Texas authorities denied parole to Yolanda Saldívar, saying the 65-year-old still poses a danger to society and that her release would create a potential risk to public safety. A panel of three members of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles made the decision after reviewing her conduct in Gatesville prison and the results of a risk analysis.
Saldívar had already served the minimum time required by law to ask for the benefit, but the board rejected her request and set her next review for March 2030. The decision keeps the woman convicted in one of the most painful legal chapters in Tejano music inside prison more than three decades after Selena Quintanilla was killed.
Selena was 23 when she was killed on 31 March 1995 in a motel in Corpus Christi, Texas, a killing that still shadows the case against Saldívar. The board’s finding, described as that she remains a “peligro para la sociedad,” lands on the 31st anniversary of the death and renews attention on the betrayal and diverted funds that have long defined public memory of the case.
The tension in the case has never been about whether Saldívar could ask for release. It has been about whether Texas would ever decide that the harm tied to Selena’s killing no longer outweighed the risk the board says she still presents. For now, the answer is no, and the next chance to revisit it will not come until 2030.
