David Knezevich, ex-husband of Ana María Knezevich Henao, a 40-year-old woman residing in Florida and missing in Spain since February, was arrested at the Miami airport when he arrived on a flight from Belgrade, a city where he had been for months.
From the beginning, Knezevich had been the main suspect in the disappearance of his ex-partner, since both were going through a complicated divorce due to the dispute over the multimillion-dollar estate they managed.
Jail records show that Knezevich, 36, of Serbian origin, was arrested by the FBI on Saturday on charges of kidnapping, and will appear in federal court.
The couple was married for 13 years and lived in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, where they owned businesses.
The woman, an American of Colombian origin, decided to move to Madrid at the end of 2023 after several months of handling a divorce in which she had proposed to her husband to divide the assets in equal parts, a request that he did not accept.
Ana María decided to settle in Spain because she had several friends who helped her start from scratch in the new country.
On February 2 she spoke with one of her loved ones about an immediate trip to Barcelona and that was the last time they heard from her.
The next day two other friends received messages from Ana María, one in English and the other in Spanish. However, they both quickly realized that the texts did not seem to be written by her.
In the messages, Ana María explained that she had unexpectedly met a man and that she was going to spend the weekend at his house in the countryside, on the outskirts of Madrid.
“Yesterday, after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street. Incredible connection, like never before,” said one of the texts.
“The way she expressed herself in the message was very formal, I mean more, it was written without emotion, it was just not written how she writes, I know my best friend, I know how she writes and immediately when I read it I said, what is This? This is not her,” said Sanna Rameau, Ana María's friend.
On the same day of his disappearance, the security cameras of the building where he lived in the Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid were deactivated with spray.
The lock of Ana María's apartment was not forced and emergency services found the apartment empty and without any noticeable disorder. His cell phone was not located during the search.
In the early stages of the investigation, the case was transferred to a court that hears cases of gender violence.
From the first moment Ana María's family distrusted Knezevich's attitude. At first he did not answer the phone and then denied knowing anything about his whereabouts, stating that he was in Serbia at the time of his disappearance.
His cooperation with authorities was always limited and he retained the services of a criminal lawyer in the United States as soon as the investigation began.
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