Florida woman missing from Spain 'taken against her will' after man spray-painted security cameras: friend
Ana Maria Knezevic's family and friends believe the Fort Lauderdale woman was taken against her will in Madrid. The 40-year-old woman was in the midst of a 'nasty' divorce.
A Florida woman "was taken against her will" in Madrid, Spain, where she was spending time amid a contentious divorce with her husband, one of the woman's friends suspects.
Ana Maria Knezevic, a 40-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident originally from Colombia, had been temporarily living in a typically safe apartment complex in Madrid's Salamanca quarter when she disappeared on Feb. 2.
"Someone has taken her against her will. She has not left on her own. That's out of the question," Sanna Rameau, Knezevic's friend from Fort Lauderdale, told Fox News Digital.
The last time Knezevic's friends heard from her was around 10 p.m. that evening — just 30 minutes after a man wearing a motorcycle helmet spray-painted the apartment building's security cameras.
The pair met at a social event in South Florida and immediately hit it off. They bonded over their love for traveling. Rameau once vacationed with Knezevic in Bogota, Colombia. In Florida, the pair lived within walking distance and "saw each other very often." Over the summer, the two friends went to Majorca, France and Croatia. They had plans to meet up in Madrid shortly after Knezevic disappeared.
Knezevic purchased tickets to travel to Barcelona for a few days before meeting Rameau back in Madrid, but Rameau got a strange text from her friend on Feb. 3.
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"I met someone wonderful!" the WhatsApp message read. "He has a summer house about 2 [hours] from Madrid. We are going there now and I will spend a few days there. Signal is spotty. I'll call you when I get back."
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Then, another message: "Yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street! Amazing connection. Like I never had before."
Rameau described the messages as strange because she had spoken to Knezevic the previous day, and she hadn't mentioned anything about meeting a man. Rameau also said Knezevic sent a message to other friends in Spanish, but the message appeared to be poorly translated into Spanish, even though Knezevic is fluent in both Spanish and English.
The day she disappeared, Knezevic also sent an audio message to Rameau — something they did frequently when they were too busy to type out a text message.
"I saw an apartment that I loved yesterday. So hopefully it will be mine," Knezevic says with a laugh in the message shared with Fox News Digital. "I'm now on my way to see another one, and everything's going great. I'm feeling actually really good."
Then, she told Rameau she was going to Barcelona for a day trip on Feb. 5. It wouldn't make sense that she would leave town with a strange man for a few days when she had plans to go to Barcelona, Rameau explained.
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Neighbors reported seeing Knezevic outside of her Madrid apartment on the evening of Feb. 2, but no one has seen or heard from her since.
Knezevic and her husband, David Knezevic, together ran an IT company in South Florida, and they were also interested in real estate. Rameau described them as a "successful couple" who had been married 13 years before they decided to separate last summer.
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"It was difficult for her, obviously, so she started spending more time in Europe, in Madrid, where she has friends from before," Rameau said.
The Fort Lauderdale Police Department told Fox News Digital that Knezevic "was reported missing abroad," so the FLPD "is not investigating her disappearance."
David was in Serbia, where he is from originally, when his wife vanished, his attorney, Ken Padowitz, told Fox News Digital.
"It's just a horrible, horrible situation at this point. But David was living in Serbia," Padowitz said. "His passport will reflect that. He was there prior to his wife's disappearance in Spain. He was not in Spain."
The attorney said David "has no information as to why she would have disappeared in the manner she did" and "has absolutely nothing to do with it."
On Feb. 7, five days after Knezevic's disappearance, Henao contacted police to share information about his sister's disappearance, saying Ana and David were going through a "nasty" divorce and that there was a "substantial amount of money on the line," according to a police report.
"He stated that David traveled to Serbia on January 17th of this year but he is unsure how long he stayed there," the police report states. "Furthermore, he called and texted David asking him where was Ana to no avail. Juan advised that David replied back to him last night around 6pm via ‘Whats [App]’ as if he was out of the country telling Juan that Ana was missing and nothing else besides that."
David's attorney disputed the claim that they were going through a "nasty" divorce, saying the couple was even trying to retain the same divorce lawyer.
"They had been separate for approximately four months, and they were planning on divorcing. They had not even hired attorneys yet, and they were actually talking about hiring an attorney together to resolve their divorce, so just the opposite of a nasty divorce," Padowitz said, adding that his client is cooperating with law enforcement and has spoken with police in Madrid.
Police responded to the Knezevics' residence earlier this month to see if they could make contact with the couple, but neither David nor Ana were home. Three unopened Amazon packages were sitting at the front door, police said.
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In January, David Knezevic reported a theft of more than $5,000 in cash and personal belongings from his vehicle, a Mercedes, which he said he left unlocked overnight. Security cameras outside his house apparently did not capture the incident, but he told police the passenger-side door was left ajar, and authorities collected latex prints from the passenger door, but no suspects have been named in connection with the alleged thefts.
Fox News Digital has reached out to David and his IT company for comment.
The Madrid Municipal Police did not immediately respond to inquiries from Fox News Digital. A spokesperson for Spain’s Missing Persons Association, Joaquin Amills, told The Associated Press that the organization posted missing persons fliers with a photo of Knezevic all around Madrid, but they have not received any tips yet.
