The Assunta Case on Netflix: The True Story of the Horror Behind the Series

Warning, spoilers. The following paragraphs outline plot elements from the miniseries The Assunta Case.

This is one of Netflix’s new mini-series and belongs to the genre of true crime and other fiction adapted from trashy news stories. Here’s what you need to know about The Asunta Affair, available on the platform from April 26, and the true story behind this chilling thriller.

What is Assunta’s business?

Created by Ramon Campos, one of the creators of Young Girls on the Phone, The Asunta Affair recalls the murder of Asunta Bastera in 2013, one of the most brutal cases to happen in Spain and which shocked the whole country.

Because it’s revealed that a twelve-year-old girl, played by Iris Wu, was murdered by her parents, Alfonso Bustera and Rosario Porto, Candela Peña (All About My Mother, Hiero) and Tristan Ulloa (Warrior Nun Sister), respectively. Berlin, spin-off of La Casa de Papel).

The true story behind the series

Although fictional, the mini-series The Assunta Case goes back to all the main dates of the investigation until the sixth and final episode, which depicts the trial of Alfonso Bastera and Rosario Porto, two years after the discovery of the body.

They adopted Assunta, born Fang Yong in China, in 2000 at the age of nine months. He was the first Chinese child to be accepted in the city of Santiago and one of the first in all of Galicia.

A gifted child, Assunta was presented as the pride of her adoptive parents, and the family seemed to live perfectly in a rich and respectable home. But his death by asphyxiation on September 21, 2013 changed everything and revealed dark secrets.

A police investigation quickly established that his parents may have been the perpetrators. Poor Assunta was bound and died of asphyxiation after taking about twenty Lorazepam tablets on the day of her death, nine times the high dose for an adult.

And it turns out, according to court documents, the couple periodically injected their daughter with lorazepam over a three-month period, eventually asphyxiating her before disposing of her body.

Although they continued to proclaim their innocence, Alfonso Bastera and Rosario Porto were found guilty of her murder on October 30, 2015. They were sentenced to eighteen years in prison. Rosario Porto ended his life in 2020 and Alfonso Bastera is currently still serving his sentence.

What really happened?

Don’t rely on The Asunta Affair miniseries for answers. It is unclear why Alfonso Bastera and Rosario Porto killed their adopted daughter Assunta. The fiction goes back to a lot of evidence found by the police, various lies and strange behavior of the parents and some sayings.

The latest episode of the Netflix series offers two imaginative hypotheses about what could have happened: one in which Rosario Porto was solely responsible for his daughter’s death, and another in which the couple planned the murder and acted together to get away with it. Assunta.

And the last episode of the fiction depicts the trial in such a way that we do not know why and how the tragedy could have happened. This is open to any interpretation, especially since Alfonso Bastera and Rosario Porto never admitted the facts, always claimed their innocence and never explained their lies.

But as we can read The GuardianThe prosecution theorized that Alfonso Bastera and Rosario Porto were tired of taking care of Assunta and creating a “perfect family” after the breakup of their marriage. It was revealed that Rosario had an extramarital affair and that he suffered from a serious psychological disorder that worsened after the death of both his parents.

Their chaotic separation, after years of often violent life together, occurred a few months before Assunta’s death, and may explain their brutality, as Alfonso and Rosario depended heavily on each other.

The mini-series “The Case of Assunta” is available on Netflix.