Selena Quintanilla

**Selena Quintanilla** (April 16, 1971 - March 31, 1995) was American singer known mononymously as **Selena**

## Early Life

Selena Quintanilla was born on April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson, Texas. She was the youngest child of Marcella Ofelia Quintanilla (née Samora), who had Cherokee ancestry, and Abraham Quintanilla Jr., a former musician of Mexican ancestry. Quintanilla's paternal great-grandfather, Eulogio Quintanilla Longoria Sr., was originally from Heroica Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico

## Death

On March 30, 1995, Selena contacted Leonard Wong about the perfume samples he had made for her. According to Wong, Selena told him she would be meeting Saldívar the next morning to pick up the samples that had been stolen from her. The same day, she told another employee at the boutique she was expecting to fire Saldívar. The employee followed Selena to her home that night because she was concerned over the singer after their discussion about Saldívar. At 7:30 a.m. (CST) on March 31, Selena left for Saldívar's motel room. At the motel, Saldívar told Selena she had been raped in Mexico. Selena took her to Doctors Regional Hospital, where medical staff noticed Saldívar showed "clear symptoms of depression". Saldívar told medical staff she had bled "a little". The staff noticed Selena angrily respond that Saldívar had told her the opposite, that she was bleeding *copiously* the day before. Nurse Carla Anthony informed Saldívar she needed to travel to San Antonio to obtain a gynecological examination because Saldívar "was a resident of San Antonio, the hospital was in Corpus, and the rape occurred outside the country". While driving back to the motel, Selena told Saldívar it would be best if they stayed apart for a while to avoid upsetting Quintanilla, Jr. According to Dr. Martinez, Selena had tried to contact him that morning but he could not speak on the telephone because he was performing surgery. At 10:00 a.m. (CST), Quintanilla, Jr. contacted Pérez to determine Selena's whereabouts; she was due to record a song at Q-Productions that morning and had not arrived. Pérez called Selena on her mobile phone and reminded her of the scheduled recording. She told him she had forgotten the session and she was "taking care of one last [item of] business" and would be at Q-Productions soon after. This was the last telephone call Selena answered and was the last time Pérez spoke to his wife.

At the motel room, Selena and Saldívar began arguing. Motel guests complained about loud noises coming from Saldívar's room. They said they heard two women arguing about business matters. Selena told Saldívar she could no longer be trusted, and demanded Saldívar return her financial papers. Selena then dumped Saldívar's satchel containing bank statements onto the bed and saw the gun. At 11:48 a.m. (CST), Saldívar pointed it at Selena. As Selena tried to flee, Saldívar shot her once on the lower right shoulder, puncturing an artery and causing a massive loss of blood. Trinidad Espinoza, the hotel's maintenance man, reported hearing a "loud bang", which he likened to a car engine misfiring. Selena was critically wounded; she ran towards the lobby, leaving a trail of blood 392 feet (119 m) long. She was seen clutching her chest screaming, "Help me! Help me! I've been shot!"; Saldívar was still chasing after her, pointing the gun at her, and calling her a "bitch". According to motel staff, Saldívar seemed "calm" and went back in her room after chasing Selena. According to Carlos Morales, who was waiting outside the motel, he heard screaming and saw Selena running towards him. She grabbed Morales and screamed, "They'll shoot me again!". Motel staff noticed her clothes were "soaked in blood" when she approached the lobby. Selena collapsed on the floor at 11:49 a.m. (CST) as hotel general manager Barbara Schultz telephoned the emergency services. Selena screamed at the staff, telling them, "Lock the door! She'll shoot me again!”  The singer identified Saldívar as her assailant and gave the number of the room where she had been shot. She was "mortally wounded [and] terrified" when she identified Saldívar, having said her last words "Yolanda... (room) 158." Shawna Vela and hotel sales manager Ruben DeLeon tried to stop the flow of blood. Selena's condition began to deteriorate rapidly as motel staff attended to her. DeLeon tried to talk to Selena but noticed she was beginning to lose consciousness; he said she was moaning and moving less often. DeLeon noticed Selena's eyes had rolled back and that she went limp.

An ambulance arrived at the scene in one minute and 55 seconds. The paramedics tore away the green sweater where the bleeding was taking place and applied a Vaseline gauze to Selena's wound, which stopped the surface bleeding. Selena's heartbeat was now very slow; a paramedic performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation to keep her blood circulating. Paramedic Richard Fredrickson said "it was too late" when he arrived in the lobby. He found a "thick [pool of blood] from her neck to her knees, all the way around on both sides [of her body]". Fredrickson could not locate a pulse; when he placed his fingers on her neck, he felt only muscle twitches.

A paramedic tried inserting an intravenous needle into Selena, but her veins had collapsed because of the massive blood loss and low (or no) blood pressure, making the insertion extremely difficult. Local police closed off Navigation Boulevard. 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, and was declared clinically brain dead. Doctors were able to establish an "erratic heartbeat" long enough to transfer her to the trauma room. Doctors began blood transfusions in an attempt to re-establish blood circulation after opening Selena's chest and finding massive internal bleeding. Selena's right lung was damaged, her collarbone was shattered, and her veins were emptied of blood. Doctors widened her chest opening, administered drugs into her heart, and applied pressure to her wounds. Dr. Louis Elkins, cardiac surgeon, arrived at Memorial Hospital and said he saw doctors making "heroic efforts" to revive Selena. He described the singer as being "extremely contused and shredded. The right side of her chest, all the tissue was ripped." By the time Elkins arrived, an emergency doctor began "massaging her heart" after it had stopped beating. Elkins reported how all efforts were futile and said had he been the receiving doctor, he would not have made any treatments on Selena. He felt "obligated to continue" after the emergency room doctor made the decision to reanimate the singer. 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. A breathing tube was administered after Selena stopped breathing on her own, while a clamp was placed on her "gushing" pierced artery on her collarbone. After 50 minutes, the doctors realized the damage was irreparable. Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was pronounced dead at 1:05 p.m. (CST) at age 23, 16 days before her 24th birthday, from blood loss and cardiac arrest.

During the third hour after the shooting, an autopsy was performed due to overwhelming media interest. It revealed that the bullet had entered Selena's upper right back, near her shoulder blade, passed through her chest cavity, severed the right subclavian artery, and exited her right upper chest. It took minutes from the point of impact of the bullet that Selena lost "virtually all the blood in her body" which contributed to her rapidly bleeding to death. Doctors said that if the bullet had been only one millimeter higher or lower, the wound would have been less severe