“The Asunta Case” is a newly released crime-thriller 6-episode series on Netflix! This series is based on the actual Asunta Basterra case in Spain, although it adds fictional elements to make the story more interesting. Created by Ramón Campos, Gema R. Neira, Jon de la Cuesta, and David Orea Arribas, it stars Candela Peña and Tristán Ulloa as Asunta’s adoptive mother and father, respectively. It tells the story of what happened after an adopted Chinese girl was murdered in Teo, Galicia. Even though the police closed the case three years ago, there are still many things that haven’t been answered yet. This show tries to deal with these unanswered questions.
Plot Summary
Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra adopted a six-year-old Chinese girl, Asunta (Iris Whu). However, on September 21, 2013, Asunta suddenly disappeared. Rosario and Alfonso are divorced now, but they worry because it is out of character for her to vanish without saying anything. Later that night, two drunk men discover a little girl’s body by the side of the road. Officers Rios and Cruces respond to their call and find Asunta bound carefully there. Some orange twine is located nearby. Rosario and Alfonso are crushed when Rios and Cruces inform them about this. While they drive toward a house close to where she was found, Judge Malvar shows up at the scene. They discover orange twine in the house, which makes Malvar suspicious about Rosario’s participation in this event. Though she is at Asunta’s funeral service, CCTV footage indicates that Asunta has been inside a car, thus leading to Rosario’s arrest.
What happened the day Asunta disappeared?
The series opens with a frightened couple stepping into a police station in Santiago, Spain. Their daughter Asunta has been missing for some time now, and they are worried. Asunta was adopted from China by this Spanish couple, making her stand out with her Chinese features.
Rosario Porto, Asunta’s adoptive mother, tells officers that she was home alone doing homework while Rosario went to run some errands. The fact that Rosario waited an hour before reporting her missing is strange, but it is because she had just split up with her partner, Alfonso Basterra; they were living in separate apartments nearby so they could each be close to her. Rosario thought maybe Asunta was with him, but when he didn’t know where she was either, they went to the police.
Detectives search both of their flats but come up empty-handed. However, the worst news hit them when, a few hours later, two men in the Teo region called the police, saying they had found a dead young girl’s body. It turned out to be Asunta, found with marks of being tied up and orange twine nearby, suggesting foul play. They begin investigating her murder, perplexed because there seems no reason someone would want to hurt such an innocent child with no known enemies.
How did a piece of twine become the focal point of the investigation?
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The orange twine found near Asunta’s body was the first big clue for the police. This caused them to concentrate their investigation in one direction. Asunta’s corpse was discovered close to Montouto, where Rosario had a country house for her family. When they told Asunta’s parents about what they had found, Rosario said that she had been at the country house that evening to take some clothes. She had never mentioned this earlier, and it seemed strange.
When Judge Malvar wanted to search the country house, things got more suspicious. The police officer who was on duty noticed that someone had turned off the alarm before that night, thus confirming Rosario’s words. However, something strange happened when Rosario went upstairs into her bedroom. An officer followed Rosario and saw her while she was interfering with a dustbin in her own bedroom whereby he found an orange twine which looked similar to that one which had been recovered beside Asunta’s body too.
Rosario was taken into custody for questioning and later released. However, she was apprehended again on the day of Asunta’s funeral, which made her and Alfonso the prime suspects. Twine found in Rosario’s bedroom caused investigators to believe she may have suddenly remembered it and tried to dispose of it when they searched the country house. Although finding similar twines was unusual in that area, there was no way to definitively connect this twine with the one used to bind Asunta’s legs.
A year later, at trial, much discussion centered around the twine. The defense contended that the twine could be found anywhere in that region; however, only its color had been looked at, so this argument fell flat. Defense lawyers also said police were wrongfully suspicious of Rosario because of a piece of string, but since no further evidence arose from or proved any theory, neither side could utilize it in court.
How did Carlos Murillo’s name come up in the trial?
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Upon discovering Asunta’s corpse, investigators took notice of a certain bodily fluid present on her shirt. In spite of the absence of any signs of sexual abuse, they considered that it could be an act involving sex. They later came to learn that it was semen. According to Rosario and Alfonso’s attorneys, this might indicate the involvement of another person. It turned out that the semen belonged to a man named Carlos Murillo, who had been previously convicted of sexual assault; therefore, they believed he raped and killed Asunta.
The lawyers suspected that Murillo might be the same man who broke into Rosario’s house several months earlier. However, when interrogated about his whereabouts during the time Asunta died, he claimed to have been in Madrid. The police investigated his alibi and verified its authenticity.
