The Murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez

0:00The first weeks of school set the tone for the whole year. Give your child a head start with Wyzant, the nation's largest tutoring network. Whether it's Algebra, SAT Prep, or Building Study Skills, online expert tutors deliver private one-on-one lessons on your family schedule. Over 12 million lessons booked, and your first hour is protected by the good fit guarantee. Go to Wyzant.com. That's w-y-z-a-n-t.com and use code podcast15 for $15 off your first lesson. At the age of 23, Selena Quintanilla Perez was known as the Queen of Tahano Music.

1:06In 1994, her album Selena Live won her Grammy Award, making her the first Tahano artist to win a Grammy. She'd also already won multiple Tahano Music Awards, such as the top female artist and entertainer of the year. Her album sold millions of copies. She had her own official fan club and merchandise, and she just started her own line of fashion boutiques called Selena ETC. That's right, I don't know why I read it like that. Selena, etc. Obviously. Yeah, she sold millions of albums. It's not exactly a surprise that she has her own official fan club. That's a lot of that. What's going platinum? Is a million albums platinum? I think it's less even, isn't it? Anyway. When she died, she was already well on her way to becoming an icon. I'd say selling millions of albums, you and winning a Grammy aren't you already an icon? And a story would go on to be told in multiple documentaries, a television series, and a movie featuring Jennifer Lopez. But what makes a story so tragic isn't just the fact that she'd died so young, it's the fact that the person who'd pulled the trigger was someone that she'd loved like a sister. Oh my. I get the feeling this could be one of those very early speculation for all whistle-woy here.

2:10Jealousy, maybe? Like a friend. And then your friend becomes basically mega mega rich and famous and you're like, a family's legacy. Selena Quintanilla was born on the 16th of April 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas to Abraham, Jr. and Marcella of Felia, Quintanilla. Her father, Abraham, was the second generation Mexican American and it started playing music when he was 14. He eventually joined a singing trio called the Dinos. Dinos, Dinos, I'm guessing Dinos, right? The Dinos, while he was still in high school and dropped out of school to pursue a career in music. He married Marcella on the 8th of June 1963, and she would go on to give birth to their son, Abraham Isaac III or AB six months later. Their eldest daughter, Suzette, was born in 1967 and at the time, the Dinos were struggling to make it in the music industry. In the book Selena, Commula Floor by Joan Nick Potosky, Abraham explains that they'd

3:11grown up in the Tahano subculture, basically Mexicans who were living in Texas and had adopted some of their traditions and culture and had grown up listening and dancing to Tahano music. But their record label insisted that they should only perform American pop. I.S. the suits. It's like I.S. guys, but if you want to sell music, you have to do this. It's like, yeah, but that's not the cult. That's not the music. I just play the bloody songs. However, the growing Mexican community stopped attending their shows and had no interest in buying their albums. Although they shifted focus, they changed the band's name to Lost Dinos and started focusing on singing Spanish language songs instead. So you're a pretty sensible pivot if one thinks not working, try something else. I've got a few YouTube channels that I've done this with. Usually works quite well or at least it is a chance of it working. Despite the change, the band still struggled to gain popularity and according to Potosky, one of the stumbling blocks that they struggled to get past was the prejudice that most Americans still had against Mexicans, which meant that they were banned from playing prominent venues and most restaurants.

4:12The band wasn't making enough money to support their families and eventually disbanded. But according to Abraham, the last straw was when he came home after a tour in 1969 and realized that the 6-year-old A.B. didn't know who he was and seemed to be scared of him. Oh my god, that'd be terrible. My kid's 6 years old. You just got higher, it's like, hey, they'd just be like, who are you? That's fucked up. Oh my god. Someone went on to work as a shipping clerk and Tomo to operate over the Dow Chemical Company in Lake Jackson, Texas, which is where Salina was born. According to Abraham and Marcella, they'd been convinced that they were expecting a boy and had planned on nabing the baby Mark Anthony. So when the new baby girl was born, they had no idea what to name her. According to family legend, the woman who shared the room with Marcella had given birth to a boy and told the Quintanilla family that if their baby had been a girl, she would have called her Salina. They were told that the name was of Greek origin and meant moon goddess, a Abraham and Marcella, like the sound of that. Why were they convinced they were expecting a boy? It's like I was convinced the first time that I was expecting a girl and the second time

5:14that I was expecting a boy because they did the scan and they can tell because there's a willy in there. And that's how they do it right. It's like willy or no willy. So did they have that and it was wrong or are they just like, you know, one of these people are like, it's going to be a boy, I could feel it. It's like, no, you can't. In the years that follow, the family lived a normal life. Abraham would go to work while Marcella managed the kids in the household and at night, Abraham would teach AB how to play the guitar while Marcella made dinner. Little Salina used to sing along whenever a dad and brother played music. And when she was six years old, Abraham reportedly realized that not only could she carry a tune, but his little girl could really sing. According to Remon Hernandez, who worked as a music for Rhoça, G.B. and R.P. record companies, wrote, I think he saw that he could realize his dreams through his daughter. It was evident. The original lost in us about disbanded at the height of their career. They all got married. They all went into different professions. Everything he wanted that he could not attain as a teenager as a performer. This was his chance.

6:14This is not a healthy thing. Like realizing your dreams through your children is just a recipe for, I don't know, they're not your kids' dreams. And because you're their parents, you can pressure them. And that's not going to make them very happy, is it? Abraham's soundproofed the garage, bought instruments, and set up his own little family band with 16-year-old A.B. on the bass guitar, 10-year-old C.Z on the drums, and 6-year-old Salina as the singer. She's six years old. I mean, my kid's six. She still very much sounds like a child. Isn't her singing going to make us a- isn't her singing going to sound quite childish? Anyway, he called the family band, Sothin Pearl, and forced his kids to practice their music until they were up to his stand. According to Salina, when you're a kid you want to go out, play, be with friends, and dad every day would call us into practice for just 15 minutes a day, and we would scream and holler. I mean, with cry. And there you go, that's why you should not force your dreams on your children, because they have different interests, like playing.

7:15Abraham would later admit that he saw a way back into the music world through his kids, and did have them perform at parties, family get-togethers, county fairs, music clubs, and restaurants. Sothin Pearl and the other entertainers would perform covers of popular songs for their clients. According to Salina, her parents got into trouble with the school not long after, quote, I was making real good grades, but I had a couple of teachers who felt that my father was doing child labor. Where is he going, paid? I mean, is his- hmm, okay, is his restaurant. What's the rules with that? Like sometimes I'll go into like a store here. All the little corner stores are run by Vietnamese people, Vietnamese immigrants here. And sometimes you just be like, buy something and be like, oh, there's a 12 year old ringing this up on the register. It's loud. Anyway, of course, we all got that straightened out.

8:18But evidently, they started thinking she's not doing anything, she's not missing school, because we would only perform on the weekends. End quote. At the age of 10, Salina was already earning tips for her performances and taking part into Harnay music competitions. And after a recording of her was featured on local radio, Abraham reportedly received a payment of $2,000 in exchange for having Salina in the band perform at a grand opening in Houston. It's pretty amazing. Ten years old. And you're actually booking like properly high paying gigs. Like this is $2,000, pretty good. And this is $2,000 in what? The 80s? That's going to be like 10 grand today or something. But then they lost the restaurant. In most of the documentaries about Salina's life, Abraham Klam claims that they'd lost the business as a result of the 1979 energy crisis and the economic recession that followed shortly afterwards. But according to Joe Nick Potosky, Pabagayez was forced to close in March 1981 due to a variety of reasons. Quote, Abraham was an inexperienced restaurant tour with a tendency to see as many patrons as he could fit in, applying them with to start a chips and free soft drinks while they

9:21waited for as much as an hour for their orders to arrive. At a time when Margaritas were being touted as the perfect accompaniment to Mexican food, it was against the law in Lake Jackson to sell liquor by the drink, despite decent lunch ground Lake Jackson. Just might not have been ready for home star Mexican cooking that was far more authentic than franchises like Monterey House and El Torrito. Yeah, this is like people are used to whatever your version of your food is. Like I've been to China a couple of times and it's like the food is really different as you would expect to Chinese restaurants in the UK. And the thing is, yeah, kind of prefer the ones in the UK because it's like what I'm used to. Which, yeah, I mean, it is what it is, isn't it? Whatever the reason though, people stopped going to the restaurant and the Quintanilla family lost their business and had to sell their home. When Abraham struggled to find another job, he backed up his family and moved them to our camp in November 1981 where they went on to live with his brother Hector and his family.

