If it hadn’t been for the boom, The Asunta case It would be the most watched series. Ideal for lovers of Spanish thrillers and true crimethe fiction inspired by a sinister real case narrates in six tense episodes the evolution of a crime that shocked Spain in the last decade.
Asunta Basterra She was last seen alive on September 21, 2013. She was 12 years old when she disappeared from her home, never to return.
That day, bank security cameras showed her going to her father’s house and then returning to her mother’s. Fairly, Alfonso Basterraa journalist from Bilbao, and Rosario Portoa lawyer from a wealthy family, would become the main suspects in his murder.
Rosario and Alfonso became Asunta’s parents at the beginning of the century. Porto could not have children due to lupus erythematosus and that is why they decided to adopt a Chinese girl. Asunta was born Fang Yong in Hunan province.
On September 22, two men put an end to the mystery: they found Asunta’s body on the shoulder of a lonely street in the municipality of Tao, in La Coruña, five kilometers from Rosario’s country house.
The extremities of her body had tying marks, but the subject’s feet and hands were not tied. Strangely, the tapes that he or the murderers had used to reduce them were lying on the grass.
Tristán Ulloa and Candela Peña in the roles of Alfonso and Rosario.
The arrest of Asunta’s parents
Police arrested Rosario Porto for alleged homicide on September 24 of that year. Alfonso suffered the same fate on the 25th.
From that moment on, the case became more complex day by day. Contradictions, inconsistencies, lack of evidence, high media coverage, two parents who say they did not kill their daughter.
Were Alfonso and Rosario the murderers of Asunta? And if not, where was the real criminal? How was the girl murdered? Because? All these doubts put the country on edge at the end of 2013..
Journalist Alfonso Basterra and his wife, lawyer Rosario Porto, are transferred after witnessing an investigation at their home. Photo: EFE
The clues were few, but compelling. And everything pointed to them: the ropes with which they tied Asunta matched those found in Rosario’s house; the girl’s blood had the presence of lorazepam in toxic quantities; Alfonso’s notebook and a phone were found with the hard drive manipulated in a place that had been searched and discarded.
The end of the story
In June of the following year, the judge in charge of the case, José Antonio Vázquez Taínended the investigation and began the oral trial.
In October 2015, the ruling of a popular jury found Asunta’s adoptive parents guilty and both were sentenced to 18 years in prison for murder with the aggravating factor of kinship. The thing, however, did not stop there.
Months later, the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia corrected the verdict and, although it upheld the sentence, it removed Alfonso from the murder accusation. In this way, Rosario was left as the sole perpetrator of the crime and Alfonso as a participant in the “conceived plan” to kill Asunta.
Reading of the verdict of the popular jury that declared unanimously. Photo: EFE
On November 18, 2020, after several suicide attempts, Rosario ended her life hanging himself in the Ávila prison where he was serving his sentence. Alfonso is still in prison.
2013: the year of doom
It remains to be seen what happened in the middle.
The destiny of Asunta had a turning point when Alfonso and Rosario separated. In 2013, he reviewed Rosario’s emails and discovered that his wife was cheating on him. On January 8 they separated and in February they divorced.
However, Rosario and Alfonso were together when what happened with Asunta happened. That summer they had both reached a strange agreement: he would take care of Rosario and Asunta in exchange for the woman leaving her lover.
Rosario accepted and continued to maintain a cordial relationship with Alfonso, in addition to helping him financially. Porto benefited from the support of her ex-husband because her illness was worsening and she also suffered from mental health problems.
Rosario Porto was found dead in a cell in 2020. Photo: EFE
Another episode that marked the case happened at the beginning of July. According to Rosario, one night like any other she discovered a strong, short man, known in court as the “man in black,” strangling his daughter. When this alleged aggressor saw Porto, she pushed her and ran away from her.
Days later, Asunta became ill at school and revealed that her mother forced her to take some bad-tasting white powder that left her asleep for hours.
A sea of doubts
Those who have finished watching the series will know that not everything has been said in the Asunta case. There are still many doubts about this.
The girl’s parents were accused of “repeatedly” administering the anti-anxiety drug lorazepam for three months before her death.
On the day of her murder, justice proved that Rosario and Alfonso ate with her and that they gave her a quantity of lorazepam toxic enough to suffocate her when it took effect.
The journalist Alfonso Basterra is escorted by the Civil Guard. Photo: EFE
Rosario was accused of suffocating her at Basterra and Alfonso’s house, of sedating her. Later she would be the one to discard her body on the shoulder.
The preliminary autopsy report reflects that Asunta Basterra was sedated, that there was no sexual assault and that death was caused by asphyxiation due to suffocation. But since the doses of lorazepam that the body presented were so high, it was noted that Asunta died from chemical asphyxiation. The final autopsy report confirms that she died from mechanical asphyxiation.
