Original subtitles

♪♪

Do I say that funny? Guitar

Man: Guitar? Guitar?

No, you're from Texas. They're expecting a drawl.

Guitar, yeah. [ Laughs ]

Where's your Texas drawl?

I think I've kind of lost it through the years.

I used to be really bad, but I think traveling and everything,

I've kind of picked up everybody's accents

and kind of made it into one.

♪♪

♪♪

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

She is a Latina icon, cut down at 23

on the cusp of superstardom,

an all-American kid raised in Texas

whose charm, talent, and legend loom so large,

she is known only by one name -- Selena.

It was the introduction of an obsessive fan

into Selena's world that would change everything.

It would alter the path of Selena's life

and ultimately lead to her shocking murder.

The events of that day -- bizarre, confusing,

and for many, inconceivable.

Here's "How It Really Happened."

Selena: I was wearing this long dress, and what was going through

my mind was like, "Please, Selena, don't fall.

I'll be so embarrassed." [ Laughs ]

Anyway, it was really great. I'll never forget it.

It's something to remember always, always.

Today we're looking into the death of Selena...

There you go. [ Laughs ]

Cossack: ...and the woman who's accused of murdering her.

Initially, what we heard was that Selena had been shot.

Woman: Police officers and SWAT Team members

are still trying to negotiate the alleged killer.

Yolanda: [ Sobbing ] I was trying to show her the gun! Man: What?

You could hear her crying and a lot of whimpering.

Saying that she had done

something real bad to her friend.

Young: She made it clear that whatever happened to her,

she didn't mean it.

Yolanda: I didn't mean to do it!

Man: What do you mean? It was an accident!

You know, I don't believe it.

Cortina-Weiss: How could this have happened?

We have lost a superstar.

It's heartbreaking.

Why would somebody kill this 23-year-old singer?

Why would she kill her? It made no sense at all.

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

At the time Selena died, she was the biggest act in Tejano music.

Selena: Tejano music is a mixture of music.

You have the German polka.

You have a little bit of country.

You have Mexican music, and it's all fused into one melting pot.

She was working on her first English-language album,

and it included the track "Dreaming of You."

Selena: ♪ 'Cause I'm dreaming ♪

♪ Of you tonight ♪

♪ Till tomorrow ♪

♪ I'll be holding you tight ♪

The excitement was insane, you know?

This was one of the biggest dreams.

We've waited for this for very long time,

and we're really looking forward to it.

There was no question in my mind that she was at least the equal

or was going to blow past both Gloria Estefan and Madonna.

People predicted she was going to be a huge, huge star.

Man: When did you know you wanted to be a performer?

Very young. I started singing when I was 6 1/2

and recorded my first record when I was 8 years old.

Abraham, Selena's father, created this band with his kids,

named it Selena y Los Dinos.

Selena: My father had this really good job, and it was about '81.

The economy went down. We went under.

We had to file for bankruptcy. We lost everything.

So that's how we got into the music as a profession.

That was our way of putting bread and butter on the table.

The band starts touring, and every weekend,

Los Dinos are out there playing on the Tejano circuit.

Her father was her manager.

Sterling: Her brother, A.B., played a bass,

and her sister, Suzette, played the drums.

Cortina-Weiss: And later she fell in love with

and wound up marrying her guitar player, Chris Pérez.

It's great to have somebody I can share this good stuff with.

Selena and I recorded for Capitol EMI Latin

during the same time,

and we performed at events together.

It is a real danceable music.

Casarez: She was a lovely, lovely person.

She was incredibly charismatic.

Like, the whole thing wasn't taping? [ Laughs ]

She was very down-to-earth.

I don't think I ever saw her upset.

She was bubbly and fun.

Gomez: I don't think I've ever come across a human

that was that kind.

Astudillo: Just her spirit, just her energy,

her laughter was contagious.

[ Laughter ]

I'm just joking.

No, more like Menudo. That's what Robert said.

