Ana María Henao: Ex-partner of woman who went missing in Madrid arrested in Miami

David Knezevich, the ex-partner of Ana María Knezevich Henao, who disappeared in Madrid, Spain, at the beginning of February, has been arrested at Miami International Airport in connection with the case. Knezevich had been from the outset the prime suspect in the investigation, as the couple were going through a difficult separation involving a dispute over the multimillionaire patrimony they managed. Knezevich is of Serbian origin and Ana María is a U.S. citizen born in Colombia. They both lived in Miami, where their businesses were based, until she decided to move to Madrid at the end of 2023 to get away from her husband.

The Spanish National Police reported the arrest, which took place Saturday in an operation involving the Spanish Interior Ministry’s attaché office in Belgrade, the FBI, and the Colombian police.

Ana María arrived in late 2023 after enduring several months of a high-conflict divorce in which she had proposed to her husband that they divide their assets equally, a proposal that he did not accept. The couple had been married for 13 years. Ana María, 40, decided to settle in Spain because she had several friends to help her start from scratch in a new country. On February 2, she spoke with one of these friends about a trip to Barcelona they had planned for the following Monday. That was the last time anyone heard from her.

The following day, February 3, two other friends received messages from Ana María, one in English and one in Spanish. However, both quickly realized the messages were not written by her due to the manner of expression and their content. In the text, Ana María explained that she had met a man unexpectedly and was going to spend the weekend at his house in the countryside outside Madrid.

On the same day of her disappearance, the security cameras in her residential block in the upmarket Salamanca district of Madrid were disabled with spray. The lock on Ana María’s apartment was not forced and the emergency services found the apartment empty and without any noticeable disorder. Her cell phone was not located in a search of the premises. In the early stages of the investigation, the case was transferred to a court handling instances of gender violence.

From the outset, Ana María’s family was suspicious of the answers provided by Knezevich. At first, he did not answer the phone, and later denied knowing anything about her whereabouts, claiming that he was in Serbia at the time of her disappearance. His cooperation with the authorities was always limited and he contracted the services of a criminal lawyer from the United States as soon as the investigation began.

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