatic, the short, pudgy registered nurse from San Antonio was Selena’s constant companion. Her devotion and loyalty were beyond question. With the Quintanilla family’s blessings, Yolanda founded the Selena Fan Club in 1991. Whenever Selena y los Dinos played San Antonio or nearby communities, Yolanda was at Selena’s side. She was Selena’s eyes and ears, friends said—so trusted that she gave up her fan club position last fall to run Selena’s boutiques.
But some members of Selena’s circle spoke of another Yolanda. She was possessive and controlling, says Martin Gomez, who designed fashions for Selena until, he claims, Yolanda’s obsessiveness drove him to quit. She was a loner who had lived with her mother until recently and had few friends. She had once been accused of embezzling funds from a previous employer, and she had defaulted on a student loan. A woman who moved into an apartment with Yolanda discovered that Yolanda didn’t just have pictures of Selena on her walls—the whole place was “like a shrine.” Spooked, the woman moved out after two weeks.
Word reached Abraham Quintanilla in January that something had been amiss with the fan club. Several fans had complained that they had sent in their $22 but had never received the promised T-shirt, CD, picture or biography. About the same time, employees at the boutiques began to raise questions about Yolanda’s actions. Abraham began quietly investigating the matter and didn’t inform Selena until he felt he had concrete evidence.
In early march, Abraham, Selena, and Suzette met with Yolanda and demanded a full accounting. Yolanda denied the accusations and said that others were intent on making her look bad. Still, she must have seen what was coming. The person she had devoted her life to was going to cut her loose.
On March 13, after undergoing a background check, Yolanda bought a snub-nosed .38-caliber pistol from a San Antonio gun dealer. She then traveled to Monterrey, Mexico, where Selena planned to open a boutique, taking Selena’s business records with her. At some point during Yolanda’s trip, Selena phoned her and told her to bring the records back.
Subsequently, Yolanda resurfaced in Corpus Christi. On the night of Thursday, March 30, Selena and her husband, Chris, went to room 158 at the Days Inn, where Yolanda was staying, to pick up the records from her—despite the fact that Yolanda had asked Selena to come alone. When Selena got home, she realized some bank statements were missing, and she made arrangements with Yolanda to pick up the remaining records Friday morning.
On the morning of March 31, Yolanda asked Selena to accompany her to Doctor’s Regional Medical Center, claiming to that she had been raped in Monterrey. When test results were inconclusive, Yolanda changed her story: She hadn’t been raped after all. Selena and Yolanda then drove back to the motel.
Once again, Selena asked for the bank statements. Apparently, she also attempted to sever their professional relationship. Harsh words were exchanged. Yolanda demanded that Selena return a ring she’d given her as a gift from her employees. As Selena removed the ring, Yolanda pulled out the gun. When Selena ran out the door and yelled for help, Yolanda screamed, “You bitch!” and shot her in the back.
Selena crossed the courtyard and collapsed. The bullet had entered her right shoulder and severed an artery. By 11:49, when she crawled to the lobby door, she was bleeding to death.
“I’ve been shot,” she cried.
“Who shot you?” asked a motel employee.
“Yolanda.” Selena said. Then she passed out, clutching the ring in her hand.
An ambulance arrived within three minutes to take her to Memorial Medical Center. Notified almost immediately that Selena had been in “an accident,” Abraham and his family raced to the hospital, but the message had gotten confused: They thought she had been in a car wreck. A doctor met them in a waiting area near the emergency room and told them she had been shot. When he said he had administered four units of blood and had been able to restart her heart, Abraham became frantic and interrupted him. Because of her religious beliefs, he said, Selena would have objected to the transfusions.
But it was too late. The transfusions hadn’t helped, the doctor said. Selena was dead.
The Crime Scene
I woke up early on the morning of Sunday, April 2, with an urge to be in Corpus Christi. The outpouring of emotion on the news the night before was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
On the way to pick up David Bennet, who would come along for the ride, I tuned in KEDA-AM’s weekly Spanish-language mass from San Fernando Cathedral in downtown San Antonio. The priest was talking about Selena. “It isn’t the woman who senselessly killed her,” he said. “It is the whole culture of death we’re promoting.” He criticized the urge to retaliate. He begged the congregation to “say no to the spirit of getting even.”
When we got to the Days Inn in Corpus, we met up with about one hundred people, almost all of them Hispanic. Some were taking photos of themselves in front of the motel’s marquee, which read “We Will Miss You Selena.” Others were hanging around the lobby, where Selena spoke her last words. Still others were standing stoically near room 158, posing for cameras and video recorders. At the foot of the door were a bouquet of carnations, some roses, a pink oleander blossom, a votive candle, and several notes.