10:22He had 13 people living in the house and Salina and her siblings shared a room and slept in sleeping bags on the floor. During the day, Abraham worked as a truck driver for his brother's company and on the weekend, Salina and her siblings performed at weddings and restaurants and country clubs in exchange for money. They got booked for two grand or like ten grand today, I estimate. Surely they're doing quite nicely with all these gigs now. In 1982, the family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas and there Abraham established Salina Elos Dígnos. He was struggling to find a keeper decent job and years later. He explained that it still believed the only way to make good money was to make it in the music industry. But while the original Dinos band have been hampered by prejudice against Mexicans back in the 60s, Salina Elos Dígnos didn't have the same problem since more and more chicanos, aka Mexican Americans, while making appointments and being proud of their language and heritage. According to Luis Elonzo Minos, who used to be the station manager at a radio station in Corpus Christi, quote, For years, the gringo had been saying, You're an American, don't speak Spanish and blah blah blah.

11:22And all of a sudden, chicanos answered, So what? They started being proud that they were Mexican Americans and from that day on. It never stopped. Abraham realized that Spanish language songs were growing increasingly popular on Spanish radio stations and at local festivals. And he decided that Salina Elos Dígnos would solely focus on playing Tejano music, which is a mixture of traditional Mexican folk, polka, and country western that sony and Spanish by Tejano's. Neither of his kids could speak fluent Spanish, so he taught them the lyrics and the meanings of the words. According to Salina, when Dad introduced it to us, we were like, No, you can't make us play it. There were times when we would come into practice and we would start crying, we don't want to learn this music. But we learned. And now that's all we listen to on the radio. And we like to play it. End quote. Abraham managed to get Salina in the band contracts with recording studios, book them gigs, and drove them all over Texas on the weekends to get them exposure. According to an old friend, Mike Chavez, quote, Abraham was the ultimate stage father. He had so many doors shut in his face, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.

12:24This guy went against all odds. Which to be fair, like as much as I'm like, you shouldn't just force your kids into doing this. But as a manager, that is exactly who you are. It's like, don't take no for an answer. Hustle hustle hustle my dude. Go get those. Go get that bag. By 1985, the now 14 year old Salina and the lost Dinos band was slowly making a name for themselves. Should already one, the Tassa Zenzoncly, Tassa Zenzoncly, award for New Female Vocalist had been nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year at the 1984 and 1985 Tejano Music Awards appeared on several Spanish television shows and to perform shows in California, New Mexico, Florida, Illinois, Oregon and Washington. But Salina would later explain that those early years were not easy. Her father mostly book shows in towns where they either had family or friends or relatives so that they didn't have to pay to stay in a hotel. They travelled in an old bus called Old Bertha, but it didn't have any heating or air conditioning and they often slept in sleeping bags on its floors. During the summer, they almost died from heat exhaustion and in the winter, they all had

13:27to cuddle up to stay warm. They made an average of $200 a night. Oh no, that's way less. But if they're doing it often, I still not very much as a e. The worst that unless it is a grand in today's money, it's not bad but it's a lot of people. And that money then had to be used to pay their pianist and guitarist and cover their travelling expenses before the rest could be evenly distributed to Abraham Salina and her siblings. Okay, that's nice. I kind of thought that it would just be family money at this point because they're all underage. According to Salina, if we got $5 or $10, we were like, you're kidding me. We were all happy. This was great. We could go to weeners and go shopping. It could be really frustrating. At times it was like, let's give up. Let's everybody get jobs and stop working, get money and just give it up. But I didn't know. Something always just held us to the music. But Salina was also skipping out on school. According to Suzette, they'd sometimes perform Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights and on Mondays, Salina would be too exhausted to go to class. One of their teachers, Marilyn Greer, would like to testify that Salina had the potential to become a valedictorian student at Goodgorn to get a scholarship at any of the major

14:29universities in the country. And yet Abraham insisted that Salina was going to be a star, that she was going to be able to pay her own tuition fees and that her family were going to benefit from her success. This is just too much. Like if she was like really terrible at school, then maybe the conversation would be slightly different. But clearly if she's going to be valedictorian, then she has basically unlimited options and a dad's forcing her into one of them, which I don't like. According to Marilyn, while other girls did what was appropriate for their age, Salina was forced to travel the state, singing at parties, bars and other night spots until dawn. She was exposed to an environment that was not at all healthy for a young woman of 13. Oh my god, she's not a young woman, she's a child, she's just a teenager, just! Abraham had pulled Salina out of school when she reached the 8th grade and enrolled her in the American school, a correspondence school that allowed her to finish high school when she was 17. She then enrolled at Pacific Western University where she studied business administration and

15:30later claimed that she'd wanted to prove to everyone and herself that she was at least a quote, little intelligent. But it also means that she missed out on typical teenage stuff like going to the movies with friends that were her age, hanging out with them all going on dates or to prom or having her own Quinceanyara. Quinceanyara. Quinceanyara. Quinceanyara. Which is almost like a bar mitzvah, but for girls, oh, 1-15. But even though she was fully aware of everything she had missed out on, Salina would later tell a journalist, you have to sacrifice to get ahead. I lost a lot of my youth, traveling professionally with my family. You can't play, you're always working. At the same time, you don't understand when you're that young. But I look at my life now and are very thankful that my father started us out that young. This is the great, can't not contradiction or whatever the word is, but that, that, okay, I don't think you should force your kids into something, but, uh, my parents did not force me into anything, which I think is the right thing. But do I wish that I could play the piano like a boss? Yes, but I didn't want to play the piano.

16:33My parents were like, you gotta do lessons, and so I did lessons, and then I never practiced. And they were like, okay, you don't have to do lessons anymore, so I, oh, thank you. But yeah, it's, uh, it's what it is. A Love Story Initially, Selena, Elos Dignos had only produced singles, but it wasn't until they produced their first album in 1984 that they really started gaining popularity. And in 1987, 16 year old Selena won female vocalist of the year and female entertainer of the year at the Tahana Music Awards. Selena and the band signed with EMI Latin in 1989. I've heard of EMI, so that's probably a big deal. And Selena officially became the face of the band. Her debut album was released in October 1989, and in a way, Selena, Elos Dignos didn't exist anymore, but they still had all of their original band members. Her brother, A.V., continued to play bass guitar, but he also took over as a principal record producer and songwriter. Abraham resumed his role as their manager and spokesperson, and CZ took on the role

17:35of marketing manager, along with her duties as the band's drummer. That same year, Selena also signed a contract with Coca-Cola to become one of their brand-spokes people in Texas, and she featured in a Coca-Cola commercial. The deal with Coca-Cola guaranteed an income of $145,000 a year. Woo-wee! In 1989, that's a lot now, that's a lot more in 1989. God damn, that's a step up from $200 a night play, bars. As was their unspoken rule, it was then split between Abraham and Marcella, A.V. Suzette and Selena. A.V. had written the commercials Jingle with the help of an up-and-coming guitarist named Chris Perez, and according to Chris, it especially been interested in learning from A.V., whose work he admired. So when A.V. called him up one day and offered him a job, Chris jumped at the opportunity quote, A.V. was one of the first musicians to start incorporating the pop drum machine sounds that were being used by top 40 English language musicians into Tahano music, while most of the other Tahano groups were sticking to the traditional folk sounds created by audience and drums. In his book, Two Selina with Love, Chris explains that in 1989 he was 20, and had already

18:37been performing alongside Selena for a year. He mostly hung out with Selena's older siblings and other band members, and when they were travelling on the family's tour bus, the 17-year-old Selena played the role of the goofy kid sister. Quoting again, Selena was always a lot of fun on tour. Besides joking around with me, she would pull pranks on the rest of the band members, challenge us to beat her video games, or sneak food out of Suzette's hidden stashes of chips and cookies. End quote. Things changed, however, when he accompanied Selena and the other band members on a trip to Mexico in 1989. According to Chris, Selena was able to just be herself while they were in Mexico, and she turned into an independent woman instead of everyone's kid sister. He was also just your typical warm-blooded 20-year-old guy, who'd finally realised that the 18-year-old Selena was actually a beautiful, confident young woman, and he later chose that she had ended up having to make the first move because he was too shy to approach her first. However, every member of the band also knew that Abraham, the father, did not approve of Selena dating any body. Abraham, she's 18, mate.

