Simon Hunter
THE estranged husband of Ana Knezevich, the US expat who went missing in Madrid on February 2, has refused to take a lie detector test when the FBI offered one. That’s according to Spanish media outlet Caso Abierto, which cited sources with knowledge of the investigation.
Both the FBI and Spain’s Policia Nacional are investigating the whereabouts of Knezevich, who has not been heard from since the beginning of February when she suddenly disappeared, sending several text messages from her phone that friends and relatives believe were not written by her.
Her husband, David Knezevich, has been cited in some media outlets as being one of the main suspects in the case, given that the pair were in the midst of a divorce which, according to some accounts, had become acrimonious.
Florida, where the couple used to live together, accepts a lie-detector test as evidence in an investigation, but a suspect does not have to take one if they do not want to, according to Caso Abierto.
Ana María Knezevich Heneo, to give the 40-year-old expat her full name, had moved to Madrid in late 2023 reportedly due to the stress of her divorce.
The couple had been married for 13 years and had established a successful technology company together. The disagreements over their separation, according to press reports, were related to how they were going to divide their considerable assets.
Knezevich was living in the upscale Salamanca neighbourhood of Madrid, until, on the night of February 2, she suddenly disappeared.
According to press reports, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet had spray-painted the security cameras in her building before she vanished.
While the police have not released any details of the investigation, there are suggestions that the incident involving the security cameras is not related and that this is common practice for thieves who are targeting a building.
On February 3, messages were sent from her phone to two friends saying that she had met a man and was going to the countryside with him for several days but would have bad cellphone coverage.
But her family, friends and reportedly the police all believe that she did not write these messages, which arrived in Spanish and English and appeared to have been automatically translated.
According to Ken Padowitz, the lawyer in the US acting for David Knezevich, he was in his native Serbia when his wife disappeared. The solicitor added that Knezevich had refused to come to Spain to assist in the search because he did not speak Spanish and had no family nor friends there.
This account, however, has been countered by Joaquin Amills, the chairman of SOS Desaparecidos, a missing-persons association in Spain that is directly involved in the search for missing Ana.
David Knezevich, Amills told news agency Efe, ‘is not collaborating in terms of information, economic resources nor with moral support’.
“The communication is zero and the times that he has spoken have been with a threatening tone,” he continued. “What’s more, he has been in Spain several times and the right thing to do would have been to come and see first-hand what is happening.”
According to media reports, several properties that were jointly owned by the couple have been sold in recent times, some of them after Knezevich disappeared.
David Knezevich’s lawyer, however, claims that these sales had been agreed with his wife months previously.
Read more:
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- Everything we know about missing US expat, 40, who vanished from Spain’s Madrid a MONTH ago
- Husband of missing US expat Ana Knezevich ‘very concerned’ about her whereabouts
