Gustavo Romero Tercero

Gustavo Romero Tercero (born December 16, 1971), also known as "The Valdepeñas Killer," is an incarcerated Spanish murderer and rapist. Gustavo Romero married young in Valdepeñas, to Yolanda Saez, and they had two children. Saez was pregnant with the second child at the time of the first murders in 1993. Romero had a long history of sexual obsession, voyeurism and domestic violence against his wife and children. Nevertheless, he was not considered a threat by those outside his home. One of his favorite voyeurism spots was Valdepeñas's public park, where he spied on couples kissing with little regard for being seen by them. On June 18, 1993, Romero ambushed Ángel Ibáñez (24) and his girlfriend Sara Dotor (20) as they left the park and ordered them to go to an uninhabited, dark area next to a railway. He was armed with a double-bladed navaja and he pointed it to Ibáñez's throat. Once there, Romero demanded the couple's money and Ibáñez handed him his wallet. When Dotor said that she recognized Romero (he was the nephew of her brother's employer), Romero stabbed Ibáñez multiple times in his left arm and thorax. He continued doing so after Ibáñez was already dead. Dotor ran away, following the railway's fence in direction to Valdepeñas's train station. After 85 meters, Romero caught up with her and delivered a single stab to the back of her neck that paralyzed her. He turned her over, molested her, inserted his fist in her vagina, and eventually beat and stabbed her in the thorax until she died. Romero took some of Dotor's clothes and threw them in the Jabalón river, then disposed of the blade in an orchard's waterwheel some 100 meters from his residence. Saez testified later that Romero came back home at 1:25 AM and that, in the following days, he got rid of the clothes he was wearing that night and of two knives he used to carry. She suspected him from the beginning but did not report him to authorities. Five days later, Romero left Valdepeñas for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Romero returned to Valdepeñas in 1997.