I was intending to post this earlier, but that was before Terri died this AM.
Posted on 03/31/2005 10:50:23 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
Even after 10 years, singer's death still confounds fans.
By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, March 31, 2005
CORPUS CHRISTI — Felix Madrigal recalls the solemn procession of cars after his neighbor, 23-year-old singer Selena Quintanilla-Perez, was shot and killed 10 years ago today.
After the news hit with the numbing thud of disbelief, hundreds gathered outside the Quintanilla family's three-house compound in the working class Molina subdivision, lighting candles, leaving flowers and sticking messages in the chain-link fence.
"Everybody was in shock. It was eerie, so quiet," Madrigal said of the day that would be known as "Black Friday" to many in the Hispanic community.
March 31, 1995, was Nov. 22, 1963, to many fans of Tejano music.
Where were you when you heard the news?
Stephanie Funes of Georgetown was only 3, dancing to her favorite song, Selena's "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," when her mother came over and clicked off the stereo. "She said Selena was dead, but I didn't understand," Funes said Tuesday as she stood with six family members over Selena's grave at Seaside Memorial Park.
It still doesn't make sense. The one who connected so deeply with her fans, shot to death by her fan club president. Selena was equally wholesome and sexy, seemingly unaffected by stardom even as she vigorously pursued it. She was on the verge of crossing over to the mainstream, and then she was gone.
It took a single gunshot wound to her right shoulder, which severed an artery. Shot at about 11:48 a.m. in Room 158 of the Days Inn on Navigation Boulevard, Selena was pronounced dead at Memorial Medical Center at 1:05 p.m.
As spontaneous expressions of grief broke out across the country, the singer's killer, 34-year-old Yolanda Saldivar sat in a red pickup in the parking lot of the Days Inn with her .38-caliber revolver placed against her temple.
"She would be crying and yelling, 'I didn't mean to hurt her!' and she looked very panicked," said Capt. David Cook, the SWAT team supervisor that day. After a 10-hour standoff, Saldivar surrendered to police.
Selena woke up that dark day at 7:30 a.m., donned a sweat suit and headed to Saldivar's room at the Days Inn with two purposes. First, she planned to take Saldivar — who had claimed she was raped in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, two days earlier — to the hospital for an exam. Then Selena planned to ask her former confidante, who had spent the previous three weeks dodging accusations of financial improprieties, about some missing bank statements.
At the hospital, nurses said evidence that Saldivar had been raped was inconclusive. Back at the motel, Selena angrily confronted Saldivar about the incomplete financial records, according to Saldivar's statement to police. Saldivar pulled out a gun, she said, and put it to her own head. When Selena started to leave the room, Saldivar shot her.
The singer made it to the motel's lobby, a distance of about 30 feet, then collapsed. "Help me, help me, I've been shot," she told motel employees, who were trying to stanch the profuse bleeding as the manager called 911.
"Selena had wanted to believe Yolanda all along, even though her father said (Saldivar) was a liar and a thief," said Austin writer Joe Nick Patoski, who researched the case for "Como la Flor," his Selena biography. "She felt sorry for her, but I think that when she came to the conclusion that Yolanda had made up the rape in Mexico, that was the last straw. She was through with Yolanda, and it probably got ugly back at the Days Inn."
Patoski's book quoted sources who said that Selena kept Saldivar on longer than she wanted because Saldivar had several key fashion contacts in Mexico, where Selena planned to expand her clothing business.
Saldivar had begun her association with Selena as an exemplary employee, founding the fan club in 1991 and building it to more than 5,000 members in a matter of months. Two years later, Saldivar quit her nursing job and moved from San Antonio to Corpus Christi; working for Selena gave her life a fresh sense of purpose.
When the singer fulfilled a childhood dream by opening her clothing boutique in Corpus Christi in 1994, she tapped Saldivar to manage it.
But employees started noticing the books just weren't right, and one told her father, Abraham, who ruled his daughter's musical career with a steel grip, but generally kept out of her fashion business.