19:38As it's going to happen, Abraham would later claim that he was only looking out for Selena and keeping good for nothing opportunists from taking advantage of his little girl. Chris, however, was of the opinion that Abraham was just old school and quote, Abraham's marriage was the kind of marriage where his word was law, and Marceler and his children obeyed that law. He might also fear that whomever Selena married might then dictate what she did, including leave her musical career to start a family. Can you, like, you're so successful, and you're making proper bank? Can you walk away from that? And he wasn't far off since Selena would later confirm that Abraham was afraid that if Selena did enter a serious relationship, his little star would leave the band, and all of his hard work would go down the tubes. After all, that's what happened to the original Dinos. Yeah, I can see why, you know, that previous experience colours his opinion of what's happening now, for sure. The family were also very religious, they were just hopes and Abraham wasn't taking chances with his daughter's purity. So whenever they stayed over at a hotel, she's out in Selena sharing a room with their

20:39parents, and whenever they were out and about, Selena had to be escorted everywhere to ensure that she was kept safe from rabid fans and the crazy stalkers that used to hang around outside of the bus. Yeah, that's completely fair, but it's a different story when it is a consenting, adult relationship Abraham made. Initially, Selena and Chris made the best of what limited opportunities they had. They hung out together on the bus, and when the rest of the band members were occupied, they sneaked in a few kisses. Wherever they wanted to spend more time alone together, Selena would announce that she was going shopping or out for a walk and that Chris would escort her. When they weren't on tour, Chris would rent a hotel room on the opposite side of Corpus Christie, and the two of them would hang out there, far away from the sharp gaze of her father. According to Potosky, two outsiders, Chris seemed like an unlikely choice. They were opposites, far and ice. He was introverted in retiring, she was loud and boisterous. She could have had almost any Latino man in the world, and she picked her guitar player. End quote. Sounds very nice, this sounds like a lovely little relationship. Do you know why they're called a little relationship?

21:39I guess because they're young, but it sounds nice. The two of them kept their relationship a secret for more than a year, and by then, the only people who didn't know they were in a relationship, or Abraham, and the fans. But they're not so secret relationship finally came to an end when Suzeh told her father that she'd seen Salina and Chris making out at the back of the bus, oh Suzeh, you grass. Suzeh, no! Abraham initially told Chris that he did not want him hanging around Salina anymore, but this was an impossible request since they all worked together. After a few weeks of growing tension, Abraham pulled the bus over one day, and fired Chris on the spot. Chris backed up his things and left the band. But this didn't tell Salina who spent the next few months sneaking off to meet with Chris whenever she had the opportunity. Whenever she disappeared, Abraham would randomly show up at Chris's mum's house, or his dad's apartment, and demand to know where Salina was. Does it sound very random? Does it sound random at all? Which meant that Salina ended up spending her days with Chris, but sleeping at home to keep Abraham happy. Then on the 2nd of April 1992, Chris woke up to the sound of someone knocking on his hotel room door.

22:41It was Salina, and she informed him that she was tired of sneaking around and not being allowed to see him anymore. So Salina proposed to Chris and told him that she wanted to alope. It's fantastic for Chris. Holy shit. After some discussion about how she'd always wanted a big wedding, and he didn't want her to regret her decision, Chris agreed, and later that morning the two of them officially became husband and wife. They immediately drove to Chris's dad's house to let him know that they'd finally done it. His words, not mind, and then went to visit his mum and stepdad and told them the good news. Salina wanted to wait a while before they told Abraham and the rest of her family, but the next day her brother A.B. called to congratulate them, according to Chris' quote, today of course people would have been tweeting or texting or blogging about our wedding before she and I even made it out of the courthouse. Even without all of that, use of our marriage had spread within the hour. The gossip had led people in the music business to catch wind of it. DJ started folding Abraham's house to see if the news was true. He's like, no, what are you talking about? Wait a minute. A few radio stations even announced the news.

23:42End quote. Salina had been supposed to be at a show in El Paso the previous night, and when she didn't show up, Abraham and A.B. Just started to worry when they were told that she'd gotten married that morning. According to A.B., Abraham was furious, but the rest of Salina's family were happy for her. All they had to do was give their dad some time to calm down. The day after their wedding, Chris and Salina moved into a studio apartment that she'd been renting to use as a workspace, and not long after Abraham showed up. He apologized to both Chris and Salina for the way it acted, and even though it was disappointed that Salina hadn't listened to him, he was old school enough to respect the sanctity of marriage and backed off. Good for you, Abraham. It's a very mature decision. He even asked Chris to return to the band, because it's what Salina wanted. Fucking rounds of applause made very good. According to Susette, just like that, all of the tension that had been present for months dissipated, they went back on the road, and according to Chris, Salina threw herself into her work, but when they weren't working, quote, Salina and I loved staying home to cook, putter, and watch TV. We fully enjoyed experiencing what we'd never had before, an open loving relationship

24:44that we could share with the world, even holding hands on the street if we felt like it. I loved felt fresh again, because we no longer had to tip to around and hide how we felt about each other. End quote. Abraham had bought two neighboring homes for himself and A.B. East family in Corpus Christi, and when his other neighbors' house went up for sale, he offered to buy a for Salina and Chris. According to Chris, Salina didn't want to live right next to her parents, because she knew that Abraham would just use it as an opportunity to keep a close eye on them, but she eventually caved when Chris convinced her that they would only live there until they'd managed to build their dream home. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, they got lots of money, right? Lots of money at this point, so yeah, enjoy that house, build your dream house, then move out. It's okay, it's only temporary. So they moved into the house next door to Abraham's, and within the next year, Salina built what she called their practice family, which included pebbles, a black pomeranian, a miniature doberman named Andre after Andre the Giant, a Siberian husky named Jacks, two English ballmasters named Taylor and Winnie, and a ball python. Oh my god, you're building us a zoo. Jesus. Salina also started collecting Faberjé eggs.

25:45Chris had bought her one as a gift while they were doing a show in Miami, and over the years, Salina's collection of eggs just grew and grew until she had a hole to play case full of them. And because they'd never had a wedding that she dreamed of, Salina informed Chris that she wanted to have a proper ceremony on the fifth wedding anniversary, during which they could renew their vows. And according to her sister, Suzan, quote, after she was married to Chris, Salina would always tell me about her dreams. We would talk about me getting married one day, about her having children, and that her kids and my kids were going to play together, and we were going to raise them together. Salina sounds very nice, and I know it's all going to come crashing down because of the episode of Cultural Criminalist, but yeah. I'm glad that she, the quote, continue, sorry. I'm glad that she got married the way she did, because she got to experience love, and she was a wife. What if she would have waited? The Rising Star In the early 1990s, Salina's music was played on radios all over the southern United States, Mexico, Central America, and Southern America.

26:46She was performing all over Mexico, and had learned how to speak fluent Spanish, so that she could not only connect with her Mexican fans, but also confidently give interviews to the Spanish language press. They were still playing to harness music, but had since gone on to also produce cumbria's and morangs. M-murangas? M-murangs. Or also known as salsa music, because they were more popular in Mexico and other Latin-speaking countries. This makes some good business decisions, I got to say. Salina's growing popularity also meant that she didn't have a shortage of work anymore. According to Chris, while they were on tour, Salina somehow managed to survive on the three to four hours of sleep at night, and after the show she'd meet with fans and sign autographs during the day she'd record music videos or sit in a recording studio recording songs for the next album. The song, Comola Floor, became a signature song in 1993, it was nominated as the song of the year. In 1994, her album Live was named Album of the Year at the Billboard Latin Music Awards and the Tahana Music Awards, and at the 36 Grammy Awards it won for Best Mexican American

27:48album. That same year she also released the album, Amor Prohibido, Or Forbidden Love, and the song Biddy Biddy Bombom, which would become one of their more popular hits. In 1995, EMI records announced that Salina would cross into the English market, but this meant that Lostinios wouldn't be able to perform with her anymore. According to Chris, quote, If Salina was going to stare at the top of a game and make it in the mainstream commercial music world, she needed to be backed by a band as tight and sophisticated as Mariah Carey's or Whitney Houston's. She didn't have that in Lostinios. End quote. While Salina was set to enter the international market, the family bought Abraham's brother's auto-body shopping corpus Christi and converted it into a recording studio. Abraham launched a production company called Q Productions, while A.B. started a production company called The Fat Cat Groove, and they started signing their own artists and producing their own albums. Again, it's a solid business. They're doing great. But Salina had a dream of her own. She had always had an eye for fashion, and at 16 she'd started designing the outfits that the band wore to their performances.

