RedHanded - Episode 394 - The Asunta Case: Adopted and Betrayed

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

The adopted princess of a wealthy Spanish family, 12-year-old Asunta Basterra Porto seemed destined to thrive under the devoted care of her parents Rosario and Alfonso. But beneath the surface, sinister secrets were taking root – including clandestine druggings, creepy family photos and one seriously twisted marriage.Had these callous parents cast aside the daughter they chose? An investigation dogged by accusations of bias would only muddy the waters further...Join us this week as we explore one of Spain’s murkiest and most divisive true-crime stories: The Asunta Case.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Welcome to our red-handed Espanol edition. Don't think you've plugged into the wrong RSS. It's still us. We get so many people quite often will get translators getting in touch with us. Not what you want to translate. Red handed into other languages, which on the face of it seems like a good idea, but I just don't think it all, it won't work. It was such a British show. No, it's just like, like well somebody else would deliver the line

So what do you do about the? Tangents and well, yeah personal experience. That's just weird the jokes won't work. No, so no That's why we haven't done it and we're not actually doing it today. So don't panic Imagine if we did you like you can't even read the fucking captions and just watch along you're fucked. so don't panic imagine if we did you should be like you can't even read the fucking captions and just watch along you're fucked so don't worry we're not doing that because I cannot speak Spanish but we are going to Spain for a little bit hmm at least I will preface that I don't really speak Spanish either but the Spanish I do speak is heavily accented in

a Central American way, which I know is not how the Spaniards Spanish do it. But I ain't going to change. So if you don't like my pronunciation, I don't know, write a letter to the embassy or something. Sure. Let's see what they do. In the early hours of the 22nd of September 2013, two men drove along a quiet dirt track in the rural area of Acronia in northwestern Spain. Nailed it. Thank you, probably didn't but

never mind. You got the... There was a full moon that night but the forested road was shrouded in darkness. The men thought that they were utterly alone, until the car's headlights caught what looked like a scarecrow lying at the side of the road. Upon stepping out for a closer look, the men realised it wasn't a scarecrow. Not at all. I wonder what the Spanish word for scarecrow is? Another very lazy English word. It's spent up at our house. It was actually a young girl, not quite a teenager, lying on her back as if she was sleeping. Her white t-shirt glowed in the headlights, looking to the two men like a water lily floating on the tranquil surface of a pond. But this was not a peaceful scene.

The girl was Asunta Yongfang Boresta Porto, the adopted daughter of a prominent couple from the nearby city of Santiago de Compostela. Plucked from a Chinese orphanage at just nine months old, Asunta had been raised in a world of prestige and privilege. But now, just a week shy of her 13th birthday, Asunta was dead. Within a week, her adopted parents

would both be behind bars, accused of her murder. In Chinese folklore, the water lily is a symbol of purity and resilience, rising from the mud to bloom. Before that night, Asanta seemed to have flourished in the same way. On the surface, she had everything, brains, talent, wealth, parents who adored her.

But the investigation into her murder, dubbed Operation Water Lily, would shock an entire nation and kick up a frenzied storm of media speculation. Because, in the murky depths below, things were not as they seemed. The roots of Asanta's life were tangled, hiding seriously fucked-up dynamics, and dark secrets under the surface of a seemingly perfect family. Secret drugings, a torrid affair, sinister family photos, and a toxic divorce. People are still obsessed with this case even today. And trust us guys, the deeper we go, the crazier things are going to get today. The questions at the heart of this story

are, had this elite couple got tired of the child that they had, and some people's eyes bought, and then cruelly discarded her? Or was this a Spanish making a murderer situation, where the parents had a target on their backs from the start, even though it's making a murder. I'm like, come on, come on now. I have so many issues with that documentary. And that's why whenever people are like, you're going to cover that case. I'm like, maybe, but it will just be a long list of all the things that Netflix left out

of their documentary. But anyway, today, this is the story of what's known as the Asunta case, one of Spain's most twisted modern mysteries. Asunta Barrista Porto entered the world on the 30th of September 2000 in the city of Yongzhu in the Hunan province of China. Back then she was known as Yongfang and while little is known about her biological family it's believed that she was initially cared for by her grandparents but when they both died before her first birthday she was put in

an orphanage called the Guiyang Welfare Institute. But she didn't have to wait too long for her new family to arrive. A Spanish power couple called Rosario Porto Ortega and Alfonso Boreste Camporo. A pair who would, for better or worse, go on to shape the rest of little Yongfang's life. to shape the rest of little Yongfang's life. Maria del Rosario Porto Ortego, simply known as Rosario or Charo to her friends and family, was kind of a big deal where she came from. She was born into a prominent Galician family, with wealth and prestige and bucket loads. Her father, lawyer, Francisco Porto Mella, was the former honorary consul to France, and her mother, Maria del Socorro Ortega Romero, was an esteemed university lecturer in art

history at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Rosario had, as you can imagine, a first-rate education, and spent stints studying in the UK and France, mastering several languages. But she never liked it abroad. As she later put it, no one knew who her father was there. And a family friend described the Porto Ortega's as basically aristocracy in their close-knit city of Santiago. And that made Rosario a motherfucking princess. But while this high society gal might have had the world at her feet,

the path before her was actually pretty narrow. Her parents expected her to excel academically, professionally and socially, just like they had. And Rosario dutifully followed in her father's footsteps and studied law at the University of Santiago de Compostela and went on to join the family firm. And her obedience to her parents' blueprints spilled into her romantic life as well. When she was younger she dated a guy who worked on the railways but ended up dumping him following pressure from her parents about their different social classes. Enter Alfonso Busterra Camporo, a journalist

originally from Bilbao. Alfonso's background wasn't quite as lofty as Rosario's. His father, Ramon, had apparently fritted away the family's fortune. But Rosario's family approved of her dating a guy with a serious career. So the pair tied the knot in 1996 in a lavish ceremony. And it seemed like marrying into money suited Alfonso just fine. The newlyweds were gifted a huge apartment that covered the whole fourth floor of a building in Santiago's VIP zone, home to the city's wealthy elite. And while Rosario worked as a top lawyer, Alfonso wrote for the local paper, El Carrero Gallego. And yeah, like he's obviously doing a job that is a totally

worthy job who doesn't like local newspapers apart from you know all the people not buying them but just like they were closing down. But like you know a perfectly wonderful job to be doing. But he certainly didn't contribute as much as Rosario did with her high-flying career in the legal field to the family piggy bank. Not that that mattered, because he was in high society now. And colleagues say that Alfonso often blew off deadlines in favour of attending swanky events with his wife. And it's also reported that he was a bit of a snobby social climber.

Okay, this episode is all pretty grim, so let's take a little break to tell you about something else that was quite grim. If you guys don't know, and you should know by now really, that Hannah and I have quite the bubbling Patreon situation going on. If you don't know what that is, I don't know what to say, Patreon.com slash red-handed, it's essentially like a very unsexy OnlyFan. Unless you find us talking about things like the brand new Meghan Markle debacle with love from Meghan Sussex, whoever the fuck she is, whatever's going on, reviewing that entire series

and you would like to listen to that. That's exactly what we did on our post-show party, which is called Under the Duvet, this week. So if you are interested in that kind of content from us, head on over to patreon.com slash red-handed right now. You can buy individual episodes if that's what you want to do. We release bonus episodes every single month. We also release weekly episodes of Under the Duvet. Or you can sign up for a full-on subscription and just get it direct to your ear holds every single week when we release things. So go check that out. It's quite the experience watching with love that is watching us is always a delight.

In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect. He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione. Became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history.

I was targeted, premeditated, and meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse Weber, host Luigi produced by law and crime and twist this is more than a true crime investigation we explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. The people to a true issue. I mean maybe this would be rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our

healthcare system. Listen to Law and Crime's Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. At least on the surface, the couple's personalities complemented each other well. Rosario referred to herself as a passionate woman, and while she was gregarious and appeared to wear the pantalonis, Alfonso seemed happy to sit back and bask in his wife's glory. By the time the millennium rolled around, they were ready to expand their family. Neither of them had fertility issues, but Rosario's doctor advised her not to get pregnant because she had lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease. So the couple chose

to go down the adoption route instead. Which I am surprised by. I am surprised that they went straight to adoption because if neither of them have fertility issues and I'm not saying that's not a great thing to do at all, don't get me wrong, I'm just surprised that this couple chose to do that because it's all about the aristocracy and who are you picking to like be your partner and like all of this expectation. Like carrying on the bloodline feels like a pretty important thing that I'm surprised didn't come up. Like I'm surprised they didn't go down the road of like surrogacy.

