Madalina Cojocari’s family has distanced itself from the missing girl’s mother after previously claiming that she was the victim of the teenager’s disappearance.
After being released from prison in May, it was revealed that many of Diana Cojocari’s family members stopped visiting the prison in the months following her arrest.
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Diana’s daughter went missing on November 21, 2022, when she was last seen getting off the school bus.
Neither his mother nor his stepfather, Christopher Palmiter, reported the 11-year-old boy missing for 21 days.
They were arrested and charged with failure to report a child missing, and both initially pleaded not guilty.
Diana spent two years in prison and, at first, apparently had the support of her family.
Read more about Madalina Cojocari
Her mother, Rodica, attended the pretrial hearing, where she waved to her daughter and, at one point, began crying during the hearing.
When speaking to The US Sun, she previously said she believed her granddaughter was still alive and in the United States, but did not know where.
“I love her so much,” Rodica told The US Sun.
“Madalina and Diana, I love them very much.”
The worried mother claimed last year that both her daughter and little Madalina were victims of Palmiter.
“They were kept in his house like prisoners. Lately, he has been sedating them with drugs,” Rodica said, speaking almost exclusively in Russian.
She claimed her stepfather turned the high school student over to someone outside their North Carolina home before she disappeared.
“He’s saying he doesn’t know anything, but that’s not true. Madalina is alive,” said Rodica.
“They told Diana that if she told the police, they would kill her,” Rodica added, in her first public interview in the US since her granddaughter’s disappearance.
However, support for the convicted mother has apparently waned over the past year.
The US Sun reviewed visitation records from the Mecklenburg County Jail, which revealed that her mother had not visited Diana in the past nine months.
Initially, after Diana was arrested, she was visited regularly by her mother, often several times a month.
Chronology of the disappearance of Madalina Cojocari
Madalina, 13, has been missing since November 2022, when her school became concerned about her not attending classes. Her parents waited 21 days to report her missing and ended up being arrested.
- November 21, 2022 – Madalina, then 11, is seen on surveillance footage getting off the school bus in her last confirmed sighting.
- November 23, 2022 – The day Madalina’s mother, Diana Cojocari, claims to have seen her daughter for the last time. She said she put her to bed and she disappeared the next morning.
- November 26, 2022 – Diana confronts her husband, Chris Palmiter, when he returns from a trip out of town and asks if he knows where Madalina was. Both parents say they hadn’t seen her.
- December 2, 2022 – Diana tells someone via text message that she is with Madalina.
- December 12, 2022 – A Bailey Middle School counselor visits the Cojocari home after Madalina hasn’t shown up to class since November 21. Nobody answers the door.
- December 15, 2022 – Diana arrives at school without Madalina and tells the staff that her daughter has been missing since November 23rd. This comes 21 days after she allegedly last saw her daughter.
- December 17, 2022 – Madalina’s mother and stepfather, Chris Palmiter, are arrested on charges of failing to report a missing child.
- May 21, 2024 – Diana is released from prison after changing her plea to guilty.
- May 24, 2024 – Chris Palmiter’s trial begins.
However, around May of last year, the mother began to appear less than before, taking months-long hiatuses from her daughter.
After September 3, 2023, there were no records of Rodica returning to his cell or even video chatting.
Diana’s husband, Palmiter, also made no effort to connect with his ex-wife.
Instead, most of his visits were made by his lawyers.
BAD ROMANCE
Diana was released from prison in May after changing her plea to guilty.
A judge ruled that she had served the maximum time on the charge and ordered her release.
Meanwhile, her husband went to trial and was found guilty of failing to report his stepdaughter’s whereabouts.
He was sentenced to 6 to 17 months in prison, however, as he had already spent 244 days in prison, his sentence was suspended.
Instead, a judge sentenced him to 30 months of supervised probation.
Since being found guilty, the convicted father has filed for divorce from Diana.
The couple married on January 9, 2016 and had no children.
He did not reveal the reason for the separation, nor did he mention his stepdaughter’s disappearance in any of the court records, according to the ABC affiliate. WSOC-TV.
While in court, Palmiter testified that he met his wife through an online dating site called Global Ladies in 2008.
MADALINA’S GRANDMA’S SPECULATIONS
Many people have a theory about what could have happened to little Madalina, including her grandmother, Rodica. In an exclusive interview with The US Sun, she revealed a shocking bombshell about what she thinks happened to her granddaughter
Rodica had already blamed Palmiter for Madalina’s disappearance
“They were kept in his house like prisoners. Lately, he has been sedating them with drugs,” Rodica said, speaking almost exclusively in Russian.
Rodica alleged that Palmiter dragged Madlina from the room and handed her to someone at the door, before disappearing.
“He’s saying he doesn’t know anything, but that’s not true. Madalina is alive,” said Rodica.
“They told Diana that if she told the police, they would kill her,” added Rodica, in her first public interview in the US since her granddaughter disappeared nine months ago.
Rodica said she traveled from Moldova to North Carolina to bring her children (Diana and Madalina) home.
She believes that Palmiter was involved with a group of human traffickers who took Madalina.
She claims that Diana and Madalina were followed, before Madalina’s disappearance.
In another complaint, Rodica said that her granddaughter underwent plastic surgery and was unrecognizable and that someone created false adoption documents for the girl.
When asked if she had a message for her granddaughter, Madalina, Rodica said: “I love her very, very much,” and began to cry.
Rodica said she is speaking out — not just for her granddaughter, who she believes was trafficked — but for all children who have been victims of trafficking.
The US Sun reached out to the Cornelius Police Department regarding Rodica’s allegations.
A spokesperson responded on Friday, writing: “We are considering all aspects of this investigation and will continue to investigate any and all leads that will help us find Madalina.”
In 2010, he flew to Moldova, where Diana was from, and they had dinner together before losing touch.
The two reconnected in 2015 after Diana came to the United States with her daughter.
He claimed they had 90 days to get married, otherwise she would have to return to Moldova.
Palmiter testified that the two were never physically intimate despite their eight-year marriage.
Diana also told the story of an unhappy relationship.
Court documents state that Diana told her cousin she wanted to leave Palmiter.
“Diana reveals her delusional fears to [her cousin] and tells him that he has accumulated enough funds to ‘live on for two or three months,’” the court document says, per WSOC-TV.
WHERE IS MADALINA?
Police have been urgently searching for the missing 13-year-old boy since the case was brought to their attention.
Cornelius Police Chief David Baucom told The US Sun he believes his team will find the child.
“The search for Madelina continues,” Baucom said, adding that police would not stop until she was found.
“It’s not a cold case. It never was and, from my point of view, it never will be,” he said.
“We will continue investigating this until we find Madalina.”
However, Baucom admitted that this case has been difficult for his team.
“This case has been difficult from the beginning and a lot has to do with the length of time from when she was last seen until she was actually reported missing,” he said.
“It took quite a while before our investigation began and we were kind of behind from the start.”
Many people have theories about what happened to the missing child, including the stepfather.
During the trial, he stated that he believed Diana was behind the high school student’s disappearance.
“I think Diana took her somewhere with her Moldovan family,” Palmiter testified at the trial.
“I believe Diana hid her somewhere where she won’t be found.”
His comments came after investigators interviewed Diana’s cousin in March, where he apparently confirmed Palmiter’s theory.
He told investigators that Diana asked him to help smuggle her and her daughter away from Palmiter, according to warrants reviewed by WSOC.
The relative claimed Diana told him she was in a “bad relationship” with her husband and wanted a divorce.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
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