Florida businessman charged in kidnapping and murder of woman in Madrid

His wife’s body has still not been found in Europe.

But on Wednesday, federal prosecutors received a grand jury indictment charging David Knezevich with the murder of Ana Knezevich Henao, in addition to an earlier charge of kidnapping her in Madrid in early February.

Knezevich, 36, a Fort Lauderdale businessman from Serbia who has been held in a federal lockup in Miami since his arrest in May, faces a possible death penalty if convicted of the new charge, which involves kidnapping causing death .

Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami have still not indicated whether they will seek the death penalty. If they do pursue it, the Justice Department would have the final say. If the ministry were to approve it and Knezevich were convicted at trial, he would face the death penalty if convicted – a complicated process.

But if prosecutors do not opt ​​for the death penalty, Knezevich could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors’ decision marks a dramatic change in the largely circumstantial case surrounding the disappearance of 40-year-old Ana Knezevich from her Madrid apartment on February 2. Before the Colombian-American’s presumed death, the couple was going through a difficult divorce as they fought over millions in Broward properties acquired during their 13-year marriage.

The FBI has been coordinating its investigation with the Spanish National Police for months, gathering suspicious security camera footage of David Knezevich’s presence in a Madrid hardware store and in her apartment just before her disappearance, as well as fabricated text messages and stolen licenses. license plates on a rental car that suggest a cover-up. However, authorities found no evidence of traces of blood or a struggle in the estranged woman’s Madrid apartment after she was reported missing.

The question of whether prosecutors would charge Knezevich with the murder of his 40-year-old wife has hung over the highly publicized case since his arrest in May at Miami International Airport upon his return from Serbia. The FBI hinted at their response in court filings last month, as attorneys continued to pressure prosecutors to turn over more evidence. The case is due to go to trial in February, but is likely to be postponed.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams had tried to push prosecutors to decide whether to pursue a capital charge, ordering them in October to “inform” the defendant and his attorneys of their plan to seek the death penalty — or not.

During an Oct. 22 hearing, prosecutor Jessica Obenauf told the judge that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami has been in discussions with the Justice Department in Washington about pursuing a possible death penalty case.

“They are aware and we are in constant contact with them,” Obenauf told Williams.

Knezevich’s lead attorney, Jayne Weintraub, who has challenged prosecutors to produce evidence of an alleged murder, addressed the issue during last month’s hearing.

“We’re all kind of walking around with this ‘word’ that I know the Court is well aware of, and that word would be protocol,” Weintraub said, referring to hiring “learned counsel” who specializes in death penalty law to assist in Knezevich’s defense if he is charged with murdering his wife.

“I’m sitting here trying to understand what’s happening here,” Weintraub said, adding that prosecutors filed the original kidnapping charge as “a bookmark or a placeholder.”

The issue of charging Knezevich for both the kidnapping and murder of his wife parallels another high-profile case in Miami: A Colombian man was arrested last month on charges of kidnapping his former mistress and their 9-year-old daughter, resulting in their deaths eight years ago.

Knezevich’s case is strikingly different because the alleged crime involved him traveling from Miami to Serbia before prosecutors and FBI agents say he kidnapped his wife in Spain.

‘Sly level of deception’

In two consecutive detention hearings, a Miami magistrate judge ordered Knezevich to remain in jail, deeming him a “serious flight risk.”

After the second hearing, Judge Edwin Torres concluded that “there is sufficient evidence” to support the kidnapping case against Knezevich, whose lawyers had asked the judge to reconsider his initial detention order.

“Indeed, the evidence presented at the second hearing supports the Court’s original conclusion that (Knezevich) poses a serious flight risk given the cunning level of deception he demonstrated as part of the crime to which he is alleged to have been guilty ,” said Torres. ruled in a 17-page order in September.

Torres also rejected the defense’s “attack” that prosecutors have no jurisdiction to bring kidnapping charges in Miami because the crime allegedly occurred in Spain, saying their initial evidence supported the case.

After his arrest in May, an FBI agent delved into a trove of circumstantial evidence suggesting he had the means, opportunity and motive to kidnap his estranged wife from her Madrid apartment.

Broward investment properties

Knezevich, who operated a technology company, owned millions of dollars in residential real estate in Broward County with his wife, a native of Colombia. They fought over these and other assets when she left for Spain in late December 2023. He is accused of leaving Miami the following month with a plan to track her down. She was reported missing by authorities on February 2.

The FBI believes the husband carried her body in a suitcase from her Madrid apartment building that evening, citing security camera footage of him exiting the elevator. In August, the FBI joined Spanish and Italian authorities in searching for her body in the woods north of the city of Vicenza, Italy, where a GPS alert on the husband’s rented Peugeot 308 suggested he was there on his return journey from Spain would make a detour. to Serbia.

No blood found in Madrid apartment

During the second hearing, Knezevich’s lawyer, Weintraub, focused on a Spanish police forensic report that found “no traces of blood” in the woman’s Madrid apartment, contrary to what they initially claimed. With no signs of a struggle, Knezevich’s defense team requested his release based on this new piece of evidence.

“I agree with you that some of their evidence is questionable,” Torres said at the end of the hearing, but nevertheless decided to detain Knezevich.

The judge also said he could not detect a “suitcase,” as described by an FBI agent during her testimony, in the security camera video of Knezevich in the woman’s apartment building. The FBI suspects that Knezevich executed Ana, a small woman, in something resembling a suitcase, according to the agent’s testimony.

Duct tape, spray paint purchases

Torres, however, cited the strength of another video in which Knezevich purchased duct tape and spray paint at a Madrid hardware store, which may have been used to hold the front door of the woman’s apartment building open during the alleged kidnapping and to protect the home’s security camera. cover. the lobby.

“He bought those supplies at that hardware store, including the can of spray paint, to make sure the video cameras wouldn’t catch him taking her out of the building,” Torres said.

The judge also pointed out that Knezevich allegedly wrote a series of text messages between him and a Colombian woman who prosecutors say is his girlfriend. During a conversation, he asked the woman to translate a message into “perfect Colombian” for a friend in Serbia who was writing a script. Knezevich told the woman he wanted the lyrics to sound authentic, the FBI said.

The day after Ana Knezevich disappeared, three friends told investigators they had received the same strange message from her, suggesting she was still alive. “I met someone wonderful. He has a summer house about 2 hours from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. However, there is hardly any signal. I’ll call you when I get back. Kisses,” was the message on her cell phone.

“He engaged in a scheme to make it appear as if the woman was alive and well, communicating with her friends about a man she had just met, when in fact she would never be seen again,” Torres said.

The judge further noted that in January Knezevich flew from Miami to Turkey and then to Serbia, where he has family, and then rented the Peugeot to drive to Spain. The judge noted that he had driven the rental car thousands of kilometers from Belgrade to Madrid and back to Belgrade, keeping the car for 47 days. When he returned it to the rental agency, the windows had been tinted, the stickers removed and the license plates changed.

“All these facts together reflect very unusual behavior for someone who has the means to fly from Serbia to Spain if he wants to visit a hardware store in Madrid,” Torres wrote. “At a time when he was supposed to visit his family in Serbia, he was just steps away from the apartment where his wife was last seen.”