A man was arrested months after his wife disappeared in Madrid, Spain. NBC6’s Marissa Bagg reports
FBI agents and the Spanish National Police have arrested the husband of a South Florida woman who traveled to Madrid and vanished, accusing him of being involved in her disappearance in February.
David Knezevich was arrested Saturday at Miami International Airport when he arrived on a flight from his home country of Serbia, where he had been for months.
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Knezevich was arrested as a suspect in the disappearance of his wife, 40-year-old Colombian native Ana María Knezevich Henao, who was last seen on Feb. 2.
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Agents from the Belgrade Interior Attaché Office and the Colombian Police also took part in the arrest.
The investigation is being directed by the Court of Violence against Women number 9 of the capital, which keeps the case under summary secrecy.
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Court documents released late Monday show that agents believe David Knezevich resembles the man wearing a motorcycle helmet who spray painted the security camera lens outside Ana Knezevich’s Madrid apartment on Feb. 2. The man left an hour later carrying a suitcase.
Spanish police say they have security video of the 36-year-old Fort Lauderdale business owner purchasing the same brand of paint and duct tape hours earlier.
Investigators also interviewed a woman who says Knezevich asked her to translate a text message that was sent to his wife’s friends after her disappearance.
A few days later, a Spanish driver reported his license plates were stolen. On the night Ana Knezevich disappeared, a license plate reader on her Madrid street recorded the stolen plate number, Spanish police found.
Additionally, hours after she disappeared, a Peugeot bearing the stolen license plates went through a suburban Madrid toll booth, surveillance video showed. The driver could not be seen behind the tinted windows.
The rental agency told investigators that when Knezevich returned the car five weeks later, the license plates had been replaced and the windows had been tinted. It had been driven almost 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometers).
Ana María, who lived in Fort Lauderdale, arrived in Madrid last December, looking to get away.
Her family and friends said the naturalized American had been going through a nasty divorce from Knezevich, but the trip was also a chance to explore new places.
She vanished shortly after a man wearing a motorcycle helmet disabled the security cameras at her Madrid apartment building by spray-painting the lenses.
The next day, two friends received separate text messages — one in English, one in Spanish — from her phone saying she was running off for a few days with a man she had just met.
Police in Madrid and Fort Lauderdale were notified, launching investigations on each side of the Atlantic.
