Rotten Mango - #362: Genius Adopted Girl From China Found Dead - STRANGE Photos Found In Rich Parent’s Phone

Episode Date: May 30, 2024

It was supposed to be a cute little road trip.  12-year-old Isabella, her best friend Asunta, and Isabella’s mom were in the car heading towards the beach.  Isabella’s mom tried to keep the spir...its high for the girls -  “Okay, why don’t we all share a story! Get our creative juices flowing!” 12-year-old Asunta offers to start. Her voice suddenly shaky -  “There once was a girl who laid in her bed to sleep. She awoke to a man in a mask dragging her body off her bed, covering her mouth, and then choking her with his big strong hands. The girl could not breathe. She could not scream. She was going to die.” Isabella’s mom pulls the car over to the side of the road because Asunta is bawling her eyes out. “Sweetie, are you alright?” Asunta was not alright. This was a true story, and it happened to Asunta - a man broke into their home and tried to kill her.  But when Isabella’s mom talks to Asunta’s parents about it - she’s even more confused. Why are they not freaked out? Why didn’t they report this to the police? Who is this masked man, and is he still out there? Why would he want to kill Asunta? And did the man come back? Because 2 months later, Asunta would be murdered.  Soon - everyone in Asunta’s life would become a prime suspect. Including her wealthy adoptive parents.  Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 It was supposed to be a cute little road trip. Isabella and 12 year old Asantara in the back seat. Isabella's mom is driving and they're gonna 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!
Starting point is 00:00:21 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 Asenta 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 neighbors noisy dog was quiet. There was this man
Starting point is 00:00:52 he was wearing all black in 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 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?
Starting point is 00:01:25 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. Oh my god, I'm so sorry Rosario.
Starting point is 00:01:44 Did you go to the police? Did they find the masked man? 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 Asenta'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
Starting point is 00:02:10 the masked man would try again to kill 12 year old Asanta and this time they would succeed and every single person in Asanta'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. We would like to thank today's sponsors who have made it possible for Rotten Mango to support the Palestine Children's Relief Fund. They are volunteer based and provide free medical care and humanitarian aid to thousands
Starting point is 00:03:01 of injured and ill children in the Middle East. This episode's partnerships have also made it possible to support Rotten Mango's growing team of dedicated researchers and translators. We would also like to thank our listeners for your continued support as we work on our mission to be worthy advocates of these causes. As always, full show notes are available at rottenmangopodcast.com. Now a quick few disclaimers for today's case. There will be mentions of CP as well as CA and CSA.
Starting point is 00:03:25 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 ebook, but it was an invaluable source for today's episode. He's a journalist, boots on the ground, following the story.
Starting point is 00:03:51 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 and any of the sources in this case. I also do wanna mention that there is a Netflix show on this that was not our primary source though I did watch it
Starting point is 00:04:10 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 spending so much time in this
Starting point is 00:04:42 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 ballet teacher, is telling Asunta. Her hips are just not of that of professional dancer. It's not something that you did wrong, Asunta.
Starting point is 00:05:11 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. Gail would have understood if 12-year-old Asenta stopped showing up for class, but she genuinely just really liked ballet, and for that, Gail felt a little bit protective over her. Things were really really rough for Asenta recently, so two years ago, both of Asenta's grandparents, they died. Seven months apart from each other.
Starting point is 00:05:43 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.
Starting point is 00:06:08 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 Asenta is walking in through the door to class. Hey, are you feeling OK?
Starting point is 00:06:21 I heard you had hay fever yesterday. Asenta looks out of it. She looks sleepy. What? 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
Starting point is 00:06:40 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. Innocent his grandma, so Rosario's mom, she was a member of the most well-known attorneys in the area and Asunta'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
Starting point is 00:07:15 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 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
Starting point is 00:07:54 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 was an essay 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 was an essayed too? 12 years ago, June 2001, Rosario, the successful attorney,
Starting point is 00:08:32 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. Larazepam. This is the most nerve-wrecking plane ride that they've ever had to sit through.
Starting point is 00:08:48 What if I'm not gonna 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? 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 they're 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.
Starting point is 00:09:25 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
Starting point is 00:09:48 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 2-3 weeks. Really? Yeah. It was pretty relaxed. Back in the days? 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. Really?
