In addition to naming the girl's mother a suspect in her disappearance, a police spokesperson tells Inside Edition Digital that they believe Madalina is still alive 19 months after she went missing in North Carolina.
The Cornelius Police Department (CPD) provided two major updates in the search for missing 13-year-old Madalina Cojocari
"We continue to seek information on the whereabouts of Madalina Cojocari who hasn't been seen since November 21st, 2022. Her mother, Diana Cojocari, is considered a suspect in her disappearance," said a statement from the CPD released last week.
In addition to naming the girl's mother a suspect in her disappearance, a CPD spokesperson tells Inside Edition Digital that they believe Madalina is still alive 19 months after she went missing in North Carolina.
Diana plead guilty to failing to report Madalina missing back in 2022 and served 17 months in jail before being released last month. A few weeks later, a jury convicted Madalina's stepfather Christopher Palmiter of the same charge after a jury trial, but he received a suspended sentence having already served more than a year behind bars following his initial arrest. He has not been named a suspect in his stepdaughter's disappearance and last month filed for divorce from Diana, who moved to the United States with her daughter from Moldova to marry Palmiter.
At his trial, Palmiter said that Diana refused to let him search for Madalina and claimed a group of Russians were after her and her daughter. The couple ultimately waited more than three weeks before they reported Madalina missing, and even that admission only came after school officials demanded an answer as to the girl's whereabouts.
Diana has said nothing about the search for her daughter or cooperated with police as they search for the girl, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case and search efforts.
In an application for a search warrant filed just four days after Madalina was reported missing on Dec. 19, Special Agent W.C. Cannon with the North Carolina Bureau of Investigation claimed that Diana "indicated" she was with her daughter in a text sent on Dec. 2.
Police say Diana had initially said that she last saw Madalina on Nov. 23 at their home in North Carolina, 10 days before she allegedly sent that text.
Cannon also said that Madalina was allegedly spotted in mid-December with her and Diana's only known relative in the warrant, which he filed in order to get access to a Capital One account Palmiter opened the month before Madalina went missing.
“In a text message on December 2, Diana Cojocari indicated she was in the presence of the missing child,” said the warrant.
The warrant also said that on Dec. 4, “Diana traveled towards the NC mountains claiming to be searching for Madalina.”
Then, one day after Madalina's mother finally reported her missing, there was a possible sighting of the girl.
"On December 16, Sugar Mountain Police Department provided surveillance photographs of a man and a young female," Cannon writes in his application. "The man in the surveillance images was physically consistent in appearance to [redacted], the only blood relative known to live in the United States. The young female in the surveillance images was physically consistent with the missing child, Madalina Cojocari."
This might explain why the search for Madalina moved from her home to western North Carolina in late December, with authorities focusing their efforts on the densely forested but sparsely populated region in the Appalachian Mountains.
Inside Edition Digital previously reported that multiple residents informed investigators that they spotted Diana's car in the days after Madalina's disappearance.
There had been speculation that Diana might be deported back to Moldova after her recent conviction, and with this new development concerns that she might flee the country, A source tells Inside Edition Digital however that police confiscated Diana's passport so she cannot leave the country without their knowledge and consent.
Diana has said multiple times that she does not know where her daughter and she had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Any individual who might have information that could help detectives should contact the Cornelius Police Department at 704-892-7773.