In the early '90s, things started to change with Selena.

She's got a string of hits that were huge.

She's got "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom."

♪ Bidi bidi bom bom ♪

♪ Bidi bidi bom bom ♪

♪ Bidi bidi bom bom ♪

♪ Bidi bidi bom bom ♪

♪ Bidi bidi bidi bidi bidi bom bom ♪

She's got "Como La Flor."

♪ Como la flor, como La flor ♪

♪ Con tanto amor, con tanto amor ♪

♪ Me diste tú ♪

And she's got "Amor Prohibido."

♪ Amor prohibido murmuran por las calles ♪

It's talking about a forbidden love.

Selena was becoming a bigger and bigger star

through those years.

She won a Grammy in 1994 for best Mexican-American album.

Selena: I didn't think I had a chance

because of the top names that were in the category.

So just the venues just start getting bigger.

The crowds just started getting bigger.

Selena: We've broken the record twice in a row

at the Houston Astrodome for attendance record there.

Casarez: Her star kept going up and up and up.

She was crossing boundaries

that had not been crossed before.

That's really neat. You know, whereas before

I was like, "Oh, they don't even know I exist,"

now they do, so it's really neat.

In the middle of all these things blowing up for Selena

comes another big change,

and that's a woman named Yolanda Saldivar.

I don't think anybody, anybody

would have imagined what unfolded.

♪♪

I really don't believe in competing with anybody.

I'm sure about what I'm doing,

and I don't feel like I have to be looking back

or seeing what the person next to me is doing.

There's room enough for everybody.

♪♪

Young: We don't know why exactly she shot Selena.

She just said that she did something

that she didn't want to do, and, "my friend" --

and she kept saying that over and over again,

"my friend" -- you know, that she shot her,

and -- but she didn't intend to do that.

♪♪

At the beginning of the 1990s, Tejano music

was growing immensely, and so was Selena.

And that was right when she met Yolanda.

Yolanda Saldivar comes into the picture because she's a fan.

She was a registered nurse who was living in San Antonio.

Cortina-Weiss: Goes to a Selena concert, sees Selena, loves her,

and begins to reach out to Abraham.

We met Yolanda back in 1991.

That first initial encounter with her

was just a voice on the telephone.

She contacted Selena's father multiple times.

She asked if she could start a fan club,

and people would send in their money,

and they'd get sent a T-shirt or pictures

or other things like that.

She's quite persistent in asking that she be the founder

and that she run it.

Eventually, Abraham said, "why not?"

And Yolanda did a pretty job of getting people to join.

The numbers grew.

I mean, it grew into the thousands pretty quickly.

So there was some money on the table.

♪♪

Yolanda started out as kind of an outsider,

but worked her way into the inner circle.

Yolanda then started doing other things for Selena.

Selena, by all accounts, really liked Yolanda.

Patoski: Yolanda builds up a role as gatekeeper.

"If you want to get to her, you got to go through me."

And it gave Yolanda a purpose in life.

Patoski: She's somebody all of a sudden.

Reynoso: She was always around Selena and her family.

If you see pictures, if you see footage,

you'll always see she that she was right next to her.

Gomez: She was such a nurturer, especially with Selena.

She was over-nurturing, to the point now

that it was almost obsession.

♪♪

I have three businesses -- actually, two businesses.

The third one is going to be opening up October 1st

in San Antonio.

While her music is booming, she's also becoming

really famous for her fashion, for her style.

She designed much of what she wore herself.

Singing was her job, but fashion was her passion.

♪♪

-There you go. -Just like that?

She's beautiful. Look at that. [ Laughs ]

Cortina-Weiss: And so she opened her boutiques

in San Antonio and Corpus, where she could sell outfits

that were very much inspired by her stage outfits,

and people ate it up.

This is unique clothing.

You're not going to find it at any department store.

We have a little bit of everything.

We carry clothing, and we carry salon services,

which is like perms, hair weaves.

