Huge change of scenario in the case of Ana María Henao, the woman who has disappeared since February in her apartment in Madrid and whose ex-husband, imprisoned in the United States, was awaiting his trial in this country (of which they were neighbors and whose (they both had dual citizenship) only for kidnapping Well, as ABC learned, the Florida court decided yesterday Thursday to grant the prosecution’s request and that David Knezevich, known as. Dusa, 36 years old and of Serbian origin, be charged with murder.
In this way, a transcendental step is taken in the case, as the victim’s brother recognized, of the journalistic investigations (among which the ABC publications that went in this direction) and, of course, of the work of the UDEV Central. of the Spanish police and the FBI.
Florida is one of the states where the death penalty is still practiced, and if convicted at trial (scheduled for February 10, 2025, after being postponed at least twice), Knezevich could end up being executed. Donald Trump, who will take office as President of the United States on January 20, announced during his recent election campaign that he would reinstate death sentences so that they could be carried out.
The couple had resided in North America until the end of their marriage, when she moved to Spain to seek a new life. He did this in an apartment he had rented on January 5, at 65, Francisco Silvela Street, where investigators from the Homicide and Missing Persons Brigade of the UDEV Centrale located the crime scene, in the night of February 2, 2024. The agents believe he killed her by asphyxiation and that he transported the body on his return trip to his country in a rental car from Madrid to Belgrade.
The result of detailed analyzes of mobile phone repeaters in Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, territories crossed by the accused during this trip, indicate that it is very likely that he got rid of of his ex-wife, now deceased, in a region of northern Italy. In fact, he carried his cell phone during the first part of the escapade and the same expert report, to which ABC had access, emphasizes that Ana María’s terminal stopped emitting a signal once he entered France. ; This supports the thesis of the National Police according to which the alleged uxoricide took away the remains of the victim and the objects that could provide more evidence, such as the cell phone, from which, in addition, he sent several messages while pretending to be her and pretending to make those close to her believe that it was a voluntary escape by the woman.
The UDEV Central, as reported by this newspaper, requested a series of letters rogatory from the countries involved in the case and the Court number 9 of violence against women in Madrid issued a European investigation order on June 5.
David left for Spain on January 30, 2024 and crossed the Serbian border into Croatia at 5:47 p.m. that day. He crossed the La Junquera pass between 11:31 and 11:51 a.m. on February 1. He took the A-2, heading towards Madrid. Between 9:52 p.m. and 10:50 p.m. he was located where he stole the license plates of a car, Alcalá de Henares, which were later detected in Torrejón de Ardoz at 10:58 p.m. suspects that he stayed precisely in the Suites Aeropuerto apartments, on Calle Campezo, just off this highway, very close to the Plenilunio shopping center. Police establish that the crime was committed between 9:27 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. on February 2.
At 10:05 p.m., he wore a motorcycle helmet, a reflective jacket and a neck warmer, and took advantage of a neighbor’s outing to sneak into the property of Francisco Silvela, 65. He went down to the container with a bag in his hand and a spray he had bought in Coslada and used to cover the camera. But he didn’t cover it entirely and later you can see how the gate lights turn on and he enters with the same clothes. Ana María had been at home since 2:20 p.m. that afternoon.
After having strangled her and having become a very small woman (barely 1.52 meters), he put her in a suitcase, loaded her back into the Peugeot and hit the road again. A few hours later, he left Spain through the border of La Junquera (Girona), still by land and with the car rented in Serbia at the end of January. On the one hand, Ana María’s American cell phone (she had another with a Spanish number) received 16 calls between 1:50 p.m. and 2:07 p.m. on February 3, a few hours after her death, detected by three repeaters French. Fourteen of them, over a distance of only 4.6 kilometers, between the Pierres municipal depot (Villetelle) and the Congénies road (Plaisance). The other two correspond to the sector very close to Chemin de Pascalet (Les Gres). Twelve are outgoing calls and four are incoming. It also appears in the Bluetooth connection log of the Peugeot 308 rented by David, with which he made the entire journey.
