We’re one step closer to finding out what happened to Ana Maria Knezevich.
As you may remember, back in February we reported the 40-year-old suspiciously went missing in Madrid around the second of the month. She had originally left Florida for the European city to get away from the crushing weight of her messy divorce. This is when things got weird…
Ana Maria reportedly sent texts to her best friend Sanna Rameau and her brother Juan Henao soon after arriving in Spain saying she’d met someone special. It was after these texts were sent that her loved ones lost all contact with her — they even said the messages felt very impersonal, and it was something “crazy” the missing woman would never do! So scary.
To make things even scarier, her estranged husband seemingly vanished himself at the time. Associated Press reported David Knezevich went to Serbia in January and no one had heard from him since — but now cops have caught up with him!
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On Saturday, David was arrested at Miami International Airport after coming back from Serbia, per the FBI. He was charged with kidnapping related to his wife’s disappearance — and feds believe they’ve got some pretty damning evidence against him. First, they have reason to suspect the 35-year-old traveled from Serbia to Spain during the timeframe that Ana Maria went missing. That’s over 1600 MILES, y’all! Despite David’s attorney Ken Padowitz maintaining his innocence, Spanish authorities have found a strange discrepancy…
According to multiple outlets, Spanish investigators have record of the accused renting a Peugeot vehicle in Belgrade, Serbia four days before his estranged wife vanished. A few days after this, a citizen of Spain reported his license plates were missing from his car. On the night Ana Maria vanished, a license plate reader on her street and a toll booth in Madrid scanned the stolen plates, attached to… yep, you guessed it — a Peugeot! Wow…
The incriminating evidence doesn’t stop there, though. The scanners and cameras weren’t able to capture the driver of the car due to extremely dark tint on the windows. When David returned the vehicle to the rental place days after Ana Maria’s disappearance, however, he got in trouble for several violations of their policies, including; putting tint on the windows, changing the license plates, removing stickers from the vehicle, and driving it over 4,800 MILES!
A surveillance video has also been captured in Madrid of a man resembling David buying spray paint and duct tape during this time frame. If you’ll recall our previous report, security cameras at Ana Maria’s place were spray painted over… It’s really not looking good for him…
And it doesn’t even stop THERE! According to the FBI, they also caught their suspect messaging a woman on a dating app asking for a translation to “perfect Colombian”. Keep in mind, the messages Ana Maria texted her family were in Colombian, because it’s her native tongue. David assured the woman on the dating app it was just for a friend’s screenplay, however. In the end, the woman said she didn’t speak English and had to use a generic translator online — but, remembering how Ana Maria’s friends said the messages seemed “impersonal” and “detached”, this is just a really scary detail. They themselves even suggested Google Translate may have been used.
After reading all the evidence, Ana Maria’s friend Sanna sadly told AP on Tuesday she no longer thinks her friend is alive:
“I’m in shock. When it’s presented in black-and-white, it’s different than when you only have suspicions and speculations.”
So, so horrifying.
We’re still holding out hope that Ana Maria is found safe, as she’s still missing. Her family has set up a GoFundMe to fund the search for her, which you can find HERE.
We’ll be sure to keep you up to date as this case progresses.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/.
[Image via Spain’s National Center For The Disappeared]