Laurence Dollimore
MYSTERY surrounds the disappearance of a US expat who vanished from Spain without a trace two weeks ago.
Ana Maria Knezevich, 40, moved to Madrid several months ago as she sought to rebuild her life while grappling with a messy divorce from her husband, who is based in Florida.
The American, of Colombian origin, was last seen on February 2, and despite many appeals online, investigators have yet to receive any meaningful tips.
The president of the National Centre for Missing Persons (CNDES), Joaquin Amills, said he has only seen a few similar cases during his 14 years on the job.
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He told news agency EFE: “We are very used to receiving calls and sifting through information, and it is curious that in this case, in which we have reached around three million people, we have not received any calls.”
Ana is the owner of a successful business in the US and settled in the upmarket neighbourhood of Salamanca in Madrid last December.
The ‘barrio’ is among the most exclusive not only in Madrid, but the whole of Spain – with Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and a host of La Liga football players calling the luxury area home.
It has been reported that Ana was suffering from depression, but she was taking medication prescribed to her by a doctor in the States.
On the day of her disappearance, February 2, Ana told a friend she was looking at an apartment to rent long-term.
Then the next day, on February 3, out-of-character text messages were sent from her phone.
The first message sent to her friends said that she had met someone and that they were going on a trip somewhere ‘a couple of hours away’ from Madrid.
She then told them that she would not have good phone service, intimating that she would be unable to contact them for some time.
However the messages raised suspicions as they were sent hours apart and switched between English and Spanish.
They also used terms and expressions that Ana did not use, making her friends convinced that someone else was sending them.
She also had appointments that week, including a planned trip to see a friend in Barcelona on February 5 – making the alleged impromptu trip with someone she had just met all the less more likely.
On February 4, concerned friends filed a missing persons report with the Policia Nacional in Madrid.
Police searched the apartment where she was staying and found nothing out of the ordinary.
The investigation remains confidential, but it is reported that a man with a motorbike helmet was seen spray-painting the security cameras of the building where Ana lived just before she vanished.
Amills has insisted it is essential to pour through the CCTV cameras in and around the Salamanca neighborhood and to speak to all possible witnesses.
The US authorities, as well as the US Embassy in Spain, are following the case closely and are in contact with Ana’s family in the states.
Ana is described as being 1.45m tall with long, brown, wavy hair and brown eyes.