Not saying it's easy. Certainly not like in Europe, even back then I'm sure, but I'm interested that they went straight to adoption. I am too. I suppose the only, like I completely understand everything you're saying. I suppose it just gives you a bit, oh but look at the good they do. That's very, very true. Look at the good they do in the world. That's very true. You're right, because you can absolutely flip it and say maybe there's that element of like the virtue signal, not that everyone who adopts this virtue signalling at all, of course not. And I understand there's obviously, and I'm sure there's a place for this in this episode,

but the discussions around like going abroad, particularly to developing countries in order to adopt babies. Madonna. And I completely understand you know that people are gonna have mixed feelings around that. I have mixed feelings around it. I honestly I don't know. Yes of course when I see particularly Hollywood celebrities with like their United Colors of Benetton children I don't know why it makes me feel like hmm because I'm also like who am I to think anything like those kids have got a better life than they probably would have had they not been adopted by, you know, Sandra Bullock or Charlize Theron or Madonna,

or one of the many children Angelina Jolie has. And I don't want to reduce those children's experience to be like, well, you shouldn't have been adopted by this person. But why does it make me feel weird? And am I justified? Probably not, right? I think when it comes to developing country adoption... things. Safeguarding is not necessarily in place.

And I think there are questions and concerns around how the child is selected. I think that for me, that is what I find tricky. But equally all of the things you said are true. It's so tricky isn't it because I think often, I mean hello it's the internet, people want you to have like a hard and fast opinion on everything that is like unwavering with no gray area and no nuance. But I find it really odd, I knew when we were going to do this case like we'd have to talk about this and I wish I had a more synced line of thinking

about it because on one, I totally appreciate it. I completely agree with you on that. How is the selection done? The thing I think a lot of people have an issue with, which is kind of feels a bit secondary to me, but maybe people would disagree is this feeling of like, well, you've taken this child from, let's say from China and that child is going to grow up in a Western household with no attachment to their cultural heritage

and all of this and you've robbed them of that. I'm like but also if that child is fed and educated in clothes and looked after like is that that important? Well Prue Leith did that documentary didn't she? Yes I watched that actually. Yeah she adopted her daughter from Cambodia. Yes. And like a lot of it was. Prue Leith obviously being one of the judges of the Great British Break Off here in the UK. Yes. And she has a lot of guilt for not incorporating her daughter's heritage in her upbringing, but she thought she was doing the right thing and it was a long time ago and blah blah. So it's complicated, but if you're adopting a child, you're signing up to those big decisions. Absolutely. And on one hand, I can be like, if you are a person who adopts a child from any different country or different culture, whatever, I wanted to say when I was watching

that, I was like, Prud, don't beat yourself up. Like your daughter seems great. Like she's really well adjusted. You've given her a great life. Like you can't do everything. There's already a lot on parents that you have to do. And if your child is happy, healthy, well adjusted and you've done all those things right by them, I don't think you should beat yourself up about it. But at the same time, if you would go ahead with adopting a child from a different culture, like you already know you're in for that and that child at some point is going to turn around and be like, I don't look like you.

What's going on. You're not going to keep the adoption a secret in that case. So if they're going to have questions about their culture, about their heritage, that is also perfectly valid. And are you in a good place to either explain to them why it wasn't incorporated more or to be there to help them find out more about that heritage and culture? It's so, so tricky. Have you seen Modern Family? I am aware of it, but I've never actually watched it. So there's a kid in that who is adopted by gay dads from Vietnam. She's called Lily.

And they discuss this, you know, they're trying to incorporate Vietnam into her life and talk about her cultural heritage and blah blah blah and she's like, I hate Vietnam. You can't say that and she's like, I hate Vietnam. You can't say that. She's like, I hate it. Is there, and I'm not saying it's the same thing, but as somebody who grew up with like in the West with like a culture I had left behind in India that I'm, I'm okay with in terms of the culture of my family and the headline culture of that country, but when we came to the UK, my parents, 100% mentality was assimilation.

And I'm so grateful for that for them because it's an, it's absolutely inherently made my life easier and better to assimilate into the culture that I'm in. Other people may feel differently for their own personal experiences, that's how I feel. And I'm sure if they'd have tried to make us go

to like fucking Tamil school on a Sunday morning, like some of their friends' kids went to, I'd have fucking kicked off about it. Cause I wanted to go swimming and then I wanted to go eat chips. Like I didn't want, like I wanted that critical British experience. And so I'm not saying it's the same, but I can relate to the idea of like, if my parents had just tried to force our cultural heritage down us at that age, at this age, appreciate, at that age I would be like, fuck off, I don't care. So like it can also be an uphill battle. So anyway, I feel like we've gone quite far on this, but I think it would have been remiss

to not even discuss that topic with this case. I agree. At the beginning, it seemed that there was no question of Rosario and Alfonso's suitability for parenthood. A psychologist's pre-adoption report described Rosario as friendly, relaxed, emotionally expressive, cooperative, adaptable and solicitous. And the same report described Alfonso as patient, easygoing, understanding and, with a good sense of humor, a strong character who makes his own decisions

and plus salt and paper like very very very wealthy people. I also think I know that having the opinion that there should be some sort of test before people are allowed to have babies is eugenics. I understand that, but it is an interesting thing of like, health issues aside, you know, there is no parameters you have to meet to be able to shove on out, you know? And with this adoption process, it seems at this point that, you know, checks are being done, assessments are being made for their suitability. Anyone can pretend to be normal for an hour. Especially when they really really really really really want a baby. Exactly. And when they're loaded. And when

they're loaded. But how you figure that out? No clue. No. Again it's so tricky isn't it? It's just like of course if you have all of the best intentions, all of the best processes, everything, people are always going to slip through the net. But, yeah, I don't know. Mm, tricky. Mm, tricky, very tricky. I'm like, you know, China after the one child policy, they've got a lot of fucking baby girls, somebody's got to take them and they're not going to have in country adoptions that

much because like, yes, of course there are going to be in country adoptions people who had fertility issues are not going to be able to have their own child they longed for one son that they'll have so they probably you know will adopt a baby girl if they have that option but there were so many so again I find it you know I would find it hard to be particularly strong in the idea of like because I know some people have like well they just basically bought this girl I don, I don't believe that. No. No. And yes you have to make some sort of donation to the orphan. That money is

you know, hopefully being used to help the other kids that are still there. And I don't want to seem incredibly naive about this but I don't know. I'm not like, I'm up until now I'm not against anything that's happening. And the reason they ended up going to China was in Spain low birth rates and a strict bureaucratic policy around child and childbearing made in-country adoption difficult. Not impossible. But the fact was it was way easier to adopt internationally. If you could afford the 10k plus costs, of course. And China was easiest of all.

You could fly out and return with a baby in a month. That's going to be very appealing to people that just want that, just want a baby. You want it? Here's a country that will allow you that option. And so in June 2001, now in their mid-30s, Rosario and Alfonso travelled over 6,000 miles to bring their baby girl home. So when they arrived at the orphanage, according to Rosario, nine-month-old Yongfang threw herself into their arms as if she'd been waiting for them. I'm not like the most expert expert when it comes to babies, but I'm curious as to how a nine-month-old throws itself into anybody's arms.

They can. They can do it? Alright, cool. Also, according to Rosario, it took the baby a little more time to get used to Alfonso, but with Rosario, from the start, there was an instant connection. So they had their baby when they flew back to Spain. Alfonso said that she was a bit anxious and would cry if anyone apart from her new parents came within two yards of her. And while she was a bit anxious and would cry if anyone apart from her new parents came within two yards of her. And while she was slightly underweight and had some minor health issues, the baby improved

quickly and assimilated seamlessly into this strange new land that was to be her home. And with her new life, she was given a new name and Yongfang became a son to Yongfang Bastera Porto. This followed the Spanish naming custom of taking your mum and dad's surnames and they kept her original Chinese name in there, obviously to honour her roots. Asanta was officially a Spanish girl now and her parents were local celebrities. In 2001, nobody else in the city of Santiago had adopted from China, and Asunta was one of only a handful of Chinese adoptees in the entire Galatia region.

