It took her parents three weeks to report her missing in 2022.
CORNELIUS, N.C. — Thursday marks two years since missing Cornelius girl Madalina Cojocari was last seen in public.
The last known video of her was taken around 5 p.m. on Nov. 21, 2022, and shows then 11-year-old Madalina getting off her school bus.
It took her parents three weeks to report her missing.
Both Madalina’s mother Diana Cojocari and her stepfather Christopher Palmiter have spent time in jail for not reporting her missing. Both have said they do not know where Madalina is.
In September, Diana Cojocari was confirmed to have left the United States, according to a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations, though it’s not known when she left the country.
Diana Cojocari has been formally named as a suspect in the young girl’s 2022 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 time since the girl was last seen had a suspect been officially named in the case.
RELATED: Cornelius PD deputy chief says Diana Cojocari is a suspect in daughter Madalina’s disappearance
Days after that post was made, Diana Cojocari posted to Facebook and appeared to indicate she was leaving the country. However, as only a suspect, criminal experts say police cannot prevent her from leaving the country.
M. Quentin Williams, a former FBI agent, said Cojocari leaving the United States creates some more obstacles as investigators continue to try and find Madalina.
Diana Cojocari had been released from jail in May a day after pleading guilty to failing to report her daughter’s disappearance. She 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.
A jury found Palmiter guilty of failing to report the disappearance of Madalina earlier this year.
Neither Diana Cojocari nor Palmiter have ever been charged with anything other than the failure to report Madalina’s disappearance.
Diana Cojocari moved to the United States from Moldova. Officials did not say specifically where she left for during her 2024 departure.
For two years now, the Cornelius community and beyond has come together praying for her to be found.
“We just want to find the little girl and have justice,” one Cornelius resident previously told WCNC Charlotte.
This interactive timeline will continue to update as more details emerge about the case:
