The premiere on Netflix of the series The Asunta Case has once again awakened media interest in the crime that ended the life of little Asunta Basterra Porto in 2013. The fiction stars Candela Peña, Tristán Ulloa, María León and Alicia Borrachero, among others, has become a mass phenomenon, occupying a place among the most viewed on the platform in countless countries: Spain, Argentina, the United States, etc.
In 2013, when the events occurred, the case shocked Spanish society. Rosario Porto and Alfonso Basterra, the girl’s parents, reported her disappearance and, after a few hours of searching, the authorities found the girl’s lifeless body. When they took their statements, the agents discovered certain inconsistencies in their stories, which is why they were detained.
After a difficult phase of investigation, Asunta’s parents were formally accused of murdering the girl. After two years in preventive detention, the perpetrators of the crime faced a trial that sentenced them to 18 years of deprivation of liberty.
Although he has never acknowledged the facts and continues to declare himself “innocent,” Basterra continues behind bars serving the sentence imposed on him. Instead, Rosario Porto could not stand the pressure she felt and committed suicide (after two failed attempts) in her cell in November 2020.
The Netflix series has rescued the story of the crime and has provided information that had previously gone unnoticed by the general audience. For example, many people did not know that little Asunta had written a blog on the Internet a year before she was murdered.
Shortly after losing her grandfather, the young woman opened an online blog under the name ‘Asnuca’. In this space, the girl intended to investigate different areas of Santiago de Compostela where there were supposedly the presence of spirits: the parks of La Alameda, Belvís and Bonaval.
”We are writing this blog because other people have told us that they have seen strangers in the parks,” the girl says in one of the entries, revealing that it was a collaborative task with Sophie Elizabeth Paton, her English teacher. On the main page (with a black background and white letters), the girl defined herself as “chief ghost hunter”: ”We are ghost hunters and we are investigating these strange sightings.”
In another publication, the girl tells a story that has shocked the curious: ”Once upon a time there was a happy family; a man, a woman and a son. One day the woman was murdered. The man had to retaliate against the person who killed his wife (Anna), but he also died, because, in trying to retaliate, the bad man killed John, his husband. His body is in the Alameda and so is his spirit. He waits for the spirit of his wife to come to him. Every day he sits on the benches.”
On the Internet there are different theories about whether the girl was really talking about the death of her grandparents, who had died in 2011 and 2012. In the series you can see how Basterra brings up the subject to Porto (“Have you seen what happened?” posted on your blog?”), which has given rise to new interpretations.
Followers of the case have even suggested on social media that Asunta’s parents could have ended the lives of her grandparents to collect the inheritance, a conspiracy theory that has not been proven in any way.
