In September 2013, Alfonso Basterra and Rosario Porto were arrested for the murder of their adoptive child, and a new Netflix drama has viewers wondering where the criminal couple is today.
Netflix's The Asunta Case is a new investigative thriller based on a true story, documenting the real-life killing of Asunta Basterra.
The Asunta Case's True Story Explained
Spanish lawyer Rosario Porto and her journalist husband, Alfonso Basterra, adopted a baby, Asunta Fong Yang, from China in June 2001. The couple came from an upper-middle-class background, and the adoption raised no red flags.
Asunta, who the couple raised in Santiago de Compostela, Spain proved to be intellectually gifted over the years, skipping school grades and taking multiple extra language classes in English, French, Chinese, German, and more.
Asunta's adoptive mother, Rosario Porto, began suffering severe mental health troubles in 2009 with thoughts of suicide, leading to her spending two nights in a psychiatric hospital only to discharge herself after two days.
Basterra and Porto would later divorce in early 2013 as the latter was struggling with the deaths of both her parents and had just engaged in an affair with businessman Manuel García, causing the marriage to fall apart.
This would spur another mental breakdown for Porto in June 2013, which prompted Basterra to help her return home. The couple began eating meals with each other again, leading them to consider moving back in together.
On the night of September 21, 2013, just past 10 p.m., Asunta was reported missing by her parents after she had been spotted on security cameras walking between her mother and father's homes earlier that day around 5 p.m.
Porto told the police she had left Asunta doing homework at her home while she was at the family's country home in Teo that day. She returned home in the evening to no sign of Asunta, who had never been the type to run away.
Asunta's corpse was found the following day on a roadside on September 22 and was quickly identified due to the missing reports.
After CCTV footage failed to match up with Porto's account of events, she was arrested for her daughter's murder at the funeral on September 24, with Basterra receiving the same treatment one day later.
A coroner examining Asunta's birthday concluded she died of asphyxiation after consuming at least 27 Lorazepam pills that day, which was the same medication Porto had been taking and was over nine times a "high dosage" for an adult.
Where Is Alfonso Baterra Today?
Once the trial of Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra finally occurred in October 2015, the jury concluded both guilty. Each was granted an 18-year prison sentence under the charge of aggravated murder with aggravating circumstances of kinship and abuse of authority.
The High Court of Justice of Galicia would amend the verdict in May 2016 after deciding it could not be proven Basterra was present in the car taking Asunta to the country home where she was killed. However, it was still agreed he had planned and collaborated in the killing, and the 18-year sentence was maintained.
Basterra is still incarcerated today in Teixeiro prison in A Coruña, Spain, where he is serving his 18-year sentence, which will come to an end in 2033.
In the 2017 documentary, What the Truth Hides: The Asunta Case, Basterra wrote letters to the producers (via the Radio Times) where he shared his "firm intention of disappearing" to "reunite with [his] girl:"
“When I regain my freedom, I have the firm intention of disappearing, no one will hear from me again, not even Rosario Porto. I have only one reason to stay alive, which is none other than to be a free man again and reunite with my girl, never before. In fact, I have already thought about the how and the where, I just need the when, but everything comes."
Porto was imprisoned in the Brieva penitentiary in Ávila and made multiple suicide attempts over the years. She was eventually found dead and hanging from her prison cell on November 18, 2020 at age 50.
The Asunta Case is streaming now on Netflix.
