#362: Genius Adopted Girl From China Found Dead - STRANGE Photos Found In Rich Parent’s Phone
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Yes, cool. Oh!

You can do more without spending more. Learn how to save at Cox.com slash internet. Cox internet is connected to the premises via coaxial cable. Cox mobile runs on the network with unbeatable 5G reliability as measured by UCLA LLC in the U.S. to age 2023. Results may vary, not endorsement of the restrictions apply. It was supposed to be a cute little road trip. Isabella and 12-year-old Asanta are in the back seat. Isabella's mom is driving and they're going to head to the beach. Isabella's mom is driving and they're going to head to the beach.

It's a bit of a longer car ride, so Isabella's mom is thinking, "Maybe I'll just keep it fun for the girls. I'll just have them tell stories." "Why don't we all share a story, girls? It'll be fun. Get your brain juices flowing." It's a hot weekend day in the middle of July, so both of these girls, they're ready to hit the water. "Come on, everyone. Let's tell stories. They can be real, fake, something you read, your imagination. Use your creativity." Ascenta says she'll start.

She's sitting in the back, she's staring out the window, and she begins her story. There once was a little girl who fell asleep in her bed. And late at night, when everybody else had gone to sleep, the lights were off, and even the neighbor's noisy dog was quiet,

There was this man. He was wearing all black and a mask and latex gloves. He breaks into the apartment. He drags the little girl off her bed. He put his hands around her neck and he starts strangling her and then she can't breathe and then she's trying to scream but she can't because he has his hands around her neck and he won't get up and she's in so much pain and she's gonna die. Isabella's mom glances in her rearview mirror. There are tears streaming down Asunta's face. Her voice was getting shakier and shakier and now she's just full on sobbing.

Sweetie, sweetie, it's okay. Are you alright? Did something happen? Is this a true story? Yes. Someone tried to kill me. And now, Isabella's mom is on the side of the road, on the phone with Asunta's mother, a prominent attorney in the area, Rosario. Yes, it is true. Someone did try to kill my daughter. God, I'm so sorry, Rosario. Did you go to the police? Did they find the masked man? No, I did not go to the police. As a lawyer, I do know that doing such a thing would be utterly pointless.

The two moms end up hanging up, but Isabella's mom is even more confused now. Why didn't Asanta's mom go to the police? I mean, that is so odd. Who is this masked man? Does that mean that they're still out and about? Why would they want to kill a random 12-year-old girl? There were so many unanswered questions. And even more so when two months later, the masked man would try again to kill 12-year-old Asanta. And this time, they would succeed.

And every single person in Asunta's life would become a suspect, including her two wealthy adoptive parents. The first Spanish couple in the area to adopt a Chinese baby. And now she's dead.

Thank you.

As always, full show notes are available at rottenmingopodcast.com. Now, a quick few disclaimers for today's case. There will be mentions of CP as well as CA and CSA. Some names have been changed for anonymity and a few statements have been condensed for time. This case actually takes place in Spain. We worked with our Spanish translators to help gather the details, but there is also an English translated book

called The Murder of Asante Yong Fong, and it's written by Mark Guskin. I will say it's like $100 to buy the e-book, but it was an invaluable source for today's episode. He's a journalist, boots on the ground, following the story. He worked closely with both sides. He worked with the prosecution, the defense, as well as the judge, as well as two civil guards that were involved in this case.

I did try my best to navigate around any bias in any of the sources in this case. I also do want to mention that there is a Netflix show on this that was not our primary source, though I did watch it. It's a dramatized version of events, and I actually watched it before I did any research.

And I was so confused after it. So hopefully this video will help if that was the case for you, though you don't need to watch it to understand what's going on in here. Now, one last disclaimer. Like all cases, I have no skin in the game. I'm not here to promote one theory over the other. The more I was learning about this case, the more I was second guessing everything I thought I knew about this case. It's one of those situations where I can confidently tell you after weeks of

of spending so much time in this trying to dig up everything that we can we feel more confused the more we know all theories have been gathered from the internet and they are just theories they are not representative of my thoughts or feelings so with that being said let's get into it

Either you're born with it or you're not. I mean, that's unfortunately just the way it is. And that is what Gail, the ballet teacher, is telling Asunta. Her hips are just not of that of professional dancer. It's not something that you did wrong, Asunta. It's just luck. You either have it or you don't. A lot of ballet dancers, they've got shallow hip sockets, which helps them move their legs in a wider range of motion. And it is just what it is.

Gale would have understood if 12-year-old Ascenta stopped showing up for class. But she genuinely just really liked ballet. And for that, Gale felt a little bit protective over her. Things were really, really rough for Ascenta recently. So two years ago, both of Ascenta's grandparents...

They died. Seven months apart from each other. Just mysteriously died. Her parents are recently divorced. They lived within a few minute walking distance from each other, but still, there's such a hard shift in family dynamics. Asunta's mom has primary custody, but who knows if she can even take care of Asunta. Teachers doubt if Rosario, the mom, can even boil an egg.

And yesterday, Asunta was called out of class for hay fever. It's been a rough few months. The mother is the famous lawyer, right? Yeah, the attorney. She's never even really boiled an egg is what people suspect. She's kind of a mess. Yeah. But now Asunta is walking in through the door to class. Hey, are you feeling okay? I heard you had hay fever yesterday. Asunta looks out of it. She looks sleepy. What?

I didn't have hay fever. I don't know what they made me take. Nobody wants to tell me the truth anymore. I was asleep for hours and hours and hours." Gail watches Asunta just stumble away as if she's sleepwalking and that is so strange. September 21st, 2013. A couple walk into the police station in Santiago, Spain.

Most people in town, they know this couple well. It's the wife, Rosario Porto. So Rosario Porto is an attorney. But her dad, when he was alive, he was one of the most well-known attorneys in the area. And Asante's grandma, so Rosario's mom, she was a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Galicia. She was a professor in the Fine Arts of the University of Santiago, one of the oldest institutions in Spain. It was founded in like 1495.

So Rosario's parents are a big deal. Rosario's a big deal and Asunta is her daughter. Now the husband, Alfonso, Asunta's father, he's a freelance journalist and it does appear that his biggest accomplishment in life was marrying into Rosario's family. Nevertheless, very privileged family, very elite. They have an adopted daughter, Asunta. The police know this, that she's adopted because, well, Asunta is Chinese.

And the couple did interviews about adoptions after they first came home with Asunta. And she was like one of the very first Chinese adoptees in the whole region. Everybody knew her as the daughter of a prestigious lawyer family, the genius daughter of a wealthy couple. The wealthy couple are now standing in the police station. Please help. Our daughter Asunta is missing. Later, one of the parents would turn to an officer and say, I think she's dead.

but I just hope my daughter wasn't essayed too. What an odd thing to say when your 12 year old daughter has gone missing for just three hours. What do you mean you think she's dead? And what do you mean you hope she wasn't essayed too?

12 years ago, June 2001, Rosario, the successful attorney, is sitting on a plane. She's shaking a bottle of pills into her hand. She grabs her water bottle. Her husband Alfonso is helping her open it up and she's swallowing the pills. It's to help calm her nerves. Lorazepam. This is the most nerve-wracking plane ride that they've ever had to sit through. What if I'm not going to be a good mom? What if I don't connect with anyone? Oh my God, what if we're not fit parents? What if they don't think that, what if they don't give us a kid? What if we're not fit parents?

Alfonso is calming her down. They're both in their 30s. They've seen enough about life, okay? Of course they're gonna be good parents. They've got the money, the resources, the connections, the support. This is the right thing to do. They're gonna start a family now.

Rosario suffers from lupus, so the physical toll on her body if she were to get pregnant would have been incredible. It just didn't make sense for her, especially when there are kids out there that need loving families. That's what she's saying. That's why the two of them are on this shaky plane all the way to China to adopt.

And of course, all their friends are like, "Why China? That's very specific, you know?" Well, Spain has so much red tape when it comes to adoptions. There's strict regulations and laws, so many hoops that you have to jump through, and there's not a lot of children up for adoption with the birth rates that are at this point plummeting. You'd have to be waitlisted and investigated for years. There's no guarantee that you'll even be able to start a family soon, and a lot of the times they might even give you a child that's not a baby.

Meanwhile, at this point in the early 2000s, and this is going to kind of sound wild, but it was insane how relaxed the situation was. Back then, if you had $10,000 and a plane ticket to China, you could probably have a baby in your arms in as little as two to three weeks. Really? Yeah. It was pretty relaxed. Back in the day? Back in the day. Not anymore. Oh, it's very difficult now. And 95% of the time, you'd be coming home with a baby girl in your arms. Wow.

Because of the one child policy in China at the time. Oh, right. There were way less boys up for adoption. And even if they were, they were very difficult to adopt. So when they get to this little orphanage, the couple, Rosario and Alfonso, they don't really know what to expect. Do you just know if one of the children there is fated to be your child, like be a part of the rest of your life? Are there signs there?

They walk into a room full of kids and from the very first contact, Rosaria falls in love with a tiny, underweight, small, frail-looking nine-year-old baby. Her name is Fang Yang. She was born September 30, 2000 in the Henan province. Fang Yang? Her grandparents were her caretakers, but they recently passed away.

She was the one. Rosario could feel it. I mean, this is her baby. It took two weeks in China for them to adopt Fang Yang, and by the time that the three of them were boarding the flight back to Spain, Fang Yang's paperwork would read, Asunta Fang Yang Bastera Porto.

So it's a mixture of they named her Asunta, then they kept her Chinese name, then they added Alfonso's last name, and then Rosario's last name, which is common in Spain to have both your parents' last names. So what's the first name? Asunta? Asunta, yeah. Asunta. Now, I do want to preface, this is not how I feel about adoptions, but Rosario and Alfonso

They felt like they're rescuing a baby. They're rescuing baby Asunta and giving her a life that she would never have in that orphanage. They had heard all kinds of stories about the horrendous conditions abandoned babies and children have to live through. And when they grow up and they become six, seven, nobody wants to adopt them anymore. What kind of life do you think they'll live? That's not a life. That's hell. And that's what Rosario and Alfonso are saving Asunta from. A life of hell.

Asunta was adopted three months before her first birthday, and she would be killed one week before her 13th birthday. September 22, 2013

Early hours around maybe 1.15 a.m., a few hours after Osunta had been reported missing, a man named Alfredo is in the car. He really should not be driving. I mean, he really shouldn't have gone to the brothel either and spent all of his money, but you live and you learn. His justification for himself and not anybody else because what? His justification is, I'm only a little bit drunk.

And from the brothel to his house, it's a straight shot in the wooded street back road, 1:15 AM. It's a dirt track. There's almost nobody else out on the road. It's literally a straight drive home one mile. He's in the driver's side. His friend is sitting next to him. It's a full moon that night. So this wooded area is kind of eerily bright. There's these tall oak trees on both sides of the dirt pavement, and they're just shadows all over the road. Alfredo glances out to his window.

And he says, what was that? His friend is like, what are you talking about? It looks like if a scarecrow had been punched and toppled over onto the ground. It was weird. He puts his car in reverse, just in the middle of this dirt road, reverses, turns a bit so that his headlights are shining into the woods. And it looks like a scarecrow just laying there in the branches, just six feet off the road. Alfredo glances at his friend. His friend is looking at him. Are they drunk? Is this real? Are they too drunk for this right now?

They both slowly open their doors and get out because, I don't know, this is just so creepy, but they need to investigate. And all the hairs on their necks stand up. Alfredo said it felt like they were being watched. That's the only way to describe it. Like someone was hiding in the woods looking at them.

As he's walking towards what he thinks and probably hopes is just a scarecrow, he's whipping his head around because again, nobody else is on this road. There's not a single car. So why does it feel like he's being watched? He starts walking towards the woods, crunching on the branches, and he finds a little girl laying in the woods just on a bed of pine needles.