As for the telephones that David owned (three), this coincides with the fact that one of them, the one he had activated upon his return, remained on French territory on February 3; But it also geographically coincided with the same time that Ana’s number was also in use. In other words, the man investigated was carrying his ex-wife’s terminal. In addition, the telephone geolocation analysis indicates that there were four meeting points between the two mobile lines in France and at this period: between 1:50 p.m. and 2:15 p.m.
Fake messages
These suspicions are confirmed by messages sent by the investigator via the victim’s phone. According to French repeaters, David sent the following text to his friends via WhatsApp, posing as Ana, to one of his friends, Sanna, on February 3 at 2:03 p.m.: “I met a very cool person. He owns a leisure house about 2 hours from Madrid. Now we’re leaving and I’m going to spend a few days there. Even though there is hardly any signal. I’ll call you when I get back.” Apparently, he asked an ex-girlfriend to write the message in Spanish beforehand and then send it to him, according to the same person.
At 4:16 p.m., another friend of the missing woman received a WhatsApp apparently from Ana María Henao, in which she justified her absence. It was the same text as the previous one, but in English. Although this is a different time from when David’s ex’s phone was connected to the French repeater, this could be, according to the researchers, because the data exchange took place through a connection of the cell phone to a Wi-Fi network. Fi network or that David himself shared his data with Ana María’s phone that he himself was carrying.
We now come to the most interesting point for investigations: the Tour of Italy. In this country, only the suspect’s terminal is detected, not that of his victim. Well, from 6:55 p.m. on February 3 until 6:55 a.m. on the 4th, the device appears georeferenced in the province of Turin, more precisely in the town of Segnalonga-Cesana Torinese. That is, he stayed there for 12 hours, then went to Gorizia, in the north of the country, on his way to Slovenia.
The police reaffirm that this journey, under normal conditions, would have taken around eight and a half hours by car, but it was completed in almost 27 and a half hours. “This time difference [19 horas de diferencia] leads to suggest that there is sufficient evidence to consider that the person under investigation could have carried out the disappearance of Ana María’s body during this trip and, therefore, the study of possible places that could hide it,” the report explains.
Indeed, the UDEV headquarters went to Vicenza, more precisely to a wooded area far from the main Knezevich road to return to Belgrade and which was compatible with a possible hiding place for the body. With the collaboration of the Italian police, firefighters and civil protection, the entire area was searched, but without success.
In Slovenia, the trace has disappeared since the recordings are only kept for three months and, as with Croatian telephone operators, David Knezevich’s three lines have already been detected. The American was captured between 4:13 p.m. and 5:29 p.m. while heading toward Belgrade. Another second line, Serbian, is recorded at 6:10 p.m., for only 16 seconds; and the third, prepaid, was active between January 28, 2024 and May 3. This is the telephone number he gave when he went to rent the Peugeot 308 from the Zim Tours company in his hometown. It was only monitored on Croatian territory, with no results obtained in Italy, France or Slovenia.
Pre-made alibis
The police thesis is that he left it in Zagreb during the entire round trip to create an alibi that would keep him away from Spain and, therefore, from Ana María. Moreover, he always maintained that he had never been to our country, after being arrested at the Miami airport by the FBI, upon his return to Florida from Serbia.
Everything indicates that he had planned the crime perfectly. To support his lie, he informed his mother that he would go to Zagreb on January 30 to pick up some speakers and that he would then go to Montenegro: “My son also told me that he would go to the sea and sent me photos of the coast. . “I know he was at sea in Montenegro, I don’t know where else he was,” the woman told the Belgrade prosecutor’s office.
To support this whole alibi, Knezevich kept in touch with his entourage via WhatsApp via his telephone line in the United States, among others with his cousin Oliver, on January 31 with a message and on February 1 with a call. They suspect he accessed this instant messaging app via a tablet or computer, pretending he was in the Croatian capital.