And that meant Rosario and Alfonso were trendsetters. By 2004, Spain ranked second in the world for foreign adoptions behind the US, and the following year, adoptions of Chinese children peaked at 2,750. And the couple very much enjoyed what they thought would be their 15 minutes of fame, giving interviews to regional press, talking about the challenges and joys of adoption. And the vibe they were met with was absolutely well done, you, for saving this poor little mite from the third world and poverty and giving her a chance at life And between the humble brags about their loving family life Rosario called adoption a quote

Great commitment that like biological parenthood was for life Yeah, what did you what else would it be? Not just for Christmas As a son to grew up she was naturally social and made friends easily, though she tended to keep things bottled up and sometimes struggled to express her emotions. Naturally, a little shy in public, Asanta blossomed at home, dancing and making up shows for her family, cracking jokes and filling the house with infectious laughter. Above all else, Rosario described her daughter as a very happy child. Asanta listed her favorite things as playing football, reading and singing in the shower. At 12, Asanta hadn't yet got the dreaded puberty hormones,

and she was still very much a child, not a teenager. I think it's interesting, obviously, you know, a lot of what we know about Asanta can only come from her parents and those who knew her and she was still very very young when she was killed but that idea of an adopt child being very pleasant and being very like accommodating and described as a happy child is quite typical. I think a lot of people might think, oh if you adopt a child, you know, they may have some attachment issues, especially if they're adopted like per certain age. I think it's like maybe after the one year mark that

things can become difficult. Nothing is irredeemable, of course not, but like some extra attachment issues depending on how they were cared for in that initial year. But she's adopted younger than that and her being very pleasant and nice and happy is very typical because there can be this feeling from adopted children of I'm lucky to have been adopted and therefore I must do everything I can to make sure nobody gets upset with me. Nobody becomes unhappy with me. And obviously a lot of this is theorizing. We don't know exactly how a son tounta felt but that can be quite standard because they have this

feeling of like I should be more grateful than if I was a biological child. In his book on this case Mark Gusskin notes that Asunta had tended to be exaggeratedly portrayed in the media as a prodigy. And while she was not a genius, she was a very clever and applied 12 year old girl. Do you think that's obviously to do with the fact that she's Chinese? I didn't want to say it, but let's say you're closer to the right type of Asian able to say that. I 100% feel that that is that is the case. I think there is all of this.

You know, we talk a lot about like racial discrimination, rightfully so, but there is also that expectation, particularly from East Asians, that they are going to be incredibly smart, incredibly diligent. And I'm sure there was an element of like anything Assunta did was maybe cast through the eyes of like, oh my God she's a genius! And Rosaria and Alfonso certainly did think that Asunta was gifted and they felt it was their responsibility to ensure that she unlocked her full potential. Asunta attended the same prestigious schools that her mum had and was allowed to skip her final year of primary school. She did an exhausting

number of extracurricular activities including ballet, violin, piano, Chinese, French and English lessons. Her ballet teacher once asked Asunta about her Saturday routine and Asunta casually reeled off that she got off at 7 a.m. She did Chinese from 8 to 10 and then she went to ballet from 10 1515 to 12.30, and then she studied French until lunchtime, then had violin and then piano in the afternoon. Yikes. That's a lot. I would argue that it's not just because she's, I think it's like the media portraying her as a genius is that element of like, she's Chinese. But I think with Rosaria doing it is kind of like, it's what she experienced. And I think even if Rosaria and Alfonso

had had a baby biologically, they would be doing the same thing to that child because there is that expectation. Like we said, with Rosaria's future plans, she was very privileged, but her future was going to be very narrow. She was going to be successful. And you're absolutely seeing that in Four Four's here. You don't need to be Asian to be a Tiger Mom."

Mm-mm. And Rosario did indeed, like her mother before her and no doubt her mother before that, have big plans for her daughter. But as Asanta approached her teenage years, cracks were perhaps starting to appear. On the wall at the family's apartment there hung a framed poem that a very little Asanta had written with a childish stick figure drawing of her mother. And translated from Spanish to English, this is what it read. My mum is called Charo, and her hair is short. She is thin and her hair is short. She is thin and her hair is black and she is

beautiful. She does my ribbons for me and she is a good person. She loves me a lot. But a few years later when Asanta was old enough to smash her Galithian rhyming game, don't judge her by the translated version that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, she'd composed a somewhat less flattering verse about her dear mother, and this is what it read. My mother is greedy, but not beautiful. She is short, but not nice. She sings horribly and cooks with salt. She runs worse, but drinks better. Not at all flexible, but very old. She doesn't know how to talk, but she does know how to tell me off.

She knows how to shout, but not how to talk nonsense. And like, look, in hindsight, yes. But also like, give any teenage girl the opportunity to write something about their mother and I'm gonna guess it's not too far off. Mm-hmm. teenage girl the opportunity to write something about their mother and I'm gonna guess it's not too far off. In reality the poem that Suru just read for you was probably just a silly little

rhyme for a school project. It could highlight strains in the mother-daughter bond but as Suru said show me one person who hasn't had that experience. Oh my god, like, yeah, I just think if you've got teenagers, they're just gonna hate you for a few years and then if you're lucky, you'll be best friends with them again when they're in their twenties. But don't expect it when they're teenagers. Mm-hmm. Once when Rosaria was boasting to acquaintances about her many after-school activities, Asanta snapped at her mum and said, I'm only doing that one because you like it. Again. Classic.

Apparently, sources close to the family said that Rosario appeared overwhelmed by managing Asunta's schooling and extracurricular schedules. Which, I don't know. I think if she's that wealthy she's got a fucking assistant. Like I don't believe that she's like I just can't cope with ballet and piano on the same day. Like come on. No I think what's actually stressing Rosario out is looking for all these different activities that she thinks her child should excel at. And in and of itself, that is not inherently abusive. I'm not going to

say that. You as a parent, of course, you have this child you've longed for for ages, like this is it. And you also come from a particular family where there are expectations and you want your child to excel at something. You want that idea of the child being a genius or a prodigy or gifted to be true. Because look, she like is obsessed with this idea of Asanta being something special and everybody feels that way about their kids. But I think maybe what's actually frustrating her is that Asanta is a not particularly vibing with any of these extracurricular activities that she, her mother thinks are worthy of putting your time into and maybe she just wasn't the top of the class.

Yeah, I think that's true. And I also think, you know, as an adult, quite often you can look back and be like, Oh, I just wish I wish I'd started that earlier. I wish I'd listened in Spanish at school. I wish. And you know that your kid doesn't fucking know that. There's such a quandary, isn't it? I mean, this is just quickly turning into a parenting podcast

from people who don't have any children, shocker. But I have friends who are absolutely like, I wish my parents had pushed me more. I wish they had encouraged me more. I wish they had had higher expectations of me. I wish they had forced a, I don't know, a fucking oboe into my hand or something as a child. And they didn't, because they were just like,

have a good time, do what you what you want kid whereas I had the opposite experience it was like what are you doing why are you just sitting there why aren't you awake by a certain time on a Saturday why aren't you doing something productive to be productive was to be popular in our household for sure and I think it's a fine line isn't it because? Because you want to push them, you want to encourage them. But if they're not very good and they're not succeeding at that, it can also be quite a negative feedback loop. And I think here, that's maybe what you're seeing a bit of. Yeah, I think although most parents are operating with the brains of adults who, you know, wish

that they could play the fucking harp, I don't think that's quite what's going on here. Rosario had done quite a lot of research on gifted children and she told her friends that when gifted children are well handled they are a good thing but they can be a problem. So what we have there is Rosario, at least in private, starting to see her daughter and describing her to others as a problem. And I really take that to mean, like, if this child that I have decided is gifted succeeds in, you know, a narrow set of things that I have deemed to be worthy of success or like, you know, good enough for her to pursue, then she will be well handled and it's great.

And I think the problem means if she's not succeeding in those or gives me fucking sass about doing it, then she's the problem. And I think the problem is that Asanta's kind of doing both. And yeah, it's just an unbelievable amount of pressure. And honestly, given like my childhood, which like, I, you know, I don't want to sound like, oh my God, it was awful. It's just like, there was a lot of expectations.

That's typical of a lot of people who grew up in like a first generation immigrant household for sure. And in other cases like this but I think I am going to have to work every fiber of my body, every cell in my tongue if I ever have a child to not do the same thing. I think and I'm being perfectly honest I think deep down I will feel resentful if that child is like, I'm just gonna lay about and I don't want to do shit and that's gonna be really hard for me. Yeah it's hard work. I would just be like, are you fucking serious? Do you know how hard your granddad worked? Do you know how fucking I worked? Get the fuck

up and I'm gonna have to really work on that every single day I think and I already know that. I already know that that I will feel resentment and people don't fucking have kids you sound like a horrible bitch no but I realized when I used to be a teacher and I taught young kids primary school kids my mother's words would come out of my mouth and I was like oh my god where did that come from? It's so true because you can't you can't like it's hardwired and it's really hard to unpick it. So true. And I was actually having this conversation this weekend and I was like, I do it with the dogs.

I say the things my parents used to say to me to the dogs. And this is again, it's going to make me sound awful. But like, again, you've got to take into account it's like an Indian culture household. And for sure, like the challenges my parents went through to get us to where we are now, et cetera, et cetera. But they'd be like, I'll fucking kill you. I will kill you if you don't do this thing. I will beat you with this shoe.

That's another, that's a favourite one. Something's lost in translation, but I'll fucking beat you. I'll beat you to death. I'll kill you. I will beat you with this shoe. And I say that to the dogs all the fucking time. And I'm like, oh my God, I can't say that to a child. Especially one that grows up fully in the UK.