She's wearing gray sweatpants with mud stains all over them. She has the matching top on. One arm is half inside and the shirt is pulled up above her stomach. She's barefoot. Her left arm is laying across her chest. There are wet stains around her private area and near the neckline of her shirt. There are pieces of orange cord. You would tie someone up with it. Rope. They'd been cut up. It looked like they had been used to tie the girl's arms and legs, but now they're cut and laying next to her body.

They slowly reach out, hands are shaking and they try to feel for our pulse. Nothing.

the 12 year old girl is dead alfredo starts freaking out i mean he's not even supposed to be driving actually he has a suspended license because of a dui and obviously not the best thing to be worried about right now but but this is gonna sound crazy we gotta drive back to the brothel and then walk back and then call the cops act like we're walking home from the brothel and then found the body yeah obviously it's gonna take more time that the investigators probably need right but this is alfredo's way of trying not to get in trouble

Really? Yeah. He's already got a lengthy criminal background, cocaine charges. He's not trying to go to jail. So they get back into the car, drive to the brothel, park the car, and start booking it through the woods. They're running through the woods. Well, at least he's like still trying to report the finding, right? Yeah, I mean, I guess, right? Now, this is just Alfredo's word, and he's drunk, but he said that his blood ran cold because remember how the girl's arm had been laying across her chest? It was now by her side.

Alfredo felt either she moved it, which he knew she couldn't have because he personally checked for a pulse, or somebody had been watching them and somebody had moved her arm. Oh my God, someone was in the field. Alfredo's friend makes the call. We found a little girl and we think she's dead. Her eyes are white, there's blood on her nose, she's wet herself, and she's here laying next to a gutter.

The little girl was Asunta. Asunta was found two and a half miles away from her mom's vacation home, dead just eight days before her 13th birthday. Everything about this case is about to start getting wild. I mean, who would want to kill a 12-year-old girl? And why did a series of pictures taken by her family go viral after her death? There's a series of photographs of 12-year-old Asunta laying in bed. She's wrapped tightly in a blanket, almost like a baby swaddle,

In some of the pictures, her eyes are wide open and maybe we don't know. It doesn't feel like she's being forced to take the pictures, but it definitely doesn't look like she wants to be there. In one photo, there's a man's hand in frame resting on what would probably be her thigh.

In some of the photos, Asunta's eyes are closed, like she's pretending to be asleep or dead, or maybe she is asleep, I don't know. In another set, she's got her teddy bear laying next to her and she's swaddled so tight in this blanket that it doesn't look like she can move. And her eyes are wide open. After her death, netizens have been looking into these pictures and some believe that her eyes, her pupils look dilated, as if she's been drugged.

Wait, you're saying someone swaddled her like in a blanket? Just like almost burritoed her in this blanket. And these are pictures that were taken months, perhaps even like a year or two before her death. And they started going viral after her death. And the photo was, where was it found? Just on her phone. On her phone? Yes.

So somebody took it with her phone? Yes. And somebody else swaddled her because you can't swaddle yourself. Somebody else did. There's a man's hand in the photograph. It does appear to be her dad's perhaps.

It's very questionable, it's a strange photo, but the most alarming photo that goes viral after Asunta's death is of 12-year-old Asunta in her ballet costume. The costume itself, I imagine, is not suggestive. I saw the photo, I'm not gonna post it on here or even on Spotify, I don't feel it's appropriate. Apparently everyone in the recital had to wear this ballet costume, but she is wearing fishnet tights, a pair of shorts, a tank top,

And that's not even what people are arguing. It's not even the outfit. She does have heavy makeup on, but she is sitting on an armchair sideways. So her back is leaned against one arm and her legs are wide open wide.

draped over the other arm of the armchair. And she's looking at the camera, but her face is in a daze. So that with the outfit, her legs being kind of open and the heavy makeup and the fishnet stockings, her staring at the camera, almost looking drugged. It was very odd.

So when these photos go viral, everyone is trying to put the pieces together of what is going on, why was she found in the woods, and also to make things even more puzzling and sinister. One of the first things a forensic tech would point out to the investigators is that Asunta had a strange substance on her shirt when she was found dead. Possible semen stains.

September 21st, 2013, Asunta is missing. She has not been found dead yet. And the parents are walking the police through the day of what happened and when they last saw her. I mean, it was just really a normal day. Truly, nothing stands out. Wait, this is the day they reported she was missing? Yes. So they found her within like three hours after reporting her missing. Oh, so this is back to when they first reported her missing. Right when they walk into the police station. Okay.

And they're explaining, truly, it was just a normal day. I mean, nothing stands out. For lunch, we had scrambled eggs and mushrooms at Alfonso's place because, remember, the parents are divorced. So they were at the dad's house, ate scrambled eggs, played a round of cards. And after lunch, Rosario and Asunta decide to head back to Rosario, the mom's place, which is quite literally down the block. It's like a two-minute walk.

Asunta says, "Can I go first? Because The Simpsons, my favorite TV show, is about to be on and I don't want to miss a single second of it." She runs back first. It's still bright outside. It's a two-minute walk. She gets home, watches the show, and Rosario comes in maybe eight minutes after. After they finish The Simpsons, Asunta goes to her room and she's got all of her books laid out on the floor. That's her favorite way to do homework.

And this is dumb, right? And Rosario knows that she shouldn't have and she knows, but Rosario decides to go to her vacation home, which is about a 30 minute drive and grab swimsuits. They're going to have a beach day with the family tomorrow and their swimsuits were in the vacation home. So instead of going tomorrow before the beach, like this would be easier, probably less traffic anyway. And it's only 20 minutes away. The family vacation home in Teo is up for sale for $900,000 when all of this is taking place.

The family really never went there. The maintenance to upkeep it was getting unreasonable. The place is massive. It's got a private swimming pool, a tennis court. It feels like a full-scale resort. And Rosario decides, okay, I'm just going to run in right now, grab that, maybe do a few small errands. I mean, it's going to be fine. It's going to be super quick. Asunta wants to stay home and do homework anyway. Is it the smartest thing to do? Probably not. But Asunta is responsible and she's home and she's going to be safe.

Rosario tells the police that she leaves the house at around 7 p.m., runs her errands, rushes home two and a half hours later, 9.30 p.m., walks in through the door, Asante is gone.

I mean, this is just so unlike her. She's very disciplined, very follow the rules kind of girl. She's not the type to wander off, sneak off, go hang out with friends. Rosario's initial thought was maybe Asunta went back to her dad's for whatever reason. She calls Afonso and he tells her he has not heard from Asunta since they left. He's been at home reading a book.

They both start slowly panicking at this point. They call a few of her friends. Nobody has seen or heard from her, which means she must have been home. The last person to see her was Rosario when she left for the vacation home. But now that she thinks about it, maybe she didn't lock the door because Asunta was home and it didn't feel necessary. Maybe Asunta would have locked the door from the inside or... But does it really matter now? Asunta is missing and they need to find her. Time is of the essence.

The investigators, they want to go search both the parents' places. They want to go look for clues, search the streets for Asunta. But just before they head out, Alfonso, the dad, turns to Rosario. You should probably tell them about July 4th. Well, what happened July 4th? This is September 21st, so this is maybe two months ahead. What do you mean, what happened July 4th? July 4th was a strange night indeed. Rosario tells the police.

A few months ago, Asunta and I went home at night, just the two of us. She always wanted to open the door with her own keys, so I went in to disconnect the alarm, and I went running in to disconnect it. She's got to go in, turn off the alarm before, you know, within a certain number of seconds, otherwise it's going to start ringing.

She rushes in. Ascenta follows in after, but she left her keys in the door. I've got a little sign on the door that says lock the door at night. I'm very absent-minded. I'm a bit of a disaster. Too trusting. My handbag has been stolen three times. I always assume the good in everybody. It was a school holiday and we were at a fair and my daughter did various summer courses, one for violin, one for singing, and one for...

I don't remember. It was the trio at the high school for music studies or something? Well, different things like the piano, the violin. We both went to bed that night. I'm like my father. I sleep very deeply. The police are confused. What is going on? So, okay, to clarify, Rosario rushes in to disconnect the alarm. Asunta follows in after and closes the door behind her. But what neither of them knew at the time, so Rosario claims, is that Asunta had forgotten the key in the keyhole. She left it in there. Okay, so...

Precisely. Neither of them noticed. They just went about their nights. Asanta went to her room to sleep and Rosario went to lay down and she's messaging her friends on WhatsApp. She sends a message at 1.50 a.m. telling her friend that she just feels so much better recently. The medicine for her mental health, her anxiety, it's working and her depression is disappearing, which is great news. And hopefully things will get better next week and they can grab coffee.

Rosaria has her phone in her hand when she slowly falls asleep, drifts away, and then maybe 2:30 a.m.? Maybe it was closer to 3:00? I always say sleeping like a log saves me though because I don't sleep a lot but when I do, I'm like a log. At around maybe half past 2 or 3 o'clock, I heard Ascenta calling for help.

My bedroom is right next to hers. All the lights were off at night. We like to sleep with the blinds right down and even close the doors as we don't like the light. But as Asunta is scared, I got her one of those little lights from Ikea so she can go to the toilet at night. I got up and I saw her in the dark with just the Ikea light with a man holding her down from above. She's on the ground. I jump on top of this man and he throw me backwards and then he ran away. I hit the door as he ran out the front.

What Asinta and I remember about this man is that he was wearing rubber gloves, and he was dressed all in black. He was strongly built and quite short, around 5'2", maybe?

Slow down. Bring it back. So Rosario is telling the investigators that in the middle of the night, she wakes up. Her eyes are wide. Asunta is screaming. She runs into Asunta's room. Asunta is on the floor and there is a man bent over, hands around her neck. When the man realizes that Asunta is not home alone, because why would she be? She's 12. He pushes Rosario, physically knocks her down, runs out.

and the only thing that either of them remember about this man is that he's masked, wearing gloves, super short, and dressed in black. She continues, Asunta was saying, mom, he was trying to kill me and I said, should I call the police or shouldn't I call the police? This jerk Alfonso didn't answer. I thought about calling a friend but it was three o'clock in the morning. Asunta had left her keys in the door and the guy didn't take them so all I did was I took her to my bed with me and tried to calm her down.

Wait, you didn't call anyone after what happened? Oh, that's right. I did call Alfonso, but he didn't pick up. Because like I said, this one's a jerk. Crazy that she didn't call the police after that. What? Later, Alfonso would say that Rosario never called him that night. In the middle of the night, to which Rosario laughed. I must have been so nervous that I accidentally dialed myself.

Which is just an odd story. Wouldn't you get a busy tone if you call yourself? I didn't know you could call yourself. Yeah, you just get a busy tone. I tried. Like a beep beep. The next morning, Alfonso comes over and the two of them helped Asunta calm down and told her not to talk about it with anyone. Just let it go. Don't worry too much about it.

Asunta didn't. She took a selfie where you can see red marks on her neck like someone tried to strangle her and sent it to a close friend of hers. She sent it with a text message. "I'm really nervous. Someone tried to kill me at 4:30 today." "Wait, who tried to kill you? I'll call you tomorrow and tell you, but you can't tell anyone about it." Wait, she said 4:30? Yeah, 4:30 in the morning. Is that what the mom said? Mom said 2:30. Already a discrepancy.

No way.

Just like she knew they couldn't do anything about it. Rosario said that she just assumed it was maybe a contractor that had done some work in the house a while back, probably remembered the layout and knew that there was a safe in Asunta's room. That's some crazy, crazy reporting. Alfonso interrupts the middle of the story before they're finishing up their final statement. Do you guys mind if I head out?

Now, side note, I know in the Netflix series, they state that he wanted to check the stairs because Asante always used the stairs to get to his place and maybe something happened in the stairwell. I couldn't a thousand percent verify that detail with certainty, so I don't know if that was just dramatized. But regardless, the only important thing to note is that Alfonso leaves before the statement is finished and signed. Leaving Rosario alone with the police at the time, the police didn't really think much of it.