28:48According to Chris, quote, Salina had originally rented her apartment in corpus, principally to use as a studio and a workspace. Most of the space was dominated by a huge table where Salina did all of her fashion sketches and designs. She also made some of her own clothes there. That girl could do more with rhinestones and a bra than anyone. It seems she seems very, very multi-talented. It's very impressive. By that point, Salina wasn't just famous for her voice and her charisma, but also for the outfits she wore, and towards the end of 1994, the now 23-year-old Salina had announced that she would be launching her own clothing line, Salina, etc. Oh my god. Having achieved so much by 23s just wild, Abraham was vehemently against the idea since he still firmly believed that the real money, lay in music, are not fashion. But Salina could be just as stubborn as her father and was determined to make her own dream a reality. Good. As you should, and also there's plenty of money in fashion. Salina ended up buying a property that was located near corpus Christi's biggest shopping centre and opened her very first boutique there. According to Chris, I had never seen Salina more excited than when she started playing

29:49around with her building plans and talking about the interior details for a boutique. She envisioned selling her own fashion designs there and having an in-house salon where clients could get their hair and nails done. Salina hired an experienced staff to help her run her boutique and provide the services she wanted to offer. She hired a fashion designer called Martin Gomez to help her bring her own designs to life and even model them herself. Before we continue with today's episode, big thank you to our fantastic sponsor, Shopify. Look, maybe you've had an idea for a business. You've been putting it off. You've procrastinated. You've wished your start at it sooner. Well, today is the day. You should pursue that idea. You should just test it out. Why not? See where it goes. And you should do that with today's fantastic sponsor that is Shopify. Shopify checkout is one of the best things about Shopify. It is ready. The moment your first customer is ready to pay and it helps more of those customers finish their purchase. And when they come back to buy more stuff because they love what you've built in your

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32:57And now back to today's episode. She also started looking into the possibility of launching her own perfume line and asked for samples of the sense that the perfume are offered so she could decide which one she liked best. When a boutique in Corpus Christi proved to be a success, Salina opened another one in San Antonio towards the end of 1994, but she didn't have time to manage both boutiques. Keep track of the finances, record new albums, shopper performances, and spend time with Chris. Yeah, no, it's time to delegate. So she asked a trusted friend to take on the role of manager to help her manage the business side of things. Yolanda, Sal de Varr. Uh oh. This is the next section is titled number one fan. So I get the feeling Yolanda Salazar is the like very early in this point at this point, allegedly the killer who kills Salina because she's fucking jealous allegedly until we fight out that she did it. Which yeah, let's see. Number one fan.

33:59In many ways, Yolanda Sal de Varr was Salina's exact opposite. She was born on the 19th of September, 1960 in San Antonio, Texas and was the youngest of eight children. Her father Francisco worked as a waiter in a Mexican restaurant and her mother, Juana, was a housewife who earned extra income by selling sweets and other snacks to the kids who'd walk past their house on the way to school. Just like Salina, she was Mexican American and had grown up in the Tahano subculture, but unlike Salina, Yolanda had always been shy and she'd later claimed that she was never popular in school. However, she did relax academically and after she'd graduated high school, she went on to study nursing at the University of Texas. During this time, her older brother received custody of his three children and Yolanda stepped in to help raise them. She worked as a nurse's aide at the San Antonio Hospital to help care for her new little family and as such, it took her around ten years to complete a nursing degree. After she graduated in 1990, Yolanda worked multiple jobs. During the day, she worked as a hospice nurse and was responsible for taking care of terminally or cancer patients. Between 5pm and 1am, she worked the night shift at the San Antonio Chest Hospital, where

35:01she looked after patients who had respiratory problems or suffered from tuberculosis and lung cancer. Good Lord, that is a long shift. That's a lot. In her book, Salina's Secret, the revealing story behind her tragic death, journalist Maria Celeste Araras explains that Yolanda's former co-workers would later comment that Yolanda had been a dedicated nurse who seemed to take her responsibility seriously in the clip. They remember her fondly as listening to her headset radio and humming along to the music as she went about her tasks. Yolanda had been a fan of Shelley Lars, another Tejano artist, and had reportedly initially disliked Salina for always stealing the Tejano music awards from Shelley. There's a proper fan right there. But in 1991, Penis convinced her to attend one of Salina's concerts. According to Yolanda, Salina had lit up the stage through the concert and Yolanda was immediately smitten. She bought all of her albums and listened to the moren repeat, and when she tried to get a hold of Salina merchandise but couldn't find any, she reportedly got the idea of starting a Salina fan club.

36:02A mutual friend introduced her to ZZ, who, as we know, was in charge of marketing Salina Elastinios and ZZ eventually managed to convince Abraham to meet with Yolanda. She explained what a fan club would entail, and reportedly told Abraham that they were missing out on the opportunity to make even more money by selling t-shirts and other one of the kind items. Abraham was initially skeptical of the idea, but Salina loved it, and they agreed to set up the fan club. Yolanda was put in charge of it, and she became responsible for mailing the packages, sending out the newsletters, organizing events and parties that Salina would attend, and arranging for interviews with radio stations. Within a few months, there had more than 1,500 members in the San Antonio area alone, and the fan club would go on to include almost 5,000 fans. According to Salina, they have two kinds of membership. One that you pay for, you get two teeshirts, posters and all these different kinds of paraphernalia, and you get a membership card for $22. And there's another membership where you don't have to pay anything, but you get an agenda of all the places we're going to be at. There's interviews with each band member, there's puzzles that have to do with the band, it's really neat.

37:03End quote. It sounds very 1990's fan club, doesn't it? Yolanda sees ZZ and Salina grew pretty close in the years that followed, and the two sisters started calling the short, sweet-looking Yolanda by a nickname, Buffy, short for Buffalo. Don't ask me why. Yolanda, on the other hand, loveling a revered to Salina as Mia, a Spanish endearment, which roughly translates to my daughter or my darling. Over the course of the next three years, Yolanda attended family events, featured in family photos and home videos and was even a bridesmaid at Suzette's wedding. Salina especially liked spending time with Yolanda, and soon she became Salina's confidence and friend. That's got to be pretty wild. V, you're a huge fan of this person, and now you're their best mate. That's gotta be resupply. The two of them regularly went out for coffee or lunch, or had their hair and nails done together, and Salina would buy Yolanda cow-themed gifts, like a cow-hide carpet and a phone with cow-hide prints on it. Okie dokie. When Salina needed a manager for a new line of boutiques, Abraham suggested that she should appoint Yolanda since she was doing such a good job at running the fan club and was

38:04already a trusted member of there in a circle. Salina appointed Yolanda. I get the feeling as a fox in their air-house, right? Salina appointed Yolanda as a new manager in 1994 in July. Yolanda thanked her friend for the opportunity, quit her nursing job despite the fact that she would now be earning less than before, and in December 1994 she gifted Salina with a $3,000 gold Faberier Egg Ring that had been specifically designed for her. Oh my. Also, why are you getting paid to it? Let me get a lot of money, right? Can't they pay more than she gets paid as a nurse? The egg was made from white gold and surrounded by 52 tiny diamonds. Salina's signature S had also been included in the design, and Salina loved it. She wore a Turner index finger which showed off in photos, and called it her and Yolanda's friendship ring. As time went on, Yolanda also started taking on the role of Salina's personal assistant, and according to Chris, it reached a point where you had to get Yolanda's permission before you would be allowed to talk to Salina. The two of them would go on trips to visit Salina's boutiques. Yolanda had access to Salina's home and her business accounts, and she regularly accompanied

39:06Salina on tour. And when Salina started making plans to open another boutique in the Mexican city of Monterey, it was Yolanda who scouted out possible locations, and spoke to potential business partners. According to Chris, their relationship with Yolanda started taking a turn when Salina's fashion designer Martin Gomez complained that Yolanda was treating the employees badly, according to Chris Martin told Salina the quote, "'Yolanda's mean and controlling. There's a lot of tension at work. She yells at my seamstress, and even at me." Over time, some of the employees that Salina had considered to be friends had all left, and those who were still working for her had no way to complain to her directly because Yolanda was acting as a gatekeeper. According to Chris, quote, "'Yolanda fired anyone she didn't like, so employed her retention wasn't steady.'" That's why I was 25 people. The quote continues, "'The staff had been cutting half, and employees continued to complain about the way Yolanda treated everyone.' Salina turned to deaf ear, and wanted to believe that Yolanda would ever do anything to hurt her." End quote. Another employee had also confided in Martin that Yolanda had asked her to pick something

40:08up from her apartment on a way to work, and when she entered the apartment, she saw posters and photos of Salina all over the place, almost as if Yolanda returned her apartment into a shrine dedicated to Salina. That's weird. That's weird anyway. It's particularly weird when that person is also, apparently, your best mate. Like once you become best mates, don't you take the weird shrine down and try to forget about it because the person who's the subject of said shrine is going to find it weird if you ever discover that. Martin warned Salina that he thought it was creepy, and that in his opinion, Yolanda was doing her best to keep Salina to herself. In around December 1994, Salina and Chris noted that the boutiques were losing money, and that there were charges on their credit card accounts that they couldn't account for. Uh-oh. Martin outright warned Salina that Yolanda was mismanaging the business and eventually left Salina's employee because she couldn't afford to keep him on. The Salina refused to think badly of her friend, and her disgruntled employees eventually approached Abraham in March 1995 and told him everything. He struggled with the charges on that card though, like because if she's stealing money

41:09from the business, you...like you should look into that. Abraham then conducted his own little investigation where he would go and he told Salina that her employees weren't the only ones who'd been complaining about Yolanda. He and Suze had also been receiving messages from disgruntled fans who'd paid their $22, but hadn't received their merchandise. And once more, some of them would later confirm that they'd been ordered to pay their money directly into Yolanda's bank account instead of the one that had been set up for the fan club. Uh-oh. Sounds a little bit like allegedly fraud. In Abraham's estimation, Yolanda had embezzled between $30,000 and $60,000 in the four months that she'd been employed as a manager of Salina, etc. And Salina was hurt when she discovered that the $3,000 Faberger ring that Yolanda had gifted her had been bought with her own credit card. Oh god, that's horrible. Jesus Christ, what a betrayal. Abraham, Suze and Salina eventually arranged to meet with Yolanda at Abraham's office on the 9th of March 1995 and accused her of not only mismanaging the boutiques, but also of defrauding Salina's fans.