Oh my God. Yeah, it's going to be, it's going to take a lot. It's going to take a lot of work. Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway, let's stick with this story. So to the world, the Bastera Portos presented the image of a loving happy family. But we all know that often when a family seems perfect, they sure as hell are not. And under the shiny facade of this clan there were deeper issues to address. Like Rosario's lifelong battle with mental health

issues. As a student in France in the late 80s, Rosario had had her first major breakdown. She was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety, for which she took medication. She was hospitalized several times including in 2009, when she told doctors at a private psychiatric facility that she was suicidal and had racing thoughts. Her psychiatrist noted that she was quote very irritable about her daughter, nine-year-old Asunta, who she described as a quote bother. But Rosario discharged herself after only two days and returned for just one of her scheduled follow-up appointments. The last year of Asunta's life was one filled with upheaval and stress for the whole family.

Both of Rosario's parents, who Asunta was close to, died just a few months apart. They'd been huge influences on Rosario's life, and her mother in particular was considered to be the family's driving force. Rosario described her mum as charmingly awful. That's amazing. Yeah and one acquaintance said that she had a personality like a lawnmower. Interesting. Her parents' deaths triggered a personal rebellion for Rosario, because it meant that she could finally make choices for herself. And she did. She quit her inherited role as Consul of France. It was a lot of work for no pay and just social prestige, which she already had,

and she closed her dad's law firm. Rosario started to freelance legal consulting and offering translation services. And that's how she met a client named Manuel Garcia Rendo, a charming businessman with a pregnant wife at home and a roving eye. Rosario travelled with Manuel to Morocco several times to provide legal advice and linguistic assistance for an investment deal. And I think you can predict where that ended up. They started shagging each other. Rosario confided in her friends that she'd been growing bored of Alfonso for quite some time. He was unambitious. He was just doing

a bit of freelance work and traveling and writing and blah blah blah but it wasn't enough. and traveling and writing and blah blah blah but it wasn't enough. He was mainly taking care of a sonter like a house husband which Rosario didn't like. Manuel though, he was driven and if Rosario is to be believed, which maybe we shouldn't always, Alfonso was absolutely great in the sack. And Rosario told the police later on that she was crushing like a teenager when it came to Manuel. Uh oh.

Not great. Mm-mm. So while Manuel made it clear that he had absolutely no intention of leaving his family. Rosario was head over heels for her sexy married lover. But the affair was busted in January 2013, when Alfonso read Rosario's emails. Blindsided, Alfonso became physically aggressive and even kicked a hole in a door before Rosario forced him to leave.

Three weeks later, after attempting to scrounge from various family members in Bilbao, Alfonso returned and got an apartment around the corner. Despite the acrimonious breakup, both parties agreed that their main priority was their daughter Asanta. The little girl seemed to be handling things pretty well. Her only question when they explained that they were divorcing was, so who's gonna cook? Rosario later said she believed Asanta took the news so well because she felt secure in the knowledge that her parents both loved her. Alfonso on the other hand was not quite so mature when it came to dealing with the breakup. He bombarded Rosario with emails

in which he went from clingy and desperate to claiming he didn't care about her and just wanted to move on. In these rambling diatribes he insisted that he had tons of dignity while despairing that he'd been thrown out of his house as if he had the plague. And Rosario summarized this whole situation for a friend of hers, saying that Alfonso oscillated between playing the victim and being really aggressive, which was exhausting. Once he wrote, even though it might sound pathetic and humiliating for me, my only purpose in life was to look after you and grow old at your side. Sorry, but it isn't easy for

me to stop loving you." That didn't work. In what Rosario called the quickest divorce ever, they were officially divorced on the 14th of February 2013. Stone cold. My god. Oh my god. Just, I have chills.

So cold. So cold. And look, I get it. She was like bored with him. She's done with him already by the time this all goes down. But like, she's kind of just like, oh, he's so exhausting. You fucking cheated on him and then threw him out of his house. Like, okay, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And finalised it on Valentine's Day. But look, Rosario isn't coming up smelling of roses from this situation anyway because

she had yet another nervous breakdown in June. Alfonso, of all people, rushed to her side, picking up on his househusband duties as if nothing had ever happened. And while Rosario didn't want to get back together with Alfonso romantically, it's clear that she definitely had some form of psychological dependency on him. Since the breakup, Alfonso sent frequent emails reminding Rosario how to do basic household tasks, all with detailed instructions. Rosario, apparently, was notoriously scatty and heavily relied on her husband, or ex-husband

by this point, even after they long split. It was this weird hyper-dependent scenario that Alfonso issued Rosario an ultimatum. He'd continue helping her out, but she had to leave her lover. I learnt an interesting thing this weekend, that we use the word codependent often in the pop culture vernacular, incorrectly. So a lot of people would describe this as codependent, like he wants something from her, she wants something from him, they're codependent on each other. And actually that's not the right usage.

The right usage is actually a person that needs to do everything for another person in order to feel valid. That's actually what the term codependent means, which I think is very interesting. So when we're like, oh, they're never going to break up because they're so codependent. That's not actually what it means. It's the person who's like, gives and gives and gives and gives because they're dependent on the validation from that other person is what it actually means. Anyway, so yes, this is the agreement they come up with. Rosario would later say, telling a judge in fact later, it was Alfonso or death. And so she ended her affair with Manuel. I think that just that really shows that like she really didn't think she could live if

he wasn't there. No and I think there's probably an element there of like why she got bored of him because he was probably just in this caregiver role and I think it seemed much more exciting on this outside obviously blah blah blah she carries on with Manuel who's like, I'm not fucking leaving my family though, this is just a bit of fun. And I think she realises, like she says, it's Alfonso or death. And I think she's probably not totally wrong, given how much he was doing for her. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories

are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, and each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show.

Listen to Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wond Mysteries on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple podcasts. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant starts firing at him. And the suspect. And You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Spotify or Apple podcasts. And that brings us on to the strangest and most unsettling part of this story or at least one of them.

According to Rosario, the night she broke up with Manuel, the 4th of July, she woke up in the early hours to the chilling sound of Asunta's screams. Rushing into her daughter's bedroom, she claimed that she found a burly man dressed in black wearing a mask and gloves leaning over Asunta trying to strangle her. This masked man fled upon seeing Rosario, knocking her cheek as he pushed past, leaving a bruise. Rosario assumed that this man must have been a burglar, which would make sense because for some reason a safe containing thousands of euros was

kept in Asunta's bedroom. Rosario believed, she said, that the intruder had got in by chance after she or Asunta had absentmindedly left their apartment keys in the door. But Rosario didn't call the police. She didn't even tell anyone. It's quite a big thing not to tell somebody. Yeah. Meanwhile, Asunta texted her best friend, who's called Adriana, the chilling message,

I'm nervous. Today someone tried to kill me. And she even sent a selfie that showed red marks on her neck. Rosaria's efforts to keep the incident under wraps were foiled the very next day. In the car on the way to a beach trip with another schoolmate, this friend's mum asked the girls to tell stories to pass the time. And here is what Asunta said. Once upon a time there was a little girl. A man came into her room and tried to kill her. That girl was me. What I've just told you is true.

Oh fucking hell. Naturally the mum rang Rosario and was absolutely shocked when she confirmed that the story was true. Rosario explained her silence by saying that she didn't want to traumatize her son to further by going to the police because she was a fearful girl and she didn't want her to be afraid in her own home. The other mum was like, you're fucking nuts mate, too late, report it. And so Rosario did go to the police a few days later. She stopped short of making a formal report, claiming she'd take Asanta to the hospital first before she did so. She never did. And so that summer Asanta had her final

taste of happiness. She spent several weeks at a beach resort with her godmother, a woman named Maria Isabel Veliz, who said she had a wonderful time, swimming and playing in the sun. Asanta also stayed with her nanny, a woman named Carmen, in her home village for over a week. In total, Asanta only spent one week out of the six-week summer holiday with her parents. In September, she returned to school, but only stayed for two days before calling in sick. Rosario wrote a note explaining that Asanta had been dizzy and unwell during the night. And then, on Friday the 20th of September, Asanta's final night alive, she stayed at her dad's flat.

And Rosaria had called Alfonso to say that she'd be home late, as she was at an exhibition out of town. But in reality, despite saying that the affair was off, she was actually shagging Manuel on his boat, because she had been quite obviously unable to resist starting things back up with him and that had been going on for about a month. Saturday the 21st of September appeared to begin as an ordinary day for Asunta. The family had lunch together at Alfonso's apartment, played cards and watched an episode of The Simpsons. Sounds great. Yeah. Asunta texted a mate about half three,

saying that she was off to do her homework and was spotted on CCTV walking alone around the corner back to her mum's flat at 5.21 p.m. Rosario followed just seven minutes later. Within a few hours, Asunta would be dead. At 10.17pm, Rosario Porto and Alfonso Bastera arrived at Santiago's main police station to report their daughter missing. Rosario told police inspector Javier Villacoba that she'd left Asunta at home at around 7 p.m.

while she drove to the family's country house at Montoto in the parish of Teo, roughly about a 20-minute drive from the city. She said that when she returned at 9.30 p.m., Asante was missing. Her books and toys were still spread out in a fan shape on the floor where she liked to do her homework.