They let him go because honestly, the police just wave him off because they've got so many questions right now. Why didn't you immediately call the police July 4th? Break-ins are rarely solved and nothing was missing. Asunta is a very fearful girl. I did not want her to feel unsafe in her own home. Wait, what? There's still so many questions. Why was there a safe in Asunta's room to begin with? Also, this was two months ago. Could Rosario really leave her at home alone again to run errands?

I mean, wouldn't she be shaken up if the perpetrator had never been caught? And really, at the precise night that they leave a key in the door, a former contractor knew that's exactly the night to come in. But more importantly, even if they had left their key in the doorknob that night, and even if a contractor had showed up to the building to do something horrendous, they would still need a key to get through the main door of the building. A separate key.

There were no signs of a break-in anywhere in the building and nobody let anyone unknown in. Meaning whoever did this had to have a key to the main door of the building. And if you know someone can get into your house one time, that means they can get in again. Exactly. How are you just chilling, not even changing the law, calling the police, doing all these things? Leaving your daughter home alone again? Exactly.

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Before Asanta went missing, there was really nothing in her life that seemed even slightly out of the ordinary. Well, at least not initially. The family lived in what people call Santiago's VIP zone. So the upper elites, they live here. And the family, they got a whole floor to themselves. Their apartment is decked out in blue, green, yellow, overwhelming colors. Okay, at least this one. They've got multiple properties, all thanks to Rosario's very wealthy parents.

And Rosario would decorate this apartment with like the most colorful rugs from all over the world. She had an obsession with it. And she would invite all of the ladies over to chit chat, have tea. And mainly she invited them over so that they could listen to her talk.

We were so scared when we first got Asanta. I mean, she was so frail. And every little sickness, every little fever, we had the doctors rush into our home. But thankfully, all of them were just childhood ailments, the common cold. And now look at her, so incredibly healthy. It truly is such a blessing.

I wouldn't go as far to say that Rosario was a trendsetter, but she was very vocal about Asante's adoption and she would keep encouraging other families in the area to adopt. By 2004, Spain was ranked number two in the world for foreign adoptions, number one being the U.S.,

And Rosario would make appearances on local TV networks to talk about her experience adopting and she would just give out such motherly wisdom. And just like biological birth, adoption is for life. I wholeheartedly recommend adoption provided that you want to be a mother or a father.

People were impressed. I mean, not only is this successful attorney starting a family against all odds, but her child is basically a genius. Skipped a grade. That's apparently not Asante's doing at all. Everyone's like, wow, Rosario did this. Okay, she deserves praise. We had the entire apartment soundproofed so that Asante can play violin and piano without disturbing anyone. Isn't that right, Asante? Yeah.

Asunta's just sitting on the side smiling, nodding while her mom goes down the list of extracurricular classes she's taking. Well, there's English, French, Chinese lessons. Oh, but at school she takes German. Asunta, sweetie, put your hair on the left behind your ear. You look horrible. Um, what was I saying?

Ah, yes. She already obviously speaks Spanish and Galician. And on the weekends, she wakes up at 7 a.m. She's got Chinese lessons from 8 to 10 a.m. And then it's ballet. Oh, ballet. Five times a week, 10, 15 a.m. to 12, 30. Let's see. Then we have French until lunchtime. And then afterwards, she does private piano. My daughter really has the hands of a pianist. If you've seen, she really does. Violin.

Well, only one of them I do because you like it. Wait, is this on TV, on news reporting? What is this on? No, this is in the apartment with all of Asunta's mom's friends. And Asunta just snaps. She's like, well, I only do one of them because you like it. And the whole room goes silent. How old was she? Maybe this is like a year or two before she goes missing. She's very young.

It feels a little resentful, like an outburst, but it could also just be a kid being a kid. Rosario turns to her friends. Gifted children, well handled, they are a good thing, but they can pose to be a problem. It's fascinating. Rosario would push Asanta to do more, to do better, but then when Asanta does it all, she sits there just fretting, so stressed out about how gifted Asanta is and how she can handle such a gifted child.

And I don't know how Asunta felt about it. Some say she was grateful to have such attentive parents and she was very close to her mom. Others say maybe she was too scared to express her real feelings. But there is a poem Asunta wrote about her mom. It reads, "My mother is greedy, but not beautiful. She is short, but not nice. She sings horrible 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 where was... Did she write that? In her little journal.

Whoa. So it's a very complicated family relationship, and it's probably made even more complicated by the fact that Rosario starts talking to a psychiatrist before Asante is even in the picture. It's said that Rosario would always have these cycles of anxiety and depression. She struggled a lot with her mental health as well as her lupus diagnosis, and I don't know how to put it nicely, but people could tell that she's trying really hard to hide her mental health problems from the world, right?

But it was pretty obvious. Like she just seemed unwell. In 2009, when Asunta is nine years old, that's when the cycle gets really bad. They hit rock bottom. Rosario ends up staying two nights in a private psychiatric hospital where she told doctors she felt like she wanted to self-exit. She felt zero emotions, completely indifferent to everyone and everything when normally she claims she's a very passionate woman. She can't stop her mind. She feels like it's on a high-speed whirl of thoughts. And the main one feels like she is in competition with her own mother.

Yeah, which, you know, I will say, though, people say that Rosario's mom has a personality of a lawnmower. She just runs over people. Yeah. Rosario would state that her mother was charmingly awful. And the psychiatrist would note that whenever a senta, Rosario's daughter, was brought up, Rosario would become very irritable. And she stated that her daughter was becoming so much of a bother, so overwhelming.

Rosario is discharged within two days, but she will continue taking her medications and struggling with her mental health. And from the public perception of the couple at this point, it seems like Rosario, the mom, is mentally very unstable and Alfonso is quietly holding it down for the family. He's taking care of his wife. He's making sure she's taking her meds. He's watching after their daughter. And now, September 22nd, 2013, after Asanta's body is found...

One of the first places the police want to search is the vacation home in Teo. Naturally. You know, it makes sense. This is where Asante's mom said that she went to go pick up the swimsuits. And it's also only two and a half miles from where Asante's body is found. Where Asante was supposed to be at home doing homework is a 20 minute drive. This two and a half mile is like what? A three minute drive? Yeah. They bring Rosario in to the vacation home.

Don't touch anything since there could be important evidence here. Right when they step inside, she tells them, I gotta go upstairs and use the restroom. None of the toilets downstairs are working. And she just books it up the stairs.

The police officer said Rosario starts running upstairs, bursting through the rooms of the restroom. And we're thinking, okay, clearly something's not right here. So they chase up after her. They book it into the room and they find Rosario not on the toilet, bent over the restroom trash can like a little gremlin digging for gold. Move aside. Don't touch anything. Step aside. She turns and inside the wastebasket, they see orange cord. Orange cord. Like the one found near Asunta's body.

Oh my gosh. They find a face mask and tissues that appear to be wet. They stare at Rosario and she looks very nervous.

They run the autopsies on Asunta and the cause of death for Asunta was asphyxiation. It's speculated that her cause of death was suffocation by a quote, soft and flexible object that her nose and mouth had been covered, which resulted in her suffocating. But even more alarming than that was Asunta's toxicology results come back. Her blood and urine samples. And this is where it gets so strange. She was found to have highly toxic levels of lorazepam in her system.

27 lorazepam pills. A high dosage for an adult would be three pills. She had 27 pills in her 12-year-old body. She hadn't just been drugged that night. Her hair test showed that she had been drugged with lorazepam for the past three months. Like that amount of... Not as high, but pretty bad.

Whoa. What happens when you take like a heavy dose? You don't remember anything. You basically have amnesia. You're sleepwalking. You are out of it. You are unconscious. You can't control your movements, muscle movements. You're sleeping the whole time. You're just unconscious. What is the pill usually for? Anti-anxiety.

Oh, we'll get there. Now, since her cause of death was asphyxiation and not overdose, that suggests that Asanta was drugged and then smothered, which who is giving a 12-year-old that much lorazepam for the past three months to begin with? Lorazepam, like I said, is typically used to treat anxiety disorders, insomnia, because it just knocks you out. I mean, sometimes it's just used to even sedate people. So for those reasons, it's highly addictive. It's treated like a controlled substance in the U.S.,

Asunta did not have a prescription for it, nor would most doctors prescribe anything long-term like lorazepam to a 12-year-old. So why does it show that she's been taking it for three months? And why does it show that she had 27 in her system the night that she died? And is it also a coincidence that lorazepam is the exact medication Rosario, Asunta's mom, has been prescribed for her anxiety attacks?

After Ascenta's body is found, police start pulling CCTV footage from local businesses to see if they can somehow track Ascenta's whereabouts because her mom stated that she was home in Santiago. Then she ends up in a neighboring beach town. What's going on? How did she get there?

Police are able to pull CCTV footage from a gas station on route to the vacation home. So they're tracking the route from the Santiago apartment to the vacation home. And they play back all the frames until they spot Rosario's car, a green Mercedes. Just like she said she would have been on the way to the vacation home. Only there is another figure inside the car, in the passenger seat. A small little Asian girl, a senta.

Remember, Ascenta's supposed to be at home doing her homework. Rosario went to the vacation home alone, so she claims, which is why it's surprising that Ascenta's body is found near the vacation home in the woods. So what's going on? Well, now, now Rosario's got a new story to share with the police. Rosario is staring at the footage.

It's the nerves, the pills, and the shame, really. Rosario said that she felt ashamed that her daughter had gone missing under her watch. But she can explain all of this. Asanta wanted to go to the country home with her mom initially. But once they got to the vacation home, Asanta didn't even want to go inside. She just wanted to stay in the car. And Rosario said Asanta starts feeling ill to the point where she keeps insisting that her mom U-turn all the way back and drive her back to Santiago so that she can finish her homework and go to sleep.

It was weird, but she listened to her daughter. She drives all the way back to Santiago, drops her off on the street, on the block where their apartment is, and let Asunta walk. Because I guess it's like instead of turning into the block, she's like, okay, just get out now. Which is a little odd, but she's saying it's a three-minute walk. It's not that big of a deal. Wait, that makes no sense. Isn't the mom just there to pick up something? Yes, she picks up the swimsuits and then she says she wants to go run a few more errands.

Okay, so she drops her off. Do we have a camera? No, nothing. And she says that's the part she was really ashamed about. The whole thing of just dropping off our sick daughter on the street and just expecting that no predator would come in the three-minute walk that it would take to go home. She drops the Santa off and then spends the rest of her night trying to run errands, but none of it was a success.

Her story goes, after dropping Asunta off on the street near the apartment, she does not recall exactly where. She drives back to the vacation home, picks up the swimsuits, gets in her car, drives all the way back to the store to buy something for Asunta's ballet class, like a Pilates ball. But when she gets near the store, she doesn't even go into the store, she says. She realizes, oh my god.

I forgot my purse in the vacation home. So she goes back to the vacation home, grabs her purse, gets into the car. And at this point, she's like, it's too late to go to the store and buy the Pilates ball. So I'm not going to go. Instead, she decides she's going to drive towards the gas station. But when she drives towards the gas station, she realizes on the way there, not stopped there, on the way there, I don't have my rewards card.

And on my discount card for the gas. So I'm not going to pump gas if I don't need to pump gas. If I can't even get a discount card for it. I left that in Santiago. It's such a mess, right? Conveniently, there's no CCTV footage of her entering any store or gas station because she never got to. So then she drives home.

That's her new version of events. Now, the police also claim that they searched all the routes that Rosario told them that she took, and the only definitive one where they could find Rosario in the car was with Asunta going to the vacation home together. Everything else is just Rosario's word. And this is already her second version of events, which makes no sense. I mean, forget all the small...

