Saldivar was a registered nurse from San Antonio who met with Selena after a concert in 1993. They quickly became friends and Quintanilla offered her a job as her fan club's president and working at Quintanilla's boutique. As time went by, Quintanilla and Saldivar began to grow apart, and the Quintanilla family uncovered evidence of embezzlement and fraud being perpretrated by Saldivar.
On March 31 of 1995, Saldivar and Quintanilla met at a Days Inn in Corpus Christi. The accepted course of events is that Quintanilla told Saldivar that she was being fired and Saldivar responded by grabbing a gun and shooting Quintanilla as she was exiting the room. Mortally wounded, the singer managed to run to the motel lobby before collapsing in front of staff members. She was taken to a local hospital and died one hour later.
Saldivar barricaded herself in her pickup truck in the motel's parking lot. She held police at bay for several hours before surrendering. The dramatic image of Saldivar in the truck with her gun pointed to her head was broadcast live on television throughout the United States.
Saldivar's trial for the murder of Selena Quintanilla was followed closely by the Latino community in the United States. The trial venue was moved to Houston after Saldivar's lawyers successfully argued that she could not receive a fair trial in Corpus Christi, Selena's hometown. She was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in October of 1995, with parole eligibility set for thirty years. When she began her jail term, she alleged she would soon say something about 'the truth' that she knew about Selena. The television network VH1 interviewed Saldivar in 1998. She told the network that a deposit box in Mexico contained some sort of information about Selena, but no such box could be located.
Yolanda Saldivar had to be isolated for safety reasons. Prisoners had taken a liking to Selena's music. When Selena died, they sent death threats to Yolanda Saldivar. Yolanda spends 23 of her 24 hours in her 9x6 prison cell alone, without contact from other visitors. She can purchase a radio from the commissionary, and she can have a two hour visit with family or friends each week.