Madalina Cojocari’s stepfather found guilty of failing to report missing NC girl

He was naive. His wife was a liar. His daughter’s bedroom light was always on.

Christopher Palmiter, the stepfather of missing North Carolina girl Madalina Cojocari, pleaded clueless during his two-week trial. He maintained that he had “no idea” that the 11-year-old girl — the one he had supported for nearly eight years — was missing from his home for three weeks in 2022.

It didn’t work.

After less than 15 minutes of deliberation, the jury of 11 men and one woman found the 61-year-old guilty of failing to report the disappearance of a child on Friday.

Madalina — who is still missing at 13 — was last seen in Cornelius on Nov. 23, 2022, police say. Palmiter and Diana Cojocari, who is Palmiter’s wife and Madalina’s mother, did not report her missing until after school administrators confronted them on Dec. 14, 2022.

Palmiter’s court-appointed defense attorney tried to explain away the silence by taking jurors inside Palmiter’s unusual family.

Cojocari was a Moldovan bride who moved to the U.S. in 2015 for a visa after meeting Palmiter in 2008 on a website called GlobalLadies. Brandon Roseman, Palmiter’s lawyer, called her “delusional,” manipulative and “100 percent in charge” of Madalina’s schooling and development.

That didn’t matter, argued assistant district attorney Austin Butler.

He said the couple was rightfully charged with a Class I felony for failing to report Madalina missing.

Under North Carolina law, failing to report a child’s disappearance is a chargeable offense “when the parent or other person providing supervision of a child does not know the location of the child and has not had contact with the child for a 24‑hour period.”

Palmiter testified that he treated Madalina as his own daughter. He “never turned her down” when she wanted to play Star Stable, her favorite horse video game, and he routinely checked on her when she got home from school. He was just as responsible for her safety as her mother, Butler said, and Cojocari pleaded guilty to the charge last week.

“[Madalina] didn’t pick him to be the person she would call dad,” Butler told the jury, pointing to Palmiter. “He picked her. He promised to protect her, and for 23 days he failed to protect her, failed to act as required by the laws of this state.”

Mecklenburg County Superior Court Judge Matthew Osman sentenced Palmiter — who had already served 244 days in jail — to 30 months of supervised probation. The highest sentence would have been 17 months in jail, but Palmiter’s otherwise clean record kept him from a cell.

After filing a motion to appeal the case Friday, Roseman said he still believes Palmiter is innocent.

Hiding Madalina

While testifying in his own defense, Palmiter maintained he didn’t know Madalina was missing until he was sitting in front of Bailey Middle School’s resource officer. Then he started to “put things together.”

Cojocari was convinced “Russian entities” were watching her and wanted to marry her for land she had back home, Palmiter testified in court this week. She had talked about a scheme to hide herself and Madalina away somewhere, he said.

He had even asked his family back home in Lansing, Michigan, to take in Madalina and Cojocari.

That plan faded, to Palmiter’s knowledge, but after a solo trip to Michigan around Thanksgiving 2022, he never saw Madalina again. While under oath, Palmiter testified that he went alone to Michigan to retrieve her winter clothes that had been left there.

Cojocari had demanded he go that weekend.

For nearly two weeks after he returned, Palmiter told police, and later the jury, he thought Madalina was under Cojocari’s care, going to school during the day and resting in her room when he’d get home after an hour-and-a-half commute from work each day.

After pleading guilty last week, Cojocari was expected to be deported back to her home country of Moldova, but was subpoenaed to be a witness in Palmiter’s case.

She was never called, but she spent the night at their house Tuesday evening, Palmiter testified during cross examination. She was in the courthouse Wednesday, but not in Palmiter’s courtroom, and stayed in a hotel the rest of the week. During the trial, Palmiter never wore a wedding ring.

Palmiter’s defense

To fully understand Palmiter’s defense, Roseman said, one must first understand his unique home life.

The couple, Palmiter said while testifying, had never been physically intimate. Since their marriage in 2015, they’d kissed on the lips only on birthdays or holidays. They had a “companionship,” sharing a bed only until 2017, when Cojocari moved into Madalina’s room.

They were an odd couple, family and friends testified over four days when lawyers called witnesses and presented evidence.

But in 2021, things took a turn.

Cojocari, who had been “spiritual” since the couple initially met in 2008, became engrossed in the teachings of controversial American spiritual leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet. Prophet headed the cultlike Church Universal and Triumphant and has more than 75 books of teachings and several videos on YouTube.

Cojocari had probably listened to all of them, Palmiter said, and would spend hours “screaming at the top of her lungs” as she recited “chants, manifestations and prayers,” teaching Madalina to do the same.

Both Roseman and Butler called Cojocari “crazy” and “delusional” when speaking to the jury, but neither claimed she was mentally ill. The line between religious beliefs and mental illness was thin in the eyes of the law, the judge cautioned during a conference preceding each side’s closing argument.

Her “unstable” behavior extended beyond religion, though, Roseman earlier argued.

She dented their kitchen’s bamboo floor by smashing a coffee mug into the ground. It had a snowflake on it, Palmiter said, and she didn’t like symbols on anything that would touch food.

She sabotaged Palmiter’s passion project: engraving plaques and mugs with his laser machine, usually for veterans.

She burned furniture, litter boxes and eventually photos of Madalina.

Where is Madalina?

Both Cojocari and Palmiter have been extensively interviewed by police, but neither have offered any explanation as to why they didn’t report the girl missing, prosecutors said in a previous court hearing.

Cornelius Police Department Detective Gina Patterson, the lead detective on Madalina’s case, said authorities had already heard most of what Palmiter, his family and his attorney shared in court.

Cojocari told investigators she believed Palmiter put their family in danger. She also told police she did not report her daughter missing sooner because she feared “conflict” with him, investigators wrote in the documents in the court file. In court in August, Palmiter’s lawyer said Palmiter believes Madalina is now being cared for by someone “assigned” by Diana Cojocari.

Palmiter previously posted a $25,000 bond, which was originally $200,000. Cojocari remained in jail under a $250,000 bond until she pleaded guilty and was released Tuesday. At a court date in February, she refused to leave her jail cell and come before a judge.

Madalina’s parents are now both convicted felons and out of jail. She is still missing.

Have you seen Madalina?

• Madalina Cojocari was 11 years old in November 2022 when she was last seen wearing jeans, pink, purple and white Adidas shoes, and a white T-shirt and jacket. She is 4 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs about 90 pounds. She is now 13 years old.

• Anyone with information on Madalina’s whereabouts is asked to call the Cornelius Police Department at 704-892-7773 or the FBI at 1-800-CALL FBI. Anyone who wishes to remain anonymous can call North Mecklenburg Crime Stoppers at 704-896-7867.