I don't know about that moments. Would a caring mom really just leave her daughter on the street when she's not even feeling well? When the authorities asked her why she lied about something like this, she said, "Well, I was just so nervous, so incredibly nervous that I said everything wrong. I couldn't believe what was happening to me and I wasn't wearing a watch. I only had my mobile with me and my phone had run out of battery and I'm just, I must look really careless, but I'm not, you must understand I have so many things to worry about."

But regardless, there's so much about Rosario, the mom, and her stories that just don't make sense. Even the whole story about the latex man is just not adding up. Why did she not go to the police until Isabella's mom called her? That is not normal behavior. When investigators find the initial officers who took the report, they said it was weird. Oh yeah, it was weird. She seemed like she could not care less about what happened that night to her child. She sounded very cold, even arrogant. Very much, I'm a lawyer. I know what I'm doing. She told the police...

there's nothing you guys can even do about it i'm a lawyer i know there were no fingerprints because the man was wearing gloves so i didn't get a good look at his face no distinguishing features i mean there were no clues on who the masked man would be so how are you gonna find him

The whole thing was so odd. Even just the coincidence of this incident is odd. The night that they left the key in the door is the precise moment that someone came in. I mean, what are the chances of that? It's just weird. Even more odd is that the initial police, they went to investigate and one of the neighbors came forward, Olga. She lives downstairs and she said, oh, July 4th, I remember that night. Let me tell you something. If someone breaks into a house, a masked man,

I would know, okay? I remember hearing them scream that night, Asunta and Rosario. I remember going up, knocking on the door to see if everything was all right. Rosario opens up the door and tells me, it's okay, don't worry, it's just the kid. Whatever that means. But I hear a little girl saying, mommy, is it the burglars again? And I thought, burglars? I don't think so. My dogs bark at anyone. They don't recognize that steps foot into this building. They can sniff it.

This is crazy. Yeah. Listen, I'm not sure how credible a neighbor's dog is, even when they're not testifying because they can't. It's a dog. The police took this as is. Either the attacker is someone that is already inside the apartment, which is unlikely since Rosario and Asunta saw a third person, or the attack never happened, which is also unlikely because Asunta sent pictures with markings around her neck and she was clearly shaken up. Or...

The attacker was someone familiar to the neighbors' dogs. Who would that be? Two days after Asunta was found, September 24th, her parents held a funeral for their daughter. This would be the third funeral in recent years that Rosario would be even at a crematorium. First it was her mom, then it was her dad who died seven months later, and then Asunta.

Some said Rosario was the picture of grief. Others said, no she wasn't. She was taking selfies with the coffin. It was weird. But halfway through the funeral, Rosario just vanishes, disappears. Nobody even notices it for a while. Rosario had been arrested at her daughter's funeral for the suspicion of killing her daughter. But why would Rosario kill her own daughter? Some people say it actually starts nine months before Asunta's death, January 2013.

There is a saying, or there should be a saying, don't go looking for things that you cannot handle. Why go looking for trouble? That's exactly what Alfonso, Asunta's dad, is doing, going through his wife's emails. I mean, he knows what he's going to find in there, right? He knows what he's going to do when he finds it, but he can't stop himself. He can't help it. He has to see it. And sure enough, he finds hot, heavy messages between his wife Rosario, the mother of his child, and a realtor, a real estate agent, and a real estate agent.

And not just any real estate agent. His name is Manuel Garcia. Not a class act by Alfonso's definition. His whole demeanor is just vulgar. That's the best way to describe him. That's what Alfonso said. Vulgar. To give you a context of how much of a class act this man is, while he's clearly having an affair with Rosario, knowing she's married, has a child, he himself is married, and his wife is pregnant. She's pregnant.

What does he do? Does this man man up and tell his wife the truth and promise to fix things? Does he end it with his wife to go live with Rosario or vice versa? No, he essentially tells Rosario that the thing between them is just sex and he's never gonna leave his wife and kids. So let's just have sex. But do you still want to go to Morocco on fake business trips to do it?

That's what they're doing, okay? Now, even though he straight up told Rosario that he is never going to leave his family for her, she's still going and having these secret rendezvous sessions with this man, betraying her family. And it is now time for Alfonso to confront her and put an end to all of this.

There are two versions of how this all went down. Alfonso states he immediately packed his bags and went to his relatives on the countryside to clear his mind. He only came back three weeks later for a senta, for their kid. Rosario says, no, he kicked a freaking hole in the door, got physically aggressive and told me, you're not leaving me.

She claimed he refused to get out of the apartment, she had to call for backup, three of her girlfriends came, had to drag him out the apartment, and they didn't know that he slipped the key to Rosario's other apartment in his pocket and started staying there. So Rosario had to kick him out twice. Even after Alfonso catches Rosario cheating, they're disagreeing on the divorce. It appears Rosario wants a divorce. Alfonso does not.

Listen, Alfonso is a character. He doesn't really have a lot going on for himself. His whole personality is he really likes being rich, but he's not particularly good at anything that would warrant being rich. He briefly tried to be a radio host. I don't know if tried is even the right word. He was so dull, he refused to have any inflections in his voice. A former colleague of his said, Oh no, this man was like a dead mosquito. Yeah, that's how he talks.

He wasn't even good on paper. When he was working for the company, his colleagues hated him because he would just get so distracted. He would submit half-finished articles and yet somehow he has this air of superiority about him. He had a perpetually pinched nose and it was always looking down on everybody. He was so annoying with his obsession with class and conduct. Nice people would say, Alfonso's very bland, a bit of a loser, that's a bit on a high horse, but that's it.

Rosario said he's excessively a Puritan, antisocial, emotionless, and unpredictable. She told her friend she had zero enthusiasm for this man anymore. She's done with him, the underachieving house husband of hers. Manuel, on the other hand, the man she's having an affair with,

He's self-assured, energetic, successful. Especially now, with Alfonso out the house and effectively cut off from Rosario's money, his life is falling apart. He's got no intention of getting a job. He's got no intention of getting it together. He's just sour, salty. He no longer has the prestige Alfonso claims. He only got a not-so-grand apartment nearby so that he could be close to a son to unsee or grow up. He just wants to be a father figure.

But people who knew him said, no, he came back hoping Rosario would take him back in. Asunta didn't even seem that shaken up when her parents were divorced. So this is what everybody says. Asunta is very close to her mom. She never really mentions her dad ever. Like he just exists, but not really. When they told her about the divorce, she just quietly asked, if I'm going with mom, who will cook?

Honestly, a valid question. Forward thinking if you ask me. Alfonso is the one doing most of the house tasks, cooking, cleaning. It's unclear if Asunta is shaken up by the divorce, if at all. So there is an email from Alfonso to Rosario during the divorce. And in the email, he writes to her.

Hello, Charo. We are linked together forever. Of course we are, as you are Asunta's mother. But don't forget, and I don't mean this with any reproach, that this will be the limit of your presence in my present life and will probably be in the future as well.

It's like he's trying to say we're not dating anymore, but it's clear he wants her back and is reminding her we are forever linked together by Asanta. So a lot of people theorize maybe Rosario felt like the only way to fully be free from Alfonso and start a new life is get rid of their only shared connection, Asanta.

Rosario did tell psychiatrists that she was overwhelmed by Asunta. She was in the process of renovating another apartment. People speculate that she was hoping that her lover, Manuel, would leave his family and move in with her. So maybe she does something very extreme. And the dates are very interesting. According to multiple different reports, July 4th, Rosario broke up with Manuel Garcia because Alfonso forced her to. He's like, I'm not going to help you with Asunta and taking care of Asunta unless you break up with him.

So she breaks up with him. They're not even, they're divorced at this point. That night, Asante is attacked. Attacked by? We don't know. September 21st, Rosario spends all day having intimate relations with Manuel, the other man on his boat. The day that Asante was missing? And dies. Right. And the day that she went to her vacation home? Yes. The earlier that day, she spent a good chunk before lunch with

Spending time on the boat. Okay. And then that same night Asunta was killed. Is it just a coincidence that every time she has maybe these deep conversations with her mister, Asunta almost dies? It's weird.

But there are some disputes to this theory. First, Manuel Garcia made it super clear to Rosario that he's not going to leave his family for her. It doesn't matter if Rosario is married, divorced, with a child, without a child. He's going to stick with his family. If anything, having a Santa killed and being the center focus of the town is only going to make her more baggage for Manuel, right? It's not necessarily an easy relationship unless Rosario believes that he likes her enough to stick with her because she's going through such a hard time.

that he's gonna pick the woman that needs him the most, which would be her because how do you comfort someone who just lost their child? And maybe to the public's eyes, it's more acceptable that they found star-crossed forbidden love after she experiences one of the biggest levels of trauma a parent can go through.

But it's still kind of a loose thread. Second of all, another dispute is there really is no tie between Alfonso and Assunta. Yes, he is her father. Yes, he is involved in her life. But Rosario does not need him to be. She has full custody. She has more than enough funds to get a nanny for Assunta, to send her to study abroad, to do whatever she wants with Assunta. This is not a situation where she needs Alfonso to take care of Assunta. And then on top of that, a third dispute is how would Rosario leave possible semen stains on her daughter's shirt?

This is the one thing that Rosario's lawyer will debate heavily, is the fact that Asunta had possible semen on her shirt. There's no way that Rosario can produce that kind of biological fluid, meaning someone who can must be the killer, or at least must be involved.

Did they test who this woman belongs to? Yes, of course there was the possibility that Rosario's affair partner Manuel Garcia was involved. But he was ruled out pretty quickly. He had no motive to want Asunta dead. He genuinely only saw Rosario as a woman he slept with. He had no intention of being with her romantically, leaving his wife for her. They did his DNA test, found nowhere on Asunta.

The person whose DNA was found on Asunta? Even more bizarre. A man named Ramiro. It's our first time bringing him up because this man is completely random. He's a Colombian citizen living in Madrid, which is a six-hour drive from Santiago.

They were able to match his DNA to Asante because Ramiro is already in the system. He's already under investigation for SA. Some sources say the victim was a minor. Others say she wasn't. I'm not too sure. But he was being investigated for SA and his DNA was found on Asante. Now, this is where things get weird. Police show up to his house in Madrid to question him. Ramiro starts frantically defending himself. I've never even been to Galicia. I don't know who this girl is. What does she have to do with me? In fact, I want the other SA charge to be looked into. None of this is fair.

which side note I think the other essay charge is rather legit so but anyway he's just arguing his connection with Asanta doesn't make sense he doesn't know her he had no opportunity to run into her she hadn't been in Madrid recently he was never in Galicia I mean this is why would he do this he's just gonna drive to Galicia one random day and decide to do something like this

And Ramiro had an alleged airtight alibi for the night of September 21st. He was six hours away in Madrid eating dinner in a public restaurant with his sister and his fiance. Technically, it could be faked, his alibi. Wait, his semen was found? Yes, on her shirt. What? Okay. It doesn't make any sense. Like, why would Ramiro fake his alibi, go to Galicia? He doesn't...

at least to anybody's knowledge, ever even had a chance meeting with Asunta. So the theory would be that he drove six hours to Galicia with the intent of kidnapping a little girl, either broke into Rosario's place without leaving a trace or kidnapped Asunta in broad daylight. But that still doesn't explain that she was drugged for three months prior. And what about the July 4th incident? Like none of this is making sense. So then how did his DNA get on Asunta?

The only possible answer is contamination in the lab. It is stated that the same scissors used to cut the condom that Ramiro had used and given to the lab for the initial essay allegation were the same scissors used to cut the samples off of Ascenta's shirt. What about the semen stain? That's another debate. We don't even know if they are semen now. They looked liquidy. They looked like semen.

And when they cut it, they found traces of semen. So there are like six little droplets and only two of them had semen DNA, which belonged to Ramiro. The others don't. So it's a question of, well, how did the others, if they're cut with the same scissors, how did they not get DNA? And these scissors, they were cut four weeks apart. So a lot of people even question if the scissors had the DNA on there, wouldn't they be dried and incapable of transferring four weeks later?

