April 26, 2026 • 42 mins
Selena Quintanilla Pérez ushered in the Golden Age of Tejano music in Texas with a meteoric rise up the charts and into the hearts of her fans. Her fans saw her as more than just a pop star — she was family. Selena was about to take her fame and her family to the world stage when a tangled web of deceit, betrayal, and jealousy would result in her untimely death at 23.
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This episode was originally published on November 10, 2020.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Discus, thanks for joining me for another trip into
our vast Disgraceland archive of episodes. This week we are
featuring our story on Selena, which was originally released back
on November tenth, twenty twenty. And before we get into
the production of this episode, I knew Selena was a
big deal, but I really had no idea how big
of an artist that she actually was. This is something
(00:20):
that was requested from the early days of disgracelam by listeners.
And like I said, I knew Selena. I knew who
she was, but I didn't really understand what she meant
to her fans. I was also surprised to learn the
shocking details behind the betrayal that was at the center
of the story of her death. Selena died when she
(00:42):
was just twenty three years old. This is so sad,
and this whole story is sad, but it's a story
that also is a cautionary tale, and over the past
few years it's become one of the biggest true crime
stories from music history. Check it out. You meycall at
six one seven nine six six six three eight, Let
me know what you think, all right, without further ado,
(01:04):
here is Selena in Disgraceland. Disgraceland is a production of
Double Elvis. The stories about Selena are insane. She was
(01:25):
only ten years old when she began to sing professionally.
At sixteen, she was crowned Female Vocalist of the Year
at the Tano Music Awards. She was the first Tanno
artist on the Billboard two hundred and nineteen ninety four
and was second only to Janet Jackson when it came
to album sales by a female artist. And she was
also the victim and one of the most shocking and
(01:47):
high profile murder cases in music history. Selena was the
poster child for Latin pop in the late twentieth century,
at a time when Latin pop was entering its renaissance
and finding a larger, more or mainstream audience. If Latin
pop was the question, Selena was the answer. And just
as quickly as she ascended, she was silenced. But during
(02:10):
a brief shining moment in the spotlight she made great music.
That music you heard at the top of the show
that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
my melotron called Buried with My Boots on MK one.
I played you that loop because I can't afford the
rights to Take a Bow by Madonna? And why would
(02:30):
I play you that specific slice of bedtime story Gold?
Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
song in America on March thirty first, nineteen ninety five,
And that was the day that the queen of Tejano
music was shot dead in a cheap motel. On this
episode a child prodigy, the Rise of Tejano a motel
(02:53):
murder in Latin pop legend Selena, I'm Jake Brennan and
this is Disgraceland. Trinidad Espinoza heard it first. The sound
(03:26):
was loud, muffled, short, thunderous. Trinidad couldn't tell if it
came from the inside or outside the hotel. It sounded
like an engine misfiring or blown tire. Whatever it was,
it wasn't an everyday sound. Of all people Trinidad would know.
He was one of the maintenance guys at the day's
(03:47):
inn in Corpus Christi. He knew every sound that place made,
the clanks and hiss of AC units, the water and
the pipes, the grumble of the furnace. He could feel
its vibration's course throughout the walls, in every small room
in the motel, probably better than anyone. He was intimate
with the sound of the traffic speeding past on nearby
Interstate thirty seven. He could tell what time a day
(04:09):
it was just by how the traffic sounded at any
given moment. But this, this was different. This sound wasn't
like any of those sounds, those sounds that Trinidad knew
by heart. Trinidad was in the middle of repairing one
of the dryers in the laundry room. The thing had
been on the fritz for days, and finally it had
just conked out, probably a fuse. He had pulled it
(04:32):
out from the wall. It was crouched behind it, taking
out screws with this cordless drill that desperately needed a
new battery, cursing every time the drill lost its torque.
He was sandwiched between the back of the dryer and
the lint covered wall. When he heard it, Trinidad stopped
what he was doing and waited for the loud noise
to repeat, or for another noise to follow. But he
(04:54):
heard nothing, just the distant, moderate hum of traffic on
I thirty seven. Based on the amount of hum, he
guessed it was just about lunchtime. If that sound did
come from the inside of the motel, it could have
been anything. Something that could have stopped working, died out, broke, busted,
something that would either need fixing or need retiring. Things
(05:16):
that needed fixing needed Trinidad. Things that needed retiring, Well,
that was someone else's problem. What now, he thought, wiping
sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand
that held the drill. He had the dryer to fix.
And then there were the faulty fluorescence in room one
twenty one in the AC unit. In one fifty two,
TVs weren't working in a few of the other rooms.
(05:37):
In one of the outlets in the lobby was quote
unquote temperamental had a mind of its own. The front
desk clerk said Trinidad had too much on his plate.
He couldn't handle another problem today. He was too old
for this shit. He stepped outside the laundry room to
the exterior corridor of the motel to see if he
could figure out where the bang had come from, And
(05:58):
as soon as he walked outside, he heard it. Screams, shouts,
two women sprinting down the corridor. The one in front
was the one screaming. Her long dark hair flailed chaotically
behind her. Her shirt was bloody, her eyes wide, teary, panicked.
He couldn't make out what she was saying. As she
(06:19):
was saying anything, her incoherence screamed to the sounds of
a desperate person. The woman chasing her was yelling at
her to stop. She was shorter, the older soccer mom, haircut,
and determined stride. As she ran, her arms pumped up
and down in the air. She was desperate, but controlled,
and Trinidad saw something in her right hand, something that
(06:42):
was in and out of view as her arms pumped
up and down. It took him a few seconds, but
as soon as he made out what it was, he
went for the nearest phone. She had a gun. By
the time the bloody, panicked woman made it inside the
front lobby of the motel, the shorter woman who had
been chasing her had given up, up, turned around, walked away, calmly, cool, collected,
(07:03):
like it had never happened. She went back to the room,
the room they came from, Room one point fifty eight.
Shanavello was working the front desk of the day's in
lobby when the bloody woman came rushing through the glass door.
Shauna jumped, gasped, hand over her mouth. She couldn't believe
it. It wasn't just the blood that shocked her. The blood
(07:24):
was everywhere, all over this woman's tracksuit, smeared in a
path that ran from outside all the way to where
she stood, pulling at her feet on the lobby floor.
Blood was one thing, But what I had Shauna really
shook was that she was pretty sure that this bloody
woman was Selena. Selena Kitania Perez, the undisputed queen of
(07:46):
Tahano Music Corpus Christie's Pride and Joy, a local celebrity
with a massive audience and a real down to Earth's
head on her strong shoulders, lead singer of the group
Los Tinos, Grammy winner the Tano Ards Female Entertainer of
the Year eight years running. Now, she was the unlikeliest
of superstars, just a regular person, a next door neighbor type, humble, kind, proud,
(08:12):
the kindest celebrity you felt you could just trust instinctively,
no questions asked, and she was only twenty three, and
not one iota of her fame had gone to her head.
Everyone loved her, especially here in Corpus Christi, Texas, her hometown.
Shawna recognized Selena underneath the blood and the sweat and
(08:33):
the panic, recognized her voice as she shouted wildly into
the room. Lock the door, Someone locked the door. She's
gonna kill me. Goosebumps ran down Shawna's spine. She went
from hero worship to chaos control real quick. Then Selena
collapsed on the floor of the lobby. It had taken
all of her energy to get her there, get her
(08:54):
to safety. Her body crumbled so suddenly, it was like
every bone in her body had disappeared, and she went
limp and the lively superstar was lifeless. Another motel employee
in the lobby, Reuben de Leon, kneeled over her as
her eyelids fluttered and her eyes started to roll around
in her head. Who Ruben asked her, Who's going to
(09:15):
kill you? The blood kept coming, and there was more
of it than any of them realized. Yolanda Selena muttered
with some of her last labored breaths Room one fifty eight. Outside,
it was getting loud. Cars came rushing from all directions. Cops, locals,
(09:36):
rubberneckers tuned into police skinner action and of course the press.
The woman who had chased Selena outside had left Room
one fifty eight. It was sitting behind the wheel of
her blue Chevy pickup in the motel parking lot. It idled,
the sky darkened. She could feel the storm about to
roll in. She was frozen, couldn't decide what to do,
(09:57):
to back up, to pull forward, to move, or not
to move. She held the thirty eight on her lap
and sat still. Suicide is Painless crackled from the truck
shitty am radio. Yolanda started to shake cars. The kind
uniform cops drove with big V eight's and Radley pickups.
Off duty specials rumbled down the I thirty seven off
ramp alongside the SWAT team in m v's helmets, guns drawn,
(10:21):
hands fixed and ready. Position on the seat of her Chevy.
Yolanda's cell phone buzzed. She let it go off for
a few and then answered it. It was the police.
