Murder of Asunta Basterra

Asunta Yong Fang Basterra Porto (born Fang Yong; 30 September 2000 – 21 September 2013)[1] was a Chinese-born Spanish girl whose body was found in Teo, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, on 22 September 2013, shortly before her thirteenth birthday. The coroner determined she had died by asphyxiation, and had been given at least twenty-seven Lorazepam pills on the day of her death, more than nine times a high dosage amount for an adult.[2] The investigation into the death became known as the Asunta Basterra case (Spanish: Caso Asunta Basterra).[3][4][5]

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Basterra and the second or maternal family name is Porto.
Asunta Basterra
永芳
Born
Fang Yong

(2000-09-30)30 September 2000
Yongzhou, Hunan, China, Beijing Jishuitan Hospital
Died21 September 2013(2013-09-21) (aged 12)
Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain
Parent(s)Alfonso Basterra Camporro (father)
Rosario Porto Ortega (mother)

Asunta's adoptive parents, Alfonso Basterra and Rosario Porto, were found guilty of her murder on 30 October 2015. According to court documents, the couple periodically drugged their daughter with Lorazepam for three months and finally asphyxiated her before disposing of her body.[2][6] The parents, who maintained their innocence, were sentenced to eighteen years in prison.[2]

The case has attracted widespread media interest in Spain and around the world, as well as a "statement of concern" from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A four-part documentary series about the case debuted in 2017 and was made available internationally on Netflix in 2019.[6]

Background

Asunta Basterra was born Fang Yong in 2000 in Yongzhou, Hunan, China. At nine months old she was adopted by Alfonso Basterra Camporro (b. 1964) and Maria del Rosario Porto Ortega (b. 1969 - d. 2020), an affluent Spanish couple from Santiago de Compostela, Galicia.[7] Asunta was the first Chinese child to be adopted in the city of Santiago and one of the first in all of Galicia. Asunta was said to have been a gifted child, being a talented ballet dancer, violinist, and piano player who skipped a year in school.[2] She was also very close to her maternal grandparents, who died the year before her death.[8]

Asunta's adoptive mother, Rosario Porto, came from a prominent Galician family. Her father, lawyer Francisco Porto Mella (d. 2012), was an honorary consul of France. Her mother, María del Socorro Ortega (died 2011), was a highly regarded university lecturer of art history.[2][9][10] Porto studied law at the University of Santiago de Compostela and practiced at her father's firm after graduation. She also claimed to have attended the London High School of Law in England, which The Guardian confirmed does not exist. In 1997 she was appointed consul of France, inheriting the role from her father.[2]

Porto met journalist Alfonso Basterra, a native of Bilbao, in 1990. The two married in 1996 and lived in a large flat that had been given to Porto by her parents. In 2001 they travelled to China and adopted 9-month-old Asunta from the Guiyang Welfare Institute. In January 2013 the couple separated and Basterra moved to an apartment around the corner from the family flat. Asunta split her time between the two homes, walking the short distance between them.[9]

Death and investigation

Asunta was first reported missing by her parents at 10:17 pm on Saturday 21 September, 2013. They had eaten lunch together at her father's home that afternoon. Asunta was seen on a bank's security camera at 2 pm walking to her father's house, and appeared on that same security camera at 5:21 pm returning home to her mother's flat. Porto was seen on the same security camera walking home at 5:28 pm.[11]

Porto initially told investigators that she had left home at around 7 pm, leaving Asunta at home doing homework. She said that she had driven alone to the family's country house in Teo, located about twenty minutes outside Santiago, and that when she returned to her apartment at 9:30 Asunta was missing. Porto said that she called Asunta's father and many of her friends, none of whom had seen her.[2]

Investigators later recovered CCTV video footage of Porto and Asunta at a gas station on the route toward Teo at 6:20 pm, contradicting Porto's timeline and story that she had left Asunta home that afternoon. After being made aware of the video Porto changed her story, this time saying that Asunta had briefly come with her to the country house, but that she quickly took her back to Santiago because the child had wanted to do homework. Porto claimed that after dropping Asunta off at home, she went to a sporting goods store to buy an item for Asunta's ballet class, but did not go in after realizing that she had left her purse in Teo. Porto claimed she then returned to the country house in Teo to retrieve her purse, then went to a gas station but did not fill her tank because she realized she did not have her discount card.[12]

