When a Bosnian person she had met on a dating application asked her to interpret a message for a book his friend was writing into Chilean Spanish, she thought she was being good.
” I met one wonderful”, the communication began. ” He has a summer home about 2h from Madrid. I’m going that right now, and I’ll have a few days there. There is scarcely any sign though. I’ll contact you when I get back”.
The girl returned the message’s Hispanic type. Eventually, her mother Googled his title, David Knezevich.
According to a criminal complaint, she discovered that he was the husband of Ana Knezevich, a Fort Lauderdale woman of Colombian descent who vanished in Madrid in February and has n’t been seen since. The actual text the person had sent him for his friend’s book appeared again and again in media reports, sent from Ana Knezevich’s telephone the day she disappeared.
David Knezevich , was arrested Saturday , at Miami International Airport on national theft costs pertaining to his role in his sister’s removal, according to provincial authorities. Ana Knezevich’s condition is still unknown, but a national problem provides fresh information about the events that led to her husband’s and her departure. According to investigators, David Knezevich allegedly spray-painted the security cameras at his wife’s Madrid residence, allegedly tampered with her car’s license plates while she was driving away, and afterward had his employees pretend her to close out insurance deals and opened a bank account while she was still missing.
On Feb. 2, Ana Knezevich went to look at rooms. She wanted to stay in Madrid more completely, she told her friends. She was preparing for a marriage from David Knezevich, in which he did not want to break up the property properly, according to the problem. She believed he was quietly monitoring her because she was scared of him. She had told friends about him being deceptive and selfish during group counseling sessions, according to a plea for conservatorship that her relatives in Broward had filed.
Nobody would ever see Ana Knezevich again until security cameras caught her entering her Madrid room shortly after 2 p.m.
That day, a guy in a helmet entered the building a small before 9: 30 p. m. Within, he spray- painted the security camera lens, though he did not completely vague its view. It captured him duct- taping the building’s lock so that he could enter it again. At one point, he looked right at the camera. According to the complaint, he appeared to have “physical characteristics that resemble those of Knezevich.”
He was seen leaving the elevator with what appeared to be a suitcase about an hour later on camera.
The Colombian woman David Knezevich met on the dating app, who is not named in the complaint, reached out the following day.
” Hey babe”, he wrote. ” I need your help”.
He explained that his Serbian friend needed translator assistance because a minor character in his novel was Colombian. According to the complaint, they repeatedly changed the paragraph.
Later that day, a text message went out from Ana Knezevich’s phone to her friends, identical to the one the woman had translated. Despite the translation, her friends and family were immediately suspicious. It did not sound like her, they said.
Firefighters forced their way into Ana Knezevich’s apartment on Feb. 4. She had disappeared, and so had her cellphone, laptop, and chargers. Police discovered the brand of spray paint the man had used to turn the camera on using surveillance footage. According to the store’s surveillance footage, they discovered that a retailer had earlier sold the same brand of spray paint to a man who resembled David Knezevich. Additionally, he purchased two duct tape rolls.
Meanwhile, the Colombian woman had continued talking to David Knezevich, who had sent her a picture of a plane ticket from Serbia to Colombia, though he never got on the plane. At some point, the woman told her mother about him. Then, after her mother Googled his name, she discovered the news reports about his wife’s disappearance in Madrid. When the woman read the articles, she found the text and later contacted authorities.
In late January, David Knezevich arrived in Serbia after flying from Miami to Istanbul. But he did n’t stay there, according to the complaint. On Jan. 30, he left the country in a car. He did not return until Feb. 5, three days after Ana’s disappearance.
When Knezevich returned the car he had rented, the windows were tinted, the license plate frames had changed, and two stickers had been removed, according to the owner of the rental car agency. The car had traveled close to 5, 000 miles.
On the street where Ana Knezevich was staying, Calle Francisco Sivela, a man in Madrid claimed that the license plates had been taken from his car. The driver was allegedly obscured from view by the tinted windows, but the stolen plates were found at toll booths on the same vehicle David Knezevich had rented.
About a month later, with Ana Knezevich still missing, a number associated with David Knezevich’s company called an insurance company to cancel three policies. She told the company that she was Ana Knezevich. Children could be heard in the background, Ana Knezevich had no children.
Then, according to the complaint, an employee of the business reported to the police that David Knezevich had instructed her to act as his wife in order to open a new bank account. He had also given her Ana Knezevich’s social security number.
The employee admitted to telling the police that she had told him she was n’t comfortable playing the role of a missing woman. He told her that she had to do it in order to receive payment because it was” not serious.”
” I cannot call with my voice because I sound like a guy”, David Knezevich told her, according to the complaint.
Knezevich, who was only briefly summoned to court in Miami on Monday, is currently being held in the Miami Federal Detention Center, according to inmate records. A bond hearing is scheduled for Friday, the Associated Press reported.
Why did David Knezevich decide to travel back to South Florida on Monday is a mystery. His attorney, Ken Padowitz, announced on Tuesday that he would not be speaking on the matter at this time and that he is currently undergoing a client review and meeting.
Ana Knezevich’s brother referred reporters to his family’s attorneys for comment. Adam Ingber, the family’s U. S. based attorney, declined to comment when reached by phone Tuesday but said he is preparing to put out a statement.
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