They had her surrounded. They knew she was Yolanda Saldivar,
and they knew she had just shot Selena. Yolanda went
full hysteria. She raised the thirty eight to her head.
(10:44):
She wasn't going anywhere. You hear that she'd die in
that truck, she assured them, and the courage faded quick
and then fear tears, the fast, hyperventilating kind. I don't
want to live anymore, she sobbed into the phone. I
don't think I can forgive myself. The cops training kicked
in full hostage negotiation was the seesaw. They'd took her down,
(11:06):
then she'd blow back up. She'd raise that revolver to
her temple and then lower it and then raise it again.
The cops would rap sympathy, they'd rap stern, they'd rap
responsibility of obligation, and then fraddle back with empathy. For
nine tens hours, Yolanda sat in the driver's seat of
that blue Chevy pickup, her snub nose thirty eight pressed
to her temple, on again, off again. The clouds rolled in,
(11:29):
the rains came the weather beat against the truck's windshield,
and scattershot rhythm. Hard to haunt obop, Yolanda tried hanging
onto her freedom to the madness of the moment, incessant
cop talk and arsenal of guns pointed at her, guilt
and shame bearing down on her, and the san antone
standoff the longest day of her life. Eventually it became
(11:51):
too much. She gave herself up. Yolanda was going to
jail and Selena Selena was dead. Selena has been shot
(12:21):
and killed in Texas. Millions of Americans were learning Selena's
name for the first time when they caught the eleven
o'clock news in the night of March thirty first. But
for millions of others, for the fans of Tejano tex
mex and Latin music, whose numbers had grown exponentially over
the last five years, each mention of a murder on
(12:41):
the radio or a television was an emotional blow. Selena's
death put a hole deep in the heart of Texas, Texas,
San Antonio, Monterey, the entire Tehano community. They had lost
one of their own, a twenty three year old Fena,
an icon, a queen, a sister, the madonna of Mexico.
(13:01):
Selena was family to them. They were family to her
from the Tehano community, her fans, neighbors, and friends. She
was their greatest ambassador, and she had been taken from
them suddenly, violently. Selena's rise to the top of the
Latin pop world happened in tandem with Tejano's Golden age.
Tehano music was huge because of Selena, beginning in the
(13:23):
nineteen eighties and continuing into the nineties. Internationally minded ann
Hman from America's major labels descended upon South Texas to
exploit the fast rising popular style of La Nda, an
offshoot of t Haano, and they signed every band they
could find. The same thing was happening in Seattle at
the time with grunge music. Different genre, same idea. From
(13:45):
the perspective of the music industry, suits locate the lightning
in the bottle and signed the lightning on the dotted line.
Selena was a special kind of lightning. By the time
she released The More Prohibito in nineteen ninety four, the
last hour album she'd make, Tahano music was a fifty
million dollar industry. When her first English language album, Dreaming
(14:06):
of You was released just months after her death, It
debuted at number one on the Billboard two hundred and
sold one hundred and seventy five thousand copies in the
US on its first day. That sales achievement was a
first for a female artist of any genre. Decades later,
it remains the best selling Latin album of all time,
(14:27):
certified platinum fifty nine times over. That's fifty nine million
albums sold. Suddenly, Selena wasn't just competing with other Tano
artists on the charts. She was competing with Madonna, Whitney
and Janet. In fact, her album sales after her death
were so huge that she sold upwards of three hundred
thousand units in one week. The only female singer who
(14:50):
had her beat on those numbers was none other than
Janet Jackson herself. Selena rested peacefully at the top, and
she got there by honoring tradition and respecting culture and
above all, trusting in family. In return, her family had
her back. Tehano music that was a family affair. Tejano's
(15:12):
roots go all the way back to the mid nineteenth century,
when German immigrants came to the Lone Star State with
accordions in tow. The squeeze box took center stage in
the music of Southern Texas. Backed by guitars and later
drums and horns, it powered Waltz's Pocas Cajuntos, and by
the eighties, synthesizers had replaced the accordions and horns and
(15:33):
Tejano was modernized and timely. Like Zydego music in Louisiana,
Tejana was working class music, regional music, and San Antonio
was the Tejano capital of the world. The music was
an extension of culture and extension of family, and Abraham
Keittania was above all a family man. He knew that
(15:59):
his kids were musical talented. It was in their blood.
He himself had sang with a Corpus Christi douop group
in the sixties, Lostinos, and though he had to put
the dream behind him in order to hold down a
steady job and raise a family, he reminisced fondly about
his days snapping fingers and singing in three part harmony.
So when he recognized the raw musical talent in his
(16:20):
own children, Lostinos wrote again, Abraham resurrected the name. The
name meant something to the lifers in Corpus Christie. It
gave them a leg up, not that they needed it.
With Abraham's son ab on bass and his daughter Susette
on drums, they were a force. Abraham fashioned stage lights
from household bulbs stuck inside aluminum cans. He commandeered a
(16:43):
bus big Bertha that took the family band around the
state to house parties, vacant street corners, and bars. They
literally sang for their supper, a supper which their mother
Marcella cooked. Best of all, was their not so secret weapon, Selena.
In nineteen eighty one, when Abraham re christened his old
duop group as Selena Ilostinos, the lead singer was all
(17:06):
but ten years old. She surprised the crowds, shocked them
even as she commanded stage after stage, an audience after
audience with a voice that was breathtaking and wise beyond
its years, truly something to behold. And though English was
Selena's first language, she sang in Spanish a nod to tradition,
(17:27):
to culture, to family. Lekeitinias were all about family, honor, respect, tradition,
family above all. Throughout the nineteen eighties, Selena Ilostinos rode
the surging wave of Tehano music. In a way, they
were the wave sometimes called Tehano Hodo or Texas Wave,
the latest incarnation of Tejano music melded pop, country and
(17:49):
tex mex Selena Lostinos had the goods. They tipped their
hat to generations past and to their own generation, but
ultimately they had the best voice in Southern Texas on
their side, a voice that melted, hearts, that captivated, compelled,
a voice that some would kill for. Selena Eulostinos were
(18:11):
signed to some local indie labels, and at the nineteen
eighty seven to Hanno Music Awards, Selena took home the
trophy for Female Entertainer of the Year. She would go
on to win the award for the next eight years.
Selena was the pride and joy of Corpus Christi and
of Southern Texas. She sang sweetly, smiled sweetly, the kind
(18:32):
of homegrown celebrity who couldn't thraw thousands of fans from
the stage, but was just as at home out on
the streets with locals and the Molina barrio of Corpus Christi,
where she came from and continued to live after she
became famous. Selena's rise and pressed the Latin music industry
even more, and in nineteen eighty nine, Emi Latin Records
signed her as a solo artist. Around the same time,
(18:55):
Chris Perez joined her band as a guitarist. The two
would soon become romantic involved, and not long after they
loped Abraham was the warry type, the doubting type, and
he was less than thrilled at Selena's decision to tie
the knots so quickly and at such a young age.
But despite what he thought, Chris wasn't just the guitar
player anymore. Chris was family now. Selena's solo albums were
(19:19):
big business. Nineteen ninety one's ven Conmigo made her the
first female Tejano singer to go gold. Nineteen ninety two's
Andre al Mimundo pre sold fifty thousand copies before it
even hit shelves and sold over one hundred thousand copies
before that end of the year. Nineteen ninety three, Selena
Alive earned her a Grammy Award for Best Mexican American Album,
(19:40):
and as such, she was the first Tejano musician to
win a Grammy. She was untouchable and she was infallible.
Her clean cut image was a product of the family
environment she came from, and it was key to the
legions of fans who felt like they were part of
her family, felt like they were her sisters and her brothers.
(20:03):
But her new husband, Chris will put a strain on
that clean cut family Dynamic. One night on tour, Chris
partied hard with the crew and the band, a real
fiesta loca. When Selena found him the next morning, he
was standing in the doorway to a trash hotel room.
He knew he had fucked up. He saw it in
her eyes. Selena didn't play the fuck up game. Chris
(20:27):
had to come correct, not just with Selena, but with
her father Abraham too, and that was like telling Vido
Corleoni that he just knocked over his daughter's wedding cake.
Then there was the night Chris left the bar in
San Antono, slightly buzzed after a few drinks and got
behind the wheel of his mom's osmobile. His cousin sat
in the passenger seat, his friends spread out in the back,
(20:49):
and they hit the highway in search of Bardon Rodos.
Chris floored it. He was so far ahead of the
patrol car that he figured there was no way in
hell the blue lights were in for him. He knew
he was dead wrong. When the cop cars multiplied around him,
he pulled over. Officers hit the street, shotguns were drawn cocked.