Starting point is 00:10:18 Because of the one-child policy in China at the time. 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, or their signs? They walk into a room full of kids and from the very first
Starting point is 00:10:45 contact Rosario falls in love with a tiny underweight small frail looking nine-year-old baby. Her name is Fang Yang. She was born September 30th, 2000 in the Hunan 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 Feng Yang, and by the time that the three of them were boarding the flight back to Spain, Feng Yang's paperwork would read Asunta Feng 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,
Starting point is 00:11:25 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
Starting point is 00:11:50 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
Starting point is 00:12:12 her 13th birthday. September 22nd 2013 early hours around maybe 1 15 a.m a few hours after Asunta 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 a.m., it's a dirt track.
Starting point is 00:12:48 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,
Starting point is 00:13:04 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.
Starting point is 00:13:32 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
Starting point is 00:13:45 and all the hairs on their next 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
Starting point is 00:14:17 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've been cut up. It looked like they had been used to tie the girls 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 a pulse nothing The 12 year old girl is dead
Starting point is 00:14:54 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 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.
Starting point is 00:15:19 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
Starting point is 00:15:45 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.
Starting point is 00:16:03 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.
Starting point is 00:16:24 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 Assunta 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 shedle. 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
Starting point is 00:16:58 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 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 swaddled so tight in this blanket that she 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 she's someone swaddled her in a blanket? Just almost burritoed her in this blanket. And these are pictures that were taken months,
Starting point is 00:17:32 perhaps even 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 So somebody took it with her phone? Yes. And somebody
Starting point is 00:17:46 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
Starting point is 00:18:22 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, 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,
Starting point is 00:18:47 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
Starting point is 00:19:13 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.
Starting point is 00:19:39 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,
Starting point is 00:19:58 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 wanna miss a single second of it. She runs back first. It's still bright outside, it's a two minute walk.
Starting point is 00:20:13 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.
Starting point is 00:20:38 They're gonna 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 gonna run in right now, grab that, maybe do a few small errands. I mean, it's gonna be fine, it's gonna be super quick.
Starting point is 00:21:13 Asenta wants to stay home and do homework anyway. Is it the smartest thing to do? Probably not, but Asenta is responsible and she's home and she's gonna 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 Asenta is gone. I mean this is just so unlike her she's very disciplined very followed 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 Asenta went back to her dad's for whatever reason? She calls Afonso and he tells her he has not
Starting point is 00:21:49 heard from Asenta 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
Starting point is 00:22:14 or, but does it really matter now? Asunta is missing and they need to find her. Time is of the essence. The investigators, they wanna go search both the parents' places. They wanna go look for clues, search the streets for Asunta. But just before they head out, Alfonso the dad turns to Rosario.
Starting point is 00:22:29 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
Starting point is 00:22:51 I went in to disconnect the alarm and I went running in to disconnect it. She's gotta go in, turn off the alarm before, you know, within a certain number of seconds, otherwise it's gonna start ringing. She rushes in, Asenta 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
Starting point is 00:23:21 summer courses. One for violin, one for singing, and one for, um, I don't remember, it was, um, the trio at the high school for music studies or something? Well, different things, like the piano, the violin, uh, we both went to bed that night. Unlike 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? Precisely. Neither of them noticed. They just went about their nights. Asunta went to her room to sleep, and Rosario went to lay down, and she's
Starting point is 00:24:00 messaging her friends on WhatsApp. She sends a message at 1.50am, 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. Rosario has her phone in her hand when she slowly falls asleep, drifts away, and then maybe 2.30am? Maybe it was closer to 3? 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.
Starting point is 00:24:31 At around maybe half past 2 or 3 o'clock, I heard Asunta 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.
Starting point is 00:25:05 What Asunta 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,
Starting point is 00:25:24 she runs into Asunta's room, Asanta is on the floor, and there is a man bent over hands around her neck. When the man realizes that Asanta's 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.
