Murder of Asunta Basterra

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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