Chris stared down the barrel of a long neck standard
(21:11):
issue and felt like he was back in the doorway
of that hotel room, looking into Selena's disapproving eyes, playing
that fuck up game. One of the cops pulled Chris's
cousin from the car and held him on the ground.
Maybe it was the couple of beers Chris already had
in him. Maybe it was the pitiful sound his cousin
was making outside his mouth, tasting gravel with an officer's
(21:32):
boot on his neck. But Chris was out of the car, enraged, empowered,
ready to throw down. As soon as he put his
hands on the one cop. Another standing nearby raised his
shotgun point blank. Chris and his cousin were cuffed, brought
down town. Chris's first instinct was to keep his mouth
shut and not shame Selena and her family with the
(21:54):
news of his arrest. But everyone knew who he was,
how he was connected to Selena. He'd have to tell her,
have to tell Abraham. The family trusted him to do
the right thing, to make the right decisions, and he
clearly had betrayed that trust. Little did he know, little
did anyone know that Selena was also busy betraying the
(22:14):
family's trust, her husband's trust, and she was doing it
on the regular. She was spending more and more time
in Monterey, Mexico, where she was looking to expand her
clothing boutique business Selena, etc. It was there that she
met doctor Ricardo Martinez, a plastic surgeon who would quickly
become more than just a friend. Selena confided in Ricardo,
(22:38):
told him about Chris's arrest and trashed hotel rooms and
the ways in which she was unsatisfied with her marriage.
Ricardo became her financial advisor and showed her a place
in Monterey where she could live, where they could live together,
start over, take things to the next level. Selena wasn't
so sure she trusted Ricardo, but she wasn't sure that
(22:59):
she tried herself. Maybe it was all just fantasy, something
she could daydream about for a hot minute while she
cooled down about whatever was stressing her out at the moment.
Few knew about what she was doing in Monterey, who
she was talking to, in the plans she was entertaining.
There was one woman in particular who knew all about it,
(23:20):
and the whole thing made her ANTSI suspicious, jealous because
she wanted Selena for herself. She wasn't going to compete
with the plastic surgeon, who was five hours away from
their corpus Christie Bass. She was family and she'd do
whatever she needed to do to keep Selena close. We'll
(23:43):
be right back after this word, word word. Yolanda Salvovar
asked to see the thirty eight Calibrataurus revolver. It was
right there under the glass, compact, snub nosed, lightweight, easy
to conceal, cheap fuck, and it would get the job done.
It would do what needed doing. The clerk gave Yolanda
(24:06):
a funny look. Wasn't she just here? Hadn't she just
returned the same revolver a few days before? And now
she wanted it back? Which is it, lady? Do you
want the gun or not? Yolanda definitely wanted the gun.
She knew she'd get that funny look, knew she'd get
the question. The clerk wasn't wrong. She had bought it
once already, then she returned it. But that was a mistake.
(24:28):
Returning it was definitely a mistake. She needed the gun
honor in her pocket, in her clutch. The thought of
spending another day without the weight of that little thirty
eight made her shake, sweat panic. She told the clerk
she worked as a nurse for the terminally ill and
she needed protection from family members who had made threats
on her life. He didn't know that Yolanda hadn't worked
(24:49):
as a nurse for years, but he knew she was
full of shit. Regardless, he didn't care. She passed the
background test, and honestly he couldn't give a rats ask
what she needed the gun for. As long as she
had cash, you'd take her money again. She wanted bullets
too hollow points to kind of hit fast, open, fast,
did as much damage as possible fast. She wanted twenty
(25:10):
of them, transaction complete. Yolanda walked outside, sunglasses on revolver,
nestled inside her jacket pocket. The wind rustled her short
haircut gave it the most tender of tossils, but she
imagined that her hair was long and luxurious hair that
the wind could really grab onto and twirl around in
(25:33):
slow mow ecstasy, she rocked her most badass stroll through
the parking lot, big confident strides, her darting, uncertain eyes
hidden behind her dark shades. She didn't care what anyone
else thought, didn't care what any random pass or by
thought when they saw her walking or walk. She was
walking hard, walking with a little piece snuggled next to her.
(25:53):
She was a badass, and she would do what badasses
had to do. It was the morning of March thirty first,
nineteen ninety five. She wondered if she would have to
use the gun that day. Yolanda had been a faithful
servant to Selena for the last four years, her friend,
confidant employee. What Yolanda wanted more than all that was
(26:17):
to belong, to be a part of the family, be indispensable,
and from the moment she saw Selena perform in nineteen
ninety one, she knew she wanted to get closer, be
a part. Yolanda couldn't believe that they weren't hawking Selena
merch in the lobby after the concert in San Antono
in nineteen ninety one, so she brazenly offered to set
up the Selena Fan Club. Yolanda would be its president.
(26:40):
Yolanda hustled. Yolanda preached the word of Tahanna's Queen Gilanda,
spread the gospel of Corpus Christie's greatest export, Selena. Under Yolanda,
Selina's fan Club's membership balloon to nearly half a million,
so Yolanda continued to climb the family ladder. From fan
club president, Yolanda worked her way up to be so
Selena's assistant and then to helping manage the clothing line
(27:03):
the Selena et Cetera boutique shops. She had access to
the checkbooks, she held the purse strings. Selena trusted Yolanda
so much that she had her running recon on Monterey
in anticipation of Selena, etc. Breaking into the Mexican market.
But there was a darker, more obsessive side to Yolanda's devotion.
(27:24):
She covered the walls of her bedroom with posters of Selena,
her boss. She kept a stash with Selita VHS tapes
at the ready. She'd break them out when she had visitors.
She thought about Selena, talked about Selena, dreamed about Selena.
She laid in her bed a Selena CD playing loud
from the next room, and looked up at the poster
on the wall. The twenty four y thirty six inch
(27:46):
spread a dominant force. Stacks of cash hidden underneath her pillow.
She imagined her face next to Selena's face, big toothy smile,
elegant dress, perfect hair. Her imagination went deeper, as if
she could sing like Selena could sing, like she too
was the Madonna of Mexico. She heard the applause, heard
the screams for her attention, for their attention. She needed
(28:10):
his sunglasses back on to shield her eyes from the
explosive camera flashes. She Yolanda Saldivar and Selena ket Denia Perez.
They were the town o Queens, an undeniable duo. The
Selena CD ended and the music stopped filling the house,
and in the quiet stillness, she realized that, of course
(28:31):
she wasn't a town o queen. She was just Yolanda.
She existed somewhere in Selena's long shadow, needed but unseen,
trusted but unknown. And then fans started to complain that
they were sending in their twenty dollars fan club fee,
but weren't receiving anything in return. That fan club money
was supposed to be funneled to charities, but the charities
(28:52):
weren't seeing any dough. It was being funneled elsewhere. Soon
the boutique shop started failing as well, the bookkeeping described
and sies were rising. Selena et cetera employees were complaining
about Yolanda's management skills, mostly about her lack of skills.
Period she had controlled the purse strings, but she was
generally a mess when it came to management, and people
(29:13):
were noticing. Abraham, Selena's father noticed pretty damn quick. He
smelled a rat. The rat had gotten close, earned trusts,
and then it did what rats do. Abraham knew what
a rat looked like, knew where it lived. He could
smell it a mile away. He knew the rat had
committed a cardinal sin. The rat betrayed the family. On
(29:38):
the morning of March ninth, nineteen ninety five, Abraham held
an emergency meeting with Yolanda and Selena. He was going
to call Yolanda out, and he wanted his daughter to
see it all. The queen would have a front row
seat to her most loyal subjects indiscretions. Abraham accused Yolanda
of embezzlement. She was a thief. She was stealing from fans,
taking money from Selena's pocket family. He had proof, He
(30:01):
had testimony of employees at the San Antonio shop. In
Abraham's eyes, there was only one way this ended. Yolanda
had to go and if she didn't make right the
wrong she had committed, he'd sue, he'd drain her. She'd
be left with nothing, no job, no family. It would
be like that time she was accused of stealing nine
grand from the doctor's office she worked at in the
(30:22):
early eighties. Yolanda had no idea how Abraham knew about
that shameful part of her history, but he did. Abraham
did his homework. Abraham went deeper. He accused Yolanda of
being a lesbian, of having an unrequited crush on his daughter,
and that she was a spern jealous, bitter woman, a
spern jealous, bitter rat. Yolanda felt the panic bristle against
(30:44):
the back of her neck. She wrung her hands, her
long nails clicking against one another. She thought about being
poor again, thought about being slandered, thought about being without
her adopted family. A life without the close confidence of
Selena was a life she didn't want any part of.
She looked across the table at Selena, who saw the
anxiety in her eyes and knew what she was thinking.
(31:06):
Fell to her panic. Selena was experiencing her own panic
because Yolanda knew about Selena's visits to Ricardo and Monterey.
