Left Ana Knezevich, left, is seen in a picture with her friend Sanna Rameau. Right: Knezevich. Inset: a poster announcing the disappearance of Knezevich (via Asociación Sosdesaparecidos).
Friends of a Florida woman living in Spain who hasn’t been seen in weeks say that she disappeared under suspicious circumstances — and might have been taken against her will.
Ana Knezevich, 40, was last heard from in early February. According to friends and family, Knezevich was going through a divorce and had gone to Spain to get some space — but on Feb. 3, she appears to have sent a text message that was very out of character.
“I met someone wonderful!!” the message says. “He has a summer house about 2h 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.”
“Yesterday after therapy I needed a walk and he approached me on the street!” a second message said. “Amazing connection. Like I never had before[.]”
Knezevich’s best friend, Sanna Rameau, said those messages just didn’t make sense.
“She doesn’t do those things,” Rameau told Law&Crime’s Sierra Gillespie. “It was worded very differently than how she writes.”
Rameau said that Knezevich “wouldn’t meet a man in the street and say that she’s going to go away for a few days like that.”
“That is definitely not my friend,” she added, noting that Knezevich had plans to go to Barcelona just days later.
She responded immediately to the “bizarre” message purportedly from her friend.
“I said, what’s happening? What do you mean? I got worried and I said, please share your location. This does not sound safe,” Rameau told Gillespie. “My messages didn’t go through. I got concerned immediately. And then when I heard nothing back from her, first thing Sunday morning, I contacted the police in Madrid.”
Knezevich’s brother, Juan Felipe Henao, said he received a similarly odd text from his sister on Feb. 2. It was in Spanish — which Knezevich speaks fluently, having been born in Colombia — but according to Henao, something was off.
“He stated it is not like his sister to do something like this plus the text in Spanish appeared to be translated from English to Spanish via google translator and the message made no sense whatsoever and was definitely not written by his sister who is fluent in both English and Spanish,” a Ft. Lauderdale police report says.
Right: Text messages between Ana Knezevich and her friend, Sanna Rameau, shortly before Knezevich is believed to have disappeared (Law&Crime via Sanna Rameau). Right: Texts between Knezevich and her brother Felipe Henao shortly before she is believed to have disappeared (Law&Crime via Felipe Henao).
Henao was “very concerned something bad happened to Ana,” the police statement says, noting that he told officials that his sister was going through a tough divorce from her husband David Knezevich when she left Florida for Spain.
“Juan stated that Ana and David are going through a nasty divorce and there is a substantial amount of money on the line to be split up between the two and David is not happy about it,” the police statement says. “Juan advised that Ana has a long time friend in Spain so she traveled there 3 months ago to clear her head.”
Henao told police that he believed David Knezevich returned to his home country of Serbia on Jan. 17 but is not sure how long he stayed there, or where he currently is.
Rameau said that she had spoken with her friend’s estranged husband after she disappeared.
“I went to Madrid on Feb. 8 and, next day on the ninth, I went to the police station,” she told Gillespie. “I contacted him from there. And then he called back and they made contact with him to ask about his whereabouts.”
When asked whether David Knezevich knows where his wife is, Rameau said he indicated he had no idea: “No, he doesn’t know where Ana is.”
In another troubling development, Rameau said that security cameras where Ana Knezevich was staying were covered in black spray paint the same day the odd text message was sent.
“She was not in her home,” Rameau said of her friend. “And the door was locked from the outside.” Rameau also noted that there were no “obvious signs of violence” inside the apartment.
Meanwhile, she says she is constantly reaching out to authorities in Spain and the U.S., but the language barrier stops her from understanding what police in Madrid tell her. U.S. authorities, meanwhile, say that the investigation is in the hands of Spanish authorities.
“She is an American citizen, and she is missing because she has not left on her own,” Rameau told Gillespie. “There is foul play involved in her disappearance.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said that it is aware of reports of a U.S. citizen missing in Madrid.
“When a U.S. citizen is missing, we work closely with local authorities as they carry out their search efforts,” the statement said. “The Department of State has no higher priority than the welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad. We stand ready to provide appropriate assistance to U.S. citizens in need and to their families.”
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