Her mobile phone was also still in the flap. There was absolutely no sign of her. Rosario said her first thought was that maybe Asanta had walked over to her dad's place, but after calling Alfonso and some of Asanta's friends, it was clear that she was missing. Knowing their shy and well-behaved daughter would never leave the house alone, Rosario and Alfonso reported her disappearance within the hour. The investigation began with red flags right from the start. Whilst having a cigarette break with police inspector Villacoba, Alfonso remarked several times that he believed Desunta was dead and he hoped that she hadn't been raped which is a very odd thing to say. It's a weird thing. It's a weird thing to

come after a couple of hours of being missing. Yeah. Mmm. Don't like it. And when Rosario relayed the story of what happened back in July with the man in black, the police were even more concerned. Why would a woman who reported her daughter missing within a matter of hours not report a home invasion like that? Yeah, the suspicion bricks are a building, a big suspicion wall. Still, at this stage, early stages, early doors, police were hoping that they would find Asunta alive and well. But we already know that didn't happen. At around 1.30am, Asunta's body was

discovered by locals Alfredo Balsa and Jose Alvarez on the dirt track outside Tiny Village. Asante was barefoot and laying on her back on a small embankment by the roadside. Her eyes were rolled back and there was blood-tinged snot on her nose. She wore mud-stained grey sweatpants that were wet at the crotch, like she'd wet herself. And her white t-shirt, with rainbow writing on it, was slightly pulled up. Investigators at the scene noticed a wet substance on her t-shirt that they thought could potentially be semen. It appeared that Asanta's body had been carefully placed at the scene, as there were

no drag marks at all nearby. Frayed orange twine was also found near her body, indicating that perhaps she may have been bound at some point. The two men who found Asanta's body were well known in the rural area for drinking, gambling and using drugs, so the officers were quite wary of them at first. They were particularly suspicious of their story about how they'd come across Asunta's body whilst out walking, despite the full moon and the densely forested path being dark. The cops felt that the chances of

seeing Asunta without headlights were quite small. And after some prodding, the two men did admit that they were driving to a strip club, even though Balsa's license had been revoked and they were both well over the legal limit. So I can understand why they lied about that. Yeah. And given that we know that they weren't actually involved in this, good for them for coming forward. Yeah, no, I know. I know. I can understand why the police would be like, but that doesn't make sense.

Yes. But then obviously I can understand. I'm not condoning it, but I can understand why they would be like, well, we were just walking. And of course, absolutely. Anytime anybody discovers a body, it's only right that they should be a suspect numero uno for sure. Especially if they're two drunk men who have just happened

upon this teenage girl. And interestingly, the visibility conditions that night would go on to become a major sticking point in this investigation. But we've got some other stuff to deal with before we can tell you about that. After the two men admitted how they really found her body, tests were conducted on the exterior of Balsa's white Volkswagen Golf to determine if this was actually a hit and run. But Asunta's body showed no signs of external trauma, and the car was intact, so they were

both ruled out as suspects. Strangely, Balsa apparently claimed that Asunta's left arm had moved between their two visits to the body. Originally it had been curled across her chest, but later when they returned it was lying by her side. Odd. Can't help you. Never explained, never clarified. Also, probably not true. I don't care that much about that. Now we should quickly explain how the Spanish judicial system works, as it is pretty different from here in the UK or in the US where we obviously spend a lot of our time with this show. In Spain, an investigating judge leads the investigation for serious crimes like homicide. They instruct the police

to gather evidence, question suspects and make arrests. This judge takes command of the whole case up until the trial, unlike in Britain where the police and the CPS, which is obviously the Crown Prosecution Service, play a key role. And for Operation Waterlily, the investigative work was conducted by the Gardia Civil, a militarised police force with jurisdiction over crimes committed in rural areas. And the judge was a guy named Jose Antonio Vazquez Tayin, a maverick with his own unique aggressive style. Tayin was nicknamed Robin Hood for his work catching drug traffickers in the countryside.

And Tyene smelled a rat straight away, because the sonter's body had been found just four kilometres away from her family's sprawling holiday home in the village of Montaoutou. And so all eyes were very firmly on Rosario and Alfonso. At 4.45 on the 22nd of September, Alfonso and Rosario were informed that their daughter had been found dead. Officers noted Rosario had a strange attitude when they told her that she needed to come with them to identify the body. She insisted that the police must be wrong and

refused to leave her flat in case Asunta came back. Which you could argue is not that strange to be in denial as a parent. Also the idea of not wanting to leave, I do get that. I do too. Although some people have classed this as specifically odd because in reality in that part of Spain, how many tween age Asian girls are going to be found dead on the side of the road. I can understand it, but if you're a grieving parent, you're not having logical thoughts. Anyway, officers testified later on that it was at that moment that they saw a glimpse of coldness and distance in Rosario. We talk about reactions to bad news all the time. I actually cannot think of a single time, a single case we have covered where

it's been important enough to be a turning point in the case. Do you know what I mean? Like you can comment on it. Like it's in the end, because there are so many mitigating factors surrounding how people react to things, I don't think it really makes difference. No, I don't. I think that the thing that the police are doing

absolutely correctly here is that they look firstly at the men who find the body. Okay, rule them out. Then you've got to look at the parents. And if anything, there's one thing we have seen, is that the police either come down way too hard on the parents sometimes and you know, blinker themselves from other suspects, or they don't look at them at all. And I think here, for them to be like, we saw a glimmer of something and it was enough for us to look more into them. Absolutely correct. What happened next though is more worth our time I would argue. Police took Rosario to the Montuto house, the holiday house, not too far away from where a center spotty was found.

When they got there Rosario immediately asked to be excused because she needed the loo and she bolted upstairs even though there was a loo needed the loo and she bolted upstairs. Even though there was a loo on the ground floor, which she would know, having spent many, many a summer. An officer followed Rosario and found her upstairs, not weeing, not even washing her hands. She was rooting through a waste paper basket. Okay. Which contained orange twine, identical to that found at the crime scene. There was also some still damp tissues that Rosario nervously explained were from a cold

Asunta had had earlier that summer. And there was also a face mask, Rosario said had been used for avoiding fumes while spring cleaning the old house. No one actually asked Rosario for any of that information. She gave it all away for free. As if she was trying to prove that she wasn't hiding anything. Yeah. Nothing's going to make you look more suspicious than that. Especially after your teenage daughter's been found dead four kilometers from the place you said you were in. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And also saying you need the loo and then not going to the loo. Yes. There's a lot stacking up. A lot stacking up and it's not just down to, she looked a bit weird when we asked her some questions.

So the discovery of the orange twine set off serious alarm bells for the police. And it matched a ball kept in a storeroom at the house, which Rosario claimed the garden is used for re-landscaping the grounds. Its chemical properties also matched the twine found by a sunter's body. Although it was scientifically impossible to say for definite that it came from the same batch. Since once cut, the frayed ends can't be matched with 100% certainty. And that is something important, even when the police find fibres, string, blah, blah, blah.

All they can say is it's consistent with another item recovered from a suspect. Now investigators made inquiries at all the local hardware stores in the region but none of them sold that exact type and colour. Something which seemed to point towards the theory of it coming from the storeroom in the old country house rather than it just being a weird coincidence. Orange twine. Again, if you're gonna do a murder, pick something ubiquitous, pick something that could have come from anywhere and pay in cash. Don't take it from your own fucking utility cupboard. Also, obviously don't murder people, especially not your own child. But yeah, it's really hamstrung them here, that

twine. And Rosario wasn't the only one acting shadily after the discovery of Asunta's body. Within days, Alfonso called up his old boss at the newspaper and demanded that they take their online articles about Asunta down. And they did. And they only mentioned his name in future articles. They kept Rosario out of it completely because Alfonso had told them that she just couldn't handle the media

scrutiny. And it did strike ex-colleague José Antonio Pérez as odd that Alfonso was doing digital damage control when his daughter's body had only just been found. And despite all of this article hunting, police couldn't find Alfonso's laptop during their initial search of his apartment. But when Alfonso's lawyers suggested a second search be conducted three months later, the laptop was miraculously found in a location that had been previously checked. And thousands of files had been wiped off it. Yeah, that'll do it. They always know. They always know when you have done that.

At least hide it somewhere you know that they didn't already fucking check. Or just destroy it. Or that. Or that. Throw it off a boat in the North Sea like in Waggatha Christie. Please, for the love of God. Right into fucking Davy Jones' locker. off a boat in the North Sea like in Waggatha Christie. Please, for the love of God. Right into fucking Davy Jones' locker. So Assunta's autopsy confirmed that she had died from asphyxiation, likely by being smothered with a soft object like a pillow or a cushion.