Selena knew that Yolanda knew some of her deepest, darkest secrets,
and Selena was terrified that Abraham would back Yolanda into
her corner and Yolanda would squawk, would say something she shouldn't.
(31:28):
The two watched each other from across the table, equal
parts trust, equal parts terror. Yolanda was shaking. She kept
her head down, but raised her eyes enough so that
she could lock in on Selena's unwavering gaze. Abraham kept talking,
his voice rising with anger and disappointment, and the two
women tuned him out. Their minds, raised, eyes unflinched. Each
(31:52):
felt their other's cold stare. Selena was shocked at what
she had heard, was taken aback by the accusations her
father laid bare. She also knew that Yolanda Crook or No,
was prived to some very private shit. Yolanda had Selena's number,
knew what she was capable of, knew her deception, knew
that she was more complicated than just another town. I
(32:13):
was singer from San Antono. Yolanda, from her bowed head,
raised eye's gaze translated what Selena's eyes were saying. That
Selena was a little surprised, sure, but that Selena wasn't shocked.
That she knew Yolanda had some crazy in her, had
some desperation in her. Yolanda would do what she needed
to do to survive, to thrive, and that Selena would
(32:34):
have to do what she had to do to survive
as well. And if that meant turning a blind eye
to whatever the fuck Yolanda was cooking up, so be it.
After the meeting, Yolanda couldn't shake the feeling she was
being followed. On her road trips from San Antonio to
Monterey and back again. She'd watched the same black sedan
(32:55):
in her rear view mirror. It lurked behind her, kept
a distance of a fews, but it was always there,
so she thought. One day, she walked to her car
to find the tires slack against the gravel. Someone had
let the air out, all four of them. The rims
pressed the ground. She anxiously scanned the area to see
(33:15):
if that black sedan was nearby. She was scared, far
from safe, and that's when she bought the thirty eight.
For the first time. She had lost Abraham's trust, and
she was pretty confident that she had lost Selena's trust too,
and if she was losing trust, she was losing family,
losing protection. This little thirty eight made her feel a
little safer. Selena didn't want to believe it. Didn't want
(33:38):
to believe that the person who had set up her
wildly successful fan club, who had been instrumental in making
that Monterey connection, who ran the day to day business
of the boutiques. Selena didn't want to believe that that
person was stealing from her. But Abraham's proof was hard
to deny. Cutting Yolanda from her life wasn't going to
be that easy. Yolanda also knew the Clandestein thinks Selena
(34:01):
was up to, over the border, her dates with the doctor,
her plans to pick up stakes and relocate to Mexico,
start a new life with a new man. Whether those
were concrete plans or a fleeting fantasy, Yolanda knew all
the details. Selena trusted her to keep the details in
the vault. If Selena cut her loose, the vault could
open up, and then she'd really have problems. So partly
(34:26):
to buy time, partly to throw Abraham off the scent,
and partly to wrap up the expansion plans they had
started together. Selena started putting Yolana up in motels, first
at the Bayfront Inn, then the Budget In, then the
days In. Selena moved her around while she figured it out.
Maybe she could fix the pickle Yolanda found herself in
and everyone would wind up happy, and maybe Yolanda would
(34:48):
fix it herself. And they were sitting in an idline
car when Yolanda told Selena just how worried she was.
She was anxious, she was paranoid. She thought she was
being followed. She thought her life was in danger. She
was worried that, for all intents and purposes, her life
was over. But she was taking necessary precautions. She'd be safe.
(35:11):
She didn't have anything to worry about. She pulled the
Subnose thirty eight from her pocketbook, and though the sun
fought through a cloudy haze that reflected out the revolver's
barrel and made a flicker a glint, Selena couldn't believe
what she was seeing. A gun. Why on earth did
Yolanda need a gun? Was she that worried, that paranoid?
(35:32):
Was she that crazy? It was March thirtieth, nineteen ninety
five in the parking lot of the Days in nine
oh one navigation Boulevard Corpus Christi. Selena told Yolanda to
check into the room, get some rest, and that she
would see her tomorrow. Yolanda didn't need all tony hollow
(36:06):
point bullets. She only needed one. One shot, fast, explosive, precise,
maximum damage, minimal effort, dead shot. Her story about what
happened in Room one fifty eight changed. It changed when
she sat in her truck in the parking lot of
the Days in the thirty eight, pressed to her pulsating temple.
(36:29):
Then it changed in the interrogation room after she was arrested,
and again it changed in the courtroom when she went
up on trial for the murder of her former employer,
friend and confidant. In one story, Yolanda bought the thirty
eight to take her own life. In Room one fifty eight,
she confessed to Selena that she was at a dead end.
(36:52):
She had made mistakes, she had made some wrong decisions.
She was selfish, greedy, lost sight of what was important,
and now her actions were going to sink her once
and for all. She simply couldn't live with it, never
mind the guilt. She wasn't about to go back to
being a nobody. She brought the subnosed piece up to
her temple. Her hand shook rapidly and the hollow points
(37:13):
banged around inside the metal chamber. Her bracelets clicked together.
It was all sound and vibration coming from the end
of Landa's hand in the side of her head. Selena
couldn't listen anymore, couldn't watch anymore. She had to get help.
She left up from the edge of the bed where
she was sitting and went for the door. She pulled
it open, and there was the outdoor corridor an overcast sky.
Yolanda frantically motioned with her hand, the hand that was
(37:35):
holding the gun, and it just went off. In another story,
Yolanda was convinced that Selena was going to run away
to Monterey and live a new life with Ricardo Martinez,
convinced that Selena was wearing disguises for herself of the
boat to rendezvous. In fact, Selena had met Yolanda at
the day's end with a suitcase pack for a couple
(37:57):
of days in the Mexican work permit. She was going
to leave behind her husband Chris and up end the
trust she had built within her family. Yolanda wouldn't let
that happen. Yolanda couldn't let that happen, and so she
pulled the revolver on her employer, on her business associate,
on her friend. She pleaded with Selena, begged her to reconsider,
to not make her do it. Don't make her do
(38:19):
something drastic, something rash. She didn't want to pull the trigger,
didn't want to hurt town as pride and joy. But
if Yolanda didn't stop her from ruining her life, who would.
It was her duty, Yolanda reasoned. Selena tried reasoning with Yolanda,
explaining what it was she wanted and how it ultimately
was none of Yolanda's business, and then she tried to
leave the hotel room. She figured there was no way
(38:39):
Elanda would actually pull the trigger. Selena was halfway out
the door when she felt something hot and sharp blast
through her back. Then there was the most likely story,
the story Selena's family and the public believed Yolanda was
face value. Yolanda was jealous. Yolanda was trolling, manipulative, obsessive,
(39:01):
Paddy Bitter, a thief, and the bullet she put into
Selena was one hundred percent cold blooded. The court of
public opinion certainly thought so. Crowds formed outside the courthouse
in Houston, where the trial had been relocated from Corpus
Christi because there was a lower Hispanic population and therefore
(39:22):
less bias. Several hundred Selena fans took to tanning Justicia.
The signs were at San Antonio wants a guilty verdict
and hang the witch. There were drawings distributed of Yomanda
firing range fodder. Someone wrote kill Yolanda in white shoe
polish on the Toyota's windshield. Meanwhile, gangs in Houston, Miami,
(39:43):
and Los Angeles led a bet to see who would
get their hands on Yolanda first. If she was found innocent,
Street justice had already been determined, no matter what the
court rolled. On October twenty third, nineteen ninety five, the
found Yolanda Sadovar guilty and sentenced her to life in prison,
(40:03):
with the possibility of parole in thirty years. That possibility
comes around in twenty twenty five. Time will tell soon
enough if street justice is lying in the cut. Selena
was a rarity. She was insanely talented, had a voice
like no other. She honored her culture, the legacy of
her family and other families like hers, and also brought
(40:26):
the music of her family into the present tense. She
was the face and the voice of modern Tahano, of
Latin pop as it evolved into a chart topping phenomenon
in the late twentieth century. And she was beautiful, down
to earth, the best of both worlds, the real deal, honest, truthful.
Everyone wanted to be by her side. Some wanted to
(40:51):
be by her side more than others. Some would do
just about anything to stand there, and then would do
the unthinkable to prevent anyone else from getting as close.
And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this
is Disgracelam. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
It is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, Exactly Right Network,
and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found
on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If
you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you
for supporting the show.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become
a member right now by going to disgracelampod dot com.
