This is an accepted version of this page On the morning of March 31, 1995, the American singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was fatally shot and wounded at the Days Inn in Corpus Christi, Texas.
The killer, Yolanda Saldívar, was an American nurse and the president of Selena's fan club who was exposed as having embezzled thousands of dollars from the singer's earnings.
[4][5] The Quintanilla family moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, and Selena y Los Dinos began recording music professionally.
Their animosity intensified during Selena's fashion shows, with Gomez accusing Saldívar of mutilating or destroying some of his original creations and never paying bills.
Sebastian D'Silva, Martinez's assistant, would pick up Selena at the airport; he said he noticed she was wearing wigs and using her husband Chris Pérez's surname so others would not identify her.
[33] Meanwhile, at both of Selena's boutiques in Corpus Christi and San Antonio, employees noted an influx of unpaid or overdue bills arriving in the mail, for which Saldívar could provide no plausible explanation.
[63] When paramedics delivered Selena to Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital at 12:00 p.m. (CST), her pupils were fixed and dilated, there was no evidence of neurological function, she had no vital signs,[76] and was declared clinically brain dead.
[79] Dr. Louis Elkins, cardiac surgeon, arrived at Memorial Hospital and said he saw doctors making "heroic efforts" to revive Selena.
[82] Elkins said a "pencil-size artery leading from the heart had been cut in two by the hollow-point bullet" and that six units of blood from the transfusion had spilled out from her circulatory system.
Selena's father and Assistant Police Chief Ken Bung told the press the possible motive was the singer's intention to terminate Saldívar's employment.
Despite its publishers' assumption that interest would soon wane, a commemorative issue sold nearly a million copies,[107] selling the entire first and second run within two weeks.
To those people, though, the five million Texans of Mexican descent, the death of Selena was Black Friday, a day of infamy even darker and more evil than the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
"[152] Other celebrities interviewed on radio stations, including Stefanie Ridel, Jaime DeAnda (of Los Chamacos), Elsa Garcia,[96] and Shelly Lares, expressed their thoughts about Selena's death.
[155] American music industry executive Daniel Glass told Texas Monthly he believed Selena would have enjoyed greater career success had it not been for her death.
[140] A few days after her death, president of the United States Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary sent a letter of condolence to Selena's husband Chris Pérez.
[167] On Selena Day, approximately a thousand fans gathered at her grave and began singing traditional Mexican folk songs; police were brought in to control the crowd.
[168] In April and May that year, some European-Americans in Texas wrote to the editor of the Brazosport Facts questioning the fuss over her death; some were offended because Selena Day coincided with Easter Sunday.
[172][173] Author and Texas Monthly magazine contributor Joe Nick Patoski said Anglo-Americans and Mexican-Americans were divided in their reactions to Selena's death.
[191] Within hours of Selena's murder, record stores sold out of her albums; EMI Latin began pressing several million CDs and cassettes to meet the expected demand.
[151][99] Gloria Ballesteros, a sales representative of Southwestern Wholesalers in San Antonio, told Billboard their inventory of 5,000 copies of Selena albums was sold out by the afternoon of her death.
[218] An hour before the doors opened, rumors that the casket was empty began circulating, which prompted the Quintanilla family to have an open-casket viewing.
[230] In Lake Jackson, a thousand fans and friends of Selena gathered at the municipal park in neighboring Clute, where she had played at the Mosquito Festival in July 1994.
[178] In 1997, Selena was commemorated with a museum and a life-sized bronze statue, Mirador de la Flor, in Corpus Christi, which are visited by hundreds of fans each week.
[234] Fans flocked to her statue and murals, seeing them as a symbols of self-identity, unionism, religious expression, resistance, self-expression, equality, liberation, passion, optimism, possibility, and "encouragement and hope to the poor".
[211] It was the most-watched program—regardless of language—among adults ages 18 to 34 in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco; it tied for first in New York, beating that night's episode of Fox's American Idol.
exceeded those for Super Bowl XLV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers and the telenovela Soy Tu Dueña, during what was the "most-watched NFL season ever among Latinos".
[250] Within twenty minutes of Saldívar's surrender, she was taken to the downtown police station in Corpus Christi and placed in an interrogation room with investigators Paul and Ray Rivera.
The Mexican Mafia, a dominant gang in the Texas penal system, reportedly placed a price on Saldívar's head and spread the word that anyone who committed the crime would be a hero.
Donna Dickerson, a white American magazine publisher, told the Tribune she had no interest in the trial because of Selena's "Latino background", and said Mexican-Americans had not shown the same enthusiasm after the death of Elvis Presley.
[267] Because of multiple internal death threats from incarcerated Selena fans, Saldívar was placed in isolation and spends 23 hours a day alone in her 9 by 6 feet (2.7 by 1.8 m) cell.