Tuesday is Madalina Cojocari’s 12th birthday. The Cornelius, North Carolina, girl has been missing since Nov. 21. She was last seen getting off a school bus more than 140 days ago.
The Cornelius Police Department will mark her birthday with a gathering 6 p.m. Tuesday. The department is working with the State Bureau of Investigation and the FBI to find the girl.
In their call for tips, investigators seemed to have widened the net in their search. In January, investigators asked people who may have seen Madalina to contact police, their local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.
Madalina’s mother, Diana Cojocari, 37, and stepfather Christopher Palmiter, 60, have been behind bars since Dec. 17. They are charged with failing to report the girl’s disappearance. So far, there has been no indication from police that Madalina’s parents have cooperated with the investigation.
Madalina was reported missing Dec. 15. The school sent a guidance counselor to the family home Dec. 12 to find out why the sixth grader had been absent. No one answered the door that day, but her mother showed up at school three days later and reported her daughter missing to school officials and a school resource officer.
The investigation has led across state lines and found connections with drug smugglers, but there is still no sign of Madalina.
Search warrants released last month revealed Diana Cojocari asked a “distant relative” to help get her and Madalina away from her husband.
When they searched the mother’s car in February, investigators said they found a Romanian passport for Diana Cojocari and Romanian and Maldovan passports for Madalina.
There were also work and education documents stowed in the car, according to the warrant.
The search warrant said police talked to the relative. “He stated that Diana Cojocari and her mother asked him if he would assist Diana with ‘smuggling’ her and Madalina Cojocari away from the residence,” the search warrant states.
The man “stated that she told him she was in a bad relationship with co-defendant, Christopher Palmiter, and wanted a divorce,” the warrant said.
According to the warrant, Diana Cojocari had a long phone call with the relative on Dec. 2, after Madalina was last seen but before her mother reported her missing.
“In reviewing this subject’s phone records, there was multiple calls to phone numbers belonging to unidentified targets involved in ongoing T3 drug/narcotic trafficking investigations,” the warrant states.
Diana Cojocari said she last saw her daughter on Nov. 23.
“Diana Cojocari said she and her husband, Christopher Palmiter, argued that night and the next morning he drove to his family’s house in Michigan to recover some items,” investigators wrote in an affidavit.
Police said Diana Cojocari told them she checked on Madalina at about 11:30 a.m. the next day, but the girl was not in her bedroom. There was a backpack and clothes missing from the room, investigators said.
The mother told police she waited until her husband returned Nov. 26 to ask if he knew where Madalina was. “Christopher Palmiter did not and asked the same question in return,” investigators said.
“Detectives asked Diana Cojocari why she waited to report Madalina missing, and she stated that she was worried it might start a ‘conflict’ between her and Christopher Palmiter,” the affidavit states.
Diana Cojocari told investigators her family in Maldova told her to call the police, but she never did, according to a warrant in the case. Warrants state Palmiter told police that he had not seen Madalina for a week before he left for Michigan.
The search for Madalina continues. Police say she was last seen wearing jeans, purple, pink and white Adidas shoes and a white t-shirt and jacket.