It's just very bizarre. But what's even more bizarre is that everybody was sitting there scratching their heads in the police station going, that's so weird because we thought the semen stains would belong to Alfonso, Asanta's dad.

Both Rosario and Alfonso, they were not acting normal since the day they walked into the police station to report Asunta missing. Again, there are no parameters on how someone should behave when they're panicked and stressed out, but some reactions are just weird. There's no better way to put it, okay? All the tiny little things add up. The parents were asked to provide a physical description when they reported Asunta missing. They said, Asunta speaks with a Galician accent and she has very large hands and her fingernails are severely unkept.

Which is a bizarre description to give. When the police came to inform the parents that they found Asante's body, mind you, this is just a few hours after she had been reported missing. It's not like she had been gone for weeks or even a day. They opened the door to the apartment. Rosario looks like she just woke up from a nap. Your daughter went missing just a few hours ago? How can you sleep?

Rosario would later claim, "I did not take a nap." But I don't know, police said that she didn't look panicked, she looked kind of out of it. Then the morning after Asante's body is found, this should be when the shock and grief are at the thickest, right? No, Alfonso calls his old newspaper, the one that he used to work at, and he asks them to not run this story.

And if they do, can they at least not name Rosario and Alfonso? But the newspapers thinking this is so dumb because this is a nationwide story now. All of Spain is already talking about it. It's like if CNN is blasting the case and Alfonso takes the time to call a local newspaper to tell them not to talk about it. The second day, this is national news? Yeah.

Really? Yeah, because I mean she was adopted from China and they were kind of a big deal. They're a wealthy family People are already picking up on it. I wouldn't say that it's like viral every single person's talking about it But a lot of major news networks are picking up on it Now after Asante's body is found Alfonso even text Rosario something very odd. The coroners say there was no sexual aggression.

This coupled with his weird statement before her body was found where he said, I think my daughter is dead. I just hope she wasn't SA'd before she died. He said that? He said that. When did he say that exactly? Before they found the body. A couple hours? Yeah. No, she's been missing for like two hours. And he is like, I think she's dead, but I hope she wasn't SA'd.

And the police are like, that is weird. Your daughter's been missing for what, two hours? Like who thinks like that? What kind of parent even says, I think she's dead? Yeah, I'm trying to think of the psychology behind that. That's like against normal parents thinking, right? That's opposite of what parents think. People think he was trying to plant seeds. What do you mean? Like if she was assayed, if there were signs of assay, that the police are like, oh wow, whoever killed her must have assayed her.

It's weird, I don't know. At the funeral, both of them were seen taking selfies with the coffin and at first, the focus of the investigation was on Rosario since she lied multiple times to the authorities and she's technically the last person to see her daughter alive. But the authorities are hung up on the semen stains and the fact that Asunta is a full five inches taller than Rosario. Rosario, the mom, is super short. She's four feet eight inches tall.

Investigators did not believe that Rosario could have done this alone by herself. Lift and dispose of Asante's body on her own because she was found six feet off the road, no drag marks. Which means someone had pig dropped and placed her down and they just did not think Rosario was capable of that. So who helped her? Interestingly enough, police found that after Rosario was arrested for Asante's murder, Alfonso sends her another text message on WhatsApp.

She doesn't read it because she's in jail, but it reads, What does that even mean? I mean, it's hardly the appropriate response to have to your ex-wife being taken in for the murder of your one and only child.

So both Rosario and Alfonso conveniently also had dead phones during Asanta's murder time. Alfonso said that he, after everybody left his house, after playing cards and eating scrambled eggs, he went to read a book. So he turned his phone off for the night until he was done reading.

Wow, they're just so sus. Rosario said her phone ran out of battery while she was running errands, which is also convenient, so neither of their movements can be tracked through cell towers now. Investigators searched the entirety of Alfonso's tiny apartment, which is allegedly part of student housing, so it was really small, and they could not find his phone or his laptop, leading people to speculate, did he run and get rid of those things? Remember, he left the police station?

Did he run and get rid of those things? And if he did, why?

Now, the most damning piece of evidence, like how the CCTV was damning for Rosario of Asunta being in the car, for Alfonso, the most damning piece of evidence was the fact that records show for the past 10 weeks of Asunta's life, Alfonso had been slowly obtaining lorazepam pills, over 170 pills. Asunta had 27 in her system at the time of death.

Some of the pills were purchased legally with a prescription. Well, okay, the only legal method in which Alfonso procured lorazepam pills was through Rosario's prescription. He would take his ex-wife's prescription and say, I gotta pick it up. But that wasn't enough. Alfonso goes to his doctor and starts lying that he suddenly has anxiety attacks and gets a prescription for lorazepam and starts picking that up.

Additionally, he just starts illegally purchasing lorazepam as well. So Spain at the time was not as strict on drugs as in, I guess, pharmacies in the US would be.

Well, pharmacies in the US are strict. I would say sometimes the doctors are not strict at prescribing, but you get it. In the US, if you go into a pharmacy and you tell them that, hey, I just picked up lorazepam, a controlled substance, but I just lost it. I'm going to need another round. My sister's a pharmacist. You'd be surprised at how often people try to do this. You're not getting more lorazepam. You're just not. That's crazy, okay? That is crazy. You can just tell them you lost it? In Spain, it was a bit more common at the time. Oh, that's his method? Yeah.

That's how he's illegally getting him. One of his pharmacists was a close friend of his and he would just say, hey, I went to a hotel, I brought my little pill case and then I lost it and I think the housekeepers threw it out and so now I got no more lorazepam. Could you just refill it for me? And you would just get twice as much lorazepam for one prescription. So the first time Alfonso purchased lorazepam was on July 5th.

The night after the attempted murder of Asunta, when a masked man broke into the home, which is a fascinating timeline if you ask me, and we'll get more into it later. The day after Rosario's arrest, Alfonso is arrested. So now both of Asunta's parents are under suspicion of killing her. Now, Asunta's teachers would say, I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but Asunta's dad always treated her like a friend.

Which I know it sounds kind of nice and kind of cute, but he literally treated her like they were classmates. Like he was a 12 year old boy and she's a 12 year old girl.

which again, we don't know if it's a good thing, but Asante is doing well. So we didn't think much of it. She was typically one of the most dedicated, focused kids in the class. And from what they can tell as her teachers, she seemed really happy and talented and disciplined. And like she enjoys most of the extracurriculars that she does. She is very stimulated by these things until two months before her death. So from that point forward, Asante's teachers never really knew what they were going to get with her, whether it was going to be the real Asante or somebody else.

July 9th, 2013, Asunta's violin teacher, Alina, says Asunta is stumbling in and Alfonso, the dad, is following in after her. Sir, is your daughter all right? She's drugged.

"Drugged?" She did not like that word. What do you mean, "drugged"? She's undergoing medication for allergies. It's the antihistamines. They're clearly too strong for her. So basically insinuating Asante is on some sort of Benadryl. You know how Benadryl makes you super drowsy and kind of confused, and it's making her act strangely. But he assures her, nothing to worry about. It's a very normal reaction to the drugs.

Alfonso leaves and Alina thinks this is so weird. I mean, she's never heard any sort of allergies from Asunta. She's never complained about it, but she tries to focus on the class. And the whole time she keeps glancing at Asunta, she seems drunk. She seems not focused. Like she can't even control herself. It honestly looks like she's sleepwalking. Asunta, are you all right? Yes.

Alina just stares because Asante is making weird gestures with her hands. Like her motor skills seem off. Everything seems off. When the class is finally over, Rosario, Asante's mom, comes to pick her up and Alina rushes out to tell the mom. And she's trying to explain to Rosario how strange Asante has been behaving and it's so unlike her. Yes, you're absolutely right. This is not normal at all for my daughter to be like this. I'm going to have to switch her to a new medication, it seems. But thank you for letting me know. I'm going to take her to the hospital if you'll excuse me.

Alina watched her drive off. And it's just weird. Rosario never took her to the hospital. And they're so blatant too. Yes. Right? In front of everyone. Yeah. They don't hide it. And the next day, Asanta would show up completely normal, playing the violin like she always does. And maybe Alina thought, okay, I'm thinking way too deep into it because Asanta is just...

she's fine right and asanta is so clever she's very mature and curious she wants to know everything she's never distracted she's laser focused on what she needs to do and interestingly enough she's very private for a 12 year old she doesn't really talk about her family life or her home life until one day in july a week or so after this initial incident asanta is practically falling asleep in class and she can't keep up again not a normal thing asanta what is going on are you not focused you don't want to be here

It's not that, my parents have been making me take this really bitter white powder and it just makes me so drowsy and sleepy. Neither of the parents were that well liked by the teachers. Even Rosario. Teachers said Rosario's attitude was always, "I'm gonna tell all of you what my daughter is like and all of you are gonna tell me I'm right." And especially after the divorce, Rosario got even weirder. She would keep asking, calling. Is the divorce distracting my daughter from performing?

Or sometimes she would go on these long-winded rants about how she was going to sell property to make $3 million and that Alfonso only wants to get back with her because he's out of money. It was just weird. She was not very likable and clearly a bit of a strange mom. But what's very different, I think, is that's one thing. Drugging a Santa is a different thing. Yeah. So the teachers think maybe it's some sort of vitamin or supplement that she's being forced to take that she doesn't like.

One of Asanta's teachers, Maria, had heard from the others that Asanta had been off in these moments, but she wouldn't see it until later in July, near the end of July. Asanta walks into her class and she looks like she's going to faint. Her eyes are barely open. And during the class break, Maria goes over to the other teachers. I think something's going on with Asanta. Oh yeah, she's fine. She's just had hay fever recently and I think she's weak from her allergy medications. I don't know if she's... She told one of the teachers last week that her parents want to kill her or something.

Are you sure? I mean, it could be the meds, though. I took some allergy meds once. I was knocked out like a zombie. I don't remember anything I said. But it really didn't make sense. Lots of kids in their class had hay fever. None of them reacted to the medicine like this. And if your child is looking like they just had 12 beers at a bar, you would probably do something about it, no? Mm-hmm.

Maria tries to investigate. She walks back into her class. Okay, class, we're gonna pick up our instruments and play one of our favorite songs. This is a song that Asunta knows from start to finish. She knows it by memory. But right now, Maria is staring at Asunta and she's forgetting keys. It's like she can't control her muscle movements. She's getting everything wrong. Her posture is strange. Asunta has been taking ballet since she's six. One of the most noticeable effects is that she has incredible posture. But she's slouching. She's slumped. She looks like she's about to faint.

Okay, stop class. Asunta, did you eat breakfast? Don't remember. You don't remember. Every word Asunta is saying sounds like it's being forced out of her system. Her mouth sounds like it's dry, which is a symptom of lorazepam, including other drugs. Maria rushes Asunta into the teacher's lounge, and now all the teachers are standing around Asunta, who's slumped over in this chair. One of them half-jokingly pulls up a few fingers. How many fingers am I holding right now? I can't see. I'm really dizzy.

My mom gave me some gross white powder to take. She got it from a woman on the street who came to the door in the apartment and I can't really remember the name. I think it's the doctor. That day, Alfonso comes to pick up Asanta and Maria is trying to tenderly explain the situation to him. I mean, I get that she's had hay fever all weekend. I mean, we heard and I know that generally speaking with antihistamines, allergy medication, we did not give her antihistamines. The other teacher, we are not those kinds of people.

The other teacher said that you... All we gave her was a nasal spray.

Maria is so confused because you don't act this way from a nasal spray. Like Benadryl is one thing. Nasal spray? What? What is he? None of this is making any sense anymore. And it feels like the parents are ever changing their stories. I mean, no kid should feel like this on nasal spray. But again, the teachers appear to be the only ones that are worried. Alfonso doesn't even address the rest of the conversation. He just glances at Ascenta who's so out of it, she can barely stand. Didn't you come with a cardigan? Did you forget it in class? Go run and grab your jacket.