42:09Salina would later tell Chris that Suze had outright called Yolanda a thief and a liar, that Yolanda denied everything. She promised to provide them with proof that she had been stealing money from them, but yet Abraham told Yolanda to never put a foot on their property ever again and had her escorted out the building. Yeah, right on my dude. We don't know exactly what happened next. We do know that Salina ended up following Yolanda into her motel room. We know that the two of them had an argument and that the people in the neighbouring rooms heard the two women shouting at each other. We know that Salina had turned to leave and was halfway out the door when Yolanda shot her in the back. We know that Salina managed to make her way toward the reception area and that she ran into the lobby at 11.49am. We know that she cried for help and that she told the staff on duty that Yolanda was going to shoot her again. We know that she collapsed on the floor of the lobby and when the motel employees asked her who'd shot her, she said something along the lines of the woman in room 158. When the ambulance arrives at approximately 11.53am, God damn that's quick, four minutes! Salina was lying in a pool of blood and was holding her phabaget ring in one hand.

43:12According to Ruben D'Lion, who was a manager at the day's in, quote, I started talking to her trying to comfort her because she just started fading away. As I talked, there was just less and less movement from her, less moaning, everything. She just started going away. The paramedics rushed Salina to the Memorial Medical Centre and did their best to storm trap leading. She was rushed into an operating room where the doctors found that the bullet had entered her right shoulder, passing her shoulder blade. It passed through her chest cavity, severed the vein that carries blood from her heart to her right arm and upper body, damaged her right lung, shattered her clavicle and then exited through her chest. She was suffering from massive internal and external bleeding and her heart had already stopped before she was pushed into the operating room. Yeah, I remember making a video ages ago about what it's like to get shot, weirdly. It was YouTube back in the day. And I was just, I didn't really, I know getting shot is obviously bad, but I didn't really quite like how extreme it is because this happens like you get shot and then it bumps a bone and then it goes through some soft tissue, then it bumps another bone and goes through

44:15some more soft tissue, bumps another and then it finally leaves. It's like, oh you got shot in the shoulder. So it's like, in the shoulder, out the back, you're okay. Get patched up, it's like in the shoulder, hits a bone, goes down through your insides like, goddamn, not nice. She was suffering from massive internal and external bleeding and her heart had already stopped before she was pushed into the operating room. Once again, the media knew that Salina had been shot long before her family were told about it. Salina's aunt had heard the news on the radio and then called Chris to let him know that Salina had been shot and that he had to go to the hospital. So he's got a call from a friend who said that Salina had been shot and AB was at the recording studio when the media started to call to confirm the news. According to Abraham, his receptionist had answered the phone and then screamed before she started crying and told him that Salina was in the emergency room at the hospital, according to Chris quote, in my mind of course, Salina was still alive. It was going to go into the hospital and see her and hold her in my arms. The thought never entered my mind that my wife not might not make it. Much less that Salina might pass away before I could ever see her again.

45:17But Salina, Quintanilla Perez, would be declared dead at 105pm on the 31st of March, 1995, 16 days before her 24th birthday and just two days before her third wedding anniversary. Fnatic. When the first police officers arrived on the scene at approximately 11.53am, the 911 operators were busy broadcasting Ylander's description and car registration number and warned responding officers that she was armed. So when a police cruiser pulled into a parking lot of the days in and realised that Ylander's red pickup was on its way out, he blocked her way. Ylander put the truck in reverse and then pulled into an open parking spot to allow the police cruiser to pass, but it parked behind her in the officer got out. He started shouting at Ylander to get out of the truck and at that point, two more police cruisers arrived and formed a barricade around her. Ylander had nowhere to go. When Detective Paul Rivera arrived at the scene, Ylander was sitting in a pickup with the revolver pointed at a right temple, yelling at the police officers that she was going to

46:17end her own life. The locals what teams in FBI crisis negotiators were dispatched and when they arrived on the scene, they called Ylander's cell phone and waited for her to answer. It's 1995, Salina. I guess she's like running a business and stuff that makes sense. It's early. Is it early? Did people have sex? People I guess people did have cell phones in 1995. I guess people had cell phones before that. Yeah, definitely. Sorry, I've done a while I'm surprised. The crisis negotiator Larry Young would later explain that when she finally answered the phone, she was crying and babbling and recording of the call Ylander could be heard saying that she just wants to end her own life, that she can't put the weapon down and that she had a minute to shoot Salina. You sure in the back she was leaving the room? Come on now. Within an hour, the road leading to the days in had been closed off due to the number of people who'd gathered there. The media were doing live broadcasts and hundreds of cameras recorded every second of the tenspally standoff that was taking place. According to Crisis Negotiator Young, it made their job more difficult since Ylander was already feeling cornered and afraid and her mood plummeted even more when she heard a news bullet and declared that Salina had passed away.

47:18Some of the things she said were, I had a problem with her and I just got to end it. I don't deserve to live. Look what I've done to my best friend. I loved her, I didn't mean to hurt her. Her father hates me. Her father is responsible for this. He made me shoot her. He came between us. I did something bad. I've disgraced my family. Forgive me God for what I did. Five hours into the negotiation, Young managed to hook Ylander by agreeing with her statements that she had a meant to hurt Salina. Young told her that it had simply been an accident that she'd only meant to keep Salina from leaving the room that she'd only pointed the revolver at her while she was trying to stop her and that it had gone off accidentally. Before long, Ylander started to agree with him. She had a meant to kill Salina. She'd meant to end her own life. She'd just tried to keep Salina from leaving. It had been an accident. She took the police negotiators just over nine and a half hours to convince Ylander to put a weapon down and step out of the pickup. When she finally surrendered at 9.30pm that night, she was swarmed by police officers who covered her with jackets and led her to the nearest police cruiser while cameras flashed across the street. Ylander was then escorted to the nearest police station, where she was formally charged with

48:21the murder of Salina Quintanilla Perez. Ylander waved her right to a lawyer and then proceeded to give detective Rivera her statement. Ylander claimed that Salina's business had been in the process of failing. When she'd started working there, Salina had employed 38 people but now only employed 14. Ylander claims that Abraham had accused her of stealing money from the company and that it told Salina that Ylander was a lesbian and had to attempt to get his daughter to stay away from her. Her father, Abraham Quintanilla, was putting a lot of pressure on Salina and Salina suggested that we stay away from each other so her father wouldn't get mad. Ylander explained that she'd been in Monterey, Mexico when Salina called her on the 29th March and asked her to bring some bank statements and other papers. When Ylander arrived in Corpus Christi, she booked a room at the days in an assulment to come over. She explained that when Salina came to see her at around 11pm then night, she told her that she'd been assaulted when she'd been in Mexico. Salina went home and the next day had offered to take Ylander to the hospital. Masses all troop so far, right? On their way back to the motel, Salina reportedly accused her of being a lesbian again and told

49:21her that she'd given her the wrong bank statements. I got mad and told her I didn't want to work for anymore. We got to the motel, both went inside and we both argued because I wanted to quit working for her. According to Ylander, Salina had demanded that she hand over the business documents. She then grabbed Ylander's briefcase and threw its contents on the bed. Ylander grabbed her purse and took out her revolver and Salina retreated to the door. Quoting again, I pulled the hammer back and I shot at her as she was walking toward the door. Salina took off running and I don't know where she went. I got scared and I got in my truck and drove around the parking lot looking for her. End quote Ylander appeared in the local magistrates court the next day and pleaded not guilty. Her bail was initially set at $100,000. Having the week it was raised to half a million because Ylander supposedly was considered to be a flight risk. If she's a flight risk, which, yeah, she's in never murder, maybe don't give her bail at all. Could be an interesting idea, couldn't it? Why are you giving someone who's in prison in jail for potential murder?