Slash membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland,
ad for le, rate and review the show, and follow
us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgracelampod and
on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod, rock
(42:10):
a Rolla hen Man all Right, disc goes what did
you think of our Selena episode? Give us a call,
Let us know six one seven, nine oh six sixty
six three eight voicemail and text at disgrace lampod on
the socials. Coming up next to Disgraceland, our new episode
on food Fighters and the death of Taylor Hawkins, Don't
(42:34):
Go Anywhere,
Hey, Discus, thanks for joining me for another trip into
our vast Disgraceland archive of episodes. This week we are
featuring our story on Selena, which was originally released back
on November tenth, twenty twenty. And before we get into
the production of this episode, I knew Selena was a
big deal, but I really had no idea how big
of an artist that she actually was. This is something
(00:20):
that was requested from the early days of disgracelam by listeners.
And like I said, I knew Selena. I knew who
she was, but I didn't really understand what she meant
to her fans. I was also surprised to learn the
shocking details behind the betrayal that was at the center
of the story of her death. Selena died when she
(00:42):
was just twenty three years old. This is so sad,
and this whole story is sad, but it's a story
that also is a cautionary tale, and over the past
few years it's become one of the biggest true crime
stories from music history. Check it out. You meycall at
six one seven nine six six six three eight, Let
me know what you think, all right, without further ado,
(01:04):
here is Selena in Disgraceland. Disgraceland is a production of
Double Elvis. The stories about Selena are insane. She was
(01:25):
only ten years old when she began to sing professionally.
At sixteen, she was crowned Female Vocalist of the Year
at the Tano Music Awards. She was the first Tanno
artist on the Billboard two hundred and nineteen ninety four
and was second only to Janet Jackson when it came
to album sales by a female artist. And she was
also the victim and one of the most shocking and
(01:47):
high profile murder cases in music history. Selena was the
poster child for Latin pop in the late twentieth century,
at a time when Latin pop was entering its renaissance
and finding a larger, more or mainstream audience. If Latin
pop was the question, Selena was the answer. And just
as quickly as she ascended, she was silenced. But during
(02:10):
a brief shining moment in the spotlight she made great music.
That music you heard at the top of the show
that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
my melotron called Buried with My Boots on MK one.
I played you that loop because I can't afford the
rights to Take a Bow by Madonna? And why would
(02:30):
I play you that specific slice of bedtime story Gold?
Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
song in America on March thirty first, nineteen ninety five,
And that was the day that the queen of Tejano
music was shot dead in a cheap motel. On this
episode a child prodigy, the Rise of Tejano a motel
(02:53):
murder in Latin pop legend Selena, I'm Jake Brennan and
this is Disgraceland. Trinidad Espinoza heard it first. The sound
(03:26):
was loud, muffled, short, thunderous. Trinidad couldn't tell if it
came from the inside or outside the hotel. It sounded
like an engine misfiring or blown tire. Whatever it was,
it wasn't an everyday sound. Of all people Trinidad would know.
He was one of the maintenance guys at the day's
(03:47):
inn in Corpus Christi. He knew every sound that place made,
the clanks and hiss of AC units, the water and
the pipes, the grumble of the furnace. He could feel
its vibration's course throughout the walls, in every small room
in the motel, probably better than anyone. He was intimate
with the sound of the traffic speeding past on nearby
Interstate thirty seven. He could tell what time a day
(04:09):
it was just by how the traffic sounded at any
given moment. But this, this was different. This sound wasn't
like any of those sounds, those sounds that Trinidad knew
by heart. Trinidad was in the middle of repairing one
of the dryers in the laundry room. The thing had
been on the fritz for days, and finally it had
just conked out, probably a fuse. He had pulled it
(04:32):
out from the wall. It was crouched behind it, taking
out screws with this cordless drill that desperately needed a
new battery, cursing every time the drill lost its torque.
He was sandwiched between the back of the dryer and
the lint covered wall. When he heard it, Trinidad stopped
what he was doing and waited for the loud noise
to repeat, or for another noise to follow. But he
(04:54):
heard nothing, just the distant, moderate hum of traffic on
I thirty seven. Based on the amount of hum, he
guessed it was just about lunchtime. If that sound did
come from the inside of the motel, it could have
been anything. Something that could have stopped working, died out, broke, busted,
something that would either need fixing or need retiring. Things
(05:16):
that needed fixing needed Trinidad. Things that needed retiring, Well,
that was someone else's problem. What now, he thought, wiping
sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand
that held the drill. He had the dryer to fix.
And then there were the faulty fluorescence in room one
twenty one in the AC unit. In one fifty two,
TVs weren't working in a few of the other rooms.
(05:37):
In one of the outlets in the lobby was quote
unquote temperamental had a mind of its own. The front
desk clerk said Trinidad had too much on his plate.
He couldn't handle another problem today. He was too old
for this shit. He stepped outside the laundry room to
the exterior corridor of the motel to see if he
could figure out where the bang had come from, And
(05:58):
as soon as he walked outside, he heard it. Screams, shouts,
two women sprinting down the corridor. The one in front
was the one screaming. Her long dark hair flailed chaotically
behind her. Her shirt was bloody, her eyes wide, teary, panicked.
He couldn't make out what she was saying. As she
(06:19):
was saying anything, her incoherence screamed to the sounds of
a desperate person. The woman chasing her was yelling at
her to stop. She was shorter, the older soccer mom, haircut,
and determined stride. As she ran, her arms pumped up
and down in the air. She was desperate, but controlled,
and Trinidad saw something in her right hand, something that
(06:42):
was in and out of view as her arms pumped
up and down. It took him a few seconds, but
as soon as he made out what it was, he
went for the nearest phone. She had a gun. By
the time the bloody, panicked woman made it inside the
front lobby of the motel, the shorter woman who had
been chasing her had given up, up, turned around, walked away, calmly, cool, collected,
(07:03):
like it had never happened. She went back to the room,
the room they came from, Room one point fifty eight.
Shanavello was working the front desk of the day's in
lobby when the bloody woman came rushing through the glass door.
Shauna jumped, gasped, hand over her mouth. She couldn't believe
it. It wasn't just the blood that shocked her. The blood
(07:24):
was everywhere, all over this woman's tracksuit, smeared in a
path that ran from outside all the way to where
she stood, pulling at her feet on the lobby floor.
Blood was one thing, But what I had Shauna really
shook was that she was pretty sure that this bloody
woman was Selena. Selena Kitania Perez, the undisputed queen of
(07:46):
Tahano Music Corpus Christie's Pride and Joy, a local celebrity
with a massive audience and a real down to Earth's
head on her strong shoulders, lead singer of the group
Los Tinos, Grammy winner the Tano Ards Female Entertainer of
the Year eight years running. Now, she was the unlikeliest
of superstars, just a regular person, a next door neighbor type, humble, kind, proud,
(08:12):
the kindest celebrity you felt you could just trust instinctively,
no questions asked, and she was only twenty three, and
not one iota of her fame had gone to her head.
Everyone loved her, especially here in Corpus Christi, Texas, her hometown.
Shawna recognized Selena underneath the blood and the sweat and
(08:33):
the panic, recognized her voice as she shouted wildly into
the room. Lock the door, Someone locked the door. She's
gonna kill me. Goosebumps ran down Shawna's spine. She went
from hero worship to chaos control real quick. Then Selena
collapsed on the floor of the lobby. It had taken
all of her energy to get her there, get her
(08:54):
to safety. Her body crumbled so suddenly, it was like
every bone in her body had disappeared, and she went
limp and the lively superstar was lifeless. Another motel employee
in the lobby, Reuben de Leon, kneeled over her as
her eyelids fluttered and her eyes started to roll around
in her head. Who Ruben asked her, Who's going to
(09:15):
kill you? The blood kept coming, and there was more
of it than any of them realized. Yolanda Selena muttered
with some of her last labored breaths Room one fifty eight. Outside,
it was getting loud. Cars came rushing from all directions. Cops, locals,
(09:36):
rubberneckers tuned into police skinner action and of course the press.
The woman who had chased Selena outside had left Room
one fifty eight. It was sitting behind the wheel of
her blue Chevy pickup in the motel parking lot. It idled,
the sky darkened. She could feel the storm about to
roll in. She was frozen, couldn't decide what to do,
(09:57):
to back up, to pull forward, to move, or not
to move. She held the thirty eight on her lap
and sat still. Suicide is Painless crackled from the truck
shitty am radio. Yolanda started to shake cars. The kind
uniform cops drove with big V eight's and Radley pickups.
Off duty specials rumbled down the I thirty seven off
ramp alongside the SWAT team in m v's helmets, guns drawn,
(10:21):
hands fixed and ready. Position on the seat of her Chevy.
Yolanda's cell phone buzzed. She let it go off for
a few and then answered it. It was the police.
They had her surrounded. They knew she was Yolanda Saldivar,
and they knew she had just shot Selena. Yolanda went
full hysteria. She raised the thirty eight to her head.