Police examined the video footage from thirty-three security cameras around Santiago and found no video of Porto's car on any of the roads she claimed to have driven on that afternoon. The police in charge of the case came to believe that Porto and Asunta arrived at their house in Teo just after 6 pm, and that Porto left the house around 9 pm.[12]

Asunta's body was discovered in the early morning hours of 22 September 2013, at around 1am, on the side of a small mountain road in Teo, a few kilometers away from the country house.[13] Not long after, Porto and investigators went together to the country house, where Porto was told not to touch anything since the house could be a crime scene. Porto told police that she needed to use the bathroom; an officer followed her upstairs, and found her attempting to retrieve the contents of a wastepaper bin in the bedroom. The bin contained a piece of the same type of orange rope that Asunta's limbs had been tied with when her body was found. Forensic scientists were ultimately unable to determine whether or not the discarded piece had come from the same roll used in the murder.[12]

The investigation into Asunta's death was named Operación Nenúfar ("Operation Water Lily") by detectives, who noted that in the moonlight, the girl's body in her white shirt appeared to be floating above the ground like a flower.[14]

Suicide of Rosario Porto

Rosario Porto (18 December 1969 – 18 December 2020) died by suicide after hanging herself in her prison cell in the Brieva penitentiary in Ávila. She had previously made two suicide attempts in prison, by overdosing on prescription medication in 2017 and attempting to strangle herself in a prison shower in 2018.[15]

Documentary

A four-part documentary about the case, Lo que la verdad esconde: Caso Asunta ("What the Truth Hides: The Asunta Case"), directed by Elías León Siminiani, premiered on Spanish television on 24 May 2017.[16] It was considered a landmark documentary in Spain, which historically has eschewed the true crime genre.[17] It became available internationally on Netflix in February 2019.[18]

See also

References
  1. Mahía, Alberto (7 June 2017). "Caso Asunta: Los padres la asesinaron; pero ¿por qué lo hicieron?". La Voz de Galicia (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  2. Tremlett, Giles (2 February 2016). "Why did two parents murder their adopted child? | Giles Tremlett". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  3. "Adopted child's death grips Spain". IOL News. AFP. 26 September 2013. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  4. "为夺遗产？西班牙夫妇疑杀害中国养女". Sina.com.cn (in Chinese). 28 September 2013. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  5. de Pedro Amatria, Gonzalo (24 May 2017). "Elías León Siminiani, director de 'El caso Asunta': "Rosario habla de su hija con un nivel de dolor y amor que estremece"". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  6. "Spanish woman tells court she did not kill adopted Chinese girl". The Straits Times. AFP. 1 October 2015. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  7. Capeáns, Juan; Mahía, Alberto (31 October 2015). "Rosario y Alfonso sedaron y asfixiaron a Asunta". La Voz de Galicia (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  8. Lázaro, Fernando; Sueiro, Marcos (26 September 2013). "La Guardia Civil quiere investigar la muerte de los abuelos de Asunta". El Mundo (in Spanish).
  9. "Rosario Porto: "Nadie lloró como yo por Asunta"". El País (in Spanish). 23 August 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  10. Guerra, Andrés (27 September 2013). "Así era la familia de Asunta a ojos de sus compañeros de colegio". Vanity Fair (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  11. "Asunta Basterra, lo que la verdad esconde". El Espanol. 25 May 2017.
  12. Pontevedra, Silvia R (7 Oct 2015). "Surveillance cameras debunk story offered by Asunta's mother". El Pais.
  13. "西班牙被领养中国女孩遭奸杀 案件调查出人意料-中新网". www.chinanews.com. 27 September 2013.
  14. Lo que la verdad esconde: Caso Asunta, part 3
  15. "Spanish mother convicted of 2013 child murder found dead inside her prison cell". El País. 18 November 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2023.
  16. Marcos, Natalia (22 May 2017). "Tras el rastro del 'caso Asunta'". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  17. "El caso Asunta: Investigar y analizar crímenes, la nueva afición de los amantes de las series". La Vanguardia. 31 May 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  18. Santonja, María (8 February 2019). "Las series españolas que vienen en 2019: Netflix". Fuera de Series. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
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