Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was in the prime of her career and just two weeks from her 24th birthday when she was gunned down by an unstable and disgruntled former employee on March 31, 1995. The news of Selena’s murder rocked the music industry, leaving her millions of fans heartbroken and shocked. However, the shock turned to horror after the world learned the circumstances surrounding Selena’s death following the release of her seriously tragic autopsy report.
Due to the level of media interest globally, the autopsy was performed just hours after Selena’s murder. The coroner determined the cause of death as “exsanguinating internal and external hemorrhage due to a perforating gunshot wound of the thorax” and listed the manner of death as “homicide.” Selena was shot in her upper right back from a distance. The bullet penetrated her chest cavity and passed through her third rib, damaging her right subclavian artery before exiting through her upper right chest. Selena had been in excellent health at the time of her shooting, and no alcohol or drugs were found in her system. Dr. Lloyd White, a pathologist, concluded that Selena died after suffering “massive bleeding” from the gunshot wound.
Dr. Louis Elkins, a cardiac surgeon at Memorial Medical Center, testified at the trial of Selena’s killer Yolanda Saldívar. He said there was no hope of saving Selena as “there was no evidence of any blood flow to her brain. Her brain was not functioning. She was clinically brain dead” by the time she arrived at the hospital (via AP).
Selena’s murderer remains behind bars
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez’s murder was all the more tragic by the seeming senselessness of it. Her shooter, Yolanda Saldívar, was a devotee of the singer, heading up her fan club and eventually managing one of Selena’s clothing boutiques. However, adoration turned to rage after Saldívar was accused of embezzling $30,000 from Selena’s businesses. Five days before meeting with Selena at a Corpus Christi Days Inn motel, supposedly to collect some paperwork, Saldívar purchased a gun, which she took along with her.
Motel employees testified to hearing a gunshot and then seeing Selena run down the corridor screaming for help while Saldívar returned to the room. The star made it to the lobby before collapsing. As she lay bleeding out, Selena identified Saldívar as her murderer.
Saldívar never denied shooting Selena, as it would be kind of pointless to have even tried that tactic. However, she denied intending to murder her, insisting she’d taken the gun to shoot herself, not Selena, whom, according to Saldívar, she would never have harmed. The jury wasn’t buying it, and Saldívar was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. She was first eligible for parole as of March 30, 2025, but her first parole board did not go in her favor. It was a firm “no” from the Board of Pardons and Paroles, who announced in a statement that her next hearing would be in March 2030.
