Mom of Missing N.C. Girl Is Named Suspect in Disappearance Weeks After Stepdad Said Child Is 'Not Going to Be Found'

Madalina Cojocari, 11, walked off her school bus Nov. 21, 2022, and has not been seen since.

Now, North Carolina law enforcement have just officially named her mother, Diana Cojocari, “a suspect in her disappearance.”

“We want to #FindMadalina,” the Cornelius Police Department wrote in a social media post in which they shared an updated missing person poster depicting both Madalina and her mother. “This has been our priority since we learned she was missing.”

Cojocari reported the sixth grader missing weeks after she was last seen on December 15, 2022.

Two days later, Both Madalina’s mother and her stepfather, Christopher James Palmiter, were arrested and charged with failing to report her disappearance.

On May 31, a Charlotte, N.C., jury found Palmiter guilty of the charge after 14 minutes of deliberation, ABC11 reported. He was sentenced to 30 months of supervised probation. (His lawyer said he planned to appeal the sentence.)

By then, the outlet reported, Cojocari, who had already pleaded guilty for failing to report her daughter missing, had been released, having served 510 days behind bars, completing her sentence of six to 17 months in prison.

The couple has blamed each other for the delay in reporting. 

Cojocari said she had feared her husband’s reaction, per court documents reviewed by Queen City News. 

For his part, Palmiter — who allegedly drove to Michigan around the time Madalina went missing, per those court documents — claimed through his lawyers at trial that Cojocari had manipulated him into the false belief that his stepdaughter was safe, Fox News reported. (Phone and email records presented at his trial suggested Palmiter was aware of Madalina’s disappearance.) 

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage, and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

That November day, the 4-foot 10-inch girl who weighed 90 lbs. and loved horses, got off her school bus in the small suburban town of Cornelius, N.C., wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, jacket and pink, purple and white Adidas shoes, according to authorities, who released the surveillance footage.

In the days after she was reported missing, hundreds of investigators – including the FBI – had taken on the case, pursuing nearly 250 leads and interviewing people across state lines and outside of the U.S., Capt. Jennifer Thompson said during a videotaped press conference at the time.

But they couldn't find Madalina.

"One of the challenges in this case, simply put, we were not notified she was gone, a delay of three weeks,” Thompson had said.

Madalina’s body has never been found.

And, at his spring trial, her stepdad said it would likely stay that way.

“I think Diana took her somewhere with her Moldovan family,” Palmiter testified, per Fox News. "I believe Diana has tucked her away somewhere where she’s not going to be found.”