North Carolina police believe missing girl's mother fled to home country after jail release
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The mother of a missing North Carolina girl was charged in connection with her disappearance, pleaded guilty, left jail and then fled the United States all within a two-year span.
Madalina Cojocari was last seen getting off a school bus in her hometown of Cornelius, just north of Charlotte, on Nov. 21, 2022, when she was 11 years old. Madalina's mother and stepfather did not report her missing until Dec. 15, 2022, despite telling police the last time they saw their daughter was at home the evening of Nov. 23, 2022.
"It never leaves my mind. And I feel comfortable saying it's the same way for all the detectives and everybody that's invested so much time in this case," Cornelius Police Department Chief David Baucom told Fox News Digital. "There were times at the onset of [the] investigation where some of us didn't go home for 48 hours because we were working the case that hard and chasing down leads and everything else. Of course, that's only sustainable for any person for so long. But … she never leaves our minds."
Madalina's mother, Diana Cojocari, and her stepfather, Christopher Palmiter, were arrested and charged with failing to report a missing child in 2022.
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Diana pleaded guilty in May and argued that the time she had spent in jail leading up to that point was enough time served.
A Mecklenburg County jury found Palmiter guilty of failure to report a missing child to law enforcement on May 31 after a weeklong trial, and he was sentenced to 30 months of supervised probation.
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Authorities released Diana from jail around that time, and neighbors reported seeing her back in her quiet, suburban neighborhood in early June. Baucom said she and Palmiter "were never actually living together" after their respective releases from jail, but Diana did appear at the home they formerly shared in the early days of June.
In late June, Cornelius police named Diana as the prime suspect in Madalina's disappearance, but she had already left the United States, likely for Moldova, by that point.
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"And then she eventually left the country. I do not know the exact date that she left the country," Baucom said, adding later that there were no restrictions that could have prevented her from fleeing America.
Baucom noted that when Diana was initially arrested in 2022, "[S]he was charged with and served time for the only charge that we could sustain during the initial part of the investigation."
Police were able to get in contact with Diana while she was still in Cornelius after her release, but officials have since lost track of her exact whereabouts and have reached out to federal authorities for help tracking her down overseas.
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"We have made that request, but we have not heard back if it's been fulfilled yet," the police chief said of the Cornelius Police Department's request to federal officials.
Diana was in the U.S. on a green card. In May, Palmiter filed for a divorce against his estranged wife.
"It's unfortunate that she went back to Moldova, but our case here is still ongoing, and we're going to continue to investigate it," Baucom said when asked if Diana's decision to leave the country will impede efforts to find Madalina, who would be 13 years old today. "While this investigation has been complicated from the word go … from us being behind three weeks right off the start, it definitely doesn't make our investigation any easier with her not being here. But it doesn't change what we're doing. We'll continue to investigate."
Based on their investigation so far, Cornelius police do not believe Madalina ever left the United States, though they are not dismissing any possibilities.
"It's still a very active case. We still meet regularly on it. We have a detective assigned to it. So by no means is it a cold case, and I just want to make sure the community and really whoever else sees this … [knows] our goal is to find Madalina," Baucom said.
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Diana told school officials and Cornelius police she hadn't seen her daughter, a sixth-grader at Bailey Middle School who was born in Moldova, since she went to her bedroom on Nov. 23, 2022, around 10 p.m. after she and Palmiter got into an argument, court documents state.
Palmiter said that on Nov. 24, 2022, he drove to his relatives' home in Michigan "to recover some items" after an argument with his wife. Diana apparently went into her daughter's room around 11:30 that morning and discovered the 11-year-old was gone, according to an affidavit.
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When Palmiter returned home to Cornelius on Nov. 26, Diana apparently asked him where their daughter was. Palmiter asked her the same question in return, the affidavit states.
Police did not find out about Madalina's disappearance until a school truancy report from the 11-year-old's middle school.
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Bailey Middle School resource officers, along with a school counselor, attempted a home visit at the Cojocari address on Dec. 12 after Madalina had not shown up for school since Nov. 21. No one answered the door, and the school counselor left a truancy package at the home.
Search warrants unsealed last year suggest Diana and her mother contacted a distant relative asking if he would help in "smuggling" Diana and Madalina from their Cornelius home before Madalina disappeared, according to phone records obtained by the Cornelius Police Department.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about Madalina's whereabouts to contact the CPD at 704-892-7773.