MIAMI – A can of spray paint and a Colombian mother’s Google search helped tie a Fort Lauderdale man to the kidnapping of his estranged wife, who vanished in Spain in early February, newly-obtained court documents show.
The FBI announced the arrest Monday of David Knezevich, 36, the estranged husband of Ana Maria Knezevich Henao. Authorities said he was arrested Saturday at Miami International Airport by the Diplomatic Security Service.
Local 10 News obtained a federal criminal complaint Monday evening, outlining the sequence of events federal investigators said led them to connect David Knezevich to his wife’s kidnapping.
(Read the full complaint at the bottom of this page.)
Ana Maria Knezevich was last seen at her Madrid apartment on the afternoon of Feb. 2. The criminal complaint states she had been in Spain since Dec. 26 amid a “contentious” separation from her husband, who “did not want to split the marital assets evenly.”
Small detail leads to key piece of evidence
Authorities said just before 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 2, a man resembling David Knezevich, a naturalized American citizen born in the former Yugoslavia, appeared on surveillance footage wearing a helmet and spray-painting the lens of a security camera.
The footage also showed the man duct-taping the lock of the building entrance to prevent anyone from getting in, prosecutors said.
Court documents state the man is seen on subsequent surveillance footage leaving the building’s elevator with what appeared to be a suitcase.
Spanish firefighters went to the building for a welfare check two days later and saw no sign of the Colombian-born Ana Maria Knezevich, authorities said; a search by police revealed that her phone, laptop and chargers were gone.
After reviewing the footage, Spanish police were able to identify the brand of spray paint used to obscure the security camera, the court documents state. Authorities said investigators were then able to find that a Madrid retailer had sold a can of that particular brand of spray paint that very same day — to a man resembling David Knezevich.
That man bought two rolls of duct tape as well, investigators said.
A strange request
Authorities allege that on Feb. 3, David Knezevich had a peculiar request for a Colombian woman he met on a dating app in October: He needed her to translate a message into “perfect Colombian” for a friend in Serbia writing a script involving a Colombian character.
In their WhatsApp chat, the woman tells him, in Spanish, “you know I don’t speak English...I would have to rely on the translator,” prosecutors allege.
Authorities said he sent her the message: “I met someone wonderful. He has a summer house about 2h from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. There is barely any signal though. I’ll call you when I come back. Kisses.”
“One more!” prosecutors said he told the woman shortly after.
“Yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street! Amazing connection. Like I never had before,” David Knezevich asked her to translate into Colombian Spanish, which she did, the court documents state.
He then sent her a photo of a plane ticket from Serbia to Bogota scheduled for Feb. 19. It’s a flight prosecutors said he would never take.
At some point, the woman told her mother about the Serbian man she met online, authorities said.
Wanting to know more, the woman’s mother Googled Knezevich and saw an article about his missing wife, then another containing one of the text messages, the complaint states.
But authorities said the article didn’t attribute the message to a Colombian minor character in a movie script: Instead, it was purportedly sent by Ana Maria Knezevich. The text messages raised alarm bells at the time of her disappearance; friends didn’t believe she wrote them.
Stolen plates, tinted windows: A drive across Europe
Law enforcement obtained travel records revealing a roundtrip across an entire continent, 26 hours each way, court documents state.
That’s the distance between Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and Madrid.
Authorities said David Knezevich flew from Miami International Airport to Turkey on Jan. 27.
After landing in Istanbul, he went to Belgrade and left Serbia on Jan. 30, returning on Feb. 5, a day after his wife went missing.
Authorities said David Knezevich rented a Peugeot 308, which he would return on March 15.
“The owner of the rental car agency informed law enforcement that, when Knezevich returned the vehicle, the rental agency discovered that the windows had been tinted, the license plate frames had changed, and two stickers had been removed from the vehicle,” investigators wrote in the complaint. “The vehicle had traveled approximately 7,677 kilometers while rented by Knezevich.”
Around that time, a man had filed a complaint with Spanish police that his license plates had been stolen, court documents state.
Authorities said a search of license plate readers showed that those plates were spotted near Ana Maria Knezevich’s Madrid apartment and passed through Spanish toll booths on Feb. 2 and 3 — attached to the Peugeot.
Feds: Victim impersonated over the phone
Authorities allege that on March 4, a woman claiming to be Ana Maria Knezevich called an insurance carrier to cancel three policies for her and David’s business.
“During the call, children could be heard in the background,” the court documents state.
But authorities said Ana Maria Knezevich doesn’t have any children.
Court documents state that investigators later learned that the caller’s phone number “was owned by (David) Knezevich’s company and Knezevich is listed as the contact for the phone number.”
An employee of Knezevich’s business told law enforcement that on April 24, David Knezevich asked her to impersonate his wife in order to open a new bank account, providing the employee with Ana Maria Knezevich’s Social Security number to use as proof, the court documents state.
“Employee 1 advised Knezevich during a telephone call that she was uncomfortable impersonating the Victim because the Victim was missing,” investigators wrote in the complaint. “In response, Knezevich told Employee 1 that this was ‘not serious’ and told Employee 1 it needed to be done in order for the employees to be paid.”
Knezevich allegedly told her, “I cannot call with my voice because I sound like a guy.”
What’s next?
Knezevich, charged with one count of kidnapping, appeared in federal court on Monday.
The FBI confirmed Knezevich is in federal custody, and they said he is expected back in court on Friday afternoon for a pre-trial detention hearing.
An attorney declined to speak on Knezevich’s behalf following Monday’s court appearance.
Following Knezevich’s arrest, Sanna Rameau, a friend of Ana Maria Knezevich told Local 10 News Monday, “The only thing I can say right now is that I am happy that there has been an arrest in this case, and we are hoping that this next chapter will bring justice and we find answers about what has happened to Ana.”
Authorities said anyone with information about this or any FBI investigation is urged to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or visit tips.fbi.gov.
Read the complaint: