After La Casa de Papel, Úrsula Corberó plays the main role of Netflix’s latest sulphurous thriller. This is inspired by a real news story, better known as “Crimen de la Guardia Urbana”.
It is not uncommon for news items to inspire streaming platforms for the production of their programs. “Devoured by flames” is the latest. This Spanish mini-series has been broadcast on Netflix since September 8, 2023. It is the screen adaptation of a recent news item, better known as “Crimen de la Guardia Urbana” (which l ‘we can literally translate “crime of the municipal police”) that occurred in Catalonia in 2017.
In the Netflix series, Úrsula Corberó (known for playing Tokyo in “La Casa de Papel”) plays one of the main protagonists of this case, Rosa Peral. On May 4, 2017, the charred body of Barcelona municipal police officer Pedro Rodriguez was found in a car near the Foix reserve, Catalonia. His partner Rosa Peral, as well as his lover Albert López (played by Quim Gutiérrez in the series), are both accused of killing Rodriguez on May 1, 2017, before hiding his body in the trunk of his car and dumping it burn.
The trial of Rosa Peral and Albert López takes place on February 3, 2020. The first accuses her lover of having killed Rodriguez out of jealousy, López accuses his companion of having killed the victim when the latter tried to attack him. Finally, for the prosecution, it was a premeditated murder. A few weeks after the trial opened, Peral and López were convicted of the murder and sentenced to 25 and 20 years in prison, respectively. Peral would have received an additional five years because she was found guilty of the murder of her companion, while Lopez had no alleged so-called “kinship” link with the victim. The investigation is freely reinterpreted by Netflix in the mini-series “Devoured by flames”, currently available on Netflix.
