Christopher Palmiter did not know the whereabouts of his stepdaughter, Madalina Cojocari, for 23 days, a Mecklenburg County prosecutor said during opening arguments before a jury on Friday.
“When this is all over, you will have no answers as to what happened to Madalina,” Assistant District Attorney Austin Butler said. “But you have one answer: and that is that the defendant is guilty of not reporting Madalina’s disappearance.”
The Cornelius girl, then 11, mysteriously disappeared in 2022 after her school’s Thanksgiving break.
In December 2022, mother Diana Cojocari and Palmiter were accused of not reporting her missing. The couple gave conflicting information to police, with each insinuating that the other was ‘hiding’ Madalina somewhere and that they both suddenly found themselves with a large bag of money after her disappearance.
Madalina’s whereabouts remain unknown.
Diana Cojocari pleaded guilty to the charges Monday and was released from prison after spending about 17 months there.
Butler and Palmiter’s attorney, Brandon Roseman, both delivered opening arguments to the jury on Friday in the case against the 61-year-old Palmiter. Jurors also heard from the state’s first two witnesses.
The jury for the trial in the Mecklenburg Supreme Court consists of eleven men and one woman. Two alternate jurors, both women, were also selected Friday.
Next week, jurors will hear testimony from Cornelius Police Department detectives.
Roseman told jurors that prosecutors had made numerous assumptions about Palmiter, and that it was their duty to consider all information and context presented to reach a fair verdict.
The state’s first witness
Tina Rorie, Madalina’s bus driver before her disappearance, testified that she remembered Madalina because their names rhymed, and because Madalina always thanked the driver before getting off the bus.
Rorie said that when she dropped her off after school, she would see Madalina running to her house and going inside. When asked if she had seen Madalina with adults, Rorie said she had once seen her walking with a man she assumed was her father.
The jury was shown footage of the last time Madalina rode the bus, on November 21, 2022. Rorie was asked to identify Madalina in the video, and as she did so, she started crying.
Second state witness
Bailey Middle School school counselor Danice Lampkin made several attempts to contact Palmiter and Diana Cojocari after noticing Madalina’s repeated absences in 2022.
She said she did not know Madalina personally but kept track of student attendance. She made sure to contact families as a rule when students were absent twice.
Butler presented several documents from Madalina’s school file containing items such as her birth certificate, student registration form and emergency contact form, and her class schedule.
Lampkin said Madalina was doing well academically, but the absence prompted Lampkin to try to contact Diana Cojocari by phone and email. When she couldn’t reach her, she tried Palmiter, who was listed in Madalina’s school documents as having permission to pick her up from school.
But she also couldn’t reach him, she said, despite leaving several voicemails and sending emails in November and December 2022.
Butler played those five voicemails for the jury.
In the last two voicemails, Lampkin informed the family that she would make a home visit if they did not respond, to check on Madalina’s well-being and deliver a so-called truancy packet, which included her presence. file.
Lampkin said Madalina’s contact form allowed her to get in touch with a third person who was not authorized to pick her up from school. She spoke to this person twice, she said. The person said Madalina was sick.
After speaking with that person, the school received a notification that Madalina was ill via a contact form on the school’s website. The form said it was submitted by Diana Cojocari, but Lampkin said there is no way to know if it was actually submitted by her or not.
Lampkin tried to visit Madalina’s house to drop off the package, but no one answered, so she left the package at the door.
The day after she delivered the package, in December, Lampkin said, she finally heard from Diana Cojocari, who said she wanted to meet. Lampkin said she stressed that she should bring Madalina along, but Diana never confirmed the request.
And the day after the phone call, Diana came to school without Madalina. She told Lampkin that her daughter was missing. Lampkin went to the school resource officer. Palmiter later showed up to speak with the school resource officer.
Madalina was never reported missing from the school prior to the meeting, she said.
Cross-examination of defense attorney
Roseman, Palmiter’s attorney, asked Lampkin about the school documents in the file that were shown to the jury.
Roseman said the documents showed Diana Cojocari was listed as Madalina’s legal guardian, not Palmiter. Palmiter did not sign the line listing legal guardians.
The sire line on Madalina’s birth certificate was blank, Roseman said, showing the document.
Roseman asked Lampkin if she knew if Palmiter had parental rights to Madalina, and she said she did not know.
He also noted that Lampkin could not be certain that Palmiter lived at the address listed in Madalina’s school records. He asked if she knew if he had received the voicemails and emails, but she said she didn’t know. He said that because she doesn’t know his life and work schedule, she couldn’t be sure he ever received those messages.
However, Butler showed the jury a deed to a house co-owned by Diana Cojocari and Palmiter. The address on the deed matched the address on Madalina’s school documents.
The trial will resume at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, May 28.
