Her Name Was Dolores

by Pete Salgado

  Jen always treated her team as part of her family. We were at Rosie’s wedding not because Rosie wanted us there, but because Jenni wanted us there. We attended baby showers for her family, and Jen would also be present at our life events, even hosting a baby shower for my wife and me. It went both ways with all of us. Even on Christmas, the epitome of a family holiday, Jen would always make time to stop by our homes, deliver gifts, and spend a little time with our families. That’s why being shunned by her family after Jen’s passing left us battered and speechless.

  Now, let me be clear, no one here is denying that they are her family, her blood; no one can ever take that away from them. I’m not trying to compare myself to a biological brother, but her work family was also a key part of her life, and there’s no denying that either, no matter how hard the Rivera family tried to silence us in the years to come. They fought tooth and nail to control her story and make sure that if anyone was to garner attention on her behalf, it would be solely and exclusively them. It was as if they were suddenly trying to bury us together with Jen, erasing us from their memories as if we’d never even existed. However, everyone who’s anyone in this industry knows all too well that in order to succeed you need a damn good team backing you every step of the way. You just can’t do it all on your lonesome.

  When the family inherited Jenni’s estate, everything was running smoothly, nothing was broken. Her team, which had been in place running things for a while, was loyal, we knew what we were doing, and we were all willing and able to continue working for our dearly departed friend. But once the memorial and burial were over, and the new year had begun, we quickly realized the family had other plans for us. No one would be left standing with them.

  While Jen fretted over taking a break or retiring from the spotlight because of how that would affect her employees and leave them without their bread and butter, her family showed no concern. At the start of 2013, the Riveras decided to dismantle the team and assemble a new one. They let everyone go, everyone except me. I was the exception for what later became one calculated reason: I was still generating money for them. They couldn’t afford to let me go just yet because they needed my help to understand each and every aspect of Jen’s many business ventures and finances. So I was basically the last of the gatekeepers, the last man standing from a team of people who were part of building Jen’s wealth and legacy. We knew what she wanted to accomplish and how she wanted to get it done, we knew how she thought and what she felt, but rather than keep us all on to help her live on through her music and various ventures, the family obliterated that possibility. Those years of meaningful and worthwhile experience meant nothing to them. They just wanted a clean slate, so they could move on and do whatever they saw fit, no questions asked. And that’s exactly what they did. They went on to hire a new team, a “yes” team, one that never questioned anything they did, and, as the last of the old guard, I stuck out like a sore thumb. But I had the blueprints to Jen’s career, so they still needed me around, for the time being.

  Somewhat oblivious to the impending changes to come, I continued working with the family as I had always worked with Jen. I put them up to speed with everything that we had up and running, but also never hesitated to question their business decisions or their spending, and this rubbed them the wrong way. I knew how Jen thought. I knew if she needed coffee or tea just by looking at her schedule for the day. But they weren’t used to this; they weren’t Jen. All I wanted to do was help the Rivera family get organized and honor Jen’s legacy, but after a while, I started realizing that there wasn’t much else I could do other than comply with their requests.

  At first they were all a bit lost. Rosie had been left in charge of Jen’s estate, and she was honestly quite distressed. She had been promoted from little sister to CEO of a multimillion dollar business overnight. None of them had realized how much wealth Jen had accumulated over the years because she never bragged about it or flaunted it with excessive luxuries, so they were genuinely overwhelmed. I was in charge of passing on all my knowledge to both Rosie and Juan, her brother, but it was no easy feat. We’re talking about two people who had no real business experience, so it was like training rookies for an impending professional game. To top it off, Juan, who had no personal career successes under his belt, suddenly went from battling drug and alcohol addictions to managing Jen’s estate—eventually becoming vice president of Jenni Rivera Enterprises—and now the world was his oyster.

