Missing Madalina Cojocari's Mother Stays Silent Amid Divorce, Eviction

First published: 12:38 p.m. PDT, June 13, 2024

It's been 19 months since Madalina Cojocari went missing from her home to North Carolinabut the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police have not yet given up hope of finding the girl, now 13 years old.

But their search efforts, they say, receive no help from Madalinas' mother. Diana Cojocari or his father-in-law, Christophe Palmiter. The pair were both released from prison after serving time for failing to report Madaslina missing for weeks, but both continue to remain silent about the girl or where she might be be located.

What further complicates this situation is the fact that Palmiter filed for divorce of Cojocari on Monday, and at his trial last month, he testified under oath that the two never consummated their marriage.

Her filing and admission follow a judge informing Cojocari that she would likely be deported due to her felony conviction, meaning that if Madalina is discovered, she may have no one to return to At her place.

Madalina moved to the United States with her mother in 2016, when Cojocari married Palmiter. Prosecutors presented an image from that day as evidence in Palmiter's case, which ended with a jury convicting him of failing to report his stepdaughter missing. A judge later sentenced him to 30 months of supervised probation.

Cojocari pleaded guilty last month to a single count of failure to report a missing child, but the judge gave her credit for the 521 days she had already served in jail and ordered her release the next day.

His release coincided with the start of Palmiter's trial and last week marked the first time since their arrest that the two men had lived together in the same house.

In his filing, Palmiter lists the date of their separation as December 17, 2022, the day both men were arrested for failing to report Madalina missing.

Since then, there has been much speculation about Madalina's whereabouts, and search efforts have spread across the state.

Cojocari remained silent, although it was revealed during Palmiter's trial that she and her mother had discussed the possibility that Palmiter had sold the girl for money. Palmiter denies this and has never been charged with such a crime.

It's a theory that Madalina's grandmother first shared with reporters months ago. “My granddaughter is alive, but she was kidnapped” Rodica Cojocari told WCNC outside court last August.

Rodica also claimed that Madalina's father-in-law arranged the sale of his daughter-in-law in her interview with WCNC.

“Chris Palmiter is the instrument,” Rodica said. “He stalked them for two years. [They] had no documents at home. He stole their documents and kept them at home… like prisoners.”

Rodica also claimed in her interview that Palmiter drugged Madalina and her mother before selling the girl for $5 million.

“Lately, he was using narcotics to make Madalina and Diana sleep,” Rodica told WCNC. “He used these narcotics in their juice. Diana and Madalina drank them, and he took Madalina out of the room and handed her over to the traffickers. I don't know to whom.”

Efforts to search for Madalina did not begin until more than three weeks after her disappearance, at which point her school forced Cojocari to address her daughter's truancy.

Lawyers for Palmiter and Cojocari did not respond to requests for comment.

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