(10:44):
She wasn't going anywhere. You hear that she'd die in
that truck, she assured them, and the courage faded quick
and then fear tears, the fast, hyperventilating kind. I don't
want to live anymore, she sobbed into the phone. I
don't think I can forgive myself. The cops training kicked
in full hostage negotiation was the seesaw. They'd took her down,
(11:06):
then she'd blow back up. She'd raise that revolver to
her temple and then lower it and then raise it again.
The cops would rap sympathy, they'd rap stern, they'd rap
responsibility of obligation, and then fraddle back with empathy. For
nine tens hours, Yolanda sat in the driver's seat of
that blue Chevy pickup, her snub nose thirty eight pressed
to her temple, on again, off again. The clouds rolled in,
(11:29):
the rains came the weather beat against the truck's windshield,
and scattershot rhythm. Hard to haunt obop, Yolanda tried hanging
onto her freedom to the madness of the moment, incessant
cop talk and arsenal of guns pointed at her, guilt
and shame bearing down on her, and the san antone
standoff the longest day of her life. Eventually it became
(11:51):
too much. She gave herself up. Yolanda was going to
jail and Selena Selena was dead. Selena has been shot
(12:21):
and killed in Texas. Millions of Americans were learning Selena's
name for the first time when they caught the eleven
o'clock news in the night of March thirty first. But
for millions of others, for the fans of Tejano tex
mex and Latin music, whose numbers had grown exponentially over
the last five years, each mention of a murder on
(12:41):
the radio or a television was an emotional blow. Selena's
death put a hole deep in the heart of Texas, Texas,
San Antonio, Monterey, the entire Tehano community. They had lost
one of their own, a twenty three year old Fena,
an icon, a queen, a sister, the madonna of Mexico.
(13:01):
Selena was family to them. They were family to her
from the Tehano community, her fans, neighbors, and friends. She
was their greatest ambassador, and she had been taken from
them suddenly, violently. Selena's rise to the top of the
Latin pop world happened in tandem with Tejano's Golden age.
Tehano music was huge because of Selena, beginning in the
(13:23):
nineteen eighties and continuing into the nineties. Internationally minded ann
Hman from America's major labels descended upon South Texas to
exploit the fast rising popular style of La Nda, an
offshoot of t Haano, and they signed every band they
could find. The same thing was happening in Seattle at
the time with grunge music. Different genre, same idea. From
(13:45):
the perspective of the music industry, suits locate the lightning
in the bottle and signed the lightning on the dotted line.
Selena was a special kind of lightning. By the time
she released The More Prohibito in nineteen ninety four, the
last hour album she'd make, Tahano music was a fifty
million dollar industry. When her first English language album, Dreaming
(14:06):
of You was released just months after her death, It
debuted at number one on the Billboard two hundred and
sold one hundred and seventy five thousand copies in the
US on its first day. That sales achievement was a
first for a female artist of any genre. Decades later,
it remains the best selling Latin album of all time,
(14:27):
certified platinum fifty nine times over. That's fifty nine million
albums sold. Suddenly, Selena wasn't just competing with other Tano
artists on the charts. She was competing with Madonna, Whitney
and Janet. In fact, her album sales after her death
were so huge that she sold upwards of three hundred
thousand units in one week. The only female singer who
(14:50):
had her beat on those numbers was none other than
Janet Jackson herself. Selena rested peacefully at the top, and
she got there by honoring tradition and respecting culture and
above all, trusting in family. In return, her family had
her back. Tehano music that was a family affair. Tejano's
(15:12):
roots go all the way back to the mid nineteenth century,
when German immigrants came to the Lone Star State with
accordions in tow. The squeeze box took center stage in
the music of Southern Texas. Backed by guitars and later
drums and horns, it powered Waltz's Pocas Cajuntos, and by
the eighties, synthesizers had replaced the accordions and horns and
(15:33):
Tejano was modernized and timely. Like Zydego music in Louisiana,
Tejana was working class music, regional music, and San Antonio
was the Tejano capital of the world. The music was
an extension of culture and extension of family, and Abraham
Keittania was above all a family man. He knew that
(15:59):
his kids were musical talented. It was in their blood.
He himself had sang with a Corpus Christi douop group
in the sixties, Lostinos, and though he had to put
the dream behind him in order to hold down a
steady job and raise a family, he reminisced fondly about
his days snapping fingers and singing in three part harmony.
So when he recognized the raw musical talent in his
(16:20):
own children, Lostinos wrote again, Abraham resurrected the name. The
name meant something to the lifers in Corpus Christie. It
gave them a leg up, not that they needed it.
With Abraham's son ab on bass and his daughter Susette
on drums, they were a force. Abraham fashioned stage lights
from household bulbs stuck inside aluminum cans. He commandeered a
(16:43):
bus big Bertha that took the family band around the
state to house parties, vacant street corners, and bars. They
literally sang for their supper, a supper which their mother
Marcella cooked. Best of all, was their not so secret weapon, Selena.
In nineteen eighty one, when Abraham re christened his old
duop group as Selena Ilostinos, the lead singer was all
(17:06):
but ten years old. She surprised the crowds, shocked them
even as she commanded stage after stage, an audience after
audience with a voice that was breathtaking and wise beyond
its years, truly something to behold. And though English was
Selena's first language, she sang in Spanish a nod to tradition,
(17:27):
to culture, to family. Lekeitinias were all about family, honor, respect, tradition,
family above all. Throughout the nineteen eighties, Selena Ilostinos rode
the surging wave of Tehano music. In a way, they
were the wave sometimes called Tehano Hodo or Texas Wave,
the latest incarnation of Tejano music melded pop, country and
(17:49):
tex mex Selena Lostinos had the goods. They tipped their
hat to generations past and to their own generation, but
ultimately they had the best voice in Southern Texas on
their side, a voice that melted, hearts, that captivated, compelled,
a voice that some would kill for. Selena Eulostinos were
(18:11):
signed to some local indie labels, and at the nineteen
eighty seven to Hanno Music Awards, Selena took home the
trophy for Female Entertainer of the Year. She would go
on to win the award for the next eight years.
Selena was the pride and joy of Corpus Christi and
of Southern Texas. She sang sweetly, smiled sweetly, the kind
(18:32):
of homegrown celebrity who couldn't thraw thousands of fans from
the stage, but was just as at home out on
the streets with locals and the Molina barrio of Corpus Christi,
where she came from and continued to live after she
became famous. Selena's rise and pressed the Latin music industry
even more, and in nineteen eighty nine, Emi Latin Records
signed her as a solo artist. Around the same time,
(18:55):
Chris Perez joined her band as a guitarist. The two
would soon become romantic involved, and not long after they
loped Abraham was the warry type, the doubting type, and
he was less than thrilled at Selena's decision to tie
the knots so quickly and at such a young age.
But despite what he thought, Chris wasn't just the guitar
player anymore. Chris was family now. Selena's solo albums were
(19:19):
big business. Nineteen ninety one's ven Conmigo made her the
first female Tejano singer to go gold. Nineteen ninety two's
Andre al Mimundo pre sold fifty thousand copies before it
even hit shelves and sold over one hundred thousand copies
before that end of the year. Nineteen ninety three, Selena
Alive earned her a Grammy Award for Best Mexican American Album,
(19:40):
and as such, she was the first Tejano musician to
win a Grammy. She was untouchable and she was infallible.
Her clean cut image was a product of the family
environment she came from, and it was key to the
legions of fans who felt like they were part of
her family, felt like they were her sisters and her brothers.
(20:03):
But her new husband, Chris will put a strain on
that clean cut family Dynamic. One night on tour, Chris
partied hard with the crew and the band, a real
fiesta loca. When Selena found him the next morning, he
was standing in the doorway to a trash hotel room.
He knew he had fucked up. He saw it in
her eyes. Selena didn't play the fuck up game. Chris
(20:27):
had to come correct, not just with Selena, but with
her father Abraham too, and that was like telling Vido
Corleoni that he just knocked over his daughter's wedding cake.
Then there was the night Chris left the bar in
San Antono, slightly buzzed after a few drinks and got
behind the wheel of his mom's osmobile. His cousin sat
in the passenger seat, his friends spread out in the back,
(20:49):
and they hit the highway in search of Bardon Rodos.
Chris floored it. He was so far ahead of the
patrol car that he figured there was no way in
hell the blue lights were in for him. He knew
he was dead wrong. When the cop cars multiplied around him,
he pulled over. Officers hit the street, shotguns were drawn cocked.
Chris stared down the barrel of a long neck standard
(21:11):
issue and felt like he was back in the doorway
of that hotel room, looking into Selena's disapproving eyes, playing
that fuck up game. One of the cops pulled Chris's
cousin from the car and held him on the ground.