50:24Allow to go away? By then the facility was being kept at it. It also had been flooded with death threats and according to Drone Nick Potosky, quote, rumors were flying that some tufts were taking up collections to make bond for Salvador so they could kill her. All Salvador's surname, sorry, I forgot, that's Ylander. Even in prison she was as good as dead. The Mexican Mafia, the dominant gang in the Texas Penal System, supposedly had a price on her head, whoever did the deed, would be a hero among men. The Queen of Tejana Music When the media informed the public that Salina are passed away, the Hispanic world went in the morning. According to Chris Quote, mourners began arriving from all over. They drove, walked and rode bicycles, passed our house on Bloomington Street, many stopping to create a shrine to Salina in front of our chain-link fence with balloons colored ribbon stuffed animals, drawings, photographs, scribbled notes, flowers, and flags from all over. A one-point-align at cars wrapped around five blocks. End quote. The night after Salina died, candlelit visuals were held in front of her boutiques, in Corpus

51:26Christi, San Antonio, and all over the country. Artists who've been friends with Salina canceled their performances that night. Madonna and Julio Iglesias, on Rique Iglesias as father, okay? A call to share their condolences. Spanish radio stations, play their music, and her albums sold out all over the US. The Corpus Christi didn't leave their homes or go shopping, and Texas Governor George W. Bush declared that a birth they would be known as Salina Day. Salina had been scheduled to perform in the Colosseum Arena in Los Angeles that weekend, but it was turned into a wake instead, who was attended by just over 4,000 people, and the Sunday after a death in the Lady of Alpila Church near a house at a record number of attendees who wanted to honor Salina, an estimated 450 people in a church that could only see 225. On the 3rd of April 1995, the day of her funeral, the funeral service had to be moved from the funeral home to a convention centre just to accommodate everyone. More than 60,000 mourners arrived at the seaside memorial park to pay their last respects to her before the funeral service began, and they all stood in queue for an opportunity to

52:27touch Salina's coffin. During the funeral service itself, Abraham ordered that Salina's coffin should be open since Riemis was spreading that the singer wasn't actually dead, and her funeral service was broadcast on live television. Salina's family had ordered 5,000 white roses that were all placed around her coffin, and approximately 600 guests had been invited to attend the service. They all brought white roses in honour of Salina, and reportedly threw them onto her coffin after it was placed in a grave until the pile was too feet deep. In the weeks following a death, thousands of people continued to make pilgrimages to our grave site, about just as many went to the days in, where they left messages, in flour, and flowers in front of the door of room 158, and covered the door, and walls, in graffiti. Some people even tried to see if they could locate a rock or a leaf or a piece of tree bark that had been spattered with her blood the day she'd died, because, well, people are weird. Yeah, that's fucking weird. What the fuck? Her death was compared to that of Elvis Presley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and John Lennon, and according to Potosky, Salina was more than just a great entertainer to Mexican Americans. She was a role model, particularly to Hispanic girls.

53:29She was an entertainer. He was a millionaire at 19, had a positive personality, and talked to kids about staying in school and avoiding drugs. She was a hero to a brown-skinned people, and with precious few heroes to claim. End quote. According to journalist Maria Celeste Ararus' book Salina's Secret, a phenomenon called Salina Mania occurred within the weeks following her death, and Salina's fan club was flooded with requests for t-shirts and mugs, and whatever other merchandise they had on hand. Abraham also had a hell of a time keeping small time, on treponurs, from selling knock-off Salina merchandise, and pirated cassette tapes, and t-shirts with pictures of Salina's body lying in her coffin. Fuckin' out, guys. Have some class, Jesus. According to Maria Celeste Ararus, quote, her family started mass production of t-shirts, cops, coffee mugs, posters, jewelry, calendars, and so forth. They also published a mail order catalog through which one could order her designs for clothes, and even Salina branded jeans. The Quintanyas also launched four different fragrances for the perfume market, each one carrying the name of one of Salina's songs. End quote.

54:29The New York Times did a feature of her, and the issues of People magazine that featured stories about her life and death flew off the shelves. On the 24th of April 1995, People magazine dedicated an entire addition to her story, and it reportedly sold more than 1.5 million copies. Coca-Cola also reportedly sold a limited edition Salina bottle to commemorate her, and donated the funds to the newly established Salina Foundation which supported kids with financial support and other resources that they might need to get ahead in life. Within the next six months, her album, a more prohibito, sold more than 1.5 million copies. The English album should have been working on before a death-dreaming of you was released in July 1995 and sold 300,000 copies in a week. By the end of 1995, it had sold more than 2 million, and Salina was more famous than ever. Jose Bajar, the president of EMI Latin, explains the success of her album's follows quoting, There's no doubt the tragedy has expedited the process, but she had a massive fanbase prior to the tragedy. People don't buy a music because she was on the 11 o'clock news, but because the music is beautiful.

55:30And this music stands on its own. But there was one question that her fans still needed an answer to. Why did Yelanda do it? And they all demanded justice for their beloved Salina. I think she just was jealous and an insane fan, and she couldn't handle her dream was falling apart, and so like a music she killed her. The trial of Yelanda Salovar Yelanda's murder trial kicked off on the 11th of October 1995 in the Harris County Courthouse in Houston, Texas, and the public interest in the case led to Yelanda's murder trial being a bird to the OJ Simpson trial that was based earlier that year. A week before the trial took place, the judge here in the case, Judge Mike Westegren, declared that the trial wouldn't be aired on live television. This was an attempt to keep the trial, trial from turning into a media circus, like it had during OJ Simpson's murder trial. Still, the court held a lottery each morning during which 25 members of the public could win a seat in the public gallery.

56:31According to journalist Maria Celeste Rairos, this meant that on the first day of the trial, a homeless man woke up to find that he was the first in 910 to the Courthouse. Quoting, He happened to be the first one chosen, and when he saw the other selected people cheer as though they'd hit the jackpot, he thought they were giving away free breakfast inside the courtroom. And so at the start of the trial, there were people outside the courtroom fighting to get in, and he was a man he wanted to leave because he discovered the courtroom was not a cafeteria. End quote. And a weird aside, Yelanda was represented by Def. Saterni Douglas Tinker, a well-known and beloved Def. Saterni, who was said to resemble Santa Claus, had reportedly agreed to represent her after her original defense attorney quit, citing that it received several death threats that he didn't want of Addy, didn't want of his family in danger. Tinker would later claim that it received several death threats after it became public knowledge that he was going to represent the woman who murdered Celena. But it wasn't as many people as he expected. However, he also trod that he couldn't afford to hire a team of bodyguards for the duration of the trial since he only received $25 a day for his services. Bra, that is… even for the 90s, that's terrible, you're a lawyer.

57:35And would later admit that Yido gave his computer home at the end of the day, just in case someone decided to torch his office. When Yelanda entered the courtroom, she was escorted by five sheriff's deputies, with several SWAT members keeping watch nearby to ensure that no one took a shot at her before a trial could even begin. The one who entered the courthouse was also searched to conceal weapons and dogs hunted for explosives according to Potosky. The lawyers on both teams was still actively receiving death threats from the Mexican Mafia and the District Attorney's Office were taking these threats seriously. District Attorney Carlos Valdez represented the state and during his opening remarks he stated that quote, �Omars 31st of this year, the evidence will show you, Selena Quintanilla Perez was killed in a senseless and cardly act of violence.� He then described the events that had transpired on 31st March and explained that it was their belief that Yelanda had intended to end her own life, but during an argument with Selena had turned a weapon on the beloved singer instead. He then urged the jury to consider the fact that this murder didn't occur in a vacuum, and that the murder was simply the result of tensions that had been building over the

58:37course of several weeks. Defense Attorney Tinker, on the other hand, kicked off his opening statements by describing Selena's personal history to the jury. He told them how Abraham had forced his kids to practice music and that an eight-year-old Selena had to perform at restaurants and festivals on weekends instead of playing with her friends just like any other eight-year-old. All because Abraham had seen an opportunity to become rich and took it. He painted Abraham as a controlling father who managed his kids' lives with an iron fist and took it even gone so far as to buy them houses next to his so that he could keep a close eye on them. I mean, yeah, it's like for what we've read, kind of accurate though, right? In his opinion, Selena's decision to open a fashion boutique was kind of an escape, an attempt to carve out place in the world for herself that wasn't managed and could draw by her father. Sweet all, Yelander had realised this, and then did a best help Selena ensure that her fashion boutiques were successful. However, quoting, Abraham never approved of these businesses. Evidence will show Abraham Quintanilla started making efforts to break them up. The accused are of being a lesbian, which was not true.

