Over the following year, Romero worked putting up plasterboard, at a meat packing factory, and as a cook in a roadside brothel. Around 16:30 of June 25, 1998 Romero finished his shift at the brothel and left in his car. He drove on unpaved country roads only because he did not own a driver's license. While driving on a road called "La Membrilla" (not to be confused with the town of the same name), he happened upon 21-year-old Rosana Maroto, who was cycling from her home in Valdepeñas to her father's country home, seven kilometers away. Maroto studied Art History in Ciudad Real and had returned to Valdepeñas only two days before, following the end of the school year. She had no relationship with Romero. According to Romero, he hit Maroto by accident, exited the car, and tried to resuscitate her without success. He believed that she was dead, and fearing that this would out him as the murderer of Ibáñez and Dotor, he resolved to put Maroto in the car's trunk and the bicycle in the backseat, and throw both in different water wells in the country. After disposing of the bicycle, he drove to an abandoned farmstead and began to undress Maroto. She then regained consciousness and asked what had happened and demanded to have her bicycle back. Again according to Romero, a discussion ensued and he ended strangling her with her shoelaces and throwing the body in an empty well that he covered with large stones. Though Maroto's body was largely skeletonized when it was recovered in 2003, Romero's DNA was found on it, which led to Romero being charged with rape and the prosecution stating that he had run Maroto over deliberately with the intention of raping her. Romero denied the charge, but he later testified that Maroto had agreed to practice fellatio and other sexual acts voluntarily in the farmstead. The Court did not believe this allegation. Maroto's disappearance gained notoriety in Spain when her backpack was found three days later in the area where she disappeared. It contained her running shoes, walkman and a cap smeared with her vomit. Police also found blood with male DNA in the backpack, which was kept from the public. Maroto's family met Prime Minister Aznar and the Ministry of the Interior offered 25 million pesetas for clues leading to the arrest of the murderer. In 2000, Maroto's bicycle was found in a well 300 meters from the place where the backpack was found.