The Asunta Case chronicles the disappearance and tragic murder of Asunta Basterra and the subsequent investigation into her death and sentencing of the young girl’s killers. The 2024 Spanish crime thriller limited series, created by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, Jon de la Cuesta, and David Orea Arribas, is inspired by the real-life case of the killing of Basterra, which captured the attention of people from across the world. The horrific details of the murder, the events leading up to it, and the shocking suspects garnered widespread coverage, and now, a Netflix true crime miniseries.
The cast of The Asunta Case includes Candela Peña as Rosario Porto, Tristán Ulloa as Alfonso Basterra, Iris Whu as Asunta, Javier Gutiérrez as Malvar, Carlos Blanco as Ríos, and María León as Cristina Cruces. The majority of characters in the Netflix crime thriller show are based on real people, including Peña’s Rosario Porto and Ulloa’s Alfonso Basterra — Asunta’s adoptive parents. They played a significant role in the real-life case, so, The Asunta Case primarily focused on Peña and Ulloa’s characters.
According to Forbes, Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra, an affluent married couple from Santiago de Compostela, Spain, adopted a baby from China in 2001 — Asunta Fong Yang. Everything seemed to be going great for the family as Asunta grew up to be gifted in school, ballet, piano, and more. However, in early 2013, Basterra discovered that Porto was having an affair, and they divorced. Porto, who had a history of mental health problems, had to be hospitalized in June 2013 after having a mental breakdown. Then, on September 21 of the same year, Porto and Basterra reported their 12-year-old daughter missing.
In the early hours of September 22, two people discovered Asunta’s dead body on the side of a road and informed the police. Following an autopsy, the coroner concluded Asunta had died of asphyxiation and had ingested 27 lorazepam pills the day of her murder, the same medication Porto had to treat her anxiety. The coroner also discovered that Asunta had (unwillingly) taken around 170 lorazepam pills over the 10 weeks leading up to her death. The autopsy, along with other pieces of evidence, led to Porto’s arrest at Asunta’s funeral, as depicted in the true crime television show on Netflix.
On September 24, 2013, just two days after Asunta Basterra’s body was found, the police arrested Rosario Porto on suspicion that she had murdered her adoptive daughter. Porto had previously claimed that she had left Asunta in their apartment to visit the family’s country house (located not too far from where Asunta’s body was discovered) at 7:00 pm. She claimed that she returned at 9:30 pm and Asunta was nowhere to be found. However, the police obtained CCTV footage showing Porto driving toward the country house with Asunta in the passenger’s seat (when Asunta was said to be home).
Porto’s lies, the CCTV footage, the lorazepam pills, and the presence of orange twine at the country home that was similar to the twine Asunta had been tied up with resulted in Porto’s arrest. One day later, the police also arrested Alfonso Basterra as they didn’t believe Porto could commit the murder by herself. Plus, per TODAY, it was revealed that Basterra’s computer had more than 500,000 files that had been “deleted, including videos and images of a sexual nature,” which certainly didn’t help the divorced couple’s case, as seen in The Asunta Case (one of many Netflix true crime shows).
Almost two years following Alfonso Basterra and Rosario Porto’s arrests in September 2013, the adoptive parents of Asunta Basterra were found guilty of the 12-year-old’s murder on October 30, 2015. The divorced couple’s inability to get their stories straight or convey a plausible excuse for why Porto lied about her actions on the day of Asunta’s murder was brought up during the trial. Their lies, along with the young girl’s autopsy (including the outrageous amount of lorazepam pills in her system) and other testimonies sealed Basterra and Porto’s fates.
One of Asunta’s friends testified that she had seen Asunta with Basterra the day she was killed, leading many to believe that he was hiding in the car, explaining why he couldn’t be seen in the CCTV footage. Additionally, Asunta’s teachers revealed that she had been acting strangely in the months leading up to her death (likely due to the lorazepam pills). Asunta reportedly told one of her teachers, “I don’t know what they are giving me. No one tells me the truth.” All this information implicated Basterra and Porto in Asunta’s murder and resulted in their conviction.
Following Alfonso Basterra and Rosario Porto’s conviction in October 2015, they were both sentenced to spend 18 years in prison for the murder of their adoptive daughter. Basterra and Porto would likely have gotten bigger sentences if the case occurred following the new Spanish law that hands out life sentences for those who murder children. They both reportedly tried to appeal to have their convictions overturned (since they maintained their innocence), which were ultimately dismissed.
On November 18, 2020, Porto was found unresponsive in her cell as she had died by suicide. Porto had attempted suicide in prison a few times prior to her death. Meanwhile, Basterra is still carrying out his sentence at Teixeiro Prison in Spain.
Following the discovery of Asunta Basterra’s body and the subsequent arrests of her adoptive parents, the case received a lot of attention from the media and public due to its nature. The murder of a 12-year-old girl is tragic in and of itself, but the fact that her parents were the ones behind her death shocked many. So, not only did the case (as depicted in The Astuna Case on Netflix) attract more media coverage in Spain than any other crime, but it also captured the attention of people from around the world.
Sources: Forbes, TODAY