[ Laughs ]

♪♪

When she goes off to realize her personal dream

of designing fashion and opening boutiques,

Yolanda is right in there with her and by her side.

It was believed that Yolanda had done such a great job

with the fan club,

why not make her manager of the boutiques?

Now remember, she's a nurse by trade,

really no business experience at all,

but suddenly she had a pivotal role in the family organization.

It got to a point where Yolanda Saldivar

had access to Selena's whole business empire.

This gave Yolanda Saldivar the opening

she needed to do whatever it is she wanted to do.

We accepted her as a friend.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever foresee

or even -- the thought ever entered my mind

that this woman would do something like this.

Valdez: Yolanda was Selena's right-hand person.

She was extremely manipulative.

She has a way of finding out what moves people

and how to get people to do what she wants.

I don't think they had any idea that they were dealing with

the kind of person that wasn't at all deserving

of their trust.

Casarez: So at the end of 1994,

I guess Yolanda got an idea that,

wouldn't it be nice for all the employees of the boutiques

to pool their money and buy Selena a ring

to show Selena how much she was cared for.

Yolanda had taken up some funds from the employees

to give Selena a present. Larry King: Mm-hmm.

And Selena has a collection of Fabergé eggs at her home,

so they made her a ring with a little egg on top of it.

Valdez: Yolanda told her, "Selena, I bought this for you.

This is a present for you,"

so when Selena opened it, she loved it.

She took it, and she put it on and said,

"This is our friendship ring.

This is signifying our friendship forever.

I will never take this off because, Yolanda,

we'll be friends forever."

Patoski: Selena was thrilled at the gift.

I mean, how nice to go to all this effort

and such a beautiful, elaborate ring,

and she put it on and wore it all the time.

I mean, you can see it in the promo pictures.

You can see it everywhere. That became part of her.

She did wear the ring a lot,

and she was wearing the ring the day she died.

♪♪

Valdez: There were some people that were concerned

about Yolanda being around Selena.

Gomez: When she came back, she goes, "Martin, it's very scary."

I said, "I'm really nervous she's going to hurt you."

♪♪

[ Cheers and applause ]

Selena: It's a great feeling, and it's flattering to know

that there's a lot of people who buy our music,

and there's little kids who learn our songs

and try to dance like me. I think it's great.

It's very flattering. [ Camera shutter clicking ]

Woman: We have a woman who in the lobby, said she's been shot.

-Woman 2: Okay, who shot her? -The lady in 158.

It was this woman that was obsessed with her.

It was just utter disbelief.

The day that I received the call to go to the emergency room,

that Selena had had an accident, is what they told me.

But when I got to the emergency room

and I saw all the people standing out in the streets,

I knew that something other than that had happened.

♪♪

[ Camera shutters clicking ]

Cortina-Weiss: So March 1995 comes around.

Selena is juggling a lot.

She's working on her English-language album.

And one of the songs that came out of that album was

"I Could Fall in Love."

Selena: ♪ I could fall in love ♪

♪ With you ♪

She's got these two really successful boutiques.

She's looking at expansion into Mexico.

Things are going really, really well.

Sterling: And Yolanda was in charge of everything,

but people were complaining

about things that were happening.

Mr. Quintanilla, Selena's father,

started getting phone calls. [ Phone rings ]

The phone calls were all the same.

"Mr. Quintanilla,

I've sent in my money to the fan club,

and I haven't gotten anything."

Abraham went back and began to look at the books

and see what's going on here, and as he reviewed the books

of not only the boutiques, but the books of the fan club,

he began to see that there were discrepancies,

and he began to suspect that there was embezzlement going on.

Abraham Quintanilla came to the conclusion

that Yolanda Saldivar had embezzled about $30,000

from Selena Quintanilla's businesses.

She was never charged with this. She was never convicted of this,

but Abraham believed he had his evidence.

