“The Asunta Case” The True Crime Series Blowing Up on Netflix

Netflix released a Spanish true crime documentary on April 26, 2024, that tells the most gruesome true crime story in Spanish history. The true crime show which is written and produced by Ramon Campos and stars Tristan Ulloa and Candela Pena is on Netflix’s top 10 and is based on the murder of a teenage girl in 2013. 

The miniseries follows a well-to-do Spanish couple Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra from Santiago de Compostela who adopted a baby from China named Asunta Fong Yang in 2001. Thirteen years later, the girl is reported missing by her parents and later found dead.

In September 2013, the Spanish couple reported their daughter to be missing and what was first thought to be suspected kidnapping changed to murder after two people found the body of the twelve-year-old on the side of the road in the early hours of September 22. The autopsy on the girl’s body concluded that she died of Asphyxiation and she had also swallowed 27 lorazepam pills before her death. 

Further investigation by the police revealed that the pills she had ingested were the same pills that her adoptive mother Rosario Porto took for her anxiety. The autopsy further revealed that Asunta had ingested close to 170 lorazepam pills over ten weeks leading to her death. The autopsy report and other evidence like the videos and images of a sexual nature that had been deleted on Alfonso’s computer led to the arrest of the couple. Two years later the girl’s adoptive parents were found guilty of the 12-year-old murder and both sentenced to 18 years imprisonment.

The Netflix show which has shocked many people has garnered attention in Spain, where the story is based, and around the world among true crime enthusiasts.