Starting point is 00:25:57 I thought about calling a friend, but it was 3 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. Cause 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,
Starting point is 00:26:27 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
Starting point is 00:26:48 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
Starting point is 00:27:10 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. The friend texts, call? Please yes, if not I can't trust you. They tried to kill you? Shh tomorrow. I have free calls But Asenta never called her friend and her friend never mentioned it again Rosario never even brought it up until Asenta had the incident in the car with her friend Isabella and Isabella's mom That's when Rosario went to report the incident to the police No, but she told the police 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
Starting point is 00:27:51 Probably remembered the layout and knew that there was a safe in Asunta's room Alfonso- 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 Asenta 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,
Starting point is 00:28:16 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 Rosaria 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.
Starting point is 00:28:47 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,
Starting point is 00:29:04 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.
Starting point is 00:29:27 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 I
Starting point is 00:29:53 Used to think that the Sun was giving me headaches because every summer I would go out there and I would have this brain Fog and fatigue and for a while I would even avoid going outside thinking I just am NOT meant for this hot weather But then I read somewhere that feeling sluggish and foggy were actually symptoms of being dehydrated which didn't make sense to me at all because I drink a lot of water but then I learned that just plain water does not actually hydrate you that much you need to drink water with electrolytes so that the water can actually be absorbed that's why you'll always see me with my liquid IV one stick of liquid IV has three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink plus eight vitamins and nutrients
Starting point is 00:30:30 So it's gonna hydrate you much better and faster than water alone I never feel sluggish after going outside anymore because I always carry a few sticks of liquid IV in my purse wherever I go It just really helps with my mental clarity, especially during hot summer months and Honestly drinking liquidy is very satisfying They make the most delicious flavors. My favorite is the white peach and I love it so much that I've actually run out of it I think earlier to- no last night I ran out of it. This one is the lemon lime, which is slowly becoming my favorite because of just how crisp it is, especially when you get cold water and you put this in there nothing beats this flavor during a hot summer month
Starting point is 00:31:08 I don't know how else to explain it it's sweet, it's refreshing, but it's not that nasty sweetness that slows you down and pro tip, I like to mix it in with my water and then stick it in the fridge for a few minutes even though my water is already cold, I like to stick it in the fridge and something about the glass being chilled is optimal. It is the perfect summer taste. There's no sugar, no artificial sweeteners, but they still taste so good because Liquid IV formulates them with a proprietary alulose blend. Somehow it tastes like it's made with real sugar, but it's like having a dessert.
Starting point is 00:31:40 I mean, there's a reason Liquid IV is the number one powdered hydration brand in America. So if you're like me and you get fatigue in the summer months You might just be dehydrated and instead of chugging a gallon of water a day try liquid IV Turn your ordinary water into extraordinary hydration with liquid IV get 20% off your first order of liquid IV when you go to liquid IV .com and use code rotten at checkout That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code ROTEN at liquidiv.com This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
Starting point is 00:32:10 Please tell me I'm not the only person who feels like 2024 is going by way too fast. It's almost June, but I swear last month was February and I just feel like 2024 just started. I mean, this is a genuine problem because it happens every summer where I start getting anxiety about how fast time is passing and I wonder if I'm even doing enough, if I'm accomplishing my goals but this year I decided to do something about it and I was like, okay listen therapist, I need your advice
Starting point is 00:32:33 I've been going to therapy for years but I feel like this year I made even more breakthroughs My therapist is helping me learn how to make time to celebrate my wins set realistic goals so that I can stop feeling like life is always flying by me, and there's a stigma that therapy isn't for everyone, but it really is for everyone. Even something like not setting aside enough time for yourself can be addressed in therapy. Whenever I'm done with the therapy session, I feel like I have a fresh perspective on my problem and often I realize it's never as bad as it seems. I'm working on managing my time and expectations so I can finally stop feeling like life is out of control. If you're thinking of trying therapy, I
Starting point is 00:33:08 highly recommend using BetterHelp because it's so convenient. You can do everything online from filling out a brief questionnaire to setting up a session with a licensed therapist. You can also switch therapists at any point for no additional cost. If you feel like your current therapist isn't the right fit for you, it can take some time to truly find the right professional, but it is worth it in the long run. Take a moment, visit betterhelp.com slash rotten today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash rotten. Before Asanta went missing, there was really nothing in her life that seemed even slightly
Starting point is 00:33:47 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
Starting point is 00:34:09 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.