Reynoso: Then a lot of employees at Selena's boutiques

started to complain to Selena

about Yolanda Saldivar's behavior towards them.

Sterling: She tried to be very controlling.

She wanted to be in charge

completely of who had access to Selena.

There were some people that were concerned

about Yolanda being around Selena.

One of those people was Martin Gomez.

Gomez: We had ordered zippers,

and the zippers were delivered to Yolanda's home.

And I had my assistant go pick them up,

and when she came back she goes, "Martin, it's very scary.

It's wall-to-wall pictures of Selena."

♪♪

And I remember thinking, "This is kind of weird.

You know, it's kind of a little bit obsessive."

He thought, "This isn't good."

Gomez: And then one time I went to the dentist,

and my insurance hadn't been paid out,

and so I came back and I said,

"Yolanda, my insurance hasn't been paid out,

and they're saying it hasn't been paid out for 6 months."

And she says, "Oh, I'll fix it, but don't tell Selena."

Well, of course, I'm going to tell Selena.

♪♪

And Selena says, "Martin, she's got it under control.

Don't worry about it."

And that kind of started us in turmoil.

Valdez: He could see Yolanda manipulating Selena.

He knew there was something wrong there,

so he separated from the business.

I basically went to her, and said,

"I don't think this is going to work."

"Girl," I said, "I'm really nervous

she's going to hurt you," and I meant hurt her physically.

I think Selena heard "hurt her reputation."

♪♪

I think weeks had passed by.

She calls me on the phone, and I remember I said,

"Selena, I'm really scared for you."

One thing that Selena would always say in Spanish

"Cuidate," "Take care of yourself,"

and I remember telling her, "Girl,cuidate."

She giggled. She goes, "You worry too much."

And that was the last conversation

that I had with her.

We're just really excited, and we just hope that, you know,

we can do the best that we can and people accept our music.

♪♪

All these things kind of kept coming up, coming up,

and they all led back to Yolanda Saldivar.

The problem was Selena didn't believe her dad,

already didn't believe Martin Gomez.

"She can't be doing this."

Cortina-Weiss: She doesn't really want to believe

that somebody who's become a trusted friend

and is in her inner circle is doing this damage.

So the family decided, "Okay, you don't believe us, Selena?

Let's bring her in here and ask her those questions."

♪♪

Valdez: So Mr. Quintanilla called a meeting

at the studio on Thursday, March the 9th,

and there was this confrontation at the meeting between

Mr. Quintanilla and Selena on the one side

and Yolanda on the other.

Abraham: By this time, you know, things were going downhill.

We had showed her the evidence that we had.

Casarez: She needed to prove that she was not taking money,

and if she couldn't prove that,

she would no longer be associated with Selena.

Cossack: Yolanda denies everything,

says she can come up with the records that are missing

and says that she can prove that she's innocent.

King: You weren't going to prosecute her or anything?

No, sir, we were going to fire her.

Mm-hmm.

But I wasn't going to prosecute her.

I was, you know, angered at the moment

because she -- everything that I showed her

and asked her about it, she had no answer for it,

and I was frustrated because we knew that she was lying.

♪♪

Cortina-Weiss: So Abraham, who's now heard enough,

relieves her of her managerial duties and tells her to go.

Casarez: He took her off bank accounts.

He took her name off anything

where she could continue to steal money -- allegedly.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think

that this woman was going to react this way.

♪♪

Valdez: So Yolanda takes off.

She goes to a gun store in San Antonio,

A Place to Shoot, and buys the gun.

♪♪

The proprietor said she told him

she was a home health care nurse

and was working for a patient

whose family was threatening her,

and she needed a gun for protection.

Cossack: What happens is, Yolanda then asks

for another meeting with only Selena.

Selena, wanting to be nice, said to her,

"Look, you can still be in charge

of the business in Mexico,"

in essence giving her another chance.

Very dangerous in hindsight.

She just wanted to trust.

It was this trust in this woman that led to her death.