Apparently, the presence of semen on Asunta’s shirt was accidental. While gathering evidence at Murillo’s residence, forensic analysts mistakenly used a condom, which subsequently contaminated her clothing during testing. This raised more suspicion against Rosario because she never reported the incident to authorities nor did she mention anything about bruises found on her daughter’s body after being assaulted by an unknown person, but what perplexed them most was why their dogs didn’t bark on that particular night. This could have been Rosario’s initial attempt to harm Asunta either alone or with assistance from Alfonso; however, she ultimately failed in doing so.
Theory: Did Rosario kill Asunta?
Based on the autopsy report, doctors discovered lorazepam in Asunta’s system. This is a drug used for anxiety and sleep disorders. The report also said that for three months before her death, small doses of lorazepam were given to Asunta.
In the show, it is shown that Rosario and Alfonso divorced in February. Alfonso found out that Rosario was dating a married man named Vicente Dozon. Four months after the divorce in June, Rosario saw Vicente again, but he did not want to leave his wife. Rosario felt very bad and went to the hospital on June 26th. She left on July 1st, just a few days before the supposed burglary. She has been sick since she was eighteen years old and has gone to the hospital three times because of it. Maybe she thought that without her, Asunta would be in danger somewhere else.
On July 4th, 2013—exactly three months before Asunta died—Pilar Araujo (a friend of Rosario’s) said that when they were at Montouto (Rosario’s mom’s house), someone came into Asunta´s room while she was sleeping. But Rosario never called the police about this. Later, she said that it had been a burglar who got in looking for money while nobody noticed anything. However, Mrs. Virginia Cabaleiro from downstairs affirms that nobody entered on that day, and Alfonso Basterra says he wasn’t there then, so everything seems to indicate that it happened. Rosa would have tried to hurt Asunta on July 4th.
Two days before Asunta died, Rosario met Vicente again on September 20. Alfonso was angry when she returned home. He said that they should take care of Asunta together. This may have led Rosario to think that unless Asunta was out of the way, she could never be free from Alfonso.
In episode 5 of “The Asunta Case,” Rosario attempted to murder her daughter by putting lorazepam in her orange juice. But then she changed her mind and panicked but Asunta already drank it. She moved Asunta’s body to Teo and dumped it on the road, according to the evidence and different versions of Rosario’s story.
Theory: Did Alfonso kill Asunta?
Another theory was that Alfonso might have been an abusive father who harmed his daughter sexually. About three months before Asunta died, Alfonso got scared and thought Asunta was going to tell people about what he was doing. So, he decided to kill her to keep it a secret. But this idea was kind of unclear because it didn’t explain why Rosario would help him.
Some people believe maybe Rosario was drugging her daughter and accidentally killed her; maybe she did it because she wasn’t thinking straight. But Alfonso didn’t want to accept that Rosario could do such a thing. Maybe he kept insisting that she was innocent because he wanted to get a hold of her money. He married Rosario for her family’s wealth, and even after they divorced, he stuck around for the money. Some people think maybe Alfonso helped Rosario hide what happened, so he was kind of involved too.
When they were being questioned by the police, Rosario tried to make Alfonso look bad. She suggested that he may have had I’ll intentions towards Asunta. But the police did not allow this evidence into court because it was unofficial. Still, the media talked about it a lot, and it made people think Alfonso might have been involved.
Wait! Who Killed Asunta?
By the time October came around, the Asunta Case had already been heavily publicized by Judge Luis Malvar. Thus, people were convinced of the parents’ guilt before they even stood trial. In other words, it was an unwinnable case.
During the trial, a girl named Laura Prieto Iglesias claimed to have seen Asunta with her father, Alfonso, on the day she went missing. However, Alfonso said he hadn’t seen her since lunch. When Laura thought she saw Asunta with her dad, a traffic camera recorded footage of Asunta with her mother in the car. Additionally, Asunta was drugged at the time Laura claimed to have seen her—something Laura did not notice. So there were many inconsistencies in Laura’s story, but the police didn’t investigate them because they fit into their theory that Alfonso helped Rosario kill Asunta.
Rosario’s attorney tried to paint a picture of how botched the police investigation was and how none of the evidence added up, but it didn’t matter. Most of the jury had listened to a recording of the parents talking while they were locked up; this made them think Alfonso was evil and Rosario aided him. That is what stuck with them when they rendered their verdict.
Alfonso’s attorney knew that he was concealing information because he had been with Rosario for a long time on the day of Asunta’s disappearance. His narrative might have made a difference, but he didn’t say anything and supported his former spouse.
Ultimately, both Alfonso and Rosario were declared guilty of murdering Asunta by the jury. They received an 18-year prison sentence. They attempted to file an appeal, but the higher courts reaffirmed their guilt. Rosario took her own life in prison, having already attempted suicide once before. Alfonso still insists that he is innocent and will remain incarcerated until 2031.