Starting point is 00:34:33 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 Asunta'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,
Starting point is 00:35:09 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. Skip to grade, that's apparently not Asunta's doing at all. Everyone's like, wow, Rosario did this, okay? She deserves praise We had the entire apartment soundproofed so that Asenta can play violin and piano without disturbing anyone
Starting point is 00:35:32 Isn't that right, Asenta? Asenta'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 Ascenta 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
Starting point is 00:35:56 and on the weekends, she wakes up at 7am she's got Chinese lessons from 8 to 10am 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 into lunchtime and then afterwards she does private piano. My daughter really has the hands of a pianist, if you've seen, she really does.
Starting point is 00:36:17 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. Oh. And Asunta just snaps. She's like, well, I only do one of them because you like it. And the whole room goes silent.
Starting point is 00:36:36 How old was she? She's 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
Starting point is 00:37:00 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 Asanta 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 Asanta 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.
Starting point is 00:37:31 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, nonsense. And where was she? Did she write that? In her little journal. Woah. 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 Asanta is even in the
Starting point is 00:37:55 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 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
Starting point is 00:38:30 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.
Starting point is 00:38:50 Rosario would state that her mother was charmingly awful, and the psychiatrist would note that whenever a centa, 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.
Starting point is 00:39:26 And now September 22nd, 2013, after Asenta'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 Asenta's mom said that she went to go pick up the swimsuits. And it's also only two and a half miles from where Ascenta's
Starting point is 00:39:45 Body is found where Ascenta 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 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,
Starting point is 00:40:14 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.
Starting point is 00:40:33 Orange cord, like the one found near Asanta'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 but even more alarming than that was a sentence 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
Starting point is 00:41:14 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. But like that amount of not as high, but pretty bad. 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,
Starting point is 00:41:47 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 Ascenta was drugged and then smothered, which who is giving a 12 year old that much
Starting point is 00:42:06 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 US Ascenta did not have a prescription for, 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
Starting point is 00:42:34 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 Asunta's body is found, police start pulling CCTV footage from local businesses to see if they can somehow track Asunta'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
Starting point is 00:43:07 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, Asenta. Remember, Asenta's supposed to be at home doing her homework.
Starting point is 00:43:33 Rosario went to the vacation home alone, so she claims, which is why it's surprising that Asenta'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's 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.
Starting point is 00:43:55 But she can explain all of this. Asenta wanted to go to the country home with her mom initially. But once they got to the vacation home, Asenta didn't even want to go inside She just wanted to stay in the car and Rosario said Asunta starts feeling ill to the point where she keeps insisting that her mom You 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?
Starting point is 00:44:41 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 her 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,
Starting point is 00:45:05 she drops Asunta 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 in her car, drives all the way back to the store to buy something
Starting point is 00:45:25 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 like it's too late to go to the store and buy the Pilates ball So I'm not gonna go instead she decides she's gonna 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. I don't have my discount card for the gas So I'm not gonna pump gas if I don't need a pump gas if I can't even get a discount card for it
Starting point is 00:46:02 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
Starting point is 00:46:36 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 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.
Starting point is 00:47:02 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.
Starting point is 00:47:22 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
Starting point is 00:47:57 Let me tell you something if someone breaks into her house. I'm asked man. I would know okay I remember hearing them scream that night, Asanta 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,
Starting point is 00:48:17 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
Starting point is 00:48:35 The police took this as is either the attacker is someone that is already inside the apartment Which is unlikely since Rosario and Asanta saw a third person Or the attack never happened, which is also unlikely because Asanta 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 Asanta 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 Asanta.
Starting point is 00:49:14 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 Asanta'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?
Starting point is 00:49:51 That's exactly what Alfonso, Asunta's dad is doing, going through his wife's emails. I mean, he knows what he's gonna find in there, right? He knows what he's gonna 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 not just
Starting point is 00:50:11 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.
Starting point is 00:50:53 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 gonna 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 country's site to clear his mind. He only came back three weeks later for Asunta, for their kid. Rosario says, no, he kicked a freaking hole in the door, got physically
Starting point is 00:51:29 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 uh 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
Starting point is 00:52:08 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 infections 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
Starting point is 00:52:33 he has this air of superiority about him. He had a perpetually-pinched nose and 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, anti-social, 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
Starting point is 00:53:19 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 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 Asunta and see her 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.