♪♪

Talk about your boutique. Yes.

You have expansion plans there, too, as well?

Yes, we are negotiating right now to be franchising out.

There's also going to be a perfume

that's going to be coming out, the Selena perfume,

and it's going to smell like chorizo and huevos.

[ Laughter ]

Welcome back.

By March 1995, Latina singing sensation Selena Quintanilla

was working on an English-language album,

preparing to become a mainstream pop star,

but at the same time, there was trouble brewing.

Her family believed Yolanda Saldivar,

her friend, boutique manager, and fan-club president,

was embezzling money and needed to be let go.

But Selena -- lovely, kind, trusting Selena --

wasn't ready to believe it...yet.

No one could have predicted the horrifying fatal turn

the story would take.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Woman: I have to ask you this because I know it's --

you've heard this before, but they keep calling you

the next Gloria Estefan.

How does it feel to be compared to somebody like Gloria?

I take it as a compliment.

♪♪

Yolanda had spearheaded a campaign

amongst the employees to buy a ring for Selena.

She loved this ring. She wore it all of the time.

Sterling: We later learned that Yolanda had allegedly

collected money from a group of people for this gift,

got the ring designed, presented it to Selena

like it was a gift from Yolanda alone,

and paid for it with the company credit card.

It was a really ominous sign of what was still to come.

Looking back, this is a huge red flag.

If she had known that Yolanda really didn't buy the ring

with her money, I think that would've changed things.

I don't think I'd be sitting here today.

Cossack: I'm not sure that anybody ever suspected

that she was capable of murder.

♪♪

Young: We know that Yolanda had a gun.

We believe that the situation was highly charged,

and that Yolanda probably, based on what she said,

was angry at being confronted about something.

Man: The only eyewitness has said it's an accident.

Either she did it intentionally,

or she did not do it intentionally.

♪♪

It's tax time.

It's March, and it's time to gather a bunch of documents

from the businesses to file tax returns.

Patoski: By the end of March, the Quintanilla family

was convinced Yolanda Saldivar was embezzling

from the fan club, from the boutique,

from all of Selena's related businesses

that she had had authority to sign off on.

You got to remember that Selena was just starting her business.

She had just started the boutiques

this past year,

and so she was still trying to get things rolling

and organized.

Selena was in the middle of recording the English album.

She was also on tour performing

sometimes three concerts a weekend.

Patoski: She had just done this concert selling out the Astrodome,

and it was an incredible performance.

It really was.

[ Singing in Spanish ]

[ Continues in Spanish ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

She was just literally so busy

that she was counting on this person

to get all of the records to where they needed to go.

Selena asked Yolanda for the bank statements,

and there seems to be some hemming and hawing.

Selena is realizing something is wrong.

Valdez: Selena kept calling Yolanda,

telling her, "I need those documents.

I need those documents,"

so Yolanda agreed that she would drive to Corpus Christi.

She wasn't taking the documents. She was taking the gun.

♪♪

Sterling: So on March 30th, Yolanda drives to Corpus

and checks into the Days Inn.

Valdez: Yolanda calls Selena and says, "Selena,

I've got your papers here. Come by."

♪♪

Cortina-Weiss: Selena actually gets in the car

and drives herself to the scene

where she'll ultimately be murdered,

because she trusts.

She trusted someone that was...

in essence, evil.

Selena shows up in room 158 at the Days Inn motel.

At that meeting, she was firing Yolanda?

Yes, sir.

Selena decided she was going to cut her losses

and let her go,

but she needed the bank statements.

Yolanda had told Selena that on her last trip to Mexico

that she had been raped,

so Selena, being the giving person she was,

accompanied Yolanda to the local hospital.

Like any good friend would do.

I mean, how could you ignore somebody

who said they'd been sexually assaulted?

Harris: When Selena and Yolanda came into the E.R.,

Selena was a little bit guarded,

but yet you could tell that she cared about this woman.

And Yolanda's demeanor was very flat.