He seems to not care that she's practically holding on the wall to fetch her jacket. The teachers are very conflicted at this point on what to do, but the next day Asanta would come to class completely normal. So from that point forward, they had no idea if she's coming to class sleepwalking or if she's totally fine. But the last time she called out of class was Wednesday, just a few days before her murder. Rosaria had written a note for the teachers that Asanta could not make it because she was reacting badly to some medications.

But none of this is making sense. I mean, so both of the parents decided to kill their daughter or Rosario did and then Alfonso is helping her cover it up? Or is there something else that's going on? Interestingly enough, Alfonso and Rosario also never actually grow apart after the divorce.

Alfonso moves a few minutes away. Alfonso's helping Rosario with her health. She would have bouts of depression and lupus flare-ups, and he would take care of her and Asunta. In return, Rosario would help him out financially. There was this arrangement, but it seemed that Alfonso was always the one that wanted more. He wanted to get the family back together.

June 2013, three months before Asante's death, Rosario is hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. Alfonso drops everything, rushes to his ex-wife's bedside, and when she's discharged a week later, he's basically setting up camp in her home again. I mean, a part of him was excited that his ex-wife was...

you know, mentally dying because that meant that she would need more attention, more care and then they could go back to being together and then things would go back to normal. This is why she promised that she would stop seeing Manuel after the health scare. She lied. She would see him again the night before the murder of Asanta and the day. Now, she would go on a little sexcapade with him on the boat. She would later say to Alfonso, "You're kind of like my brother. Like we don't even do it anymore." He could not satisfy her like Manuel Garcia could.

So what if Alfonso had enough and he decides I have to hurt Rosario more than she can hurt me? Alfonso is in charge of most of Rosario's medications. On top of that, Rosario does heavily depend on Alfonso, or at least she says she does. She would even say, "It was Alfonso or death. He fed me lunch and dinner and I was getting worse and worse mentally and I didn't feel like doing anything. My best friend told me it feels like you're falling into depression head first."

Some netizens came up with this new theory that Alfonso knew Rosario was not all there at this point. She's mentally very frail, forgetful, can easily be framed for murder. So that's what he does. He gone girls Rosario. The orange court in the bathroom was just so suspicious. Why would someone leave it there? Also, how would she know the court is there to begin with? But additionally, most teachers believe that Asento was always acting strangest when she stayed over at her dad's. The next day, she would always seem drugged.

Did Alfonso kill Asunta, his only daughter, to get revenge on his ex-wife? I mean, it feels very extreme considering that all his ex-wife did was leave him for a married man. But some people, they will do that.

And I know that some people are just not cut out for revenge, but it seems that Alfonso is. Apparently, this was a huge fight between Alfonso, but he tried calling Manuel's pregnant wife to tell her the truth about her husband, which I don't know if I can categorically consider it revenge, but it is said it did not come from a place of, let me help Manuel's wife see the truth, but more so, I'm going to ruin this man's life because he ruined mine.

But if that's the case, that would mean that he's the one that broke in July 4th. Wouldn't Rosario have recognized him even if he had been wearing a mask? Or was she so out of it at this point? And it still doesn't explain away all of her other different versions of stories when she gets caught in her lies. Her story is never adding up. It's ever changing. Even the masked man story. She went from saying that Asanta left the key in the lock outside to later telling another officer that she's the one that left the keys outside. She constantly keeps contradicting herself, changing details.

Yeah, just the fact that she didn't report it to the police, knowing someone broke into your house, that alone is sus enough. So the investigators, they go back to the theory that Rosario, for whatever reason, killed a Santa or made the choice to, and Alfonso was helping either during or after the fact for whatever reason. But why?

Why would Alfonso agree to that? Why would he do something to help Rosario go be with Manuel, to be freed of him? It's speculated that if Rosario committed murder, maybe Alfonso did something worse than murder to Asante.

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After the parents are arrested, they're conveniently put in two jail cells right next to each other. The police are secretly recording their jailhouse conversations, trying to see if they say anything damning, if something crazy is going to come out of this. And this part is wild because later news outlets, they recreate conversations and they pick and choose certain phrases and words, effectively Frankensteining and constructing a sentence that never happened, which sways public opinion, obviously. What do you, what does that mean? Like they would edit...

sentences and phrases together to make it sound like they're having a very specific type of conversation that they were not having in jail? You can do that?

No, but they did it. And this was before the trial. And the full transcripts are actually included in the book by Mark Guskin. And I have shortened a few, but none of it alters the overall message of what they're talking about. Rosario sounds very emotional in prison. She's frantic. She's jumping from calm to hysterical to depressed to anxious. Alfonso the whole time, flat, monotone, dead mosquito-ing this. It sounds like he's in line waiting for his lunch order.

Don't worry, everything will work out fine and we'll go back home. Don't worry. Who could be doing this to us? I don't know, baby. That's why we have to stay calm. Not to worry. Don't worry about anything because everything's gonna work out, okay? I love you and you love me. That's the most important thing, right? But the problem is that they... they have to... I don't know. Get some rest. I want to go home. Do you know how horrible this is?

What? If you could see how horrible this is, I want to go home! I know, but don't worry. Everything's fine. No it isn't! We'll go home. Don't worry. Alfonso the whole time calls her baby and the words he says are oftentimes loving but his tone is just so cold and it has no feeling. It seems like everything he says is shallow and meaningless.

Who could be doing this damage to us? To me, Alfonso? I don't know, darling. I really don't know. I don't know who wants to do this to us. It's such a cruel trick. But sooner or later, he'll be found out. Of course he will. Of course he'll be found out. I don't have any doubts about that. But why are we here? They must have a whole load of clues. Do you know what I mean? Well, yes. But there are measures that they have to take, and it is how it is. We have to put up with it, and that's that. And maybe tomorrow we'll get out on parole or something of that sort.

And then there's gonna be a trial, Alfonso. Well, there might not have to be. If they find the one who did it, there won't. And they'll find him, don't you worry, they'll find him. And so there won't be a trial. There will be one for him, but not for us. He'll spend the rest of his life in prison, but don't you worry, my darling, don't worry. And then Alfonso briefly warns Rosario, don't say anything you shouldn't, because they could be recording us. Yes, well, what am I going to say that I shouldn't, Alfonso? I know, nothing, of course.

Nothing, darling. But anything we say or do, you, you know, you've seen it. They can take it as, yes, but your dirty imagination is going to cause us lots of problems. What? Wait, what? Your dirty imagination? Your dirty imagination is going to cause us lots of problems. Exactly. What does that mean? We don't know.

The word "dirty" in this situation is most commonly used to describe someone who is sexually hot or sexually feverish. I guess you could say someone has a dirty mind and not have any sexual connotation, but it wouldn't be the right word. I wonder if it's more like "naughty" is a better translation, more commonly used in a sexual context. So what could they possibly be talking about?

When Alfonso left the police station the night that they reported Asanta missing, he ran off, leaving Rosario alone with the investigators. It's suspected that he went home to hide his laptop and phone. He knew that the police are going to go to both of their apartments to search for clues, to search for Asanta. And the only missing pieces were Asanta at the time, Alfonso's phone and laptop.

Two months later, when Alfonso is in prison, his attorney reaches out to let the investigators know, "Hey, Alfonso's apartment lease is gonna end soon. It's probably a good time to search the apartment for a laptop." The police show up and the laptop is just sitting on the hallway table. They said it was honestly pretty disrespectful, like the way that it was placed.

They're not even trying to make it slick. Someone had just replaced the laptop back. So Alfonso took it away and who put it back? They don't know. Could be a family friend, could be a family member. Alfonso's family member could be the attorney. It's really nobody knows. But the hard drive had not even just been wiped, not even just deleted, but completely swapped out for a new hard drive.

It is widely believed that Alfonso left the police station after they reported Asante missing, hid his computer and phone, conveniently hid it, and then authorities believe that more than 500,000 files were deleted. I don't know how they got this metadata. 500,000 files? Whether it's... I don't know, but what classifies as a file, right? I don't know if that means 500,000 pictures and photos and videos or if it means just...

anything. But somehow authorities were still able to pull a list of things that were deeply disturbing from his laptop. One, he had a ton of Asian friends on Facebook. They were just random Asian girls from all over the world with no connection, meaning they did not know him in person. I'm not saying he just had a lot of Asian friends. No, he had lots of Asian Facebook friends and they mainly posted erotic content on Facebook.

It was never specified or investigated if the girls were underage, but a lot of the officers said that they looked very underage. Alfonso additionally frequented a ton of explicit websites where he searched specifically for young Asian girls.

But that was said to have been one of his many searches. I would say most netizens are really disturbed by this, but other netizens argue it's nothing to be proud of. Yeah, but just because your daughter is Asian and you're searching for Asian women doesn't mean that you're harming your daughter. I mean, I guess in theory, right? But it's just not leaving a good taste in anybody's mouth to make things even more disturbing.

Even more disturbing, a young woman walks into the police station and reports that Alfonso was a regular client of hers. She works at the local brothel and stated that Alfonso would come and she alleges a few things about Alfonso's sexual interest. One, he really, really likes girls that dress purposely underage, that appear very much underage. None of them are underage. They're all of age. But he picks the ones that look and dress and talk the youngest.

He would tell everybody that he is a lawyer. And apparently Rosario, his wife, knew that he was always going in there and would even help him pay for it. Now, the police investigate, and I don't know how much of the allegations they're able to confirm, but they don't really do much beyond verifying that everyone working at the brothel is of age, because I guess the rest are not really crimes. I guess it's not really a crime to pick someone who looks underage. I think it's a crime, but they were not thinking it's a crime.

So they didn't find the need to investigate any further. They found the photos of Asanta were actually on Asanta's phone. So you know the pictures of her in her ballet outfit that goes viral. The pictures of her swaddled in the blanket looking disassociating that goes viral. They were found on Asanta's phone, not on Alfonso's laptop. There have been reports that they were either found on his laptop or on Rosario's phone, but it does appear that they were found on Asanta's phone. But it's still weird because somebody else took those pictures. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

It's just a mess. Now, meanwhile, Rosario's phone records show that she was searching for things like how to give a good blowjob, as well as searching online for sex shops, likely for her affair with Manuel. And everyone had assumed always that Rosario was the one calling the shots. She's got a bigger personality. She's the one with the money. She's very fickle. Alfonso just kind of blends into the background. But one of the jailhouse tapes would reveal that is not the case. Alfonso in private is quite an aggressive guy. He would yell, silence! Absolutely.

at Rosario whenever he felt like she was yapping too much. The police who listened to the tape said it was so strange. It was such a surprise for us because they took turns being dominant.

People that knew the couple said, you would think that Rosario is the demanding little woman and Alfonso is the little mouse that goes and does everything she says. But he was quite condescending to Rosario. He had a very nasty side to him. The court would ultimately deem the jailhouse tapes inadmissible during the trial. But it is stated by investigators that Alfonso would lash out and abuse Rosario physically three to four times a year on average. He's very violent with her.

So in a way, the only thing that people can come back to is it seems like they're both covering for each other. Let's say Alfonso is covering for Rosario because of a dirty little secret. Why would Rosario cover for him? Let's get into the theories because there are conversations of if one or more of the parents are more heavily involved.

So there's a few theories where they're both equally involved. There's a few theories where Rosario is mainly involved and Alfonso does cleanup or vice versa. So let's get into all of them. Have you heard of pet child theory? It's a concept. It's not academically recognized, but it is a theory that some adoptive parents treat their adopted children more like pets than children. They use their adoptive children as a source of affection and cuteness. And once they are no longer being delivered to that, they discard them like a sickly pet.

They want like a dog, a cute dog that snuggles with you, stays cute all the time, does not have a teenage rebellion phase, does not drain you of all your resources. They just want to pay.

