Husband Charged in Woman's Disappearance During Spain Vacation Found Dead in Prison: 'Cruel Final Insult'
David Knezevich, 37, was found unresponsive at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) Miami on Monday, April 28, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said in a statement.
Knezevich reportedly died by suicide, his attorney confirmed to the Miami Herald and NBC Miami, but she did not respond to PEOPLE's requests for confirmation.
Knezevich was at FDC on charges of foreign domestic violence resulting in death and foreign murder of a United States national following the February 2024 disappearance of Henao while the two were locked in a bitter divorce, PEOPLE previously reported, citing authorities and Henao's family members' account.
Henao was in Spain at the time, where she hoped to start a non-profit for women who had been abused, her friend previously told PEOPLE.
She has never been found.
Related: Inside the Case of Ana Knezevich Henao, Who Wanted to Start Non-Profit for Abuse Victims and Then Vanished in Spain
Knezevich was arrested in May 2024 and had been at the FDC since May 6 of that year, per FDC officials.
On Monday morning, after Knezevich was found, responding prison employees provided 'life-saving' measures as they awaited emergency personnel at the scene, per the statement.
Emergency Service officials declared him dead at the scene.
His defense team said they were 'devastated to learn of this news.'
'We sincerely hope that an appropriate and prompt investigation will be conducted,' they told PEOPLE in an email statement.
The BOP, citing department policies, redirected PEOPLE to the Medical Examiner's Office, which did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for further information.Related: Husband of Fla. Woman Who Went Missing in Spain Arrested 3 Months After Her Disappearance
Henao's family expressed mixed emotions about Knezevich's death.
"The suicide of Ana's murderer closes a painful chapter in our lives, previously filled with the dread that he might not face justice. Now, we may never know where he put Ana's body," they said in a statement through their attorney Adam Ingber.
"It is a cruel final insult that we may never recover Ana's remains or know the full extent of the betrayal she suffered," they said, adding they "remain committed to seeking the truth and justice" and "to preserving Ana's memory while honoring her life with dignity, strength, and love.'
"While his death spares this family from the agony of a trial," Ingber said in the statement, "it also leaves many questions unanswered, which we continue to pursue."
If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.
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USA Today
7 hours ago
- USA Today
Extortion, yoga, moldy food: Inside Ghislaine Maxwell's life behind bars in Tallahassee
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The meeting with the DOJ was originally said to be taking place at the prison, but instead Maxwell spent a day beyond the steel bars she's now been living behind. Maxwell has been in Tallahassee for three years The disgraced British socialite was transferred to Federal Correctional Institution Tallahassee in 2022; Florida was a state where some of the crimes for which she was convicted occurred. For three years, Maxwell worked to entice young girls to visit Epstein's Palm Beach residence, "to engage in sex acts with Epstein, after which Epstein, Maxwell, or another employee of Epstein's would give the victims hundreds of dollars in cash," as previously reported. FCI Tallahassee, at 501 Capital Circle N.E., is a low-security federal correctional institution for women with a men's detention center. It houses over 1,200 altogether, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons database. Just last year, Maxwell was moved to the prison's "honor dorm" for being on her best behavior. 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Miami Herald
8 hours ago
- Miami Herald
U.S. citizen dies following Israeli settler arson attacks in the West Bank
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Miami Herald
9 hours ago
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When did Trump and Epstein friendship end? President's answers raise questions
President Donald Trump's varying explanations about his fallout with Jeffrey Epstein have raised more questions than answers as he struggles to move on from his days of partying in Palm Beach with the late financier. A variety of reasons have been given as to why the two men stopped being friends: Epstein 'stole' his female employees, a real estate deal went bad, and Epstein was inappropriate with a daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago. The conflicting accounts have led to a closer examination of his and Epstein's relationship, leading to questions about the timeline of their friendship, what the president knew about Epstein's dealings with young girls and if there is more to the story. Their friendship is thought to have started in South Florida in 1990, when Epstein bought a property two miles north of Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private Palm Beach Club. Read the Miami Herald's Perversion of Justice The date of their breakup remains a question mark. 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However, some reports put the friendship ending as late as 2007 when Trump barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after the financier behaved inappropriately toward a club member's teenage daughter. A Mar-a-Lago member told the Miami Herald that, in October 2007, Trump had 'kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member.' McClatchy reached out to the White House for comment and did not immediately receive a response. It was Trump's specific comments about Giuffre, the most well-known of the Epstein accusers, that brought about the new scrutiny, including when he said he warned Epstein not to poach the young women from his club. 'People would come and complain, 'this guy is taking people from the spa.' I didn't know that,' Trump told reporters late last week. 'And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.' I don't want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again and I said, 'Out of here,'' he added. Giuffre's family pushed back at Trump's statement that Epstein 'stole' Virginia and questioned what else he knows. 'She wasn't stolen, she was preyed upon at his property, at President Trump's property,' Sky Roberts, Giuffre's brother, told CNN on Thursday evening. Read More: Ghislaine Maxwell moved from Florida to minimum security prison in Texas He added that the president's comments raise questions about 'how much he knew during that time.' The president denied, however, that he knew Epstein was abusing young women. 'No, I don't know really why, but I said, if he's taken anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing, I didn't like it. And we threw him out,' he told reporters on Thursday. Giuffre said she met Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16 and working at Trump's Palm Beach club. Maxwell saw her reading a book on massage therapy and offered her a masseuse job with Epstein. Two years later, in 2002, Giuffre was able to escape Epstein's sex trafficking ring when he sent her to Thailand. She met a man there she married 10 days later and moved to his home in Australia to start a family. The same year Giuffre got away, Trump raved about Epstein to New York magazine, which wrote a profile of the financier. Trump, in what are now infamous quotes, called Epstein a 'terrific guy' who likes women 'on the younger side.' 'I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,' he said at the time. 'He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' Additionally, in 2003, Trump took part in a gift album for Epstein's 50th birthday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump denies participating. Trump gave another number in 2019, when Epstein was arrested on federal charges tied to sex trafficking. The president, who was in his first term at the time, said he hadn't spoken with Epstein in 15 years. 'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach,' Trump said in the Oval Office. 'I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan. I was not, yeah, a long time ago, I'd say maybe 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his.'
