Madalina hasn't been seen for a year and a half. The girl's mother was added to the list of suspects

The mother and stepfather of 11-year-old Madalina Cojocari, 37-year-old Diana Cojocari and 60-year-old Christopher Palmiter, were arrested in December 2022 for failing to report the child’s disappearance to law enforcement. On that charge, Madalina’s mother was sentenced in May 2024 to six months in prison, with the possibility of a sentence extending to 17 months in prison, according to Mecklenburg County court documents.

Currently, the 37-year-old is considered a suspect in the disappearance of her daughter, Cornelius police said on Tuesday in a post posted on social media. “We are still looking for information on the whereabouts of Madalina Cojocari, who has not been seen since November 21, 2022,” we read.

Meanwhile, local TV station WTVD reports that Diana Cojocari was released from prison last month. The same station reported that the woman was then deported to her home country, Moldovabecause she was staying in USA with a green card. In turn, the 11-year-old's stepfather was placed under probation supervision for 30 months.

The police stressed that finding the child was their “priority” and appealed for sharing photos of the missing person. According to information published on the FBI's website, when the 11-year-old was last seen, she was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and pink, purple and white shoes. At the time of her disappearance, Madalina was 170 cm tall.

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Madalina Cojocari, 11, of Cornelius, North Carolina, was last seen on a school bus camera getting off the bus. What happened to her after that is only known from the statements of her guardians: her mother and stepfather. According to them, the girl was supposed to have been missing since November 23, 2022, however, they did not report it until more than three weeks later, on December 15. Such a long delay immediately caught the attention of the police, who shortly after the report was made, interrogated the couple again.

In 2022, Diana Cojocari explained that on the morning of November 24, she entered her daughter's room but did not find her there. She decided to wait until her husband returned home to notify the authorities. The 60-year-old showed up there on the evening of November 26 and told his wife that he did not know where her daughter was. When asked why, after this conversation, she had not yet informed the police about the child's disappearance, the woman replied that she was afraid of her husband's reaction to a possible report.

The mother of the missing girl added that after Madalina disappeared, she also noticed that some of her clothes were missing. She emphasized that there were no relatives or family friends living in the area to whom the 11-year-old could go. However, these testimonies did not convince the investigators, and on December 17, Diana Cojocari and her husband were detained. Both were then charged with failing to report the child's disappearance.

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