Maybe it was the couple of beers Chris already had
in him. Maybe it was the pitiful sound his cousin
was making outside his mouth, tasting gravel with an officer's
(21:32):
boot on his neck. But Chris was out of the car, enraged, empowered,
ready to throw down. As soon as he put his
hands on the one cop. Another standing nearby raised his
shotgun point blank. Chris and his cousin were cuffed, brought
down town. Chris's first instinct was to keep his mouth
shut and not shame Selena and her family with the
(21:54):
news of his arrest. But everyone knew who he was,
how he was connected to Selena. He'd have to tell her,
have to tell Abraham. The family trusted him to do
the right thing, to make the right decisions, and he
clearly had betrayed that trust. Little did he know, little
did anyone know that Selena was also busy betraying the
(22:14):
family's trust, her husband's trust, and she was doing it
on the regular. She was spending more and more time
in Monterey, Mexico, where she was looking to expand her
clothing boutique business Selena, etc. It was there that she
met doctor Ricardo Martinez, a plastic surgeon who would quickly
become more than just a friend. Selena confided in Ricardo,
(22:38):
told him about Chris's arrest and trashed hotel rooms and
the ways in which she was unsatisfied with her marriage.
Ricardo became her financial advisor and showed her a place
in Monterey where she could live, where they could live together,
start over, take things to the next level. Selena wasn't
so sure she trusted Ricardo, but she wasn't sure that
(22:59):
she tried herself. Maybe it was all just fantasy, something
she could daydream about for a hot minute while she
cooled down about whatever was stressing her out at the moment.
Few knew about what she was doing in Monterey, who
she was talking to, in the plans she was entertaining.
There was one woman in particular who knew all about it,
(23:20):
and the whole thing made her ANTSI suspicious, jealous because
she wanted Selena for herself. She wasn't going to compete
with the plastic surgeon, who was five hours away from
their corpus Christie Bass. She was family and she'd do
whatever she needed to do to keep Selena close. We'll
(23:43):
be right back after this word, word word. Yolanda Salvovar
asked to see the thirty eight Calibrataurus revolver. It was
right there under the glass, compact, snub nosed, lightweight, easy
to conceal, cheap fuck, and it would get the job done.
It would do what needed doing. The clerk gave Yolanda
(24:06):
a funny look. Wasn't she just here? Hadn't she just
returned the same revolver a few days before? And now
she wanted it back? Which is it, lady? Do you
want the gun or not? Yolanda definitely wanted the gun.
She knew she'd get that funny look, knew she'd get
the question. The clerk wasn't wrong. She had bought it
once already, then she returned it. But that was a mistake.
(24:28):
Returning it was definitely a mistake. She needed the gun
honor in her pocket, in her clutch. The thought of
spending another day without the weight of that little thirty
eight made her shake, sweat panic. She told the clerk
she worked as a nurse for the terminally ill and
she needed protection from family members who had made threats
on her life. He didn't know that Yolanda hadn't worked
(24:49):
as a nurse for years, but he knew she was
full of shit. Regardless, he didn't care. She passed the
background test, and honestly he couldn't give a rats ask
what she needed the gun for. As long as she
had cash, you'd take her money again. She wanted bullets
too hollow points to kind of hit fast, open, fast,
did as much damage as possible fast. She wanted twenty
(25:10):
of them, transaction complete. Yolanda walked outside, sunglasses on revolver,
nestled inside her jacket pocket. The wind rustled her short
haircut gave it the most tender of tossils, but she
imagined that her hair was long and luxurious hair that
the wind could really grab onto and twirl around in
(25:33):
slow mow ecstasy, she rocked her most badass stroll through
the parking lot, big confident strides, her darting, uncertain eyes
hidden behind her dark shades. She didn't care what anyone
else thought, didn't care what any random pass or by
thought when they saw her walking or walk. She was
walking hard, walking with a little piece snuggled next to her.
(25:53):
She was a badass, and she would do what badasses
had to do. It was the morning of March thirty first,
nineteen ninety five. She wondered if she would have to
use the gun that day. Yolanda had been a faithful
servant to Selena for the last four years, her friend,
confidant employee. What Yolanda wanted more than all that was
(26:17):
to belong, to be a part of the family, be indispensable,
and from the moment she saw Selena perform in nineteen
ninety one, she knew she wanted to get closer, be
a part. Yolanda couldn't believe that they weren't hawking Selena
merch in the lobby after the concert in San Antono
in nineteen ninety one, so she brazenly offered to set
up the Selena Fan Club. Yolanda would be its president.
(26:40):
Yolanda hustled. Yolanda preached the word of Tahanna's Queen Gilanda,
spread the gospel of Corpus Christie's greatest export, Selena. Under Yolanda,
Selina's fan Club's membership balloon to nearly half a million,
so Yolanda continued to climb the family ladder. From fan
club president, Yolanda worked her way up to be so
Selena's assistant and then to helping manage the clothing line
(27:03):
the Selena et Cetera boutique shops. She had access to
the checkbooks, she held the purse strings. Selena trusted Yolanda
so much that she had her running recon on Monterey
in anticipation of Selena, etc. Breaking into the Mexican market.
But there was a darker, more obsessive side to Yolanda's devotion.
(27:24):
She covered the walls of her bedroom with posters of Selena,
her boss. She kept a stash with Selita VHS tapes
at the ready. She'd break them out when she had visitors.
She thought about Selena, talked about Selena, dreamed about Selena.
She laid in her bed a Selena CD playing loud
from the next room, and looked up at the poster
on the wall. The twenty four y thirty six inch
(27:46):
spread a dominant force. Stacks of cash hidden underneath her pillow.
She imagined her face next to Selena's face, big toothy smile,
elegant dress, perfect hair. Her imagination went deeper, as if
she could sing like Selena could sing, like she too
was the Madonna of Mexico. She heard the applause, heard
the screams for her attention, for their attention. She needed
(28:10):
his sunglasses back on to shield her eyes from the
explosive camera flashes. She Yolanda Saldivar and Selena ket Denia Perez.
They were the town o Queens, an undeniable duo. The
Selena CD ended and the music stopped filling the house,
and in the quiet stillness, she realized that, of course
(28:31):
she wasn't a town o queen. She was just Yolanda.
She existed somewhere in Selena's long shadow, needed but unseen,
trusted but unknown. And then fans started to complain that
they were sending in their twenty dollars fan club fee,
but weren't receiving anything in return. That fan club money
was supposed to be funneled to charities, but the charities
(28:52):
weren't seeing any dough. It was being funneled elsewhere. Soon
the boutique shop started failing as well, the bookkeeping described
and sies were rising. Selena et cetera employees were complaining
about Yolanda's management skills, mostly about her lack of skills.
Period she had controlled the purse strings, but she was
generally a mess when it came to management, and people
(29:13):
were noticing. Abraham, Selena's father noticed pretty damn quick. He
smelled a rat. The rat had gotten close, earned trusts,
and then it did what rats do. Abraham knew what
a rat looked like, knew where it lived. He could
smell it a mile away. He knew the rat had
committed a cardinal sin. The rat betrayed the family. On
(29:38):
the morning of March ninth, nineteen ninety five, Abraham held
an emergency meeting with Yolanda and Selena. He was going
to call Yolanda out, and he wanted his daughter to
see it all. The queen would have a front row
seat to her most loyal subjects indiscretions. Abraham accused Yolanda
of embezzlement. She was a thief. She was stealing from fans,
taking money from Selena's pocket family. He had proof, He
(30:01):
had testimony of employees at the San Antonio shop. In
Abraham's eyes, there was only one way this ended. Yolanda
had to go and if she didn't make right the
wrong she had committed, he'd sue, he'd drain her. She'd
be left with nothing, no job, no family. It would
be like that time she was accused of stealing nine
grand from the doctor's office she worked at in the
(30:22):
early eighties. Yolanda had no idea how Abraham knew about
that shameful part of her history, but he did. Abraham
did his homework. Abraham went deeper. He accused Yolanda of
being a lesbian, of having an unrequited crush on his daughter,
and that she was a spern jealous, bitter woman, a
spern jealous, bitter rat. Yolanda felt the panic bristle against
(30:44):
the back of her neck. She wrung her hands, her
long nails clicking against one another. She thought about being
poor again, thought about being slandered, thought about being without
her adopted family. A life without the close confidence of
Selena was a life she didn't want any part of.
She looked across the table at Selena, who saw the
anxiety in her eyes and knew what she was thinking.
(31:06):
Fell to her panic. Selena was experiencing her own panic
because Yolanda knew about Selena's visits to Ricardo and Monterey.
Selena knew that Yolanda knew some of her deepest, darkest secrets,
and Selena was terrified that Abraham would back Yolanda into
her corner and Yolanda would squawk, would say something she shouldn't.