And sometimes the children are just used for the parents' emotional needs and their needs for attachment and security are never addressed. So this is a theory that a lot of medicines bring up with this case, that after Rosario and Alfonso agreed to divorce, they realized that they have a pet in between them, a Santa. But now they are no longer together. They no longer need a shared pet. She's part of their previous family when they were together. Now it's time to get rid of her and move on. It's almost like, why keep a dog so sad? Yeah.

I don't believe in that. It doesn't seem like they really, really care about her. Exactly. A lot of netizens point to Rosario's narcissism to also help support this theory because you really have to be a narcissist to even think like this. This is a literal child you're talking about. And she raised her since she was what? Almost a year old? Yeah.

Rosario is an only child and she definitely acts like it. Rosario had the privilege of being able to study abroad in the UK and France briefly, which I thought she'd be all for. Rosario seems a tad bit snobby. Imagine how insufferable Rosario would be with a French accent. But Rosario ends up coming home early from France and she said she hated it. She said, nobody knew who I was. Here in Santiago, as my father was a faculty member, they treated me with greater consideration.

AKA, my daddy's not powerful in France, so nobody treated me like a princess and I want to come home. She came back home early and just decided to work under her dad. He gets her a fancy position. She would tell people that she studied at the London High School of Law, which doesn't exist. So what?

Which, by the way, none of this is an implication that she was the only one that killed, but she's definitely not a likable person. Now, there is speculation amongst netizens that Rosario didn't like being outshined by Asanta. How so? She would fret about how Asanta is so gifted, but then she would push Asanta to do more. It's almost like Rosario was conflicted with herself.

She loved Asante's achievements because it was a reflection of her parenting and people would praise her for it. But then she also would get very upset when Asante does so much better than she ever did as a child. And another thing to back this up was Rosario's parents love Asante. They are obsessed with her. They think she is the golden child.

Isn't there some kind of thing like there are some parents are actually jealous of their kids? It's so bizarre. It seems like that could be the situation here. Even when Rosario is brought back to the vacation home, and this is after she's been arrested, it was an absolute media circus. Cameras on every street corner. And this is a very serious moment. She's caught smiling. Allegedly, she tries to justify it. And she said that I was talking to a police officer about passion fruit. I

I have passion fruit trees in my garden and I had to tell them that you have to cut the fruit open and eat it with a spoon. You gotta spoon the flesh out. I don't know what's so funny about that. But she smiled and laughed for whatever reason. She was also asked to participate in a documentary about the case and she wrote a long-winded letter to the producers and some parts read, "I believe that the circumstances surrounding the death of my daughter are of no interest to anyone, unfortunately other than those directly affected.

What is she complaining? She's saying the media, like, why is this concerning the media?

My daughter's death is impacting me the most, okay? Like, why is everybody talking about it online? A lot of netizens state that her behavior is giving raging narcissist, which I don't think is armchair diagnosing. Court psychologists would later deem Rosario a narcissistic and depressive personality. So yes, maybe she really saw Asunta as part of her family life, and since she no longer was married to Alfonso, she no longer needed Asunta anymore.

But that doesn't answer the question of why would Alfonso help his ex-wife murder their daughter and get away with it? Why would he help?

Some speculate that it's to tie him to Rosario forever. She would never be able to cut him out financially, emotionally, mentally. He's got her dirty little secret wrapped up, ready to come out. One investigator that questioned the couple said, I think they really wanted to project this image as the perfect family. If Rosario wants something, she thinks she can just buy it. And if she doesn't want it, she thinks she can just get rid of it. And Alfonso was there to just satisfy her whims.

The investigators believe that the couple got tired of the child they quote bought a decade earlier. So they tried to kill her July 4th, two months before her murder. Alfonso was the masked man. He tried to kill Asanta, but she woke up. She didn't know for sure if it was her dad or not because he was masked and she was likely drugged at this point or confused. So the couple did everything they could to make sure that she did not tell anybody about it.

But now they need to get rid of her quickly, which could even explain why she was telling teachers that nobody tells her the truth. Maybe she brought up suspicions that, hey, was that dad that night? And everybody just gaslit her. But she's thinking, no, I know what I remember. Alfonso gives her one final big dose of lorazepam sprinkled into her scrambled eggs and mushrooms, which is the last thing found in her stomach in the autopsy. And they kill her.

The theory goes that day, all three of them were in the car headed to the vacation home. Rosario's driving, Asante is seen in the passenger seat, and Alfonso is laying down in the backseat of the car. Alfonso's major defense lied on the fact that he claimed he was home when Asante was killed. And unlike Rosario, who has CCTV footage of her lies, nobody could really debunk Alfonso's story. And you say his phone was off. Yes.

Until a 15-year-old girl comes forward and she claims that she saw Alfonso the day of Asanta's murder. And he was with Asanta. She said she was walking home with her boyfriend when she saw Asanta and her father, Alfonso, from behind waiting to cross the road. The witness knew it was Asanta and her dad because, well, there's not a lot of Chinese girls in town. But also the two of them, they took French class together. She took French class with Asanta. So she knows her.

It's suggested that Asanta and Alfonso were walking to go meet Rosario in her car so they could head to the vacation home together. Now, this was a heavy theory from the prosecutors and the judge. I will say in Spain, the legal process is very confusing. There are judges involved in the pretrial investigations.

They're known as examining judges. So in America, it'd be similar to a detective, like the head lead detective. The problem being that sometimes the pretrial judge that is involved in the investigation and speaks to the defendants is also the judge later on.

So that can pose to be quite difficult. There are mixed feelings about the judge on this case. Some netizens believe, to put it nicely, the judge just wants to be famous. He would go on these big talk shows and talk about Asante's case afterwards. He wrote a book that was kind of about Asante, but not about Asante. It was like a novel. And he said it's not about Asante, but he released it around the time of the hype of Asante's, the virality of the case.

And a lot of netizens believe it's very clear. He does not care for justice. He wants fame and he wants an easy case to get him that fame. How so? Why would netizen think that? He is a very aggressive man. He is not unbiased at all. He went into this case day one believing that the parents were guilty. Now,

I think that he's not a great admirable person. And he is, like I said, a very biased man, in my opinion. I will say the Netflix show does really put the judge in a crazy light, though. I'm sure there might be a lot of truth to it that I wasn't able to uncover, though, because I don't know why else they would do that. I do think that the judge clearly had it out for them since day one. But apparently there's this whole scene in the show, Netflix, where he opens the curtains to let the press photograph Rosario, who's testifying.

And it made her very uncomfortable. But in the real version of events, she tells him, hey, there's people out there taking pictures of me. And he walks over and he actually closes the curtains from what I can tell. So I don't know. Regardless, it's pretty clear he thought that she was guilty from day one, which is not a fair process. The judge even said these two, the parents, are probably the most selfish people I've ever met. The mom is like a spoiled child and the dad thinks he's superior to the rest of the world.

So netizens are really split. Interestingly, many international netizens believe that this case is a gross miscarriage of justice, regardless of the parents' guilt. And a lot of other netizens believe that they killed their kid. Sorry, the judges weren't nice about it. I will say that the trial and investigation was super messy. Confidential, crucial parts of the investigation constantly being leaked to the press. They would just run anything. So regardless of how you feel about the parents, one or the other or both, it was not a clean cut investigation that was done by the books.

Which leads to a lot of netizens not trusting the investigators and coming up with their own theories. I don't particularly have a hill that I would like to stand on, but here are some of the most popular ones, which again, another disclaimer, these are not my theories. I don't have more skin in the game in one or the other. And the thing with theories is...

I think they can be debated. I think they can be talked about and I think they can be true, but I don't think that these would fly in the court of law. Like these are not theories that you would debate in court. It just wouldn't, it wouldn't pass. The theory of inheritance. This starts with a rumor by a family member, the cousin of Rosario's dad.

So Rosario's uncle of sorts, or I guess Asunta's great uncle of sorts, they claim that every single penny that Rosario's parents had, had been given to Asunta and not Rosario. Asunta was the sole inheritor, and the only way for Rosario to cash in on her parents' legacy, all the jewels, property, assets, was for her to kill her own daughter, because then it would go to the next of kin regardless of her will being in place. Which I will say makes a lot of sense, until it gets debunked. A

Apparently there was easy paperwork that shows Rosario and Rosario alone is the sole inheritor for all of her family's assets. Additionally, even if everything was left in Asante's name, she's 12. The person in charge of her estate would have been her guardian, Rosario. I feel like Rosario would have spent the next six years trying to figure out how to drain it from Asante's fund or, I don't know, wait a few years before killing her to make it less suspicious. Not saying Rosario is innocent, I'm just not sure this is the motive.

Others say maybe Rosario didn't kill Assunta for the inheritance because the money never went to Assunta, but she killed Assunta because her parents loved Assunta more than they loved Rosario.

There were rumors that Rosario herself was adopted. She always justified her parents' lukewarm affection for her as being a result of not being a biological kid, but she was their biological kid. So that was also quickly debunked. In addition, it does seem like Rosario was loved and spoiled by her parents as long as she did exactly what they wanted her to do, which leads us to our next theory. Rosario is a serial killer.

Rosario killed her parents and Asunta found out. Now Rosario has to kill her daughter.

In 2011, two people near Rosario died. First, her mom, the one she told psychiatrists she feels like she's in constant competition with. Her mom was a presumably healthy 78-year-old woman, died suddenly in bed. Then seven months later, her dad died suddenly in bed. Now, this was probably really, really rough on Asunta. She is the precious granddaughter. Her grandparents really loved her. They spoiled her. And there is an email from Alfonso to Rosario during the divorce. This email could be something. It could be nothing. But it reads,

I'm not going to lie to you, but I can say to you what happened and what you did is repulsive. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but that's what I feel. And so that's what I want you to know. I don't know if the future will bring us back together or not, but for the time being in the short term and even in the medium term, I don't think that I want to go anywhere near your mother's bedroom.

Some people said this could be about Rosario cheating and perhaps she did it in her mother's bedroom with Manuel. Or some people think maybe he's talking about something else since Rosario's mom was found dead in her bed. And the only reason he's not turning her in is because he's getting money. Another email from Alfonso to Rosario reads, I have all your most intimate secrets and one of these days I will make them public.

Again, could be about her dislikes in bed or her likes in bed, or it could be about murder. Asunta had a WordPress, a blog. There's not much on there except one creepy short story, and some netizens believe it's about her grandparents. The short story by Asunta reads, and this was posted September 2012, exactly a year before she was killed, about a few months after her grandfather died.

Once upon a time, there was a happy family. A man, a woman, and a son. One day, the woman was assassinated. The man had to take retaliation on the person who killed his wife, but he died as well, because he tried to take retaliation. But the bad man killed John, the husband. His body is in Alameda Park, and his spirit too. He hopes his wife's spirit can come to him. Every day, he sits on the branches.

And people said Asante has a tendency to tell stories about her own life, pretending like it happened to somebody else. Remember how she told her friend about the masked man incident? Some netizens speculate, is she doing that here? Then we have the next theory. And again, these theories are not mutually exclusive. The truth could really be a mixture of all these theories. We don't know. Is that Alfonso is a pedophile?

He was drugging Asanta with lorazepam or other drugs to take pictures of her unconscious or to abuse her in other ways. Slowly, she starts gaining memories of these assaults and he decides he has to kill her before she connects the dots or decides to do something about it. Because remember, she kept saying, nobody tells me the truth. Maybe she suspected, hey, am I getting drugged and is something happening to me at night when I'm getting drugged? Maybe she kept those photos as evidence in her phone.

There's a lot of small things in this theory. Her ballet teacher testified that she had lent a son to a ballet costume for a performance and she never got the skirt back. She got everything back but the skirt. She tried to email Alfonso, the dad, but he was just very rude and saying the skirt is not missing. He refused to give the skirt back, which again, maybe it's nothing. And it's just the weird that Alfonso would make comments to the police three hours after his daughter goes missing that she was probably dead, but he could only hope that she wasn't essayed. It's like he's trying to plant a seed.

