Ex-Fan Club Chief Guilty in Selena Murder

The former president of the Selena fan club was found guilty Monday of murdering the 23-year-old Tejano superstar, whose legions of fans cheered the verdict as a victory for the Latino community.

Yolanda Saldivar, 35, who also managed the singer’s boutiques, slumped forward and sobbed inconsolably after learning that she could face a maximum term of life in prison for the March 31 shooting at a motel in Selena’s hometown, Corpus Christi, Tex. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for today.

“Finally, justice has been served,” said Joanna Salguero, 28, a Houston nurse who joined the jubilant crowd outside the county courthouse here in her blue medical scrubs. “When the judgment came through, it was like Selena mattered. For once, our community has a voice.”

The two-week trial, which was moved to Houston because of extensive publicity, offered two starkly contrasting versions of the Grammy winner’s death. Prosecutors called it a coldblooded killing, sparked after Selena accused Saldivar of fleecing the star’s business accounts. Defense attorneys contended the shooting was accidental, an unfortunate mistake by a suicidal confidante.

In what some legal analysts considered a gamble, Saldivar’s lawyer asked the six-man, six-woman jury to weigh only the allegation of first-degree murder, dismissing the possibility of a conviction on lesser charges, such as manslaughter. The jury--composed of seven whites, four Latinos and one black--took three hours Monday afternoon to agree on her guilt.

“I’m just glad we were able to find 12 strong people . . . who would listen to the evidence and decide this case based on what they heard in the courtroom,” Carlos Valdez, the district attorney from Corpus Christi, told a news conference after the verdict was read. “I’ve been saying all along, this was a very simple murder case. The only difference was you guys--the publicity.”

With journalists from nearly 100 media organizations looking on, a throng of several hundred Selena supporters turned the streets around the courthouse into a celebratory block party--cheering wildly as honking cars clogged traffic around the building. The burst of emotion was not merely a testament to the singer’s star appeal, but to the Latino community’s relief that the criminal justice system had appropriately honored a cultural icon.

“Justice, justice, justice for Selena,” chanted the crowd, some of its members waving clenched fists. “Dallas wants no guns, no Saldivar,” read one hand-lettered sign. “San Antonio wants a guilty verdict,” read another. A leaflet being passed around showed a caricature of the frumpy Saldivar attached to a porcine body; it was framed by a target from a firing range.

“A lot of Hispanics have a really hard time believing in our justice system,” said Nellie Gonzales, 30, who was clutching a homemade “Life in Prison” placard. “So many times, we get the short end of the stick. This sends out a message that, if you let the law run its course, it can work for you. That’s a good feeling for us Tejanos.”

From the beginning, the case seemed relatively open and shut. The singer, whose full name is Selena Quintanilla Perez, had gone to a Days Inn motel just a few minutes from her home to retrieve a bag full of financial records from Saldivar, who had been accused of embezzling about $30,000. Distraught, the former nurse from San Antonio pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and fired once into Selena’s back.

Mortally wounded, Selena managed to stagger to the motel lobby, where she whispered her assailant’s name before collapsing. Saldivar, meanwhile, took refuge in a pickup truck, holding police at bay for more than nine hours as she pointed the gun at herself.

One of the prosecutors, Mark Skurka, told the jury during closing arguments Monday that Saldivar “took the gun out, cocked the hammer, pulled the trigger and killed her. What could be a worse way to die than to be shot in the back in a cowardly manner?

“Selena left her mark on the world,” he added. “The defendant left her mark on Selena with a bullet hole in the back.”

But Saldivar’s court-appointed attorney, Doug Tinker, unnerved many of Selena’s fans by painting an unflattering picture of her father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr., whom he described as a manipulative “stage dad” resentful of his daughter’s friendship with a woman he suspected of being a lesbian.

Tinker, who is widely considered to be among the top defense lawyers in Texas, also introduced dramatic tapes of Saldivar’s cellular phone conversations with police negotiators during her standoff. The jury heard almost all six hours of the recordings, during which Saldivar tearfully insists that the shooting was unintentional--and that Selena’s father had raped her, a charge he has denied.

“It just went off. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to kill anybody,” moans Saldivar, who did not testify during the trial, on the recordings. “I wanted to kill me--not her--me, me. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Selena. It was an accident.”

During closing arguments, another of her attorneys, Fred Hagans, told jurors that it was disarmingly easy to fire a gun, repeatedly pulling the trigger of the Brazilian-made five-shot revolver to prove his point.

“There’s no question Yolanda Saldivar acknowledged the tragedy, the tragic loss of Selena, and all of us share in that community of grief,” Hagans said. “Time and time again, consistently unrehearsed . . . she said, ‘This was an accident, I didn’t intend to hurt her.’ ”

There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, although motel employees testified that they saw a bleeding, screaming Selena run from Room 158 to the lobby with Saldivar calmly in pursuit. During the penalty phase of the trial, which will be decided by the same jury, Saldivar faces a sentence that could range from probation to life imprisonment.

For fans of the slain Tejano star, whose posthumously released bilingual album topped the Billboard charts and earned her the crossover success she had dreamed about in life, there is no question about what justice requires.

“Hang the witch,” exhorted one hastily lettered sign.