In 2022, the 11-year-old girl was last seen getting off her school bus in Cornelius.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A new cash reward is being offered in connection with the disappearance of Madalina Cojocari.
Cojocari was just 11 years old when she was last seen getting off her school bus in Cornelius in 2022. She has not been seen since.
Anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest and conviction of someone responsible for the disappearance of Cojocari will be eligible for a $25,000 reward, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s office announced on Thursday.
Anyone having information concerning this case should contact the Cornelius Police Department at (704) 892-1363 or the State Bureau of Investigation at (919) 662-4500.
The new reward was one of several announced Thursday by Cooper’s office.
Cojocari’s mother Diana Cojocari and stepfather Christopher Palmiter had both been charged with failing to report the disappearance of the young girl. The parents were accused of waiting nearly a month to report the disappearance.
Diana Cojocari has been formally named as a suspect in the young girl’s 2022 disappearance.
RELATED: Cornelius PD deputy chief says Diana Cojocari is a suspect in daughter Madalina’s disappearance
In a social media post in July,, the Cornelius Police Department referred to Cojocari for the first time publicly as a suspect. Never before in the year-and-a-half since the girl was last seen had a suspect been officially named in the case.
Days after that post was made, Diana Cojocari posted to Facebook and appeared to indicate she was leaving the country.
Diana Cojocari had been released from jail in May a day after pleading guilty to failing to report her daughter’s disappearance. Diana Cojocari had previously pleaded not guilty to the charge. Her release was possible because the maximum prison sentence is 24 months, minus time already served. At the time, Cojocari had spent 520 days in jail after being arrested in December 2022.
Palmiter is Madalina’s stepfather. Earlier this year, a jury found him guilty of failing to report the disappearance of the girl.
Neither Diana Cojocari nor Palmiter have ever been charged with anything other than the failure to report Madalina’s disappearance.
