Selena's Killer 'Most Hated Person' in Texas Prison

Relavites say there is a 'bounty' on the head of Yolanda Saldivar, who is up for parole in 2025
By Gina Carey,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 10, 2023 2:05 PM CDT
Selena's Killer Feels 'Unsafe' in Prison
In this November 1994 photo, Selena Quintanilla-Perez performs during a concert in Corpus Christi, Texas.   (AP Photo/George Gongora-Corpus Christi Caller-Times, File)

The convicted killer of pop icon Selena Quintanilla-Perez has few friends in prison. And a relative of Yolanda Saldivar, who is serving a life sentence for the 1995 murder of the singer, tells the Messenger that the 62-year-old wants out. "There's a bounty on her head. She says she doesn't feel safe in prison, which is why she wants to get out," she says. Saldivar filed a lawsuit in 2017, claiming Mountain View Unit, a maximum-security women's prison in Texas, was "unsafe and dangerous." Former prisoners confirm that Saldivar is a target there. "She is despised," one tells the outlet. "Everyone wants to get her. She's the most hated person at Mountain View."

But staff at the prison counter that Saldivar is safe. "We kept the other inmates away from her," one former guard tells the Messenger, noting that when Saldivar moves around the prison, it is put on lockdown. "There were credible threats sometimes. But our job is to keep her safe, no matter how many people hate her." Saldivar is up for parole in March 2025, and a separate report in the Messenger says nothing on her prison record would prevent her from seeking release. "She is a different person than she was in 1995," one of her relatives says. Saldivar fatally shot Selena after the singer confronted her over embezzling $60,000 from her fan club, per PopCrush. Saldivar claimed at the time that the shooting was accidental, and that she had planned to kill herself. (More Selena Quintanilla stories.)

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