Starting point is 00:53:46 Asenta 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
Starting point is 00:54:12 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
Starting point is 00:54:46 Get rid of their only shared connection Asanta Rosario did tell psychiatrist that she was overwhelmed by Asanta She was in the process of renovating another apartment People speculate that she was hoping that her lover Emmanuel 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 gonna help you with Asunta and taking care of Asunta unless you break up with him
Starting point is 00:55:20 So she breaks up with him. They're not even... they're divorced at this point. That night, Asanta 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 Asanta was missing? And dies. Right. And the day that she went to her vacation home? Yes.
Starting point is 00:55:46 The earlier that day, she spent a good chunk before lunch, spending time on the boat. And then that same night Asenta was killed. Is it just a coincidence that every time she has maybe these deep conversations with her mister, Asenta 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 gonna leave his family for her.
Starting point is 00:56:08 It doesn't matter if Rosario is married, divorced with a child, without a child, he's gonna stick with his family. If anything, having Asenta killed and being the center focus of the town is only gonna 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 going to 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.
Starting point is 00:56:50 Second of all, another dispute is there really is no tie between Alfonso and Asanta. 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 Asanta, to send her to study abroad, to do whatever she wants with Asanta. This is not a situation where she needs a Fonzo to take care of Asanta 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 Asanta had possible semen on her shirt
Starting point is 00:57:23 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 the semen 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 Asanta 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 Asanta the person whose DNA was found on Asanta even more bizarre a man named Ramiro it's our first time
Starting point is 00:58:03 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 a Santa 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 Asenta. Now this is where things get weird. Police show up to his house in Madrid to question him.
Starting point is 00:58:32 Romero 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 essay 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 Asante doesn't make sense. He doesn't
Starting point is 00:58:50 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.
Starting point is 00:59:12 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 Asanta. So the theory would be that he drove six hours to Galicia with the intent of kidnapping a little girl,
Starting point is 00:59:36 either broke into Rosario's place without leaving a trace, or kidnapped Asanta and brought 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 Asanta? 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 Asenta's shirt. What about the semen stand? That's another debate. We don't even
Starting point is 01:00:13 know if they are semen now. They looked liquidy, they looked like semen, and when they cut it, they found traces of semen. So they're 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? Right? It's just very bizarre.
Starting point is 01:00:50 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 Asanta 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?
Starting point is 01:01:17 All the tiny little things add up. The parents were asked to provide a physical description when they reported Asanta missing. They said, Asanta 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 Asunta's body, mind you, this is just a few hours after she had been reported missing.
Starting point is 01:01:40 It's not like she had been gone for weeks or even a day. They opened the door to the apartment. Rosaria 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.
Starting point is 01:02:13 And if they do, can they at least not name Rosario and Alfonso? But the newspaper's 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 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. Wait, the second day this is national news? Yeah. Really?
Starting point is 01:02:37 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 texts 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 essayed before she died. He said that he said that and now
Starting point is 01:03:11 When did he say that exactly before they found the body a couple hours? Yeah I don't know. She's been missing for like two hours and he is like, I think she's dead, but I hope she wasn't essayed And the police are like that is weird. You're not your daughter 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 people parents thinking right that's opposite of what? People think people think he was trying to plant seeds What do you mean?
Starting point is 01:03:46 Like if she was essayed, if there were signs of essay, that the police were like, oh wow, whoever killed her must have essayed 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
Starting point is 01:04:13 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 Asunta'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 is arrested for Asenta's murder,
Starting point is 01:04:40 Alfonso sends her another text message on WhatsApp. She doesn't read it because she's in jail, but it reads, I love you. as murder, Alfonso sends her another text message on WhatsApp. She doesn't read it, cause she's in jail, but it reads, I love you. I've been thinking of you all day. More than anything else, I'll never forget that you are the love of my life. Keep calm, everything will work out, and soon we'll be back together again. I'll be waiting for you, my beloved.
Starting point is 01:05:01 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
Starting point is 01:05:33 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
Starting point is 01:06:11 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
Starting point is 01:06:42 suddenly has anxiety attacks and gets a prescription for lor 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
Starting point is 01:07:05 hey I just picked up lorazepam, a controlled substance, but I just lost it. I'm gonna 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.