Skurka: There were some major discrepancies

while Yolanda was giving her history to the nurses.

[ Clicking ]

Harris: Yolanda told me that she had been assaulted

in Mexico and hit with a bat.

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

From what I could see,

there was no injuries that fit that pattern.

Sterling: Yolanda had the clothes on that she said

she was sexually assaulted in.

The people who worked at the hospital were suspicious

because the damage to the clothes looked like damage

that somebody had done with a pair of scissors.

They didn't look like something that happened during an assault.

Her story doesn't add up.

Sterling: We think Yolanda's motivation

was to get sympathy from Selena,

and maybe things could turn around,

and Selena would forgive her for what was going on.

Harris: About 11 o'clock, I went in to see my next patient,

and Selena stopped by the room where I was at the time,

and she just looked at me,

and she says, "Do you believe her?"

And I said, "Do I believe what?"

And she said, "Do you think she's been raped?"

And I said, "Honey, it's not up to me to decide

whether she's been assaulted or not.

She says she has, then she has."

And she said "Oh, well, okay." And she left.

And then I thought to myself right at that point,

"Wow, she's got a doubt."

Patoski: I think Selena had finally seen and understood

what her father had been telling her

or what Martin Gomez told her.

"Yolanda has been stealing from you.

She hasn't been telling the truth."

Selena drives Yolanda back to the Days Inn,

and at the door, they're talking,

and it's pretty clear it's over.

Selena wants to drop her off, get her paperwork, and leave.

By the time that hotel room meeting comes along,

it had risen to a high boil.

Nobody else was there, so we don't know

what the conversation actually was

other than what Yolanda says.

Cortina-Weiss: They have a conversation,

presumably about the bank statements,

and at some point, a gun comes out.

What do you do with all of this success you're having?

I'm enjoying every bit of it, and it's like a dream come true,

and it's like I don't want anybody to wake me up from it.

It's been a great year.

This year has been really wonderful.

♪♪

Sterling: The evidence shows that Yolanda had taken

the gun out of her purse.

Selena saw the gun and was attempting to leave the room.

Selena turned around, and pow...

[ Gunshot ]

...one single shot.

Sterling: We know Selena was shot with the door open

because the blood splatter evidence

was on the outside of the door.

The bullet enters beneath her right shoulder blade

and comes out through the front.

♪♪

After Selena gets shot, she runs to the hotel lobby,

which was not that close to the room.

Skurka: She ran around the pool, where she dropped her purse.

She'd already dropped her briefcase

and her phone in the grassy area.

She is bleeding profusely, leaving a trail of blood.

♪♪

I was standing in the lobby with Ruben DeLeon.

Look towards the right, there was a window.

I see a lady running towards one of the doors.

I had no idea who she was.

I had no idea.

Schultz: Selena came through the front door quickly,

clutching her stomach, and there was a lot of blood

pooling in the sweatshirt,

and she sort of stumbled and said, "Help me.

Help me. I've been shot."

DeLeon: We meet right in the middle of the lobby

and kind of made contact there and then moved her.

I guess we were trying to hide her, keep her safe

because we just figured somebody

was running behind her with a gun.

Immediately, I went into my office and called 911.

We were asking for towels

and just compressing on her wound.

We start asking her, "Who? Who shot you?"

And she mentioned Yolanda's name,

and she also mentioned the room number.

The desk clerk looked up at the registration cards

and saw that room 158 had been rented by Yolanda Saldivar.

And she's responding as best as she could

and then started fading and fading,

and we were just telling her to hang in there,

that help was on its way. [ Sirens wailing ]

And the ambulance was there in 2, 3 minutes.

They were extremely quick.

By the time they got there, she was unconscious.

And then they wheeled her out.

[ Sirens wailing ]

Patoski: Selena's rushed to the hospital

with the hope that they can save her,

and the hospital is not that far away.

During the ambulance ride, there's an ominous moment

when the EMT gets her arm to put the IV in it.