Selena, her father and sister Suzette confronted Saldivar on March 9, 1995, with accusations that she had been skimming from fan club receipts, as well as from the boutique. Saldivar was asked to produce a full accounting.
Two days later, Saldivar went to a San Antonio gun shop/firing range and bought a .38-caliber revolver, but soon returned it for a refund. On March 26, 1995, she went back to A Place To Shoot and repurchased the revolver.
"To tell you the truth, I had never heard of Selena when we got the call 10 years ago," Cook said. "We were focused on a homicide suspect, making sure no one else got hurt. But the next day, I started seeing the news reports on TV and in the paper, and I realized what an icon, what a role model she was to so many."
The initial shock was followed by rage and thoughts of revenge on the 4-foot-9-inch Saldivar, who reinforced the cruel reality that anyone can point at anyone else and make them dead. When Saldivar's bond was originally set at $100,000, the word was that several street gangs were taking up collections to bail her out and kill her. The bail soon was raised to $500,000.
At her trial, which moved to Houston for safety concerns, Saldivar pleaded not guilty, claiming that the gun discharged accidentally. The jury deliberated just two hours before finding Saldivar guilty of murder.
She's currently serving a life sentence in the Gatesville prison. The gun used to kill Selena was ordered destroyed by a judge, lest it one day become a grisly souvenir.
There is no longer a Room 158 at the Days Inn on Navigation. So many fans flocked to the site, many writing on the walls outside, that the motel changed the room numbers and posted signs saying that only registered guests are allowed on the property. (The room where the murder took place is now No. 150, a hotel employee confirmed when pointed out that it's the only room number tag that is bolted down.)
The neighbors in Molina are more accepting of the curious. "The cars drive by all the time," Madrigal said. "They ask, 'Where did she live?' and I show them. They come because they love Selena; they love her music. She's still the star of our neighborhood."
At the Selena memorial, in a Bayfront gazebo on Corpus Christi Bay, a sign says "Show Your Respect. Please No Markings" and yet the bricks on the ground are covered with Sharpie messages such as "Dreaming Of You," which is the title of the posthumously-released album that debuted at No. 1 in July 1995.
A Hispanic girl, who looks no older than 6 or 7, kneels down and draws a crude heart on one of the bricks. Ten years after the senseless murder, it's the closest the little girl can get to touching Selena.
Selena tributes in Texas today
In San Antonio, Tejano groups will perform at the 'Selena: Fotos y Recuerdos' tribute from 4 to 11 p.m. in Rosedale Park, 340 Dartmouth St.
In Corpus Christi, a candlelight vigil and showing of the movie 'Selena' is planned from 6 to 10 p.m. at Cole Park Amphitheater.
'Selena Vive!'
When: April 7. Doors open at 5 p.m.; show starts at 7 p.m. (The show will be broadcast live on Univision from 7 to 10 p.m.)
Where: Reliant Stadium, One Reliant Park, Houston
How much: $15 to $65 plus applicable service charges. (Parking charge at the stadium is $7.)
Info: (713) 629-3700
I was intending to post this earlier, but that was before Terri died this AM.
I remember Selenium.
10 years since Selena was killed.
And the birth of J Lo's career.
I only know about her from what I read after the murder and the movie that JLo made. What a shame.
Rest in peace.
Is that a roach crawling out of her shirt? I don't mean to be rude but it looks odd.
?????????
I have no idea what that is, but it may be part of her bra strap or whatever....
Yeah, and the b!tch who killed her, Yolanda Saldivar, who was given a life sentence, is up for parole this year. There's an online petition http://www.petitiononline.com/33195/petition.html to sign to try to persuade the authorities to keep her behind bars.
LOL. But you do have a point. (smile)
LOLOLOL!
I've never heard of this woman, but RIP, anyway...
I almost wish they would release her, she wouldn't last 10 minutes.
It looks more like a big roach crawling INTO her blouse.
At first I thought it was a microphone. But it looks like something bigger stuffed in there. That breast looks too crunchy.
Frankly, she must be held in protective custody, I can't explain her surviving this long. Surely, there are enough Latino bad girls where she's at who would like to get at her.
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