Many people seemed to be combing the site for something—evidence, perhaps, or a memento. Several young men hovered around the wooden trash container by the lobby, inspecting every square inch for flecks of dried blood. Two teenage boys in Dallas Cowboy jerseys ran their fingers through the thick blades of grass in the courtyard, where Selena had collapsed. Near room 158, three boys carefully picked up wood chips from the flower bed, studying each one for traces of blood.
Retracing Selena’s final steps, I felt the same cold chill I’d felt at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. I looked around for David, who had wandered off. I found him kneeling near the lobby, joining two men in silent detective work. After peering underneath an empty planter, he rose, his face paler than before. “I think I’m going to lose it,” he said. He had found a rust-colored spot that the cleanup crew had missed.
Home
From the motel, we drove south on Navigation Boulevard to Bloomington Street, where the Quintanilla clan lived. Traffic was stalled for five blocks as motorists lined up to cruise by. The three modest brick homes, surrounded by a single chain-link fence, were among the newest structures in the blue-collar, largely Hispanic neighborhood, and each had a paved driveway that took up most of the front yard. The house on the corner was Chris and Selena’s. It was small and unassuming — not the sort of place you would identify as the domicile of a superstar. The two-story house next door was Abraham and Marcella’s. The next house belonged to A.B. and his wife, Vangie.
Scores of fans stood in front of the fence, which had turned into a canvas of poster boards, banners, photos, flowers, colored ribbons, balloons, and teddy bears. There were flags of the United States, Mexico, and El Salvador. There were messages from Puerto Rico and Wisconsin, Dallas and Deer Park, Laredo and Three Rivers, and La Feria. One especially touching note was simply addressed, “To: Heaven, From: Houston.”
Staring at a picture of Selena on the fence, a toddler gleefully tugged at his mother’s skirt: “Look, Mommy. Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.”
The Long Good-bye
Downtown, for nearly a mile, people lined the sidewalk of Shoreline Boulevard on their way to Bayfront Plaza Auditoruim. They were waiting to see Selena’s closed casket, which was surrounded by five thousand white roses—Selena’s favorite.
The fans started showing up as early as four in the morning, though the doors didn’t open until nine. Still, things went smoothly until a rumor spread through the crowd late in the afternoon: The coffin was empty; Selena’s death was a publicity stunt. To calm the well-wishers, the family had the casket opened. The body was Selena’s. Her hands, folded across her chest, clutched a single red rose. By ten, when the doors finally closed, almost 60,000 people had paid their respects.
I drove home that night but the next morning impulsively decided to drive back to Corpus. It was too late to attend the private funeral service, but since it was being broadcast live by San Antonio TV and radio stations, I listened while driving down the highway—with my headlights on. Minister Sam Wax, a Jehovah’s Witness, preached in English about the resurrection of Jesus according to the faith. “Jesus said, ‘Do not marvel at this.’” The service lasted less than twenty minutes. At the family’s request, each of the six hundred mourners placed a white rose on the coffin. Before long, a two-foot pile of roses rested atop the casket, which was eventually cleared and lowered into the ground.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Days Inn precisely 24 hours after my first visit. Just as many people were walking the grounds and searching for traces of the crime, but the façade of room 158 had been transformed. Messages scribbled in ink, pencil, and felt-tip marker covered the door, the window, the sidewalk, even the limestone block interior. From a distance, room 158 looked like an altar.
When I first heard Selena had been shot, I thought I was witnessing the end of an era and the shattering of the great American crossover dream. Now I wasn’t so sure. At the very least, my Anglo friends finally knew how to properly pronounce “Tejano.” And I was getting a life’s education in the art of grieving, the power of family, and the cycle of life and death. How sad it all was—and yet how vibrant and full of life this send-off was. These people, most of them strangers to Selena, had gathered to say their good-byes. I heaved a deep sigh, wiped the tears from my eyes, and took one last look around.
The Wisdom of Abraham
It was midafternoon when I arrived at Q Productions, an old auto body shop along Corpus Christi’s Leopard Street industrial strip that the Quintanillas had transformed into a company office and recording facility. Most of the mourners had already cleared out, and Eddie Quintanilla, Selena’s uncle, was happy to regale me with tales of his childhood and of his brother Abraham’s high school group, Los Dinos. Abraham loved street corner doo-wop music and rhythm and blues, Eddie said, but he played traditional Tex-Mex fare—polkas and waltzes with Spanish lyrics—to pay the bills. He recalled how Abraham took a good job, working for Dow Chemical in Lake Jackson, to support his family. With money he saved, he opened a nice Mexican restaurant, quit the plant, and re-formed Los Dinos with his older children. Selena began singing in the restaurant when she was eight. Then oil prices slumped, people quit eating out, and the restaurant went under.