She had blood at her mouth from biting her lip, suggesting slight resistance, but otherwise there was no major trauma to her body. And it was impossible to determine her exact time of death, since samples were not initially taken due to fears of contaminating potential evidence of sexual assault, although ultimately it was concluded that she had not been sexually violated. And based on the timeline of events, the medical examiner estimated that Asanta's most likely time of death

was somewhere between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. There was no physical evidence tying Rosario or Alfonso to the body, and that's always really difficult when you live there, when you live in the same house, because your DNA's all over it anyway. But Rosario's story about the events that night soon started to unravel. To recap, she'd said that she left a centre at home at 7pm and then drove to the family's

country house. And yes, investigators found CCTV footage corroborating this. Rosario driving towards the house at 6.20pm. But the grainy footage showed a long-haired slim figure sitting beside Rosario. The footage showed a suhnta. It was incontrovertible proof that Rosario had lied about leaving her daughter alone in the house. So what else was she lying about? On the 24th of September, Asunta was cremated at the Boisaca Compostela Cemetery, and a local TV journalist acted as a sort of family spokesperson, addressing the swarming media outside and rejecting speculation that Asunta's parents had anything to do with her tragic death.

During the service Rosario and Alfonso took photos of Asunta's flower-covered coffin through the glass. Then after the ceremony a police officer quietly took Rosario aside and led her through a side exit to a waiting police car. She was under arrest for the murder of her daughter. and led her through a side exit to a waiting police car. She was under arrest for the murder of her daughter. In custody, Rosaria broke down and admitted that her story was inaccurate. In her new version of events, she admitted she had taken Asanta to the summer house with her, but said that she took her home again soon after their arrival, since her cranky Asanta had changed her mind and was nagging to go home to do her homework.

So, according to Rosario, after dropping Asanta back at the flat in Santiago, Rosario says she drove to a sporting goods shop to pick up an item for her daughter's ballet classes, although she said she didn't end up going in because she'd left her purse at the country house. Rosario says she then drove back there to pick it up before going to a petrol station for fuel, but didn't fill up her tank because she realised that she'd forgotten her discount card. She then drove back to Santiago and discovered that aanta was missing from the flat. Needless to say, this story smelled like total bullshit to Tyene and his team. Yeah, you can see why.

The scatty, which is how Rosario has been described multiple times, including by her husband, and then there's this. But Rosario swore that she hadn't lied maliciously. At first she said that she had just gotten confused and mixed up her timings. But then she started saying that she'd fudged the truth because she was ashamed that her daughter was being precocious and bossing her around. Which again, like, okay. Now while psychiatrists say that it's possible Rosario

struggled with memory lapses due to the anxiety medication she was taking, the facts of her new story still just didn't check out. Police checked 33 CCTV cameras around Santiago and found no corroborating evidence for any of the routes she claimed to have taken. It was clear Rosario was lying through her teeth. Following her arrest, the case exploded in a frenzy of media interest.

Rumours swirled about the two wealthy parents who killed their adoptive daughter. And ideas of how they did it went from run-of-the-mill to pretty mental. There was one conspiracy theory pushed by Rosario's own cousin that the reason the couple had killed Asunta was because she was in line to receive her grandparents' inheritance. That turned out to be untrue. Rosario was the sole beneficiary of her parents estate. But that didn't matter. The story caught fire and people started to wonder whether Rosario had murdered her parents as well because they did die terribly close together, didn't they? I can see why people go. It's such a nice, I mean nice in the worst possible way, tight

motive for why all of these people suddenly die. And sense of information was leaked to the press as well, pretty constantly, which obviously just made everything more on fire. News programs aired secret footage taken during the search of the country house, showing Rosario smoking, smiling and laughing with investigators. The public were outraged, how could a bereaved mother behave so callously just days after her daughter's death?

Alfonso's lawyer insisted that this footage aired all over the country had been edited out of context and 98% of the time Rosario was sad and crying. Very specific. And again, look, I get it. That is gonna make anybody feel pretty aggrieved when you see that. But like we said many times on this show, doesn't mean she killed her.

But the damage was done and the people were baying for blood. Strangers lying the streets, yelling murderers at the couple during police escorts. And you can see it it like the narrative here of this wealthy privileged couple adopting this child from a developing country bringing her to Spain and then killing her when she became a problem as the narrative is being told it just it's everything that would spark outrage. Absolutely. So while Alfonso was still a free man at this

point he was under a heavy cloud of suspicion as much as his ex-wife. Investigators felt Rosario must have had an accomplice. At just 4 foot 8 it seemed impossible for her to have placed the body of her daughter who was already 5 inches taller than her on a rural track without any drag marks. And that does make sense. The investigators were convinced that this accomplice had been, of course, her ex-husband Alfonso. But there was a problem.

They just couldn't place Alfonso in the vicinity of where Asanta's body was found. He claimed to have been at his apartment in Santiago all evening, and his phone had been switched off, so the police couldn't track where he had actually been using cell towers. Which, of course, they concluded was a deliberate attempt made by Alfonso to avoid detection. And Donald's kind of really screamed that. The only time though Alfonso was caught on CCTV was at 9.40pm after Rosario had returned to Santiago and raised the alarm about Asanta's disappearance. But the police had a gut feeling that Alfonso was involved. They just couldn't prove it.

Until… Until... The toxicology report came back on the 25th of September and brought with it bad boy information, bombshell revelation. Asunta had the equivalent of 27 lorazepam tablets in her system, which is fucking loads. That is nine times the maximum dose for a grown up. And there's more. Tess conducted on Asanta's hair, indicated that she had been ingesting the drug for at least three months before her death. Oh, we've seen you before. Oh, yikes. Yikes. Y my god yeah okay yeah it's very clear picture emerging. And lorazepam, I'm sure you don't need this, explaining to you is the active ingredient in

the drug orphidal which of course was the medication that Rosario had been prescribed to treat her anxiety. Alfonso was the one who was responsible for ordering these pills and he had been ordering it. Inquiries with local chemists confirmed that Alfonso had purchased more than 175 packs of Orphidal, far more than Rosario needed over just 10 weeks. I'm sorry If I go to the supermarket and buy multiple packets of paracetamol, there's going to be questions asked. Yep. Buy just the cashier, not a pharmacist, just the cashier who's going to be like, what's

all this for? Much like the Giselle Pellicott case, how in the fuck was Alfonso ordering that amount of a controlled substance without questions being screamed? I mean he just must have been going to different pharmacies. Still shouldn't have worked. And as investigators dug deeper they found that these medication purchases lined up with times when Asunta had been seen acting quite strangely in public. Her music teachers reported that on several occasions in July 2013, so a couple of months before she died, Asunta seemed dopey and couldn't read sheet

music or even walk straight. When she was asked what was wrong, Asunta told her teachers that she quote took some white powders. I don't know what what they are giving me nobody tells me the truth. Yeah this is when you start to see a more sinister turn on what teenage girls are saying about their parents. Asunta even told her violin teacher my mother wants to kill me she's a psychopath. Anyone who went to her parents with these concerns were told that Asenta was just being given allergy medication. It made her a bit drowsy and she was being too dramatic about it. She didn't have allergies.

Her parents were deliberately drugging her and they were doing it for months. And that was enough to get Alfonso arrested on the 25th of September. Fucking good. The Spanish court system involves a lengthy pre-trial investigation phase, in which suspects are interrogated in a courtroom along with multiple witnesses, and it's all presided over by the investigating judge. By November 2013, as this process began, Judge Tain announced that he had ruled out any third-party involvement in Asanta's murder, and the prosecution argued that Rosario and Alfonso had plotted

the murder of their daughter for months. Tain alleged that Bastera had administered the drug to Asanta to facilitate asphyxiation in a plan hatched with his ex-wife Rosario. They pointed to the corresponding times when Asunta appeared drugged and Alfonso had purchased Orfidal in large quantities. Powder residue from the Larazza pan was also found on Rosario's clothes, suggesting that the pair had been crushing it

to place in Asunta's food or drink. Rosario, however, maintained throughout the trial that there must have been a lab error. She said she never gave her daughter any lorazepam and doesn't believe that her ex-husband Alfonso would have done either. But this is one of the only elements of this baffling case that can be 100% proven. Prosecutors contested that the 4th of July break-in, the Man in Black situation, was actually just Alfonso in disguise. A genuine home invasion was rejected outright based on various factors.

Firstly, Rosario's explanation that she'd left her keys in the unlocked door was irrelevant because an intruder would have also needed keys to get into the building downstairs. Secondly, the downstairs neighbour had a very yappy little dog who usually barked at any slight movement in the building. But that dog didn't make a peep that night. Authority on this case, who wrote the book quite literally, Mark Guskin believes that the Man in Black fiasco may have been the prompt for the parents to start drugging their daughter, because it proved to them that it was harder than they thought to kill her while she was fully awake.