Additionally, they found Alfonso's DNA in Asante's underwear. It was not his biological fluid, thank God, but it was another unidentified DNA marker, meaning it could have been his DNA when he was folding and putting away laundry. But we don't know, especially because Asante kept all of her underwear and clothes at her mom's place.

Of course, the search history and Facebook friends of Alfonso does not help with him having all these Asian women as friends. Apparently, when investigators searched his home, they also found large amounts of semen all over the floor, on his underwear, on his shorts, on his walls. He had a penchant for furiously self-pleasuring himself, which again is not a crime. But the night before, it's stated that Asante slept over at her dad's place.

Now we don't know when that was from, but it's just right. Not a crime in and of itself, unless he was doing something illegal or looking at illegal material, but still very creepy. Now I do want to say that the book states

like a quick sentence that Alfonso was confirmed to have watched explicit material involving children, the essay of children. I couldn't find it explicitly stated in other sources. So I'm not sure. I guess, you know, we don't know. Now there's two versions of this theory. One where Rosario didn't know until Asento was dead that Alfonso killed her.

or that Rosario knew that Alfonso was essaying their daughter and now Asante is realizing the truth and she believed the only way that they could continue to live on as wealthy privileged people with their image is to kill Asante. They have to kill Asante together because she knows that her dad is doing this. The theory rests on the idea that Rosario would rather have a dead daughter than an ex-husband that assaulted their daughter.

One thing that confirms this theory a bit is in the jailhouse cell conversations, Rosario keeps asking, do people support us, Alfonso? It seems like she cares a lot about what other people think. And the whole thing with the interviews and the way that she talks about Asante's achievements, it just seems like she's very obsessed with her image, even though everybody knows she's just not well. She also has a victim mentality where she asked, what could I have done for life to be so hard to me? In prison.

Rosario would defend Alfonso and state that whoever has a problem with the ballet pictures, me, honestly, she said, you guys are the problem. You are the ones with the dirty mind. But she uses that same word. Dirty. Dirty mind. Dirty imagination. Dirty mind.

But I do want to disclaim there is no outright razor sharp evidence that he did physically essay her, at least not that we could find. I personally think it's very suspicious and I would not feel comfortable with any adult doing that to any child.

The next theory is Alfonso's great revenge. Rosario doesn't know what's going on in this theory. She's innocent or more innocent than other ones. Some netizens point to jailhouse conversations where Rosario seems genuinely distraught, confused, chaotic, and Alfonso just seems calm. Rosario's crying and take this with a grain of salt because at this point, they both state that they believe they're being recorded. So this could be all show. But she screams, I can't live without her. I just got better for her, Alfonso.

I know, calm down, calm down, calm down. And I thought I could, shh. I thought I was hurting her feelings, you know, seeing a mother being so useless, so Brooklyn, but I just couldn't cope with so many of the things.

indicating that Rosario truly cared for Asanta and Alfonso knew the best way to hurt her was to hurt Asanta. Another point netizens bring up is in the jailhouse calls. There is a part where Rosario asks Alfonso if he went out at all. Netizens argue she could be doing this to make them both look innocent, but she does seem very serious. Let me ask you something, Alfonso. You didn't go out the whole afternoon? No, not at all. You have my word of honor. I didn't go out. Are you sure?

You have my word of honor. And I know that Asanta wrote a strange poem about Rosario, but she also wrote other ones. One is just titled Charo, which is an abbreviation of Rosario. And it reads, my mom is called Charo 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 there are a lot of plot holes to this one, like all the other shady stuff Rosario did and just the fact that Rosario must have known that Asanta was being drugged, no? Her teacher straight up told her about it. Then we have the next theory. Rosario has a mental break and Alfonso is guilty of pedophilia. So they just kind of support each other and they don't rat each other out.

Rosario has a mental breakdown, snaps, kills Asanta without much premeditation. But that doesn't explain the three months of her being drugged. So that's when Alfonso comes in. He's been drugging Asanta for the past three months because she keeps remembering things about previous assaults, perhaps. And Rosario ends up killing Asanta because she is overwhelmed. And Alfonso can do nothing once he's arrested because the truth is he did something worse than murder, which...

which is allegedly, routinely, methodically, essay his daughter. Now, Asanta did write a poem once, and it reads, her smile is brilliant as the sun, her mouth deep and beautiful. She loved the light green and white cabbage, and also bright white cocaine. So this is about a woman who is struggling with cocaine addiction, and Asanta is 12, so people believe perhaps her mom was struggling with more than just cocaine.

You know, anxiety. But it's not a perfect theory for a lot of other reasons. Then we get into the next theory. The parents wanted to drug Asanta to make her easier to handle, but they accidentally overdosed her on drugs. And now they have to appear like a stranger killed her, which would explain the orange court. The orange court is a very strange part of this story because it was used to tie Asanta up, but then it's cut and placed next to her body in the woods. What?

Why? Who goes the extra mile of cutting it? Because that's more DNA you could leave. That's more evidence you could leave. And if you cut it, why wouldn't you just take it with you? It's just very bizarre. So maybe they're trying to make the crime scene look like a bizarre murder. So it's an accidental overdose, but they try to make it look like a murder. So they do all these bizarre things like with the Orange Court, but it just feels...

feels really dumb and careless because why would they leave the same orange cord in the vacation home restroom also the thing with this theory is that it could be argued that asanta is 12 and known to be very responsible i don't think that even if she was left home alone she would do all these crazy things it's not like she's five and could accidentally burn the house down some

Some people think that maybe they were drugging her so that Rosario could go hang out with her Mr. Manuel Garcia. But others argue it wasn't necessary to keep Asanta asleep while her parents were out. Because, I mean, there's so much evidence of Rosario going on week-long business trips with Manuel. It doesn't seem like she needed to drug Asanta to keep her calm so that she could go hang out with her man.

Additionally, the autopsy states that she did not just overdose, she was asphyxiated. And 27 is a lot for an accidental overdose. So the next theory is that strangers killed Asanta. Alfonso said the orange twine was used by the gardeners of the property, trying to open the door for somebody else being involved. Now, side note, they are unable to say if that orange cord from the bathroom is the same orange cord that was found near Asanta. There is the possibility that it is. The chemical composition is the same, but they can't match like the thread fibers of where it was cut.

And it's a pretty common cord that's used in Spain. So they don't really know. But the whole theory with strangers doing this, there's no motive. And the lorazepam for the past three months doesn't make any sense.

Then we have the last theory: the parents are innocent. This is probably the least favored theory, but Rosario's psychiatrist believes memory gaps, aka changes in her story to the police, are most likely from her dependence on lorazepam. They showed studies that prove long-term high dosage of lorazepam can lead to amnesia and confusion, and the stress of her missing daughter likely added to it all. As for the photos, some people believe that it's just an unflattering photo of Asanta in the ballet costume.

They say that she's just exhausted after a recital. She's not drugged. Her parents wanted to take a picture of her and she didn't want to. So she's being a grumpy teenager and she just looks at the camera annoyed. One comment about Alfonso's explicit video choices read, the dad's dirty secret was he was into porn, particularly Asian videos. Again, not that weird, nothing to be proud of, but it's not murderous. But what about...

the three months of drugs? What about the weird break-ins and the lies? Just all of it. So their theory rests on that the drugs that Assunta is 12 and she seems to be writing about cocaine usage. Perhaps she was drugging herself and getting into her mother's lorazepam. I don't like this theory for the sole purpose of then explain why Alfonso was purchasing so much lorazepam right before her death. Yeah.

Like the coincidence doesn't make sense. And if you are a parent and Rosario is losing her mind and she's like, I don't know where my lorazepam is going. You have a kid. I'm not going to go and get more lorazepam. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to try to investigate who is taking this lorazepam. Where is this lorazepam going? I'd put it under lock and key. Wait, did they explain themselves? They said, we don't know what that's about.

We never gave her lorazepam. That's what they said. Oh, okay. So then, okay, that just make them sound more sus because they would have say, oh no, I think she took it. Cause you know, I bought all of those and it keep going missing. So I think she like. That would be a better, I agree. And then with the whole break-in thing, people are saying their biggest fault is they care too much about what people think about them.

That's insane. Yeah, I think that's bizarre. That's against human behavior. Someone broke into your house and you're like, oh, let's not let people find out. None of our Spanish researchers told us any cultural context of that being a weird thing. Yeah. So maybe they are innocent of murder just because I never say never, right? But one netizen comment reads, hard to say based on the available evidence, but the fact that they drugged the child was irrefutable and that alone was appalling enough for them to deserve the sentence that they got.

What sentence did they get though? Oh, we're gonna get there. All the theories get very confusing and messy, made even more confusing by the fact that October 30th, 2015, the court found the parents guilty and sentenced them to 18 years in prison. So in Spain at the time, you could not get more than I believe 20 years because it was inhumane. But now they've extended it. You are going to get life for killing a child.

Oh wow. Both tried to appeal their convictions, which was overturned. And then November 18th, 2020, one of them was found dead in their cell. Rosario was found with a fabric belt around her neck. She was unresponsive and this was her third attempt. Some netizens believe it was genuine remorse or guilt that killed her for what she did or didn't do. Other netizens say it's just that she was unable to live with the consequences of her own actions.

So this whole case, I mean, there's just so many unanswered questions aside from the obvious ones, right? There are also the small random questions of where did her shoes go? Why was she found barefoot? If all of her shoes are accounted for in the house, then wouldn't that answer something? Why would they keep a safe in a 12-year-old girl's room?

Because they were like, they broke in to get the safe in Asanta's room July 4th. Why are they drugging her? Why did Rosario get an obituary for Asanta every single year on the anniversary of her death? Is it genuine sadness over her daughter or is it narcissism?

It read, "Acenta Yong Fang, in memoriam. I will always love you. Mom." Meanwhile, Alfonso is still in prison defending his innocence. He said to a former colleague and reporter a friend of his, "What was really hard, what was torture, was losing Ascenta. You can put up with everything else I tell you. I get by. Of course, I'd prefer to be free on the outside, but it's not so bad. Lots of things have happened and I have suffered.

You know, people are disgusting, like all those repulsive people who gathered in the street to call me a murderer. I can't even stand to think of it. Those people and others who are on television and the media talking about me as if they knew me well, as if they knew something about my life, they don't have the slightest idea. It is madness. He later said this before Rosario died. When I regain my freedom, I have the firm intention of disappearing. No one will ever hear from me again, not even Rosario.

I have only one reason to stay alive, which is none other than to be a free man again and reunite with my little girl. Never before. In fact, I've already thought about how and where. I just don't know when, but everything comes eventually.

insinuating he's going to self-exit to join Asante. After Rosario was found dead, he wrote to his plans to die as well so he could be next to his little bird Rosario, whom he loved so much. Alfonso is due to be released in 2033, but he is eligible to leave prison for a few hours a day for work and personal appointments starting in 2025.

I don't think he's going to get approved, but we'll see. Adoptions from China have gotten much more regulated, much more intense, and for a while, China did not let many families from Spain adopt after the Asante case. Whether it's a coincidence or not, it just seems like the number's really depleted.

Wow. After Asanta's death, there were a lot of talks in the media about her being this prodigy child, this genius, a kid that could have grown up to save the world one day. And the author of the book asked one of the teachers very quietly and very politely, is it true or are they exaggerating it after her death because, you know, everyone lights up the room once they're gone? And the teacher smiled at him and said...

It's all true. She really was an incredible girl. And that is the case of Asunda. Let me know your thoughts. Did you watch the Netflix documentary? Because I feel like they went into maybe two of the popular theories. There's like 50 theories. There's so many theories.

What are your thoughts? What do you think makes the most sense? And do you think it matters how corrupt maybe the judge and the prosecutors were versus how guilty the parents seem? Is there a correlation? Does that mean they should get a retrial? Or do you think, no, like it's so clear they're guilty, it doesn't matter regardless? Let me know your thoughts and be safe. And I will see you guys in the next one. Bye.