The mononymous singer Selena was shot and killed March 15, 1995 by friend and former employee Yolanda Saldívar at a Corpus Cristi hotel. Selena, full name Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, was just 23.

This week, as the New York Times reported, Saldívar was denied parole. She’s serving a sentence of life in prison for first-degree murder. But Saldívar, now 64, was eligible for parole after 30 years.

In a statement, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole said, “After a thorough consideration of all available information, which included any confidential interviews conducted, it was the parole panel’s determination to deny parole to Yolanda Saldivar and set her next parole review for March 2030.”

The statement added, “The record indicates that the instant offense has elements of brutality, violence, assaultive behavior or conscious selection of victim’s vulnerability indicating a conscious disregard for the lives, safety, or property of others, such that the offender poses a continuing threat to public safety.”

At the time of her slaying, Selena’s fame was skyrocketing. She was a crossover-ready superstar of Tejano, a Tex-Mex musical style blending modern and traditional sounds, her 1991 concert album “Live!” and 1994 studio effort “Amor Prohibido,” won Grammys.

Selena’s hits included the latter album’s title track and “No Me Queda Más.” She wowed fans, not just with her music and dance moves, but also sexy outfits she wore onstage. It led to Selena being compared to Madonna, the ultimate pop provocateur.

Saldívar was cofounder of Selena’s fan club and worked at boutiques the singer owned. She shot Selena after being accused of embezzling from the fan club and boutiques, as Selena demanded to see financial papers at a meeting at a motel.

Selena’s murder hit the Hispanic community as hard as Kurt Cobain’s 1994 suicide hit rock fans, as Tupac Shakur’s 1996 killing would later devastate rap fans.

And like Cobain and Shakur, Selena became even more legendary after she died. Jennifer Lopez depicted her in the 1997 biopic “Selena.”

As Mexican American singer Stephanie Bergara, who stars in a popular Texas-based Selena tribute band told AL.com in 2023, Selena “was the first person who I ever saw on television who looked like she could be in my family. She looked like she could be my cousin who lives in this house two doors down. And I was so enamored with her visually, and then she started singing and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.‘”