Starting point is 01:07:22 In Spain, it was a bit more common at the time. Oh, that's his method? That's how he's illegally getting it. 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.
Starting point is 01:07:40 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 Asanta 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 Asanta'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
Starting point is 01:08:15 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
Starting point is 01:08:40 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, Asanta's teachers never really knew what they were going to get with her, whether it was going to be the real Asanta or somebody else. July 9th, 2013, Asanta's violin teacher, Alina, says Asanta is stumbling in, and Alfonso, the dad, is following in after her. Oh, sir, is your daughter alright? She's drugged.
Starting point is 01:09:08 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 Asanta 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
Starting point is 01:09:25 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 Asanta are you alright? yes Alina just stares because Asanta is making weird gestures with her hands like her motor skills seem off everything seems off when the class is finally over Rosario Asanta's mom comes to pick her up and Alina rushes out to
Starting point is 01:10:01 tell the mom and she's trying to explain to Rosario how strange Asanta 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.
Starting point is 01:10:26 Yes. Right? In front of everyone. Yeah. They don't hide it. And the next day, Asenta 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 Asenta is just… She's fine, right? And Asenta's so clever. she's very mature and curious, she wants to know everything, she's never distracted,
Starting point is 01:10:48 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, Asenta is practically falling asleep in class and she can't keep up.
Starting point is 01:11:04 Again, not a normal thing. Asenta, 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. Whoa. 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 gonna sell property to make 3 million dollars and that Alfonso
Starting point is 01:11:43 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 Asanta 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 Asunta had been off in these moments but she wouldn't see it until later in July, near the end of July Asunta walks into her class and she looks like she's gonna faint her eyes are barely open and during the class break, Maria goes over to the other teachers
Starting point is 01:12:19 I think something's going on with Asunta 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
Starting point is 01:12:51 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 Asanta and she's forgetting keys. It's like she can't control her muscle movements. She's getting everything wrong. Her posture is strange. Asanta has been taking ballet since she's six. One of the most noticeable effects is that she has incredible posture.
Starting point is 01:13:18 But she's slouching. She's slumped. She looks like she's about to faint. Okay, stop class. Asanta, did you eat breakfast? I don't remember. You don't remember. Every word Asanta 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 Asanta into the teacher's lounge and now all the teachers are standing around Asanta who's slumped
Starting point is 01:13:42 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. Oh, wow. That day, Alfonso comes to pick up a Santa,
Starting point is 01:14:04 and Maria's 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 do not give her antihistamines. Wait, what? 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? What is he? None of this is making any sense anymore and it feels like the parents are ever changing
Starting point is 01:14:36 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 Asenta 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 Asenta would come to class completely normal
Starting point is 01:15:03 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 Asante 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
Starting point is 01:15:37 moves a few minutes away. Alfonso is 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 Asunta'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,
Starting point is 01:16:18 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
Starting point is 01:16:39 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 headfirst Some netizens came up with this new theory that Alfonso knew Rosario was not all there at this point
Starting point is 01:17:14 She's mentally very frail forgetful can easily be framed for murder So that's what he does. He gone girls Rosario the orange cord in the bathroom was just so suspicious Why would someone leave it there? Also how would she know the cord is there to begin with? But additionally, most teachers believe that Asanta was always acting strangest when she stayed over at her dad's. The next day, she would always seem drugged. Did Alfonso kill Asanta, 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
Starting point is 01:17:52 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 gonna 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
Starting point is 01:18:31 Her story is never adding up. It's ever changing even the masked man's 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 Asanta 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?
Starting point is 01:19:07 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 asanta like and send the rest back it is so easy, it saves me so much time and honestly it makes me feel so much more confident because my stylist will recommend clothes and colors that I never thought to try but when I do they look amazing and I feel like you guys have been commenting on the video so I guess it's working. Some of my staple wardrobe pieces were sent to me by Stitch Fix, like this one, the sweater top It just accentuates my features really well. I think the color looks really good on my skin tone I recommend Stitch Fix if you're trying to find something new, but don't know where to start Shipping returns and exchanges are always free
Starting point is 01:19:56 So you have nothing to lose Style that makes you feel as good as you look Get started today at stitchfix.com slash rotten and get $20 off your first fix That's stitchfix.com slash rotten for $20 off stitchfix.com slash rotten must redeem within seven days of sign up 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 is something crazy is gonna come out of this and 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.
