By Ciarán Giles and Terry Spencer —
The Associated Press
Ana María Knezevic traveled from South Florida to Spain in December to get away for a while.
Her family and friends say the naturalized American, originally from Colombia, had been navigating
a tumultuous divorce from her Serbian husband
, but the journey was also an opportunity to explore new places.
Then he disappeared, two weeks ago, shortly after a man with his head covered by a motorcycle helmet painted over the security cameras in his Madrid building.
The next day, two friends received text messages — one in English and one in Spanish — from the 40-year-old woman's phone, saying she was going to spend a few days with a man she had just met.
“She wouldn't do this... it's very risky and crazy behavior.
She wouldn't do it,” said Sanna Rameau, the friend who received the text in English.
It was written, she said, in an emotionless style that was not Ana's. The Spanish message was so simple that it seemed written in English and passed through a translator.
Image of Ana Maria Knezevic, the Colombian-American who suddenly disappeared in Madrid.
Manu Fernandez / Sanna Rameau via AP
“It didn't make sense,” Rameau told The Associated Press.
Knezevic is petite, standing less than 4 feet 11 inches, according to her driver's license, according to Rameau.
“I can pick her up with one arm and carry her,” her friend said.
In the middle of a "nasty" divorce
The disappearance was notified to the police in Madrid and Fort Lauderdale, who began investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.
Since then, authorities have remained tight-lipped about the search status and have declined to comment.
The US embassy in Madrid has not wanted to comment either.
The Association of Missing Persons of Spain has spread Knezevic's photograph throughout the country's capital,
but has not received any response
, according to its spokesman, Joaquín Amills.
David and Ana Knezevic have been married for 13 years and are owners of the company EOX Technology Solutions Inc, which offers computer support to companies in South Florida.
Records show they also own a house and two other homes in Fort Lauderdale, one of them currently in foreclosure.
Ana's brother, Juan Henao, called the divorce “nasty” in an interview with a Fort Lauderdale detective, a report shows.
“There is a substantial amount of money at stake to be divided between the two and David is not happy about it,” the report stated.
David Knezevic's current whereabouts are unknown.
[This girl left to take the school bus in Texas but never reached her destination. Police ask for help to find her]
Henao told the detective that he believes his brother-in-law traveled to Serbia, his native country, in January.
After Ana disappeared, Henao sent a text message to David to ask if he knew her whereabouts.
He responded “What's wrong?”
before telling him that Ana had disappeared, which he already knew.
“Nothing more,” Henao said.
In a brief telephone interview, Henao said he
hopes that international attention will make the search for Ana
a police priority.
“We are going to continue pressing to see if they can do something more to help us find my sister,” he said.
No one answered the door Thursday at the Knezevic home in Fort Lauderdale, where the mailbox is overflowing and the cars are covered in dirt and dust.
And no one answered his company phone.
David Knezevic did not respond to emails or a voicemail in his mailbox.
Rameau asserted that Ana never mentioned fearing her husband or that he was abusive.
“She never told me that she felt in danger,” Rameau explained.
[“They were going to look for something to eat and they disappeared.” The mystery of a Honduran family that moved to Texas]
Ana chose an apartment in the Salamanca neighborhood, a wealthy and fashionable area of Madrid, traveled with Rameau to Austria in January and was scheduled to see a Spanish friend in Barcelona on February 5 before meeting Rameau in the Spanish capital. starting on the 8th of the same month.
strange text messages
But on February 2, around 9:30 pm, the man in the helmet blocked the apartment complex's security cameras, something that no one looking for Ana knew about for almost a week.
About half an hour later she had a normal call with a friend.
Neighbors said
they had last seen her around that time.
The next day, Rameau was alarmed when he received a message from Ana's phone.
“I have met someone wonderful!
“He has a summer house two hours from Madrid,” it could be read.
“We are going there now and I will spend a few days there.
The signal is not good.
“I’ll call you when I get back.”
A second message followed a minute later: “Yesterday, after therapy, I needed to go for a walk and he approached me on the street!
(We had) an incredible connection.
Like it had never happened to me.”
The Spanish friend received similar texts, which seemed to have been translated by a computer.
[A Virginia mother and her three children are missing, according to police. Her husband says he is not “worried”]
Rameau mentioned that there was no chance of her running off with a stranger, and she never told her friend that she had met anyone that night.
Rameau and the Spanish friend contacted police after she did not respond to their calls and messages.
According to the young woman, the firefighters went to her apartment to check her health,
they looked inside her and found nothing strange.
Madrid police indicated that they would investigate if he did not show up for his trip to Barcelona.
When he failed to do so, detectives asked a Spanish judge for permission to search her phone records and his apartment, but were denied for lack of solid evidence of a crime.
Rameau and the Spanish friend went to their building on February 8 and learned from an employee that there was a man wearing a helmet painting the cameras.
They alerted the police.
Now, Ana's family and friends are waiting for news.
“I'm desperate for answers,” Rameau said.
“I want to find a reason to explain who could have done this.”