In 1982, Eddie said, Abraham moved the family back to Corpus Christi. Music provided them with sustenance as they traveled across Texas and the United States in a battered van pulling a broken-down trailer. “That was a long, long time ago,” Eddie added with a smile.
I found Abraham Quintanilla sitting in a chair in the studio control room while a TV crew packed up its gear. A broad bull of a man, Abraham had impressed me as a classic band manager, a streetwise type who instantly sends the message that he’s not to be trifled with. He certainly knows the rules of survival on the tejano dance hall circuit: how money at this level of show business is generated (in gate receipts and merchandising, not CDs and cassettes), who was most likely to steal it from you, which disc jockeys can sell an extra 10,000 copies of an album, which promoters skim off the door.
Above all, he knows talent. Even when the shy Selena was singing country music in English or, later, when the members of Los Dinos were jumping around in shiny space suits, Abraham saw something. And, indeed, in 1989 he managed to sign a breakthrough six-figure deal for the band to cut Spanish-language records for EMI’s new Latin division. Then came last year’s English-language contract with SBK records. The beat-up van and rickety trailer were replaced by a tour bus, and a semi full of production and staging equipment. Selena y los Dinos had become a mini-empire. I couldn’t help but wonder then if Selena would someday ditch her father and sign with a big-time management firm in New York or Los Angeles. Now, that was beside the point.
Since Selena’s death, Abraham had been on automatic pilot—talking to reporters, overseeing funeral plans, conceding that he had always been wary of Yolanda Saldivar, even lamenting the death threats that Emilio Navaira’s wife had received. But as the crowd began to leave, he spoke with dread abut the future. “When I see that empty place and I know she’s not there, I’m going to start missing her,” he said. “It’s a tragic thing that happened. It’s a reality.”
We talked of respect, of family, and of the senselessness of the crime. Abraham railed against the concealed-weapons bill that the Texas Legislature would likely pass: “We live in a dangerous world. Why make it worse? My God, everyone’s armed to the teeth. Anybody is liable to kill you for a minute thing.”
But life would go on, he vowed. He manages six other bands, and his other children are certainly gifted enough to perform on their own. Selena had already recorded four tracks for her English-language debut, and four more songs in English are on the sound track of the new movie, Don Juan DeMarco, in which she has a cameo appearance. There was enough material for a new album. “Of course, it would never be the same,” he said. “There will never be another Selena. But we’ll go forward with it.”
I told him what I had seen, how people were looking for answers. Were there any lessons they could take from the tragedy?
He paused deliberately. “Parents, it’s time to go back to the old-fashioned way of teaching our children,” he said. “About morals, about the dangers of life. They’re too trusting. They don’t think there are bad things out there. I hope that a lot of young people see this and grow cautious. I don’t think Selena knew how popular she was getting. I would tell her, ‘Mi hijita, don’t go to the store by yourself at night. Don’t go to the mall alone. There are people who will kill you for no reason, just because you are famous.’”
Abraham Quintanilla knew all that, but he also knew his daughter was old enough to make her own decisions. She would listen, then tell him, “Dad, you think all people are bad. I can take care of myself.”
Abraham talked about the band’s first Mexican tour. The promoter warned them that the media there thrived on sensationalism. Yet Selena disarmed everyone at Los Dinos’ first Mexican press conference by walking in and hugging every single journalist. “By the time she started doing interviews, they were in the palm of her hand,” Abraham said, smiling. “The next day, all the articles praised her. They said she wasn’t some prefabricated blonde. Several remarked about the color of her skin.” It was the brown tone of the masses not the pale white of the Castillian Spanish. “They called her una mujer del pueblo—a woman of the people. She never forgot where she came from.”
You may soon have a problem, I told him. The veneration of Selena was taking on a life of its own.
He shook his head. “Selena wouldn’t want that. She believed worship should go only to the Creator. Just remember her as a good person who loved people and loved life. I don’t think Selena would be pleased to be part of any form of idolatry.”
I told him how sorry I was for him and his family and hugged him in an abrazo.
Moments later, I was back on the highway, holding back sniffles, ready for the long weekend to end. I turned on KEDT-FM to listen to the news when an announcer broke in, saying there had just been a shooting at a refinery inspection company in Corpus Christi. Five people were shot by a former employee with a pistol. The company was only about five miles from Q Productions. It happened at the same moment Abraham Quintanilla and I were talking about guns and violence.
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