Starting point is 01:20:29 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? 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.
Starting point is 01:20:56 And this was before the trial. And the false transcripts are actually included in the book by Mark Gooskine. 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 mosquitoing this. He's 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.
Starting point is 01:21:30 That's why we have to stay calm, not to worry. Don't worry about anything because everything's gonna work out, okay? 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 wanna go home. Do you know how horrible this is? What? If you could see how horrible this is, I wanna go home. I know, but don't worry, everything's fine. No it isn't!
Starting point is 01:21:55 We'll go home, don't worry. Alfonso the whole time calls her baby, and the words he says are often times 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
Starting point is 01:22:19 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 these 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.
Starting point is 01:22:36 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,
Starting point is 01:22:54 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, 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
Starting point is 01:23:31 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
Starting point is 01:23:49 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 gonna 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 going to 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.
Starting point is 01:24:25 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.
Starting point is 01:24:44 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 a sentiment missing hit his computer and phone conveniently hit 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,
Starting point is 01:25:13 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.
Starting point is 01:25:33 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
Starting point is 01:25:58 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, 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
Starting point is 01:26:25 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
Starting point is 01:27:02 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 a Santa's phone, but it's still weird because somebody else took those pictures Yeah, yeah, no, yeah
Starting point is 01:27:37 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 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.
Starting point is 01:28:17 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 was 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.
Starting point is 01:28:51 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
Starting point is 01:29:34 Drain you of all your resources they just want a pet 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 meds 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.
Starting point is 01:30:00 Now it's time to get rid of her and move on. It's almost like why keep a dog so sad? Right. 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? 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
Starting point is 01:30:36 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 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 wanna come home. She came back home early and just decided to work under her dad.
Starting point is 01:30:57 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?
Starting point is 01:31:17 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 Asanta'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 Asanta does so much better than she ever did as a child.
Starting point is 01:31:36 And another thing to back this up was, Rosario's parents love Asanta. 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
Starting point is 01:32:03 corner and this is a very serious moment, she's caught smiling. 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 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.
Starting point is 01:32:19 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. But if the pain of this terrible loss is not sufficient, I have had to witness in my astonishment ugly fierce and absurd Sensationalism and precisely because of my innocence can only be proven and ratified in court I intend to stay very far away from the mass media. I have no intention of taking part in this media circus
Starting point is 01:32:59 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 narcissists, 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 Asanta as part of her family life
Starting point is 01:33:24 and since she no longer was married to Alfonso, she no longer needed Asanta 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.
Starting point is 01:33:53 If Rosaria 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.
Starting point is 01:34:15 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 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.
Starting point is 01:34:41 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 Ros Rosario who has CCTV footage of her lies, nobody could really debunk Alfonso's story. And you say his phone
Starting point is 01:35:12 was off. Yes. Until a 15 year old girl comes forward and she claims that she saw Alfonso the day of Asante's murder and he was with Asante. 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 suggested that Asanta and Alfonso were walking to go meet Rosario in her car so they could head to the vacation home together.
Starting point is 01:35:45 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.
Starting point is 01:36:10 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 Asunta's case afterwards. He wrote a book that was kind of about Asanta, but not about Asanta. It was like a novel.
Starting point is 01:36:28 And he said it's not about Asanta, but he released it around the time of the hype of Asanta, 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. Others argue. How so? Why would netizens think that? He is a very aggressive man. He is not unbiased at all.
Starting point is 01:36:49 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
Starting point is 01:37:31 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 parent's guilt, and a lot of other netizens believe that they killed their kid.
Starting point is 01:38:01 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.
Starting point is 01:38:26 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. These are not theories that you would debate in court, it just wouldn't pass. The theory of inheritance. This starts with a rumor by a family member, the cousin of Rosario's dad.
