John Jefferson
Madalina Cojocari and her mother, Diana Cojocari. Police said on June 25, 2024, that Diana Cojocari is a suspect in her daughter’s disappearance. (Images: Cornelius Police Department)
The whereabouts of missing North Carolina girl Madalina Cojocari have long been a mystery, but now her own mother’s whereabouts is suddenly unclear.
Diana Cojocari, who recently pleaded guilty to not reporting the child’s disappearance and was sentenced to time served, was seen in a photo with her own mother, reports say.
“On the way from New York JFK to Frankfurt then to Bucharest …” stated the image obtained by The U.S. Sun. “After 9 years of absence from the country …”
Bucharest is in Romania, and is about a 159-mile drive from Diana Cojocari’s birth nation of Moldova.
The Cornelius Police Department in North Carolina on June 25 outright named Diana Cojocari as a suspect in her daughter’s disappearance, though they did not announce any charges at the time.
“The police department is aware of the posts that indicate Diana Cojocari may have left the country however we are unable to confirm this information,” Police Chief David Baucom told the Sun in a Tuesday report. “None of her property was released and we are unable to prevent her from leaving the country.”
He added that there are no active warrants for her arrest.
Law&Crime reached out to police for updates.
The picture reportedly surfaced July 6 on a Facebook group named, “Where is Madalina Cojocari?”
Charlotte CW affiliate WCCB said that according to a reporter in Romania, Diana Cojocari was not in her birth nation of Moldova, but in Romania.
No one answered the door at Madalina Cojocari’s home, the outlet said. According to them, neighbors said Diana Cojocari usually spent most of her day sitting on the porch. She usually had boxes and other items with her, but now the porch is clear, the neighbors reportedly said.
One of them described seeing her place suitcases in a car the afternoon of July 4. Two people were with her. This man said he had not seen her since then.
Police reportedly said they took her passport and did not give it back, though a member of the department said it is possible she got an emergency passport allowing her to leave the U.S.
The U.S. grants emergency passports within a two-week period if an applicant’s immediate family member died, is dying, or has a life-threatening illness or injury outside the country. There are options for “urgent,” such as traveling in less than three weeks, and “expedited” applications, for traveling in less than eight weeks.
The public uncertainty about Diana Cojocari’s whereabouts follows close on her May 20 guilty plea for failing to report her daughter missing. Days later, on May 31, jurors took a mere 15 minutes to convict the stepfather Christopher Palmiter of the same charge.
Diana Cojocari was likely going to leave the states one way or another because her guilty plea left her open to deportation, but the ongoing mystery of Madalina’s whereabouts complicates matters. Police have claimed that Diana Cojocari had texted during the disappearance that she was in her daughter’s presence. They also said that she left Mecklenburg County during the disappearance and that she had previously sought help from a distant relative in “smuggling” herself and her daughter from their home to get away from Palmiter. Cops have also claimed that there’s surveillance footage possibly showing the missing Madalina and that distant relative together.
Police said that the last confirmed sighting of Madalina, who went missing at age 11 and would be now 13, was when she left a school bus on Nov. 21, 2022, the week of Thanksgiving.
She never went to school again. According to cops in the town of Cornelius, North Carolina, a school resource officer and a school counselor visited the family home on Dec. 12, 2022, but no one answered. Diana Cojocari allegedly arrived on campus for a meeting on the following Dec. 15, with no sign of Madalina. She allegedly told cops that she last saw her daughter on Nov. 23, 2022, and that when she went to check on her on Nov. 24, which was also Thanksgiving, Madalina was not in her room.
“Diana Cojocari stated she waited until Saturday, November 26th at 1900 hours, when Christopher Palmiter returned home [from a road trip] before asking if he knew where Madalina was,” police wrote.
Christopher Palmiter is seen here testifying in his May 2024 trial for failing to report his stepdaughter, Madalina Cojocari, missing. (Image of Madalina in the inset: Cornelius Police Department; screenshot of Palmiter: WCNC)
Palmiter claimed not to know and he asked Diana the same question, defendant Cojocari allegedly said.
“I [the affiant] asked Diana why she did not report Madalina missing until now,” authorities said. “Diana stated she was worried it might start a ‘conflict’ between her and Christopher.”
Palmiter filed for divorce last month, just days after his conviction.
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