A can of paint. Stolen license plates. Odd messages. How the FBI built a case against a man accused of abducting his wife

Originally Published: 09 MAY 24 09:18 ET

Updated: 09 MAY 24 11:43 ET

By Faith Karimi and Al Goodman, CNN

(CNN) — About 9:30 p.m. on February 2, a man in a helmet entered Ana Maria Knezevich Henao’s apartment building in an exclusive neighborhood in Madrid. Henao, who was on vacation in Spain from south Florida, was in the building at the time and planning a trip to Barcelona with her friends in three days.

A surveillance camera captured the man fastening the building’s lock with duct tape to disable it. He looked straight into the camera as he spray-painted the lens, partially obscuring it. After about an hour in the building, he emerged from the elevator with a suitcase.

Henao was reported missing soon after, and no one has seen her since. But the FBI said this week they’ve arrested the mystery man who entered her Madrid apartment building that night: her estranged husband.

David Knezevich, 36, was detained at Miami International Airport on Saturday for his alleged involvement in her kidnapping, the latest in an international mystery involving law enforcement officials from two continents.

A can of spray paint, security camera footage, stolen license plates and rental car records helped tie him to the crime, according to a criminal complaint obtained by CNN. So did his messages to a woman he’d met on a dating app — and a Google search by the woman’s mother.

Knezevich’s attorney, Kenneth Padowitz, told CNN in February that his client is innocent and “has never been to Spain.” Padowitz declined to comment Wednesday after Knezevich’s arrest.

The couple owned properties in Florida but had separated

Knezevich and Henao lived in Florida, where records show they own several properties in Fort Lauderdale. They are also listed as CEO and project manager of EOX Technology Solutions Inc., which provides computer support for businesses in south Florida. CNN contacted the company this week but did not immediately get a response.

The couple was planning to divorce amid a separation that was contentious because Knezevich did not want to evenly split marital assets, court documents said.

But Knezevich’s attorney told CNN in February that their separation was amicable, “with anticipation of a divorce.”

Henao, 40, boarded a flight from Miami to Spain the day after Christmas, court records show. At the time of her disappearance six weeks later, her husband was in his native Serbia and had nothing to do with it, Padowitz said in February.

Knezevich had spoken to Spanish police, provided his credit card details and other information and was cooperating in the investigation, the attorney said then. Padowitz is based in Florida.

But federal officials said records show Knezevich flew from Miami to Turkey in January and then went to Belgrade, Serbia, where he rented a small Peugeot on January 29.

The owner of the rental car agency told investigators that when the car was returned in mid-March, someone had tinted its windows and added a new license plate frame, and it had traveled nearly 4,800 miles, the criminal complaint said.

Toll booth cameras captured images of the same model Peugeot, with tinted windows, near Madrid in the late night and early morning of February 2 and 3. It hadlicense plates stolen from another vehicle on the Madrid street where Henao was living, the complaint said.

FBI spokesperson James Marshall declined to answer questions this week, citing an ongoing investigation.

“We appreciate the public’s attention to our case and continue to encourage those with information, even if they’re not certain of its value, to come forward,” Marshall said. “To preserve the integrity and capabilities of the investigation, I cannot share details of the ongoing process.”

Her friend received puzzling texts from her phone

Henao was last seen on camera entering her building in Madrid’s upscale Salamanca neighborhood on the afternoon of February 2.

At 9:27 p.m. that evening, records show the man in the helmet entered the building and tampered with the surveillance camera. He had “physical characteristics” that resembled her husband, court documents said.

Henao, a US citizen originally from Colombia, was in constant communication with her loved ones while overseas. She was planning a trip to Barcelona with her friends on February 5, her brother told CNN, making her sudden lack of contact more concerning.

Two days before the trip, her friend Sanna Rameau received a puzzling WhatsApp message from Henao indicating she was running off for a few days with a man she’d just met.

The message, seen by CNN, read: “I met someone wonderful!! He has a summer house about 2h (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.”

The man had approached Henao on the street a day earlier while she was walking, the message said, adding: “Amazing connection. Like I never had before.”

Rameau said she’d spoken with Henao by phone hours before she went missing and she had not mentioned meeting a man.

Concern grew when Henao did not show up at a Madrid train station for the trip as planned. Spanish firefighters entered her apartment for a welfare check and she was nowhere to be found, court documents said. Her phone, laptop and chargers were also missing.

Now federal officials allege the text messages sent from her phone actually came from her husband. And they were written with the help of another Colombian woman Knezevich had met on a dating app months earlier, court documents said.

On February 3 — the day after Henao was last seen alive — Knezevich sent the woman several English sentences to translate into “perfect Colombian,” according to the criminal complaint. He told her it was for a friend in Serbia writing a script that had a Colombian character.

The message he sent to the unidentified Colombian woman to translate was the same one sent from Henao’s phone saying she’d met a new guy, court documents said.

Investigators also identified other clues

Investigators on both sides of the Atlantic searched for clues on what happened to the missing woman and who entered her building that day — and who might have abducted her.

Then everything started coming together. Spanish investigators identified the brand of spray paint used to tamper with the camera and learned that a Madrid retailer had sold the same paint, along with two rolls of duct tape, to a man who resembled Knezevich the same day Henao was last seen, the criminal complaint said.

And in a twist of fate, the woman Knezevich met on a dating app told her mother in Bogota about her new suitor, leading to yet another revelation.

The woman’s mother Googled his name and saw news reports about his missing wife. She notified her daughter, who realized that the text attributed to Henao before she vanished matched the exact wording of the message she’d helped Knezevich put together, court documents said.

Knezevich’s next court hearing is scheduled for Friday. But a key question remains: What happened to his wife?

CNN’s Pau Mosquera, Denise Royal and Carlos Suarez contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.