Either way, investigators were adamant that Sunter's death and the Man in Black were inside jobs. And the prosecuting magistrate went as far to call the Man in Black a rehearsal for the main event. The couple's defense lawyers Belén Hospido for Alfonso and José Luis Gutierrez Orangaren for Rosario came out swinging though. Their strategy relied heavily on unexplained evidence that Tain had ignored in his dogged vendetta against the couple, according to them. Orangaren pointed to how Rosario had briefly chatted with a neighbor outside the country house as she was leaving that evening. Apparently this neighbor had leaned through Rosario's passenger window to talk to her

and while he didn't specifically look at the back seat, he said he noticed nothing odd except that Rosario seemed a bit stressed. Following the prosecution's logic that Rosario had been moving Asanta's body at that point, Orangaren insisted that she didn't have the time or ability to place her daughter neatly on the grass and return to Santiago in the timeframe they suggested, based on when the neighbour had seen her. They also said she wasn't possibly physically strong enough to move a Santa's body alone, and the prosecution could present no conclusive proof that Alfonso ever left Santiago that

day. Tayin vaguely suggested that Alfonso could have been hiding in the back seat when the cameras caught Rosario and Asunta in the car. But that's not exactly concrete evidence. And as we alluded to earlier on, the visibility conditions that night were critical. According to Oranguin, the time Asunta's body was discovered didn't match up with the idea that Rosario put her there. He backed this up with a neighbour called Manuel Crespo who walked by the place that Asunta was found twice at around 11.30pm and 12.30am and he insisted that there was no

one there. Therefore, Rangren argued, Asunta simply must have been placed after those times but before 1.30am. And by that time Rosario was already with the police. The defence also questioned the accuracy of visibility tests that the police conducted. They had gone to the place that Asunta was found and they'd gone on a night that was similar condition-wise and they took a camera with them. And it appeared in their footage to prove that Asunta's body wouldn't have been visible to passers-by.

However, three years later a documentary team did the same thing and found that that just wasn't true. A person easily would have been able to see a sonter's body lying on the grass, providing of course they were looking in the right place. Ugh. Obviously, the defence don't have loads to work with, but just because a bloke walked by twice and didn't see anything does not conclusively prove dogshit. Anyway, the main thing that we need to know is that the defence's main point, their overarching

point was that Tayyin, the judge and the police were trying to frame the bused air reportos and they were ignoring facts where they couldn't be made to fit and solely focusing on the ones that fitted with their original assumptions. However, the argument for Rosario and Alfonso's guilt was unfortunately constructed almost exclusively around circumstantial evidence rather than absolutely provable facts, which Arungaren later claimed was just because they only dealt with the information that already pointed to the culprits that they wanted from the start. Still the prosecution had another ace up its sleeve that would send shockwaves far beyond the courtroom. They showed photos

taken from Asanta's own mobile phone in which she wore heavy makeup, fishnet tights and a corset-style leotard. The costume was the same one worn by the other girls from the ballet school as part of a cabaret-inspired performance. So not that unusual. I think upon hearing that initially you think, oh God, what's this about? But, you know, she had the costume for ballet. Yeah man, that is not, that's not risque at all in the dance world. No. But what is, is that these photos on Asanta's phone, the poses that she was in, were anything but normal. In one striking photo, the girl can be seen draped over a chair with her legs apart and she looks so young and tiny in that picture.

Her expression appears glazed and her pupils look completely blown out like she may have been drugged. Rosario insisted in court that the photos were innocent, explaining that Asanta wanted photos of her outfit, but was bored and tired after a day of dancing when they sat down to take them. But the only problem is, those weren't the only snaps. Other photos showed Asanta swaddled tightly in bedsheets with her eyes wide open, staring blankly up at the ceiling. And one of the photos showed Alfonso's hand on his daughter's thigh.

Rosario said Asanta liked pretending to be a mummy. I think what's weird, right, is if the parents just been like, I have no idea about these photos. I've obviously no idea what's going on. And there wasn't the picture of Alfonso's hand on her thigh. And look, we've said it before, we said it with the Menendez brothers case,

like a snapshot of a photo does not tell you everything. But the fact that they know about these pictures and were like complicit in the taking of them is what's even weirder, because kids take weird pictures. You give kids cameras, they're gonna take fucking weird pictures. Especially a teenage girl,

her wearing her ballet costume and like taking some pictures of herself like that. I'm not massively surprised. But the fact that they were involved in it is weird. There's no way as a mother Rosario could have looked at that picture of her daughter sat like that with her legs apart and not think that is inappropriate. And I don't know what the fuck's going on with the swaddled one. Alfonso angrily accused Tayin of using these photos to smear his name as a pedophile, but Tain insisted that actually the photos were just to illustrate the prosecution's belief

that Asunta had been drugged on previous occasions due to the dilated appearance of her pupils in the pictures. However, although that is what he said and that is true, I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that he knew it would sway the jury in a certain direction. The media too had a field day reporting on how several of Alfonso's Facebook friends appeared to be very young East Asian girls with provocative photos. And evidence from his laptop that he tried to wipe also revealed that Alfonso's porn browsing history tended to feature young looking women with Asian features. Oh.

And further reports seem to show that sperm traces were found in a Suntas bedroom at Alfonso's flat. Which didn't look good either. I mean, that's the fucking nail in the coffin. If they're just finding your fucking spunk around your flat, okay fine, but in your teenage daughter's bedroom? Yeah. Yeah, no thanks. And the media speculated on TV that quote, the murder could have been the culmination of a series of sadistic and erotic rituals, after a santa threatened to disclose what they were doing to her. And then there were the cryptic chats that the couple had had in their neighbouring jail

cells. Wild and admissible in court, the recordings were, however, leaked to the press, and they cemented many people's belief that these two were serious wrong-ins. Alfonso was powerful and commanding with Rosario in prison, yelling silence, silencio, whenever she started to ramble, and telling her what she should say in court. Again, I don't know, like, it doesn't mean they killed, like I do think that they did. You know, of course this, this just doubles down on that, but I do think Rosario looked Alfonso a lot for guidance and he probably is like, don't say fucking

bat shit crazy things that are going to get us sent to prison forever. But yeah, this interpersonal dynamic came as a surprise for Tain. It seemed like they quote, took it in turns to be the dominant in the relationship, which also does fit quite neatly with what we've seen. Now the pair never made any official admissions of guilt, but some of their talk certainly raised eyebrows. Rosario once said during these jail cell chats, despairingly to Afonso, your overheated imagination is going to get us in a lot of trouble.

And the Spanish word she used here, calentirienta, could just mean wild, like you have a wild imagination. But, and this is the interesting interesting point is that it's also slang for horny or perverted. Interestingly Rosario used this exact phrase in court when she was trying to defend the photos that Alfonso had taken of a Santa in her ballet costume. She clearly meant it in the creepy context, i.e. only a second twisted mind could interpret the pictures that way. It's unclear what exactly Rosario meant by She clearly meant it in the creepy context, i.e. only a second twisted mind could interpret

the pictures that way. It's unclear what exactly Rosario meant by Alfonso's overheated imagination. But filling in the blanks, many have come to a pretty gross conclusion, me included. The pre-trial investigation ended in June 2014, with jury selection in May 2015. The second phase of the trial began that October, calling 84 witnesses and 64 expert witnesses to testify. Both Alfonso and Rosario looked rough. As accused child killers, they hadn't had the nicest time in jail.

According to the Guardian Rosario spent most of her time behind bars in a weepy pharmaceutical days and she was confused and tearful on the stand. Alfonso now bald and white bearded was was confrontational in court, and mouth curse words, and sneering disdain for Tyene and the investigators too. And then came an unexpected late twist. Shocking testimony from a friend of Asanta's named Clara Balthar Lorenzo. Despite Alfonso's claims that he never left his flat the night his daughter died, Clara insisted that she saw Asanta walking with Alfonso on the street in Santiago sometime

between 5.30 and 7pm. And a receipt that Clara had from a shoe shop placed the sighting at roughly 6.23pm. But this was impossible, because at this same time, Asanta was caught on CCTV cameras in the car with her mum. Asanta couldn't have been in two places at once, so what the fuck was going on? The prosecution, keen to believe Clara's testimony, as it would prove Alfonso was lying and suggest that he was with Asanta in the hours before she died, ran with this girl's story despite this statistical impossibility. And Tyene simply said that the time on the receipt must have been incorrect because it was from an old cash register and it wasn't linked to Wi-Fi and therefore it couldn't be totally trusted. The important

thing was that Clara had seen a Santa with Alfonso that evening. It didn't matter when exactly that was. And I get it. I get why the prosecution wouldn't want to back down on this and I could believe that the time on the receipt is wrong but I get it a lot of people are gonna be like mmm how does it make a whole lot of sense though. No and it's feeding into the the defense's narrative of cherry-picking evidence isn't it? I understand that. Totally.