  What I observed as 2013 unfolded worried me, so I reached out to Chiquis and asked if she’d have lunch with me. When Jen and Chiquis had their falling out the prior year, Jen decided to take Chiquis out of her will. So suddenly Chiquis was left not only dealing with the unresolved issues she had with Jen and the pain of losing her mother so tragically, but also with no say in her legacy or in the care of her siblings, children who had grown up seeing her as their second mom. Furthermroe, after Jen’s passing, Chiquis and I weren’t on talking terms. She held a grudge because I had decided against working with her and Angel and because I had sided with her mom during their whole debacle, but she still said yes to lunch. I was happy she’d accepted because I was truly concerned about her well-being. I knew she was a good girl, and I knew Jen would’ve wanted me to look out for her because Jen’s love for her would always be stronger than any feud.

  So that day in 2013, when we sat at the table, I cut straight to the chase, “Listen, Chiqs, just as I had told you before, my loyalty is to your mom, and that’s why I couldn’t work with you. And now I’m here to tell you that my loyalty still stands with your mom, and if this means going against your Uncle Juan and Tía Rosie for what’s best for you guys as kids, I will do that, and I’ll stand behind that because I know that’s what your mom would have expected of me.”

  I opened up and wanted to make sure she knew she could count on me. Little did I know that she was taping our entire conversation without my knowledge. As soon as the lunch ended, I drove off and she took the unauthorized tape and showed it to Rosie and Juan. Obviously, they were pissed and later confronted me about the whole situation, but I stood by my words. “Absolutely right, I said that. You’re absolutely right,” I responded after their accusations. I had nothing to hide, and they took offense. I was just trying to protect Jen and what she would’ve wanted for her legacy and children, but it was becoming increasingly apparent that soon I would no longer be around to do right by her. Once the family had all the information they needed, they took the steering wheel and, by mid 2013, they let me go and began to drive the vehicle on their own, while I slowly crashed and burned inside.

  I was suddenly hit with a twofold blow. Instead of taking the time to mourn my dad’s and Jen’s deaths, I had poured myself into helping the Rivera family keep the diva’s ship from sinking, only to be brutally cut off once they had received what they needed. That was it, they were done with me. They wanted to take control of her story and bend it in their favor without having any of the old guard around to call them out on anything. And me? I just froze.

  A year had gone by and I had yet to process the shock of everything that had gone down. My emotions were suddenly paralyzed, crippled by the weight of it all. I went cold in 2014, and something inside me completely shut down. What followed were two of the most intense years of my life, some of the most challenging times for my wife and children, a period I couldn’t have survived without their love and support as well as that of my siblings and close friends. They all went the extra mile, trying to get through to me, pierce through the shield that I had built around my heart. My brother took me out to do the things I usually enjoyed. My wife planned a family vacation hoping that would help her break through to me and get me out of this deep funk. Her patience was extraordinary; I will never forget it and will forever be grateful to the way she stuck by me during such trying times. But nothing seemed to work.

  Everyone kept telling me I had to simply let it all out and let it go, but I didn’t know where to begin. I was terrified o
f losing control. I had no idea what to expect if I really let it all out. It was as if I were a volcano on the verge of erupting; I felt I could easily decimate the entire village of people that surrounded me. Until one day, it finally happened. I was sitting on a chair in my backyard playing with my dog, while my family was doing their thing inside the house, as I had done many times before. However, this time, something shifted within. I began to reflect on my situation and suddenly felt a crack in my frozen lake of emotions. At long last one lonesome tear took the plunge and slowly rolled down my dry cheek. It was like that first drop of rain dotting an arid landscape after a two-year drought, inviting a thunderstorm of emotions to pour out of me in a deluge of tears. I realized I didn’t have to hold it in anymore. I didn’t have to worry about someone seeing me break down. It was okay. My favorite dog was out there with me, sharing his unconditional love, my beloved family was inside, and in that precise instant, I finally felt safe. I could’ve filled my pool with the tears that came storming down my face that day. Out of all the scenarios I had played out in my mind, I never expected it to all come gushing out in my backyard on what felt like any other normal day. It was such an immense relief. The mourning had finally begun, one that I’m still dealing with to this day as I pour the story I have held within for so long onto these pages.