Her fist opens up, and the ring falls out.

It's the ring that Yolanda gave her.

I'm just assuming that the day that Selena was going to fire

her there at the hotel,

that I believe that she might have taken the ring out

and was going to give it back to her.

So by taking it off of her hand and giving it back to Yolanda,

that was symbolic that their relationship

had completely ruptured.

Selena was giving it back to Yolanda

when Yolanda fired the gun that killed Selena.

♪♪

Skurka: I don't think Selena had a wicked

or evil bone in her body.

She couldn't believe anybody would try to harm her.

It's got to be the ultimate betrayal

to have your friend not stab you in the back,

but shoot you in the back.

We are standing by live in Corpus Christi.

[ Yolanda speaks indistinctly ]

Man: No, no, you're not going to do that, Yolanda.

♪♪

I'm really enjoying everything that's going on around me.

It's kind of hard to handpick which is the best thing

because there's a lot of good things.

♪♪

Sterling: There were some witnesses who worked at the hotel

who heard the gunshot,

and they saw Selena running from the room,

and they saw Yolanda come out after her holding a gun.

Reynoso: Yolanda Saldivar went back into room,

wraps the gun in a towel and goes into her truck.

Young: And she drives out to leave,

and then she gets blocked in by police cars arriving,

and then she puts the gun to her head.

Where she locks herself in a standoff with police.

Skurka: They call in hostage negotiators to try to talk her down

and talk her out into giving herself up.

We are standing by live in Corpus Christi

right across the street from the Days Inn.

The assistant police chief tells us

that they have provided the suspect with a telephone

and have been in constant contact with her

trying to get her to give herself up.

When we finally started talking, Yolanda was asking about Selena.

"Where is she? How is she?"

I told her that she was at the hospital

and that they're working on her.

Her emotional state was extremely fragile.

I want to kill myself, Larry!

She keeps insisting she's done something real,

real bad to her friend.

Woman: We have hundreds and hundreds of people,

fans of Selena Quintanilla,

coming by, waiting to see how this is going to turn out.

The assistant police chief tells us

that they are going to wait it out.

All they want is to get her out safe,

and they don't want her to hurt herself or anybody else.

She basically holds the police at bay for hours.

Man: Negotiators talk to her continuously and never give up.

[ Yolanda sobs ]

Young: At one point during the negotiations,

we decided that there needed to be a switch,

and so we introduced Isaac Valencia,

another negotiator.

He talks about religion.

His job is to come up with any reason possible

to get her out of that truck.

Valencia: That everything will be okay in the eyes

of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Skurka: And about halfway through the negotiations,

one of the officers mentioned something like,

"Well, you know, anything can happen with guns.

Guns -- it may go off," and she seized upon this.

Valencia: What?

I was yelling to her, "Please, I'm going to kill myself."

We could only assume what happened,

and Yolanda's version

is that she took the gun to commit suicide

and that she pointed the gun to her head

and that she told Selena to close the door.

She accidentally shot the gun. [ Gunshot ]

The barrel was back?

She said it was an accident, but we know that that's not true.

You have to have a certain amount of pounds

of pressure to pull a trigger.

[ Gunshot ]

Guns just don't go off.

Valdez: And the natural reaction for somebody

who's been involved in an accidental shooting

is to drop the gun immediately, start screaming,

and try to help the person who's hurt.

Villarreal: She's a registered nurse.

If this was an accident, why didn't she call 911?

Never did it, never did it.

Skurka: Nope, she didn't do any of that stuff.

In fact, she went back in her room,

covered the gun up, and then went

and got back in her truck to escape.

This wasn't an accident.

It was an intentional act of murder.

Guns don't go off by themselves.

Somebody has to pull the trigger,

and that's exactly what Yolanda did.

♪♪

Valdez: I think there were several things that combined

in that room, in room 158 on that day.

Yolanda loved her life with Selena.