But it didn't really matter in the end. Clara's testimony was enough to cement Alfonso in the jury's minds as an equal participant in the murder of Asunta along with his ex-wife Rosario. Oh yeah. I can see anyone who is like particularly worried about eyewitness testimony Being the the final nail in the coffin for sending someone away for murder. I can see that cuz Clara could have been any day she saw her and on all Hallows Eve Eve 2015 both Rosario and Alfonso were

Unanimously found guilty of Assunta's murder and they were sentenced 18 years in prison. Rosario maintained her innocence from the inside, insisting that she never lied, and saying that her only wish was to speak to Asunta one last time. Were she granted this wish, she claimed that she would tell her daughter she had no regrets, and that the years they spent together were worth all of the hell she was going through right now, and that she'd do it all over again. That's what you'd say? Yeah, it's not great, is it? Fucking hell.

From prison, Rosaria arranged for obituaries of Asunta to appear in the local newspaper every year on the anniversary of Assunta's death. And each year, their message was the same. I will always love you, mama. That was until November, 2020, when the obituaries stopped and it wasn't COVID. Rosario had taken her own life in prison. She'd attempted suicide three times previously. And that time she managed it, even though she was on suicide watch.

Alfonso remains incarcerated and continues to protest his innocence to this day. He'll be eligible to apply for an open regime this year, which would basically give him extra freedoms like day release. For a long time Alfonso railed against his conviction and harbored intense rage against Tain and the investigators who had put him behind bars. He even wrote to documentary producer Ramon Campos in 2017 that in his case the presumption of innocence immediately turned into the presumption of guilt and blasted Tyene for an unfair investigation that catered to his immense ego.

But later that year he wrote again that after hours of meditation, yes seriously, he had made the mature decision to forgive those who had found him guilty. I mean, show me the meditation app that lets you come to that conclusion after a few hours. So rather than murdering those who had been involved, as he had pictured doing many times in prison, Alfonso said that he would now like to sit down with them in a cafe and ask them why they did it instead. He says he'd also extend this forgiveness to his daughter's true killer, who he now sees must have been suffering from the fruit of the same madness. And that's probably what had driven them to kill. It's hard because yes, you could say if you are sentenced to prison and you have to do a long

stretch, then you know probably coming to sentenced to prison and you have to do a long stretch, then you know, probably coming to terms with that and reaching some sort of forgiveness in the minds of the people you believe, but there is the healthy thing to do. How much I believe him is questionable. And I think a lot of people are also going to listen to that and feel like maybe it just sounds kind of like a long winded way of saying that he forgives himself for killing his child. That's what it feels like. I mean, the man's connection to the reality of actual things is a tangential at best. Yeah.

And ultimately, Alfonso has just one plan for when he officially gets out in 2031. Apparently, it's to take his own life and rejoin Asunta. He says he knows how and where he'll do it. He just isn't sure when. And in another letter to the documentary maker Ramon Campos, he wrote, When you hear the news of my death, pop the champagne and toast with your loved ones. Only then will you know that I'm happy once again. My little girl needs me, and I need her. Absolutely fucking vile. Anyway it doesn't matter what they say or do or think. They were found guilty in a court

of law of murdering their daughter. The only thing we can do is ask why. Yeah I am like they did it. Oh I think they did it. I think they did it. The why is the interesting part of this case for sure Some think that Rosario Infatuated with her married lover Manuel was ready to do anything Literally anything if it meant she could be with him and a center was the last thing that kept her tied to Alfonso the X So she had to get rid of her. I don't think that flies Because she's dependent on Alfonso. She doesn't want to get rid of him clearly. Other people suspect that it was Alfonso who was doing the drugging in order to molest Asunta. Maybe he was enabled by Rosario

and then perhaps Asunta threatened she was going to tell somebody and then the pair of them plotted to kill her. And maybe the worst theory had this callous couple just got sick of being parents and decided to return their daughter. Yeah I don't know it's tricky. We don't have enough information to know for sure because we don't know for sure that the abuse was happening. Though if they did really 100% match his semen to semen found in their daughter's bedroom, that's a pretty big indicator for me. Obviously we know that the grandparents weren't planning on leaving everything to Asanta, but could I see a universe in which Rosario believed that they were going to in her sort of foggy brain at the time? Because we do know that Asanta had a close relationship with her grandparents. Was Rosario just jealous and she thought that was going to happen and

that was enough for her to do it? Don't know. I don't think you, I agree that it's possible she could have thought that, but I don't think you even need to like weave the inheritance money into it for it to make sense. Like they're clearly both, Rosario especially, but both of them are very, very unwell people. And like they, I think maybe they could have just decided that they'd had enough. I don't think they would have needed the money to come to that conclusion. No, you're completely right. I think it could have just been as minor and awful and banal reasons as this daughter they had adopted was too difficult.

And I don't mean on the spectrum of children being difficult actually that difficult, but more difficult than they were willing to deal with and not gifted enough quote unquote for them to put up with it and they just wanted it to be gone. And yeah, once you adopt a child, you can't just be like, well, we don't want her anymore, kick her out because that's going to make you look way worse than if you just kick out your biological child for not being good enough. So I think they're like, it's the only way. I could believe the abuse as well, but I don't necessarily think there

needs to be a big reason for why they did it. You're right. I don't necessarily think there needs to be a big reason for why they did it. You're right. But regardless of if Rosario and Alfonso did it, I guess the question some people will definitely be left asking after this episode is were they given a fair trial? It was definitely an investigation littered with loose ends, leaks and bungled evidence. Remember the stain on Asante's top that they had originally thought to be semen?

Well, when it was sent for testing at the National Laboratory, the results indicated that it belonged to a Colombian national whose DNA was kept on file for a suspected rape in Madrid. The only problem was this guy had a cast iron alibi. He was photographed out for dinner with his family in Madrid, 600 kilometres, roughly a six hour drive away. And basically it emerged that the same scissors

had been used to cut Asanta's T-shirt and the condom in the Madrid case, suggesting contamination in the lab. In any case, the substances on Asanta's T-shirt had to be discounted from evidence, and nobody has ever taken responsibility for this error or the wild goose chase that followed. It is quite hard to imagine anyone but Rosario and Alfonso having any reason to murder Asanta at all.

It's difficult not to ask if not them, then who? And as much as Rosario and Alfonso do seem guilty as sin, was it really fair to convict them on the basis of the circumstantial evidence that was presented? Do you know what? Honestly, I think there was enough of it. Same. We say it all the fucking time. Circumstantial evidence is evidence. Like yeah, I think there was more than enough. I really don't think I have many hangups about this particular case. No. And if you are a person who gets your being a bonnet about being a bonnet. Yeah. Being your bonnet about circumstantial evidence. We can't deny that Suntas parents were absolutely drugging her, very heavily, for months before she died. So I just don't think the circumstantial argument flies with me.

But who cares what I think? The story continues to divide Spain and beyond, especially since Netflix released their series El Caso Asunta in 2024. Judge Tain has said that he only watched one episode and refused to watch any more because the show missed their opportunity to honour the victim. Tain has called Asunta a very special and marvellous girl who was lost in her own story while her parents, the villains, stole all of the limelight. Asunta Yongfang would have been turning 25 this year,

but she wasn't allowed to do that. She wasn't allowed to live the life she could have. Instead, her life was cut short by the same people who promised to give her the world. Yeah, the adoption angle does bring an extra, I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I suppose it's more of a like, and then maybe this isn't even fair, like, oh, you really went out of your way to get one,

you know? I think the reason it feels weird for me and in some ways worse, not that it's ever okay, obviously for a child to be murdered, but there's this okay, obviously for a child to be murdered, but there's this feeling right of like, if you're a biological child, there was no choice. That was who your parents were going to be. And yes, of course there's obviously other people that could have intervened and saved

you from that situation. You know what, right. With the adoption, it's like that choose your own adventure, endless possibilities, that child for worse or for better that that child could have endured in who had picked that child out of that orphanage. And it's that feeling of right, she was promised the world. What better adoption could you hope for? This rich, prominent couple who are going to take you to Spain and you're going to live this incredible life in Europe and then for it to end the way that it did. It's the cruelty

Yeah, you're right. of that choice that was made. So yeah, that is the story. That's a Sumter story. And yeah, it's a really, it's a sad one, but they often are because this is a true crime show. So on that note, go forth and be well. yeah. Yeah, do no harm, take no shit. Yeah. Murder no children. Exactly, exactly. And we'll see you next time. We will. Goodbye. Bye. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan. This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world. And the suspect he has been identified as a weegee Nicholas

Mangione became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history was targeted premeditated in Minnesota terror. I'm Jesse Weber host of Luigi produced by law and crime and twist this is more than a true crime investigation we explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue. Finally maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to

acknowledge the barbaric nature of our health care system. Listen to long crimes, Luigi exclusively on one degree plus enjoying one degree plus in the one degree app spotify or Apple podcasts.