59:40The evidence will show that Abraham Quintanilla threatened Yelander physically. Once Yelander realised Selena was hurt, she'd run after her to help her, but she'd lost sight of Selena, so she ran to her truck to see if she could find her and take it to the hospital. There, she was confronted by police officers who were pointing weapons at her, and when the full implications of what she'd done hit her, a grieving and heartbroken Yelander locked herself in her truck and contemplated ending her own life. I don't believe that this was an accident, by the way. Just in case that wasn't obvious. Selena's family members were the first to be called to the stand. Abraham told the court that when that started out, Selena, Yelander, and Yelander, had just been a small family band that travelled all over Texas, but that they'd been able to find success through a lot of sacrifice and hard work. He explained that their faith was important to his family, and that it had enabled him and Marcelo to raise a daughter that didn't drink, didn't smoke, and didn't use trucks. Chris told the court about how he and Selena had met, and that she'd always loved fashion. He also admitted that when Abraham had heard that they were in a relationship, he'd tried

1:00:41to force them apart as well, which led to their decision to elope and confirmed that, yes, it had been Abraham's idea that they should move into a house next to his. Selena sister Susette explained that she'd befriended Yelander and then introduced her to the family. They all explained how they'd been informed that Yelander was stealing money from both the fan clubs and Selena's boutiques, and about Selena's insistence that she was going to fire Yelander. What none of them agreed on, however, was exactly when Selena had planned on firing her. According to Chris, Selena had effectively fired Yelander on the 9th of March, but didn't formally terminate her contract because she still needed to collect the tax documents from her. One of Selena's employees claimed that Selena had told her that she was still intending to fire Yelander when she had an ails done on the 30th of March, and according to Susette, Yelander was still formally employed by Selena on the 31st. The prosecution then told the court that this wasn't the first time Yelander had been accused of committing fraud. In 1983, she'd been working as an assistant nurse for a dermatologist, called Dr. Faustino Gomez, when he discovered that she'd stolen an amount of $9,200 from his practice.

1:01:45He ended up suing her, and the case was settled out of court. Two months later, another judgement was brought in against her when the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation reported that she still owed them a amount of $7,361. This, the prosecution argued, was proof that Yelander had always been a thief and a liar. Oh, yeah, I mean, she does seem like she stole quite a lot of money then, didn't she? The prosecution then revealed that after Abraham, Susette and Selena had confronted Yelander on the 9th of March 1995, Yelander went to a gun shop called A Place to Shoot in San Antonio, where she bought a 38-calibre Taurus Model 85 revolver for $250. Yelander reportedly told the store clerk that she worked as a nurse and that the family of one of her patients had threatened her life. The store clerk then showed Yelander how to use the revolver, since it was clear that she'd never had one before. Yelander passed the criminal background check and went back to collect her revolver on the 11th of March. She showed it to Selena on the 15th and then returned to the gun shop to return it, stating that her father had gifted her with a 22-calibre pistol instead. But on the 26th of March, Yelander went back into the gun shop and repurchased the revolver

1:02:47before leaving for Mexico. Holy shit, Yelander, make up your mind. Chris explains that when it's spoken to Selena on the phone the morning of the 31st of March should just learn that Yelander had been lying about the sexual assault and she felt angry at betrayed. Based on the evidence, they found inside the room the police suspected that Selena had fired Yelander and then took off the famerjee ring as a way of proving that their friendship was over. During the argument, Selena had emptied Yelander's briefcase and handbag in search of the documentation she'd needed and Yelander had grabbed the revolver. The police believed that Yelander's intention had been to threaten to end her own life in an attempt to win Selena's sympathy, but when Selena tried to leave Yelander snapped and shot Selena instead. Despite the defense's claims that she'd left her motel room in search of Selena, she didn't call 911. According to Maria Celeste Rarras, Valdez pointed out that there were obvious blood stains on the door, indicating that it was impossible for Yelander not to know that her friends had been wounded. This meant that she had not come to her aid because she chose not to. Staff who'd worked at the motel testified that they'd heard shouting coming from room 158,

1:03:49followed by a shot and the sound of a woman cry for help. Norman Marie Martinez, who worked as a cleaner testified that she'd seen Yelander chase after Selena and call her a bitch before she'd turned around and headed back to the room. And she was asked by the defense why the speech of testimony wasn't included in a statement to the police. She claimed that she hadn't told the police because bitch isn't bad word. Yeah, I don't think they're super worried about your use of crass language. They're Yelander, they're probably more anxious about you fucking shot someone. However, the defense argued that Martinez had been on duty on the other side of the motel and wouldn't have been able to see either Yelander or Selena and that her testimony was false. Why would she lie? The only person who had witnessed Selena stumbling towards reception hadn't seen Yelander and hadn't heard her say anything. The defense also claimed that the motel staff had contaminated each other's testimonies as the months went by since the testimony they were now providing in court matched each others, but contradicted their original statements. This the defense claimed was proof that the motel staff testimony couldn't be trusted, but as the prosecution would so deftly point out in their closing statements quote,

1:04:52the principal witness was Selena herself. Her presence was felt. She told us what took place with her body, her blood. She told us everything without saying a word. The court heard that after Yelander had shot her, Selena had run approximately 390 feet or 119 meters towards the motel's reception area before collapsing in the motel lobby where she bled out. In fact, the police were able to determine the exact route that she'd followed since all they had to do was follow the clear trail of blood that led from the doorway in room 158 to the motel lobby. The prosecution also revealed something that hadn't been common knowledge before the trial. When Abraham had arrived at the hospital following the shooting, hidden from the hospital staff that they weren't allowed to give Selena blood transfusions because as a Jehovah's witness, they believed that blood is equal to life and that by using someone else's blood they're essentially stealing life from someone else. How about I would be very happy for a Jehovah's Witnesses to take my blood? If they like take my blood, I don't think it's stealing, you can have it. Here it is as a gift. Like, it's just a stupid, stupid religious rule.

1:05:54The leads to play people just dying for no reason. However, to counter the possibility that the defendant would use this as even more proof that Abraham had been so controlling that he'd essentially caused Selina's death by refusing a life-saving blood transfusion, they called the medical staff at the memorial medical center to testify. They explained that if the bullet had entered her body just a fraction of an inch higher or lower, Selina would have survived, but due to the nature of Selina's wound and the rush of adrenaline, her heart had literally been pumping her blood out of her body. By the time she'd arrived at the hospital, she'd already bled out and her veins had collapsed. In the emergency room, the doctors that transfused two plines of blood directly into her heart in an attempt to save her boy then was already too late. According to Dr. Louise Elkins, quoting, There was no evidence of neurological function, there was no blood flowing to her brain, her pupils were fixed and dilated. She was not breathing on her own. She had no vital signs. End quote. When Detective Paul Rivera was called to the stand, he described the scene that was unfolding in the hotel parking lot. He explained that Yelandra had locked herself in her vehicle and had threatened to enter

1:06:55her own life. He explained how their place to, especially designed receiver next to a truck that allowed them to talk to her on a cell phone and record their conversation. The recordings of these negotiations were submitted into evidence and for the next five hours, the court listened as Yelanda cried and prayed and begged for forgiveness. On the tapes, Yelanda can be heard saying, When Abraham was asked about Yelanda's claims, he denied ever laying hands on her but

1:08:03he did admit to trying his best to convince his daughter to stay away from Yelanda because he knew that Yelanda was obsessed with Selena and yet Selena did not listen. But the tapes also allow the prosecution to claim that Yelanda had initially claimed that she had intended to kill Selena. In the tapes, Yelanda says that, I had a problem with her and just got to end it. However, five hours into their negotiations, Yelanda had heard that Selena had passed away at crisis negotiator Larry Young started to repeatedly tell Yelanda that it had only been an accident that she had a mental kill Selena. All of a sudden Yelanda started claiming that yes, it had been an accident. She just waived the gun as Selena and it went off on its own. Sure it did Yelanda. Sure it did. The defense tried to prove this by calling Mike McDonald a sales clerk at a place to shoot to testify and he reportedly told the court that yes, guns misfire all the time. He claimed that where a 38-caliber weapon was cocked, the weapon can go off with just a touch. According to McDonald, it takes less pressure to fire than it does to turn off a light switch.