  Meanwhile, no longer blinded by this colossal loss, as my pain subsided and I began to heal, thoughts about the actual accident began to cross my mind again. After Jen’s death, I was often asked if I really believed it had been an accident. But at the time, I couldn’t talk about it. I didn’t want to tarnish her memory with conspiracy theories. Intentional or not, she was gone and there was no way we were going to get her back. However, after my emotional breakthrough, I felt this question deserved a better answer.

  I had had access to privileged information about the plane crash and, truth be told, authorities were never able to definitively rule it an accident. Officials claimed that what brought the jet down was a Dutch Whirlwind, a condition where the plane loses control of its stabilizer and crashes into a mountainside; however, the evidence they found at the crash site was inconclusive. If the plane truly hit the mountainside at such speed, there should’ve been a crater indicating the exact place it crashed, but none was found. Also, if that were the case, then why were their belongings scattered across a three-mile radius, not only on the ground but also hanging from trees? It just didn’t add up. After paying close attention to these details and taking a better look at how the debris was strewn across the landscape as well as their remains, I honestly think that the plane fell from the sky already in pieces, likely from an in-air explosion of some sort. And that to me did not seem accidental.

  As I digested all this information, the first person that popped into my mind was Angel, Chiquis’s boyfriend. After their tense confrontation, Jen used her social media platform to publicly shame and humiliate him. So we’re talking about an influential man who felt strong animosity toward Jen and whose wife possibly had ties to powerful people in Mexico—that seemed like pretty good motive in my book. Suddenly, it all made sense, and I began to believe he might have had something to do with her untimely death. I mulled over this theory for quite some time, but finally laid it to rest in early 2016. Why? Well, because that’s when I became privy to evidence that pointed to another unexpected direction: Mario Macías, Jen’s attorney in Mexico, the man who had taken Gabo’s place when he was let go, and one of the passengers on the plane who had also died in the crash.

  Mario Macías was first recommended to us by our close associates in Mexico when Jen got stopped at the airport for carrying $50,000 that were allegedly undeclared. He helped sort out that mess and, after Jen and Gabo’s fallout, Mario stepped in and began to take care of everything in Mexico for her. At the time, it made sense to us: he was a lawyer, he knew Mexico well, he understood the industry, so we thought he would be a good person to have on our side. And that’s how he managed to wedge himself into a role on the team and Jen’s inner circle. Then people started talking. Many said that in that time that Gabo was no longer on the team, Mario had started to change. Gabo himself heard about these rumors. He can’t verify any of it, because they were after all rumors, but he did get word that Mario had started doing business with the wrong crowd.

  As Gabo recalls: “With that type of job in Mexico, you find yourself interacting with a circle of very important people both within the music industry and the cartels, and you have to learn how to deal with them. I kept it simple. My business relationship with them was strictly focused on being the liaison between the artists I managed and the clients who wanted them to play at their venues or events. That was it. Rumor has it that Mario took these relationships to another level and made them more personal. And that’s when those who were around him claim that he started to change. He was smug, treated many people poorly, and was rumored to be involved in personal business dealings with the cartels. Again, I can’t confirm it, but it’s what I’ve been told from several different sources.”

  When 2016 rolled around I really wanted to get to the bottom of all this. Still pretty convinced that Angel was a clear suspect, I finally hopped on a plane in July 2016 and traveled to Mexico to see what I could dig up. I hooked up with my old business associates and started poking around and discovered this new and unexpected theory on the ground. My connections assured me that, although Angel had the money, he didn’t have the power to pull something like that off. He didn’t have the necessary influence in Mexican territory to make such an “accident” happen. Funnily enough, that brought me peace. It was good to discover that Chiquis’s boyfriend didn’t go to such lengths for vengeance, but the question still remained: had it been an accident or not? And if not, who the hell was involved?