Starting point is 01:38:57 So Rosario's uncle of sorts, or I guess Asanta's great uncle of sorts, they claim that every single penny that Rosario's parents had, had been given to Asanta and not Rosario. Asanta 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 debunkeded 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 Asanta's name, she's 12 The person in charge of her estate would have been her guardian Rosario
Starting point is 01:39:38 I feel like Rosario would have spent the next six years trying to figure out how to drain it from Asanta'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 Asanta for the inheritance because the money never went to Asanta, but she killed Asanta because her parents loved Asanta 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
Starting point is 01:40:08 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.
Starting point is 01:40:47 Now, this was probably really really rough on Asanta. She is the precious granddaughter. Her grandparents really loved her, they spoiled her. And there is an email from Alfonso Turrizario during the divorce. This email could be something, it could be nothing. But it reads, I'm not gonna 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
Starting point is 01:41:09 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 Asanta had a WordPress a blog there's not much on there except one
Starting point is 01:41:54 creepy short story and some netizens believe it's about her grandparents the short story by Asanta 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 Asanta
Starting point is 01:42:33 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.
Starting point is 01:42:59 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 Asanta a ballet costume for her performance,
Starting point is 01:43:26 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,
Starting point is 01:43:42 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
Starting point is 01:44:21 he had a penchant for furiously self-pleasuring himself, which again is not a crime. But the night before, it's stated that Asunta 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
Starting point is 01:44:41 or looking at illegal material, but still very creepy. Now I do wanna say that the book states like a quick sentence that alfonso was confirmed to have watch 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 Asanta was dead that Alfonso killed her. Or that Rosario knew that Alfonso was essaying their daughter and now Asanta 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 Asanta.
Starting point is 01:45:18 They have to kill Asanta 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?
Starting point is 01:45:53 In prison. Yeah. 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, 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.
Starting point is 01:46:11 Dirty imagination. Dirty mind. Mmm. But I do want to just claim 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
Starting point is 01:46:48 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 broken,
Starting point is 01:47:02 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.
Starting point is 01:47:35 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.
Starting point is 01:48:04 Mm-hmm. Then we have the next theory. Rosario has a mental 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
Starting point is 01:48:26 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 is allegedly, allegedly routinely methodically essay his daughter now Asante 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
Starting point is 01:49:00 with cocaine addiction and Asante is 12, so people believe perhaps her mom was struggling with more than just, 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
Starting point is 01:49:31 the woods. 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 cord. But it just 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 Asante 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
Starting point is 01:50:07 it's not like she's 5 and could accidentally burn the house down some people think that maybe they were drugging her so that Rosario could go hang out with her mister, 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.
Starting point is 01:50:37 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 larazepam for the
Starting point is 01:51:08 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 larazepam. 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
Starting point is 01:51:42 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. It's- But what about the three months of drugs? What about the weird break-ins and the lies? Just all of it.
Starting point is 01:52:12 So their theory rests on that the drugs that Asanta 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 larazepam right before her death. 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 larazepam is going. You have a kid I'm not gonna go and get more larazepam. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna try to investigate who is taking this larazepam. Where is this larazepam going? I'd put it to go and get more Larazepam. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to try to investigate who is taking this Larazepam. Where is this Larazepam going?
Starting point is 01:52:46 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 Larazepam. That's what they said. Oh, okay. So then, okay, that just make them sound more sus because they would have said, oh no, I think she took it
Starting point is 01:53:01 because, you know, I bought all of those and it keep going missing. So I think she'd like... That would be a better, I think she took it because yeah, you know, I bought all of those and it keep going missing So I think she'd 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 that's against human behavior someone broke into your house and you're like, oh Don't let people find out. Yeah. None of our Spanish researchers told us any cultural context of that being a weird thing. So maybe they are innocent of murder just because I never say never, right?
Starting point is 01:53:33 But one that is in common 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. All the sentence did they get though? 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 you are gonna get life for killing a child oh wow both tried to appeal their convictions which was overturned and then
Starting point is 01:54:12 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?
Starting point is 01:54:52 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, Asanta Yongfeng, 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
Starting point is 01:55:19 was torture, was losing Asanta. 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,
Starting point is 01:55:48 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 Asanta. 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 point is 01:56:25 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 asanta case. whether it's a coincidence or not, it just seems like the number is really depleted. 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 know everyone lights up the room once they're gone And the teacher smiled at him and said it's all true
Starting point is 01:57:13 She really was an incredible girl, and that is the case of Asanta 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!

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