David Knezevich, the South Florida businessman accused in the February disappearance of his estranged wife in Spain, is now charged with her murder. <\/p>\n
A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Knezevich, 36, Wednesday on charges of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death, and foreign murder of a US national. <\/p>\n
Ana Maria Henao disappeared in February while living in Madrid. Since then, authorities in Spain and across Europe have searched for Henao\u2019s body, but have still not recovered it. <\/p>\n
According to the new indictment, Knezevich traveled to Spain from Miami \u201cwith the intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate his spouse and intimate partner and committed a crime of violence against her, resulting in her death.\u201d <\/p>\n
Knezevich \u201cdid willfully and unlawfully seize, confine, kidnap, abduct, and carry away\u201d Henao and did \u201cwillfully, deliberately, maliciously, and with premeditation and malice aforethought, unlawfully kill\u201d Henao, according to the indictment. <\/p>\n
Knezevich was arrested in May at Miami International Airport for his involvement in his wife\u2019s kidnapping. <\/p>\n
Henao\u2019s family said the new charge confirms their worst fears. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a step in the direction to start to mourn while we continue to search for answers and honor Ana\u2019s memory by advocating for her story to be told and for accountability to prevail,\u201d said Diego Henao, Ana\u2019s brother. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to rely on the strength and love of our friends, family, and community as we try to process this latest information,\u201d said Ana\u2019s mother, Aura Henao, of her family\u2019s well-being. <\/p>\n
If convicted of the newest charges, Knezevich could face the death penalty. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe FBI has presented overwhelming evidence that he is responsible for her disappearance, and I am happy the case against him is getting stronger,\u201d said Henao\u2019s friend Sanna Rameau, one of the last people to speak to her. \u201cJustice will be served.\u201d <\/p>\n
The couple was in the middle of a contentious divorce. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Knezevich traveled from Miami to Turkey and later to his native home of Serbia, where he rented a car and drove to Spain in late January.
They said he kidnapped Henao from her apartment and spray-painted cameras at her building in Madrid. He was also seen leaving the apartment building with a suitcase, court records said. <\/p>\n
According to court records, surveillance cameras captured Knezevich buying spray paint and duct tape at a hardware store in Madrid the same day Henao was last seen. <\/p>\n
The owner of the rental car agency in Serbia 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. <\/p>\n
Tollbooth 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. The complaint said the vehicle\u2019s license plates were stolen from another vehicle on the street in Madrid where Henao was living. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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David Knezevich, the South Florida businessman accused in the February disappearance of his estranged wife in Spain, is now charged with her murder. A federal grand jury in Miami indicted Knezevich, 36, Wednesday on charges of kidnapping resulting in death, foreign domestic violence resulting in death, and foreign murder of a US national. Ana Maria <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}