  The new theory I gathered through my sources pointed to Mario Macías. He was also on that plane when it crashed and had also died on that tragic day. What I didn’t know until this trip was that after the accident, authorities found Mario’s car in Mexico City with close to $200,000 in cash stashed away in the trunk … and it was not Jenni’s money. I also discovered, much to my surprise, that Mario had a military background, and it was rumored he had ties to Los Zetas, one of the most dangerous Mexican cartels whose members were all ex-military officers. Turns out we had no idea who Mario Macías really was. Not only did it seem he may have had ties with Los Zetas, but we also discovered that aside from his wife and child, he had another family hidden away, another woman and more children. This seemingly tough and conservative lawyer was leading a double life right before our eyes, and none of us had taken notice. Never had it crossed any of our minds that he could’ve been involved in personal dealings with the cartels. As if all this wasn’t enough to point the finger in his direction, Monterrey is known as Los Zetas territory, and it was rumored that Mario’s business with them had taken a turn for the worse and gone south quick. Maybe Mario had been the target all along, and Jen and the rest of the team were simply collateral damage.

  Aside from also knowing that a couple of officers had been prosecuted for stealing evidence from the crash site, what further fed this emerging Mario Macías theory was some surveillance footage I was shown as Jen and the crew checked into the airport in Monterrey on that Saturday, December 9, 2012. In the video there are three SUVs arriving at the airport, Jen together with her production team and entourage. The lead vehicle stops at the guard shack, the security guard on duty walks up to the car, checks credentials, then heads over to the second vehicle to verify Jen’s credentials, and then allows the three vehicles into the airport. As the last vehicle veers right and into the airplane hangar, another car pulls up to the guard shack. However, this one barely stops and instead passes right through, no credential check, no nothing. It was never logged in, and the guard, the only person who could’ve possibly identified the car and the people inside, resigned that night and vanished into thin air. No one was ever able to find him again.

  Why did Mario have $2
00,000 cash stowed away in the trunk of his car in Mexico City? Why was that vehicle allowed to pass through airport security without being logged in? Where did the guard go? Why was there no crater in the mountainside where the plane had allegedly crashed? Why were the passengers’ belongings scattered across a three-mile radius? No one was able to answer these questions, but it sure as hell doesn’t look or sound like a plain old accident to me. Am I accusing anyone of murder? No. I’m just sharing what I discovered, a pile of inconclusive evidence that to me simply doesn’t add up. Who knows if we’ll ever know the truth behind Jen’s fatal accident. All I know is that that crash took away my sister by choice, my friend, my ally, and it forever changed the existence of those of us who knew and loved and admired her. Meanwhile, Gabo decided to believe the news, that Jen and the rest of the passengers and crew had suffered a terrible accident and one of the wings was detached from the plane. He prefers to go with this theory; he doesn’t want to believe that someone tried to hurt her by downing the plane. Gabo feels it was simply a tragic accident that took our sister away because that’s the way God intended it to be. We will never be the same, but our memory of that kind, talented, witty, and generous human being will always live on within each and every one of us, our Gran Señora, our Diva, our butterfly, our friend.

  We will never forget you,

  Pete and Gabo

  Epilogue

  Jenni Rivera’s Legacy

  Jen was the Helen Keller to Latina women. She didn’t let any of her handicaps prevent her from succeeding in life. If I was to be asked to define her legacy, I would hope that through her music, her life, and her imperfections, she’s remembered as inspiring a generation to accept, embrace, and love themselves, and never quit on their dreams, aspirations, and goals. That was Jen. That was her struggle. No matter how many cards were stacked against her, no matter how many obstacles she encountered in her journey, she had the ability to rise up to each and every challenge and continue to push forward toward her dreams, and I know that’s exactly what she would want every one of you to do too. Despite all the drama she had to endure, her message was one of hope. You can do anything you set your mind to, she was proof of that, and I know she would be ecstatic if her story served as an inspiration for you to accomplish your hopes and dreams.