(31:28):
The two watched each other from across the table, equal
parts trust, equal parts terror. Yolanda was shaking. She kept
her head down, but raised her eyes enough so that
she could lock in on Selena's unwavering gaze. Abraham kept talking,
his voice rising with anger and disappointment, and the two
women tuned him out. Their minds, raised, eyes unflinched. Each
(31:52):
felt their other's cold stare. Selena was shocked at what
she had heard, was taken aback by the accusations her
father laid bare. She also knew that Yolanda Crook or No,
was prived to some very private shit. Yolanda had Selena's number,
knew what she was capable of, knew her deception, knew
that she was more complicated than just another town. I
(32:13):
was singer from San Antono. Yolanda, from her bowed head,
raised eye's gaze translated what Selena's eyes were saying. That
Selena was a little surprised, sure, but that Selena wasn't shocked.
That she knew Yolanda had some crazy in her, had
some desperation in her. Yolanda would do what she needed
to do to survive, to thrive, and that Selena would
(32:34):
have to do what she had to do to survive
as well. And if that meant turning a blind eye
to whatever the fuck Yolanda was cooking up, so be it.
After the meeting, Yolanda couldn't shake the feeling she was
being followed. On her road trips from San Antonio to
Monterey and back again. She'd watched the same black sedan
(32:55):
in her rear view mirror. It lurked behind her, kept
a distance of a fews, but it was always there,
so she thought. One day, she walked to her car
to find the tires slack against the gravel. Someone had
let the air out, all four of them. The rims
pressed the ground. She anxiously scanned the area to see
(33:15):
if that black sedan was nearby. She was scared, far
from safe, and that's when she bought the thirty eight.
For the first time. She had lost Abraham's trust, and
she was pretty confident that she had lost Selena's trust too,
and if she was losing trust, she was losing family,
losing protection. This little thirty eight made her feel a
little safer. Selena didn't want to believe it. Didn't want
(33:38):
to believe that the person who had set up her
wildly successful fan club, who had been instrumental in making
that Monterey connection, who ran the day to day business
of the boutiques. Selena didn't want to believe that that
person was stealing from her. But Abraham's proof was hard
to deny. Cutting Yolanda from her life wasn't going to
be that easy. Yolanda also knew the Clandestein thinks Selena
(34:01):
was up to, over the border, her dates with the doctor,
her plans to pick up stakes and relocate to Mexico,
start a new life with a new man. Whether those
were concrete plans or a fleeting fantasy, Yolanda knew all
the details. Selena trusted her to keep the details in
the vault. If Selena cut her loose, the vault could
open up, and then she'd really have problems. So partly
(34:26):
to buy time, partly to throw Abraham off the scent,
and partly to wrap up the expansion plans they had
started together. Selena started putting Yolana up in motels, first
at the Bayfront Inn, then the Budget In, then the
days In. Selena moved her around while she figured it out.
Maybe she could fix the pickle Yolanda found herself in
and everyone would wind up happy, and maybe Yolanda would
(34:48):
fix it herself. And they were sitting in an idline
car when Yolanda told Selena just how worried she was.
She was anxious, she was paranoid. She thought she was
being followed. She thought her life was in danger. She
was worried that, for all intents and purposes, her life
was over. But she was taking necessary precautions. She'd be safe.
(35:11):
She didn't have anything to worry about. She pulled the
Subnose thirty eight from her pocketbook, and though the sun
fought through a cloudy haze that reflected out the revolver's
barrel and made a flicker a glint, Selena couldn't believe
what she was seeing. A gun. Why on earth did
Yolanda need a gun? Was she that worried, that paranoid?
(35:32):
Was she that crazy? It was March thirtieth, nineteen ninety
five in the parking lot of the Days in nine
oh one navigation Boulevard Corpus Christi. Selena told Yolanda to
check into the room, get some rest, and that she
would see her tomorrow. Yolanda didn't need all tony hollow
(36:06):
point bullets. She only needed one. One shot, fast, explosive, precise,
maximum damage, minimal effort, dead shot. Her story about what
happened in Room one fifty eight changed. It changed when
she sat in her truck in the parking lot of
the Days in the thirty eight, pressed to her pulsating temple.
(36:29):
Then it changed in the interrogation room after she was arrested,
and again it changed in the courtroom when she went
up on trial for the murder of her former employer,
friend and confidant. In one story, Yolanda bought the thirty
eight to take her own life. In Room one fifty eight,
she confessed to Selena that she was at a dead end.
(36:52):
She had made mistakes, she had made some wrong decisions.
She was selfish, greedy, lost sight of what was important,
and now her actions were going to sink her once
and for all. She simply couldn't live with it, never
mind the guilt. She wasn't about to go back to
being a nobody. She brought the subnosed piece up to
her temple. Her hand shook rapidly and the hollow points
(37:13):
banged around inside the metal chamber. Her bracelets clicked together.
It was all sound and vibration coming from the end
of Landa's hand in the side of her head. Selena
couldn't listen anymore, couldn't watch anymore. She had to get help.
She left up from the edge of the bed where
she was sitting and went for the door. She pulled
it open, and there was the outdoor corridor an overcast sky.
Yolanda frantically motioned with her hand, the hand that was
(37:35):
holding the gun, and it just went off. In another story,
Yolanda was convinced that Selena was going to run away
to Monterey and live a new life with Ricardo Martinez,
convinced that Selena was wearing disguises for herself of the
boat to rendezvous. In fact, Selena had met Yolanda at
the day's end with a suitcase pack for a couple
(37:57):
of days in the Mexican work permit. She was going
to leave behind her husband Chris and up end the
trust she had built within her family. Yolanda wouldn't let
that happen. Yolanda couldn't let that happen, and so she
pulled the revolver on her employer, on her business associate,
on her friend. She pleaded with Selena, begged her to reconsider,
to not make her do it. Don't make her do
(38:19):
something drastic, something rash. She didn't want to pull the trigger,
didn't want to hurt town as pride and joy. But
if Yolanda didn't stop her from ruining her life, who would.
It was her duty, Yolanda reasoned. Selena tried reasoning with Yolanda,
explaining what it was she wanted and how it ultimately
was none of Yolanda's business, and then she tried to
leave the hotel room. She figured there was no way
(38:39):
Elanda would actually pull the trigger. Selena was halfway out
the door when she felt something hot and sharp blast
through her back. Then there was the most likely story,
the story Selena's family and the public believed Yolanda was
face value. Yolanda was jealous. Yolanda was trolling, manipulative, obsessive,
(39:01):
Paddy Bitter, a thief, and the bullet she put into
Selena was one hundred percent cold blooded. The court of
public opinion certainly thought so. Crowds formed outside the courthouse
in Houston, where the trial had been relocated from Corpus
Christi because there was a lower Hispanic population and therefore
(39:22):
less bias. Several hundred Selena fans took to tanning Justicia.
The signs were at San Antonio wants a guilty verdict
and hang the witch. There were drawings distributed of Yomanda
firing range fodder. Someone wrote kill Yolanda in white shoe
polish on the Toyota's windshield. Meanwhile, gangs in Houston, Miami,
(39:43):
and Los Angeles led a bet to see who would
get their hands on Yolanda first. If she was found innocent,
Street justice had already been determined, no matter what the
court rolled. On October twenty third, nineteen ninety five, the
found Yolanda Sadovar guilty and sentenced her to life in prison,
(40:03):
with the possibility of parole in thirty years. That possibility
comes around in twenty twenty five. Time will tell soon
enough if street justice is lying in the cut. Selena
was a rarity. She was insanely talented, had a voice
like no other. She honored her culture, the legacy of
her family and other families like hers, and also brought
(40:26):
the music of her family into the present tense. She
was the face and the voice of modern Tahano, of
Latin pop as it evolved into a chart topping phenomenon
in the late twentieth century. And she was beautiful, down
to earth, the best of both worlds, the real deal, honest, truthful.
Everyone wanted to be by her side. Some wanted to
(40:51):
be by her side more than others. Some would do
just about anything to stand there, and then would do
the unthinkable to prevent anyone else from getting as close.
And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this
is Disgracelam. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
It is produced in partnership with Double Elvis, Exactly Right Network,
and iHeart Podcasts. Credits for this episode can be found
on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If
you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you
for supporting the show.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become
a member right now by going to disgracelampod dot com.
Slash membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland,
ad for le, rate and review the show, and follow
us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgracelampod and
on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod, rock
(42:10):
a Rolla hen Man all Right, disc goes what did
you think of our Selena episode? Give us a call,
Let us know six one seven, nine oh six sixty
six three eight voicemail and text at disgrace lampod on
the socials. Coming up next to Disgraceland, our new episode
on food Fighters and the death of Taylor Hawkins, Don't
(42:34):
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