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The Selena Quintanilla-Pérez museum in Corpus Christi, a majority-Hispanic city in southern Texas facing the Gulf of Mexico, contains almost the entire universe of the Queen of Tex-Mex Music: hundreds of portraits of the singer, her red Porsche, her collection of Fabergé eggs, her awards and gold and platinum records, around 20 of the outfits she designed herself, and the stream of fans who pass by in groups every few minutes. There is no trace of the woman who shot her in the back, Yolanda Saldívar. And a subtle ellipsis —in the letters of condolence from, among others, then-president Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, then governor of Texas — acknowledges the death on March 31, 1995, of a 23-year-old artist who had already made history in the Latin pop industry and in the Mexican-American community in the United States.
“There’s no need to remember what happened; everyone knows, and it still hurts for many of us,” said two friends, “fans of the singer,” who came here from far away, Montana and Michigan, as they stood in the museum parking lot on March 20.
This Monday marks 30 years since that ”what happened,” and as much as Selena’s family and some of her fans may prefer to forget it, the tide of history insists on bringing those memories back. The anniversary isn’t particularly momentous, but it coincides with the first time that Saldívar, a petite 64-year-old woman who served as president of Selena’s fan club and managed the singer’s fashion business, was eligible for parole. The Texas Board of Pardons denied her request last Thursday, finding that “the attacker represents a continuing threat to public safety.” The board ruled that she must remain behind bars until at least 2030, when she can again request a review of the case.
A Houston judge sentenced her to life in prison in 1995 after a three-week “trial of the century” that marked —along with the O.J. Simpson trial held shortly before — the beginning of a golden age of justice as a show in the United States. The jury took just a little over two hours to find her guilty of first-degree murder for shooting Selena in a Corpus Christi motel room.
A spokesperson told EL PAÍS last...