A chilling new update has been revealed in the case of the Florida businessman whose estranged wife disappeared in Spain earlier this year.
David Knezevich, 36, a Fort Lauderdale resident and a dual citizen, was arrested in May at Miami International Airport upon his return from his home country of Serbia in connection to his wife’s disappearance from her Madrid apartment in early February.
But he is now facing a murder charge in the case – marking a dramatic shift in the case that remains largely circumstantial.
On Wednesday, federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment accusing Knezevich of killing his 40-year-old wife, Ana Knezevich Henao, despite her body still not being found in Europe, Tampa Bay Times reported.
He had previously only been charged with kidnapping his wife in May.
But the new charges accuse Knezevich of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a United States national.
According to the new indictment, Knezevich traveled from Miami-Dade to Madrid ‘with the intent to kill, injure, harass and intimidate his spouse’, NBC Miami reported.
The indictment added that he ‘did willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct and carry away’ his wife and did ‘willfully, deliberatively, maliciously and with premeditation and malice aforethought, unlawfully kill her.’
David Knezevich, 36, is now charged with kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a United States national after federal prosecutors obtained a grand jury indictment on Wednesday
He may possibly face the death penalty for killing his 40-year-old wife, Ana Knezevich Henao, despite her body still not being found in Europe
Family members said that before the Colombian-American’s presumed death, the pair was going through a messy divorce and frequently arguing over millions of dollars in assets that they accumulated during their 13-year marriage, CBS News reported.
Ana, who had previously lived in Fort Lauderdale, moved to Spain in December of last year to get away from her husband and their tumultuous separation.
But she was declared missing on February 5 after she failed to meet a friend to travel from Madrid to Barcelona for a conference.
The FBI has been working on their investigation with the Spanish National Police for months and gathering suspicious evidence of Knezevich’s presence in Madrid – dubious security camera footage, fabricated text messages and stolen license plates on a rental car.
The 40-year-old woman was last seen walking into her Madrid apartment where her husband then showed up.
Security-camera footage showed the Serbian-American IT specialist, Knezevic, at a hardware store buying duct tape and spray paint with cash on the day she went missing.
Hours later, he was caught spray-painting the surveillance camera while wearing a motorcycle helmet at his estranged wife’s building before leaving with a suitcase an hour later.
Prosecutors said that the evidence showed Knezevich buying the same brand of spray paint the man in the motorcycle helmet used on the security camera.
Ana was was declared missing on February 5 after she failed to meet a friend to travel from Madrid to Barcelona for a conference and was last seen walking into her Madrid apartment where her estranged husband then showed up
Family members said that before the Colombian-American’s presumed death, the pair was going through a messy divorce and frequently arguing over millions of dollars in assets
Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres cited the strength of another video showing Knezevich at the hardware store – noting that the purchases may have been used to keep the front door of his wife’s apartment building open during the alleged kidnapping, Tampa Bay Times reported.
‘He was buying those supplies in that hardware store, including the can of spray paint, to make sure the video cameras did not catch him moving her out of the building,’ he said.
The family became concerned about Ana after they started receiving text messages in Spanish from her phone that did not sound like they were written by the Colombia native.
Prosecutors said that on the morning after his wife disappeared, he texted a Colombian woman he met on a dating app to translate two English messages into into ‘perfect Colombian’ Spanish, NBC Miami reported.
Two of Ana’s friends then received the messages, which said that she was going off with a man she met on the street – something that she would never do.
‘He was engaging in a scheme to make it look like the wife was alive and well, communicating with her friends about a man she just met,’ Torres added. ‘When in fact she was never to be seen again.’
His attorney said that he was innocent and was in Serbia on the day she vanished, but agents say a rented a car in the Serbian capital four days earlier tells a different story.
The judge noted that he flew from Miami to Turkey and then to Serbia in January where he then rented a Peugeot to drive himself to Spain before returning it five weeks later.
Ana, who had previously lived in Fort Lauderdale, moved to Spain in December of last year to get away from her husband and their tumultuous separation
Security-camera footage showed the Serbian-American IT specialist, Knezevic, at a hardware store buying duct tape and spray paint with cash on the day she went missing
The car had been driven 4,800 miles and was returned with tinted windows as well as two missing identifiable stickers.
There was also evidence that the license plate had been removed and then put back.
License plates that were stolen in Madrid during that time period were spotted by police plate readers – both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana’s street the same night she vanished, NBC Miami reported.
‘All these facts in combination reflect highly unusual behavior for someone with the means to fly from Serbia to Spain if he wanted to visit a hardware store in Madrid,’ Torres added.
‘At a time he was supposed to be visiting his family in Serbia, he was blocks away from the apartment where his wife was last seen.’
In August, the FBI joined Spanish and Italian authorities in the woods north of the city of Vicenza to search for her body after a GPS alert on Knezevich’s rental car suggested he took a detour to the area on his way back to Serbia.
However, authorities found no evidence of blood traces or signs of a struggle in the Madrid apartment after she vanished.
Knezevich has been held at a federal lock-up in Miami since his arrest this past May while an FBI agent dug into a blackhole of circumstantial evidence suggesting he had the means, opportunity and motive to kidnap and kill his wife, Tampa Bay Times reported.
License plates that were stolen in Madrid during that time period were spotted by police plate readers – both near a motorcycle shop where an identical helmet was purchased and on Ana’s street the same night she vanished
‘He was buying those supplies in that hardware store, including the can of spray paint, to make sure the video cameras did not catch him moving her out of the building’, Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said
Knezevich, who operated a tech business, owned millions of dollars in Broward County residential real estate with his wife – which was one of the topics they were fighting over when she left for Europe.
Jayne Weintraub, Knezevich’s main defense attorney, has challenged prosecutors to produce evidence of an alleged murder.
‘I’m sitting here just trying to wrap my mind around what is happening here,’ Weintraub said – adding that prosecutors filed the original kidnapping charge as a ‘bookmark or a placeholder’, Tampa Bay Times reported.
He pleaded not guilty to the original kidnapping charge.
Yet Knezevich was still ordered to remain in jail without bond after his arrest in May due to being considered a ‘serious flight risk’.
The FBI believes that he left Miami a month after she did to track her down – and ultimately carried her body out of the Madrid apartment in a suitcase, Tampa Bay Times reported.
But her remains have not yet been located.
Prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office in Miami are still unclear whether or not they will seek the death penalty, but if they do pursue it, the Justice Department has the power to make the final call.
The FBI believes that he left Miami a month after she did to track his wife of 13 years down – and ultimately carry her body out of the Madrid apartment in a suitcase
Despite her body still not being found, Knezevich could either face the death penalty or a maximum life sentence in prison in convicted
If the department were to approve the punishment, he would face the death penalty if convicted at trial.
But even if they don’t approve the death sentence, Knezevich would face a potential maximum life sentence in prison if convicted.
Ana’s family held out hope that she would eventually be found alive but the new charges ‘confirm their worst fears,’ NBC Miami added.
‘Our hope is that Ana’s life, love and legacy will not be overshadowed by this tragedy but will instead inspire meaningful conversations about domestic violence and the importance of protecting those at risk, as Ana would have wanted, Felipe Henao, Ana’s brother, told NBC Miami.
The case is set to go to trial in February but is likely to be postponed.
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Publish date : 2024-11-14 12:42:00
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