David Knezevich, the Fort Lauderdale man accused of killing his estranged wife in Spain early last year, committed suicide on Monday morning while in detention at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, according to his defense attorneys.
Knezevich, 37, was awaiting trial in Miami federal court on allegations of kidnapping and murdering Ana Knezevich Henao in Madrid when he was discovered dead in his cell from apparent suicide.
His defense attorney, Jayne Weintraub, said she learned about her client’s death from federal prosecutors on Monday morning and spoke with them and U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams later that day via Zoom. The FBI is probing his death.
Weintraub, together with defense lawyers Christopher Cavallo and Bruce Zimet, released a statement on Monday afternoon, stating, “They were devastated to learn of this news.”
“We sincerely hope that an appropriate and prompt investigation will be conducted,” the two men added.
With his death, prosecutors from the United States Attorney’s Office are anticipated to drop the accusations against him.
Although prosecutors decided in January not to seek the death penalty, Knezevich could face a life sentence if convicted at his trial, which was slated for mid-June.
Knezevich pleaded not guilty in December to allegations of kidnapping and killing his wife, Ana, 40, on February 2, 2024, the date she was reported missing from her Madrid apartment. Knezevich, who was arrested at Miami International Airport last May on a kidnapping allegation, was charged again with kidnapping that resulted in his wife’s death.
According to the updated indictment, he also faces charges of foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a US national.
Ana’s body was never discovered, making the international murder case difficult for FBI investigators and prosecutors, who had gathered mostly circumstantial evidence against Knezevich.
Knezevich, who had been detained at the Miami Federal Detention Center since his arrest for posing a flight danger to his native Serbia or elsewhere, was denied bond from the start. The addition of kidnapping ending in death represented a significant turn in the investigation into Ana’s disappearance from her Madrid residence.
Fight over millions in Broward properties
Knezevich, who ran a technology company, and his wife, a Colombian native, had amassed millions of dollars in Broward County residential real estate during the course of their 13-year marriage. They were arguing about these and other assets when she left for Spain in late December 2023.
Prosecutors stated that the defendant represented to the court’s probation office that his estimated net worth was $2.5 million after selling seven residential properties in Broward for approximately $6.7 million between December 2023 and February 2024, prior to his estranged wife’s abduction in Spain.
Knezevich was accused of leaving Miami in late January 2024 for Serbia, where authorities claim he rented a car to locate his wife in Spain.
The FBI suspected he transported Ana Knezevich’s body in a bag from her Madrid apartment building on the evening of February 2, 2024, citing security camera footage of him exiting the elevator.
In August, the FBI joined Spanish and Italian officials in a hunt for her body in the forests north of Vicenza, Italy, where a GPS alert on the husband’s leased Peugeot 308 indicated he detoured there on his way back from Spain to Serbia.
The wife’s body, however, was not discovered.
“What we do know is that the evidence supports that she was killed between Spain and Serbia,” Assistant US Attorney Jessica Obenauf stated during a January hearing before Judge Williams. The judge directed prosecutors to give over fingerprint, cellphone, photo, video, and other evidence from the FBI and Spanish National Police to Knezevich’s defense team.
The FBI had been coordinating its investigation with Spanish authorities for months, gathering suspicious security-camera footage of Knezevich’s presence in a Madrid hardware store and her apartment just before her disappearance, as well as fabricated text messages and stolen license plates on a rental car, all of which pointed to a cover-up.
