A woman serving a life sentence for the murder of “Queen of Tegiano” Serena in 1995, quickly learns whether she was released on parole. The family tells the Post that they believe the singer is at least partially responsible for her death.
Yolanda Sardiva fatally shot 23-year-old superstar Serena Quintanilla Perez during a conflict in a hotel room in Corpus Christi, Texas on March 31, 1995.
The singer believed that Sardivah was embezzling the money from her and trying to fire her.
But the 64-year-old prisoner now says the singer's attitude has escalated the situation to the point of violence.
“[Yolanda] She knows what she did was wrong, so she's responsible for it,” the family tells the Post. “But she was reacting to the way she faced.”
“She says that [Selena] I came to her really aggressively,” the family says. “She was so dumped at how powerful Serena was. Everything happened so fast. If Serena had stood up to her different ways, this would never have happened.”
Inmates in the Patrick L. O'Daniel unit in Gatesville, Texas have long been claiming that he has no intention of killing Serena and that her death was a coincidence. She also claims she intends to kill herself after the murder.
The Texas Commission on Pardonment and Parole has confirmed with the Post that it has begun a process of considering the case of Sardivah, now 64, who was sentenced to life in prison for possible parole 30 years later.
The first review began in October 2024, six months before Saldívar's parole eligibility date on March 30th.
The Parole Board will hold a hearing at the end of the month and then make a decision.
Saldívar publicly claims that she is a political prisoner who has not received a fair trial. She has failed at least three times.
“Even before the trial began, I was convicted by public opinion,” Sardivar said in a prison interview in a documentary for Peacock last year, “Serena and Yolanda: The Secret Between They.”
A fellow inmate posted that Sardivah still kept her away from the general population due to fear of her safety.
Former prisoner Yesenia Dominguez said last year that Sardibar was always the subject of a common debate in prison yards.
“Everyone was always like, 'Let's do that b-h for five minutes,'” Dominguez says. “Everyone wanted Serena's justice. There's a target on her back. ”
In 2018, Serena's father, Abraham Quintanira, told Univision's Primer Impact that other inmates were threatening the lives of Sardivah.
“To this day, we will receive letters from a woman in the same prison that she says she is still waiting for her,” he said at the time. “They say they're trying to kill her. There's a bad woman out there. A woman who's killed another person in the past. That's why they're there. They have nothing to lose.”
But now, Sardivah wants out and claims that she will live with her relatives and find a job if she is released.
“She has a place to live,” the family says. “We've never abandoned her. But I don't know where she's going to work. Who's going to hire her?”