1:09:04He also claimed that if numerous holes in the roof and walls of their shooting range to prove this, maybe people should be more careful with guns if they just can go off all the time. A shot plenty of guns. I've never had one just go off. For no reason. It's always just what you pulled the trigger, didn't you? Diggy. But the prosecution called in Ed McKinstree, who was a firearms examiner and weapons expert, he said that no, the 38-calibertaurus model has a special pin that prevents this. A casual brush of the trigger won't cause the revolver to fire, which suggests that in the moment, Yelanda had intended to shoot Selena. Yeah. Yeah, she did. In a last ditch effort to save their case, the defense started criticising Detective Porovere as handling of Yelanda's interview. Specifically, the difference between the claims Yelanda had made when talking to Larry Young, when she insisted that it had been an accident compared to the police statement in which she claimed, I pulled the hammer back and I shot her as she was walking towards the door. Detective Rarer admitted that he hadn't written her statement downward for word. It made notes and then had a secretary type it up for them. Once he finished, Yelanda signed it and he destroyed his notes.

1:10:07His interview with her was witnessed by another detective and detects his ranger, but it wasn't videotaped and it wasn't recorded. The prosecution argued that Detective Rarer had followed police procedure, but the defense claim that Rarer could have written whatever he had wanted on Yelanda's statement, and they'd never know the difference. The defense claimed that Porovere wasn't interested in pursuing justice, he was interested in making a case. He knew in the early hours that this was a big case. He wanted to be the one to get Yelanda. It's not to get to, this is like the most open and shut case ever. But the employee didn't work, and Joe Nick Potosky explains that the jury didn't fall for the defense because claims that the shooting was a mere accident. During their closing arguments, the defense failed to explain why Yelanda would purchase the revolver in the first place, why should repeatedly ask Selena to come over, and why should Lied about being sexually assaulted, and why should ultimately, shot Selena. In their closing arguments, the prosecution however claimed that when you look at the events of March 1995 in chronological order, Yelanda's actions are those of a killer.

1:11:07On the day the Abrahams who's at in Selina had confronted her, Yelanda went out and bought a weapon. For the next three weeks, she lures Selina to her by promising that she'll hand over the documentation that Selina wants. When Selina starts to pull away from her, she claims that she had been sexually assaulted, and when that ploy failed, she threatened to end her own life. But by then, Selina no longer trusted her, and quoting, As Selina walked out the door, everything Yelanda had laid in her life, everything that she is in this life, was walking out the door, and she wasn't going to let that happen. Prosecutive elders ended his closing statement by telling the court that Yelanda had hated Abraham Quinterna for coming in between her and Selina. And how do you hurt Abraham Quinterna? You shoot his daughter. A diabolical mind will shoot the person. He loves the most. Well, that's pretty fucked up. After the court was adjourned, the jury deliberated for a full two hours. When they came back, they announced they reached a verdict. Yelanda was guilty of first degree murder, and would later be sentenced to life at prison with parole eligibility after 30 years.

1:12:10More on that later. When Yelanda's verdict was broadcast outside the court house, tens of thousands of people gathered there to celebrate. According to Maria Celeste Rarras, some Yelda in delight, others cried with emotion and still others in Alton Parade. For them, justice had been done. People came from all over the city, flooding the area around the court house, and traffic came to a standstill in a spontaneous street festival, which suddenly came to life. People danced to Selina's music as it exploded from huge boomboxes. Nothing like this had ever been seen in Houston. In the year after Selina's death, it was revealed that she hadn't had a will and that the public learned she hadn't actually been as rich as they'd thought. As we know, ever since Selina Elostinius was established, the family had a strict rule about splitting their earnings evenly, and they'd continued to do that even after Selina became the star. This meant that Selina and Chris had a network of just $326,000 when she'd died, and that included the two boutiques, and Selina's red Porsche. Whoa, but you were mega famous.

1:13:11That even if it's like split between four, that's not a lot of money that's left over. That's not. Wow, okay. I mean, obviously it's a lot of money, but not a lot of money to this situation. As Patex's law, Chris inherited everything, and it would later be reported that it signed away all rights to Selina's music to Abraham and Cue productions. When he was told that it made an incredibly stupid decision, he shrugged, and said that he was foremost a musician, not a businessman, and that there was no one better fit to look after Selina's legacy than the man who'd made her who she was. That's very mature of you. Abraham, on the other hand, kind of became a celebrity in his own right by following Selina's death. Cue productions kept on selling Selina Bradd merchandise, and it'd go on to have a direct hand in the many documentaries, movies, and even the Netflix television special that was produced about Selina's life. Shortly after a murder, it had already been approached by a possible biographical movie that was going to be made about her life, and he agreed to work with the production team because he wanted the whole world to know the true story about Selina, and he wanted to put an end to all the false rumors. Production on the movie started in early 1996, and the film Selina was released on 21 March

1:14:141997. It starred a young and up-and-coming Puerto Rican actress named Jennifer Lopez, and it would go on to earn $11.6 million in its opening weekend. Selina's continued popularity has since been compared to Marilyn Monroe's, and she's credited for opening doors and enabling other Latin artists such as Jennifer Lopez, on Reacon Glacias and Shakira, to have successful music careers in the United States. People continue to visit Corpus Christi to pay their respects to Selina, and Abraham built the Selina Museum on the same premises as Cue Productions. According to the website Visit Corpus Christi.com, the Selina Museum and mission includes a tour of Selina's stage costumes, collections, and memorabilia including her Red Porsche, Grammy Award, and so much more. Guests may even catch a glimpse of Selina's family because Cue Productions is still a working studio and office. End quote According to some sources, Abraham was initially bothered by people's claims that he was still using Selina's legacy to enrich himself, but he's since gotten over it. He's not enriching himself. What's he supposed to do? Just give it all away, give all the IP away. That would be really odd.

1:15:14But as I watched the last few minutes of the Netflix documentary, Selina Elosdinos, the way he continued to cling to Selina's legacy and image just seems sad. Oh, okay. I guess it just depends on the vibes, doesn't it? Some grieving parents continue to tend to their children's graves, turn their bedrooms into shrines or start foundations in their honor. Abraham, on the other hand, built a museum for his daughter, and in the documentary he explains quote, Death is a very painful thing, especially if it's your child. You can never understand it unless it happened to you. You understand that it's going to hurt, but not the depth of the feeling. And sometimes it just hits me. Dismember Dependencies Now for those keeping track, it's already been 31 years since Selina was murdered, and Yolanda was sent to prison. Yolanda, who's now 65 years old, became eligible for her all last year. But it was denied since the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had determined that quote, the offender poses a continuing threat to public safety.

1:16:16I've already pointed out numerous times that the prison gang, the Mexican Mafia, had reportedly sent death threats to the prison and Yolanda's lawyers, but they weren't the only ones who wished for Yolanda's death. In the trial, some of Selina's supporters reportedly walked around carrying a coffin which they explained belonged to Yolanda since they hoped she would be sentenced to death. After her verdict was read aloud, the lawyers on both sides met with people outside of the courthouse, and were seen handing out signatures left, right, and sent at one bay lift even asked Yolanda for her signature. Classy might do, classy well done. Selina's Faberjé ring disappeared after her death, but legend has it that Abraham got rid of it since it was a symbol of Yolanda's betrayal. The revolver that Yolanda had used to murder Selina had somehow ended up in the possession of a former court employee and was rediscovered in 2002. While some people argued that it also belonged in the museum, the court order was issued in June 2002, and the revolver was destroyed before its remains were thrown in the ocean. In the year after Selina's death, it was reported that more than 600 baby girls who had been born in Texas were named after Selina, and that includes Selina Gomez, whose parents

1:17:19were huge fans of her music, because the more you know, and that's the end of today's episode, thank you so much for being here. See you next time. What's up? I'm Delaney Fisher, host of the Cell Poples podcast where science, spirituality, and sustainability are brunch buddies. Each week I explore the cutting edge of personal growth with leading specialists who share paradigm shifting insights. Come hang out with us. You can subscribe to Cell Poples wherever you get your podcasts.

1:18:25By the end of each episode, you'll know who was involved, details of the crime, and what went down at trial. Also featured on Murderish is my own personal story about the time a man followed me home at night and I found him in my bedroom. Listening to this podcast doesn't make you a murderer, it just means you're a murder-ish. Listen to Murderish on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Kristen from True Crime Creepers. Every week I tell my friend and True Crime Newbie MoGab about a case she's never heard before, but that I've been obsessing over. We talk about all the real life creeps from serial killers to con artists, so if you're into dark tales with a touch of humor, tune in wherever you get your podcasts. We want to tell you about the hottest new podcast on the block. Coffee in cases. Join me, Allison, and me, Maggie, as we take on cases that are often overlooked, but are screaming for justice. Coffee in cases is a true crime guilty pleasure that you don't actually have to feel guilty

1:19:29about. Check out Coffee in cases every week for a new episode on your favorite podcasting app.