A North Carolina pre-teen girl has been missing for more than a year since she was last seen getting off a school bus in her hometown of Cornelius, north of Charlotte, Nov. 21. 2022.
“It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since he was last seen getting off the school bus,” Cornelius Police Chief David Baucom told Fox News Digital. “And … in just a few weeks is the anniversary of when our investigation actually began.”
Madalina Cojocari’s mother and stepfather, Diana Cojocari and Christopher Palmiter, did not report the 11-year-old girl missing to police until several weeks later on Dec. 15, 2022, despite telling police the last time they saw their daughter was at home in the evening. on Nov 23 2022.
Baucom, who organized a town meeting to remember Madalina on Tuesday, said the weeks-long delay in reporting Madalina’s disappearance initially hampered his department’s investigation.
“It’s slow [the investigation] down at first,” said Baucom. “We spent a lot of time trying to go back through the records we had from the beginning and (trying to) find them that way. And then … we had to, of course, get a search warrant and start looking at other records, trying to find other ways to locate him.”
Madalina Cojocari was last seen getting off a school bus in her hometown of Cornelius, north of the ChaCornelius Police Department
Leaders have brought authorities from the Charlotte area to the mountains of western North Carolina.
“We won’t stop until we find him,” the police chief said.
The police chief added that, in his entire career in law enforcement, he had never seen a missing person case “of this magnitude.”
Christopher Palmiter, Madalina Cojocari’s stepfather, did not report the 11-year-old girl missing to police until several weeks later on December 15, 2022. The Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office and the Cornelius Police Department
“We might have someone missing for two hours or four hours or maybe a day or more. But, usually, it’s because they forgot to tell their family members they were going somewhere, or their cell phone died or something like that. But there is nothing in this case,” he said.
The circumstances of Madalina’s disappearance
Cojocari, who is from Moldovia, told school officials and Cornelius Police she had not seen her daughter, a sixth-grader at Bailey Middle School, since she went to her bedroom on the night of Nov. 23, 2022, about 10 p.m. after she and her husband, Christopher Palmiter, argued, according to court documents.
On November 24, 2022, Palmiter drove to his relatives’ house in Michigan “to retrieve some things” after an argument with his wife. Cojocari went into her daughter’s room around 11:30 that morning and found that the 11-year-old was gone.
A police chief said in their careers in law enforcement, they had never seen a missing person case “this big” and emphasized the magnitude of Madalina Cojocari’s missing person case. Cornelius Police Department
When Palmiter returned home to Cornelius on November 26, Cojocari apparently asked him where their daughter was. And Palmiter allegedly asked him the same question in return, according to the affidavit.
Shortly after reporting Madalina missing last year, her parents wrote a handwritten note expressing their concern over the 11-year-old’s disappearance, which CPD shared with the public on Dec. 22.
“Madalina is a beautiful, smart, kind and loving 11-year-old girl with greatness in her future,” the family wrote. “We are desperate to find him now, he needs all our help.”
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Both parents were arrested for failing to report the child missing. Palmiter was released in August after posting bond while Cojocari remains in custody at the Mecklenburg County Jail.
“That’s part of our judicial process,” Baucom said of Palmiter’s release. “That’s the opportunity that everyone charged with a crime should have to receive bond … because everyone is ultimately innocent until proven guilty.”
Bus surveillance footage shows Madalina Cojocari getting off her school bus in Cornelius. FBI Charlotte
Charges of ‘smuggling’
Cornelius authorities last year asked the public for “direct eyewitness information from anyone” who may have seen Cojocari’s light green Toyota Prius in the Madison County area between Nov. 22, 2022 and Dec. 15.
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Madison County is a rural area near Asheville located in the Appalachian Mountains.
In an August interview with local news channel WCNC, Rodica Cojocari, Madalina’s grandmother and Diana’s mother, said through a translator that “her grandson is alive, but he has been kidnapped.”
Rodica, who is from Moldova, went on to accuse Palmiter of trafficking Diana and Madalina for $5 million.
A search warrant opened earlier this year suggested Diana and Rodica contacted a distant relative asking if he would help in “smuggling” Diana and Madalina out of their Cornelius home, north of Charlotte, before Madalina disappeared, according to phone records obtained by the Cornelius Police Department.
“He told her he had a bad relationship with co-defendant Christopher Palmiter and wanted a divorce,” the warrant said.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about Madalina’s whereabouts to contact CPD at 704-892-7773.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
