The disturbing disappearance of Ana María Knezevich in Madrid during a stormy and millionaire divorce | Madrid News

It is half past eight in the afternoon on February 2 and a woman is talking carelessly with her friend, lying on the bed in her home in the Salamanca district of Madrid. She tells him that she is going to bed early, that she is tired and does not tell him any plans on her agenda for the weekend. The conversation lasts about an hour, they are two close friends talking about their things on a Friday night. That woman lying down is Ana María Knezevich Henao, 40 years old, and that is the last time anyone hears her voice. Since then, trace of her has faded. A day later, two of her loved ones will receive a message from her cell phone. But no one believes that Ana María herself typed them.

The protagonist of this disappearance is a woman of Colombian origin, but with American nationality, who was in the middle of a tumultuous divorce. It was complicated by the lack of agreement with her ex-partner and also by the amount of millions of dollars involved in the separation. Ana María moved from Colombia to Miami 18 years ago. 13 years ago, she married David Knezevich, of Serbian origin. Together they founded three very successful technology sales firms, EOX Technology Solutions, Registered Corporate Agents LLC and EOX Capital LLC. As can be seen in their publications on networks, the couple led a very comfortable life.

However, last summer the love ended and the marriage broke up. What at first the woman thought would be a divorce without friction and by mutual agreement, became strained due to the negotiations over the distribution of assets. According to sources close to the family, she wanted a 50/50 split for each, while her husband wanted her to keep only 25% of her assets. According to these same sources, this situation increasingly undermined her health. She was prescribed antidepressants and she lived in constant distress. Her context made her take a leap, cross the ocean and settle in Madrid, where she had already traveled for tourism and she knew some of her friends.

At the end of November, he moved to a home on Francisco Silvela Street and, according to his family, his mood and condition improved significantly, now far from the pressure of divorce. He lived in a comfortable economic situation, one of the phrases that he had mentioned to those close to him on some occasion, since, with what he had earned, he could live the rest of his existence without working.

The day he disappeared, he had gone to see a house to settle permanently in Madrid. The rent on the home she had originally stayed in was running out in March and she needed a place to stay long-term. At night, from her bed, she called her friend, told her that the property she visited had not convinced her and that she was going to continue searching. They also talked about the plans they had for a trip they would take to Barcelona the following week. They were going to the Catalan capital on Monday, February 5, there they would attend a talk by a psychiatrist of whom she was a follower and they would take the opportunity to spend a few days of leisure. Around nine thirty, they hang up. At half past eleven, another friend sends her a message. She appears as read, but she never answers it.

That night, Ana María did not lower the blinds in her bedroom to keep the sun out in the morning, as she usually did. When the police questioned one of her neighbors, she clearly remembered that she had stayed up until half past one in the morning and that there was light in the house next door to her. Early the next day, the blinds were still the same. Neighbors also claim that on the same day the woman disappeared, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet disabled the building’s security cameras by spraying them with spray. However, sources close to the case do not necessarily relate this fact to the Ana María affair, as this has happened several times in an area that is a common target for thieves.

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That morning, the woman sent two messages. One, around two in the afternoon, to Sanna, a friend from Sweden. In it, she writes to him in English that she has met an amazing boy, who has a summer house two hours from Madrid and that she was going with him to spend the weekend. He also alerted her that there was little coverage for her and that she would notify her when she returned to Madrid. “Yesterday, when I left therapy, I needed to take a walk. He approached me. Incredible connection, like he had never had before,” Sanna read.

She was tremendously surprised by that story. “She wanted to be with her people, with her friends, and to be calm, she was not looking for a relationship,” family sources point out. Two hours later, her close friend from Madrid, who has been calling her all morning, receives the same message but in Spanish. From the first moment, it seemed to him that it was translated from English with an automatic service. Another thing that caught her attention is that there were periods and commas, when Ana María never put them.

Entry into the house

On Sunday the 4th, the phone no longer gave a signal and then her friend from Madrid notified the police, who obtained a warrant to access the house. The firefighters entered through the window and found the house empty and without any noticeable disorder. Of course, some personal items were missing. Given the evidence that there was no trace of her, her friend filed a police report. Throughout the weekend, this woman was in contact with Ana María’s family, who also resides in Miami.

The brother, Juan, contacted his still husband, David, twice. At first, he didn’t respond. When they finally managed to talk, David assured her that he had no idea what could have happened to his wife. The second time, when the family asked him for financial support to travel to Spain or to get legal advice, he replied that this was not his concern, say sources close to the family. During this time, David has hired the services of a criminal lawyer from Miami, Ken Padowitz, who assures the AP agency that his client has nothing to do with the disappearance of his wife, that he has been in Serbia since before she was lost his trail and that he will collaborate in everything necessary. He also maintains that, if he has not yet come to Spain or participated in any way in the search for him, it is because he does not speak Spanish and would be of no use here.

The family has filed another complaint for the disappearance of Ana María in the United States. They are all being legally advised by SOS Desaparecidos, which has provided them with psychological support and legal advice in the hands of lawyer Juan Manuel Medina. Its president, Joaquín Amills, maintains that the police are working closely with the FBI very intensely to obtain answers as soon as possible. Her two brothers and her mother, as well as her close friends, maintain the hope of finding Ana María and dancing with her again the cumbia that she liked so much.

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