In Burning Body, when a police officer’s charred remains are found, his girlfriend and her work partner end up becoming the prime suspects in his murder. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Plot summary
Rosa Peral and her boyfriend, Pedro, are both police officers. Pedro lives with Rosa and her daughter, Sofía. One day, Pedro storms out of the house after an argument with Rosa and never returns.
A few days later, Pedro’s charred remains are found in the trunk of his car in the Foix reservoir, a secluded area. A detective named Ester Varona will be solving Pedro’s murder case, and Rosa talks to her about what happened on the day she last saw Pedro.
Rosa tells Ester that she suspects that Javier, also known as Javi, Rosa’s ex-husband and Sofía’s father, who is a Mossos officer, is behind Pedro’s murder. Initially, Ester believes her and tries to find evidence against Javi.
Rosa says that she had an argument with Pedro on May 2. Pedro replied to her messages later, but she did not hear from him after that. Pedro’s phone’s location shows that he was near Javi’s house the night he was killed.
However, Ester finds out that Javi was working that night and that he was not home. During the course of the investigation, Ester comes to know about Rosa’s past, which makes her believe that Rosa has not been honest with her.
Rosa was dating Javi when she became a police officer. She cheated on him with a senior officer, who then sent a lewd photograph of her to Javi as well as the whole precinct. The officer was never punished, and Rosa had to change her precinct.
Javi broke up with Rosa, but they got back together when Rosa apologized to him. They went on to get married and have a daughter. However, Rosa then started cheating on him with her patrol partner, Albert, and everyone at their precinct knew about this.
Furthermore, she also had an affair with Pedro, who was already married and had a son. Javi started suspecting Rosa and eventually left her to be with his new girlfriend. Javi and Rosa are now in the middle of a legal battle over Sofía’s custody.
Javi tells Ester about Rosa’s relationship with Albert. Rosa says that her affair with Albert meant nothing to either of them, but their other coworkers disagree. This leads Ester to doubt Rosa, as she keeps trying to implicate Javi and hiding things from Ester.
Furthermore, Rosa is the only person who had seen Pedro on May 2. The others who received messages from him on that day tell Ester that they believe that the messages were not sent by Pedro. This makes Ester wonder whether Pedro was even alive on May 2.
To protect herself, Rosa convinces her parents to lie to Ester about seeing Pedro on May 2. However, when Ester finds out that Albert, Rosa, and Pedro’s phones show that the three of them were at Rosa’s house in the early hours of May 2, she questions her parents again.
This time, Rosa’s mother fails to lie and breaks down. Ester now knows that Rosa made her parents lie about seeing Pedro alive on May 2 and that it was Rosa and Albert who killed Pedro. This leads to Rosa and Albert getting arrested.
It turns out that Pedro left his wife to be with Rosa. Pedro moved in with Rosa, but Rosa did not end her affair with Albert, who was getting increasingly jealous of Pedro. When Albert sent Pedro a screenshot of his and Rosa’s messages, Pedro left her.
However, he came back to live with her when she declared her love for him on social media. Pedro asked her to marry him, and she said yes. He even wanted to have a child with her. However, their relationship was very toxic, and Rosa wanted it to end, so she killed him with Albert.
Burning Body ending explained in detail:
What do Rosa and Albert tell the court?
After getting arrested, Rosa tells her parents and her lawyer that it was Albert who killed Pedro. He came to her house with an axe and murdered Pedro. Rosa claims that she lied to the police and did not tell anyone about it because she was scared that Albert might hurt her or her daughter.
When Albert comes to know that Rosa is accusing him of murder and portraying herself as a victim, he claims that Rosa wanted to end her relationship with Pedro so much so that she killed him and asked Albert for help in getting rid of the body. According to Albert, concealing Rosa’s crime is the only crime he has committed.
Three years later, the trial takes place. Rosa and Albert blame each other. However, there is enough evidence to prove that they are both lying. Additionally, Sofía had told Javi and his girlfriend that she had seen her mother covered in blood on the day of Pedro’s death.
Then there is Albert’s friend, Juanjo, who tells the court that before Pedro’s death, Albert had asked him how to kill someone and not get caught. The method that Juanjo had told Albert about was the method that was used to get rid of Pedro’s body.
Who killed Pedro?
Since Albert and Rosa’s testimonies are unreliable, Ester is asked to tell the court what happened on the day Pedro died. Ester has evidence that suggests Rosa and Albert had planned Pedro’s murder together.
That day, Rosa went to her parents’ house with Pedro and Sofía. While returning home, she got into an argument with Pedro. She later called Albert and told him that she wanted to kill her boyfriend that very night.
Albert had bought a new phone and number to take to Rosa’s house the day they were supposed to kill Pedro, but he accidentally took his own phone, which led to the police finding out that Rosa, Albert, and Pedro were at Rosa’s house on the day Pedro died.
Rosa put her daughter to sleep and drugged Pedro. She sent Pedro to the basement to set rat traps, and Pedro fell asleep there. Ester believes that Pedro was killed with a blunt object, as his blood was found on the bulb in Rosa’s basement as well as the floor.
The next day, Rosa sent her daughter to her parents’ house. She sent messages to various people from Pedro’s phone, and at night, Albert and Rosa took his phone to Javi’s house to frame him for the murder. They then took Pedro’s body to Foix Reservoir, put it in the trunk of his car, and set fire to it.
Rosa and Albert painted Rosa’s basement together to hide the blood on the walls. Sofía had not only heard Pedro getting murdered but had also witnessed Rosa and Albert getting rid of the evidence a few days later.
Are Rosa and Albert found guilty?
After hearing Ester’s statement, the jury finds Rosa and Albert guilty of premeditated murder. Rosa is sentenced to 25 years in prison, while Albert gets 20 years.
After the trial, Rosa finally asks to meet her daughter, who is now living with Javi, for the first time in three years. She tells her daughter that she will get to live with her soon, but it is an empty promise.
Later, Rosa and Albert both filed appeals, but the Supreme Court dismissed them. In fact, the Supreme Court added an additional five years to Rosa’s sentence due to her relationship with Pedro. Rosa will serve out her sentence by 2042.
Also Read: Burning Body review: Netflix’s crime drama is a dull affair