The heartbroken family of the Florida woman who vanished three months ago in Spain say they have not given up hope she’ll be found alive — even after her estranged husband was arrested and accused of kidnapping her in a disturbing cross-continental plot.
Ana Knezevich’s family told a press conference Wednesday that they were “traumatized” at the arrest of David Knezevich, whom she’d moved to Spain to get away from during their bitter divorce.
“We feel great betrayal — we’re just shocked,” Ana’s brother Juan Felipe Henao said of the disturbing allegations against his brother-in-law.
“If anybody out there has any information about her whereabouts, we still have hope that we can find where my sister is,” Heneo said as the siblings’ mom sat silently beside him, according to WSVN.
“If she’s out there, somewhere, I just want to tell her we all love her, we miss her, we support her, we’re her voice,” he said.
“I just hope she is out there and we can find her soon.”
Ana, 40, vanished in Madrid around Feb. 2. Her 36-year-old estranged husband was arrested at Miami International Airport Saturday and charged with her kidnapping.
The arrest was part of an ongoing multi-national investigation spearheaded by the FBI in Florida, as well as police in Spain, Ana’s native Colombia, and the Belgrade Interior Attache Office.
David, who is originally from Serbia, had been living in Belgrade for three months after Ana was last seen, and repeatedly insisted that he was not involved in her disappearance.
The couple had previously lived together in the Fort Lauderdale area, where they ran a computer business. But Ana moved to Madrid in late 2023 for a break from their difficult divorce, her family said.
On Feb. 2, Ana messaged her friend, Sanna Rameau, that she’d met a man and was going to spend time with him in Barcelona.
After that, they “received very bizarre messages from her phone,” Rameau told the Wednesday presser.
“I don’t believe it was her that was sending it, that Saturday afternoon before she disappeared,” said Rameau, who suspects David Knezevich may have written them with the help of a friend to write in “perfect Colombian [Spanish]” to mimic Ana.
“She has not left on her own, she has been taken against her will,” Rameau said.
Investigators now believe that David was the man wearing a motorcycle helmet who was spotted spray painting the lens of the security camera outside Ana’s apartment just before she disappeared.
A man resembling David was also caught on video buying paint and duct tape from a nearby store hours earlier, unsealed court documents revealed this week.
David’s attorney, however, repeatedly protested that the business owner was 1,600 miles away in Belgrade when his estranged wife vanished.
But evidence showed that David actually rented a car in the Serbian capital a few days before Ana was last seen – giving him plenty of time to drive to Madrid, according to authorities.
Around the time of Ana’s disappearance, a license plate reader on her street also picked up on plates that were previously reported stolen, the Spanish police discovered.
The same plates were allegedly spotted going through a toll booth in the city suburbs a few hours after she went missing.
When David returned the car five weeks later, the windows had allegedly been tinted and the license plates were changed, the rental agency told investigators.
The car had also been driven 4,800 miles.
Ana’s brother thanked his sister’s friends, praising them as “the ones who alerted everybody about all of this.”
“As you can see, my sister is very loved,” he said.
Although months have now passed since Ana was last seen or heard from, the family is confident that authorities will uncover the truth, the grieving brother added.
“We trust the American authorities, the justice system, we trust that they’re going to make justice for my sister. That’s what we all want,” Heneo insisted.
David Knezevich is due for his first court appearance on Friday morning.
With Post wires
