Death 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 13th birthday. The coroner determined she had died by asphyxiation, and had been given at least 27 Lorazepam pills on the day of her death, more than nine times a high dosage amount for an adult.[2] The investigation into her 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
Died21 September 2013(2013-09-21) (aged 12)
Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain
Rosario Porto
Born
Rosario Porto Ortega

(1969-12-18)18 December 1969
Spain
Died18 November 2020(2020-11-18) (aged 50)
Brieva prison, Spain
Cause of deathSuicide by hanging
Spouse(s)Alfonso Basterra

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 18 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 an affluent Spanish couple from Santiago de Compostela: lawyer Maria del Rosario Porto Ortega (born in Santiago de Compostela in 1969), and journalist Alfonso Basterra Camporro (born in Bilbao in 1964).[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. She had skipped a year in school and was a talented ballet dancer, violinist, and piano player.[2] She was also very close to her maternal grandparents, who passed away the year before her death.[8]

Asunta's adoptive mother, Rosario Porto, came from a prominent Galician family. Rosario's father, lawyer Francisco Porto Mella (died 2012), was 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 law 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 Yong Fang, who they renamed 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 divorced parents, Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra, at 10:17 pm on Saturday 21 September, 2013. Asunta and her parents had eaten lunch at her father's home that afternoon. She was seen on bank security camera at 2:00 pm walking to her father's house, and appeared on the 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 7:00 pm, leaving Asunta at home doing homework. She said that she had driven alone to the family's country house in Teo, located about 20 minutes outside the city of Santiago, and that when she returned home to her Santiago 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 that afternoon, but that she took her right back to Santiago because the child had wanted to do homework. She said that after dropping Asunta off at home in Santiago she went to a sporting goods store to buy an item for Asunta's ballet class, but did not go in the store after realizing that she had left her purse in Teo. She said she then returned to the country house in Teo to retrieve her purse, then went to get gas at 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 of 33 surveillance cameras around Santiago, and found no video of Porto's car on any of the roads she claimed to have driven on in Santiago 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]

Police first became suspicious of Porto due to an incident in the hours after Asunta's body was discovered. Asunta's body was discovered in the early morning hours of 22 September 2013, at around 1 a.m., by a passer-by on the side of a small mountain road in Teo, a few kilometers away from the Porto family's country house.[13] Not long after, Porto and investigators went together to Porto's country house in Teo. Police told Porto not to touch anything, as the house could be a crime scene. Porto told police that she needed to use the bathroom. An officer followed her upstairs, where instead of going to the bathroom, she entered a bedroom and attempted to retrieve the contents of a wastepaper basket. The officer was able to intercept her and grabbed the bin before she could. The bin contained a section of the same type of orange rope that Asunta's limbs had been tied with when she was found. Forensic scientists were ultimately unable to determine whether or not the pieces came from the same roll.[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]

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.[15] It was considered a landmark documentary in Spain, which historically has eschewed the true crime genre.[16] It became available internationally on Netflix in February 2019.[17]

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.
  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. Marcos, Natalia (22 May 2017). "Tras el rastro del 'caso Asunta'". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2019.
  16. "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.
  17. Santonja, María (8 February 2019). "Las series españolas que vienen en 2019: Netflix". Fuera de Series. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
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