Patoski: Her life was over.

She wasn't Selena's fan club president anymore.

She wasn't running the boutique.

She wasn't Selena's business partner

or running buddy or best friend.

All that was over.

She was back to being Yolanda Saldivar,

and in the most selfish act imaginable,

"If I can't have you, no one can," bang.

♪♪

Finally, after 9 1/2 hours,

they convince her to come out of that truck.

Woman: Oh, they got her!

-Woman 2: They got her? -Get her!

-Whoa! [ Clapping ]

Valdez: At 9:30 at night, she was talked out of her truck,

and she finally was placed under arrest.

And she's going, "Oh, Larry, oh, Larry, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. How is she?"

Sterling: The place where the bullet went through Selena

severed a major artery in her body.

If it had been an inch or 2 in another direction,

she probably wouldn't have been killed.

All efforts to resuscitate her were futile.

She was declared dead early afternoon.

♪♪

It was just so unreal and bizarre and sad and tragic,

how somebody so good could have such a horrible ending.

It was very devastating

for someone very young

to have all these dreams just wiped away.

I mean...

...it was hard to live with for a long time.

Abraham: When one of your children is killed this way,

it's like somebody grabbed a knife

and stuck it right in your heart,

and the wound will always be there for the rest of your life.

Cortina-Weiss: So when Selena dies, her family, her label,

the people she worked with,

are left with this impossible decision

of what to do with the music she left behind.

She had already recorded four tracks

for her English-language album.

This was Selena's dream, to cross over into mainstream.

We had been working towards this goal for the last 2 years,

and I want to make sure that her dream comes true.

And so they decided to release it,

and "Dreaming of You" became an instant hit.

♪ 'Cause I'm dreaming ♪

♪ Of you tonight ♪

♪ Till tomorrow ♪

♪ I'll be holding you tight ♪

Patoski: The album comes out, goes double platinum,

goes straight to the top of the pop charts.

Cortina-Weiss: This is what she worked really, really hard for her whole life,

and it's just sad and tragic that she wasn't able to see it.

♪♪

Yolanda is charged with first-degree murder.

The district attorney's office filed a formal complaint

accusing Yolanda Saldivar of the murder

of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.

We tried the case in Houston, and she was found guilty

and sentenced to life in prison.

Man: The jury, having found the defendant guilty of murder,

assess her punishment and confinement

in the institutional division

of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for life.

[ Crowd shouting ]

♪♪

But it was, you know, a hollow win because Selena's gone.

She's not coming back, and while justice was served,

it was still this idea,

"Why did this have to even happen?"

Abraham: Yolanda could have just walked away

and found herself another job.

To this day, for the life of me,

I just can't figure out why she done this.

♪♪

Cortina-Weiss: I think Selena is remembered

as much as a person as she is as a performer.

She was this kind soul that, for all intents and purposes,

didn't kind of understand the enormity of fame

that she had acquired in a short period of time.

To me, in my mind, I see her every day.

I hear her music.

To me, she's still alive.

I mean, she really was special.

She would never tell you that, or she never felt like she was,

but she really was.

Cortina-Weiss: She had so gracefully

and so successfully

embraced her roots, her culture, and her heritage.

And in that way,

she still continues to inspire new generations.

Selena: You know, you hope for something.

You wish for things to happen, you know,

when you're not doing as well, and when it comes around,

it's like, "oh," you know, you want to slow down,

but you have to stop and think where you came from,

and you appreciate it even more.

♪♪

Yolanda Saldivar declined our request for an interview.

She is still in prison and up for parole in 2025.

Selena was buried in her hometown

of Corpus Christi, Texas.

Two years after her death,

a movie starring Jennifer Lopez was released

telling the true story of Selena's incredible life.

It solidified her legacy and inspired future generations.

Selena once said that when she died,

she wanted to be remembered not only as an entertainer

but as a role model and someone who cared,

and she is.

Thanks for watching. Good night.