The case of a missing 11 year old girl in North Carolina has gained both national and international interest.

 Madalina Cojocari was last seen before Thanksgiving. She can be seen on video footage from around 5 p.m. Nov. 21 getting off a school bus. Her mother and stepfather, though, waited three weeks to report her missing. What happened during those three weeks is a question that still does not have an answer, and Madalina is nowhere to be found. If police are any closer, they’re not saying so — at least not yet. Most of what is known about this case comes from court records, some of which raise more questions than answers.

Both of Madalina’s parents, Diana Cojocari and Christopher Palmiter, are now in jail and facing charges, though not for anything that specifically happened to Madalina. In North Carolina, parents and guardians are required to report the disappearance of their child in a timely manner. For Diana Cojocari and Palmiter, though, by the time they did report that Madalina had disappeared, it was weeks later, and only after her school started asking questions about her whereabouts.

Court records indicate that a counselor and a school resource officer made attempts to reach Madalina’s mother, and that they even dropped by the home after Madalina had been absent for more than 10 days. On Dec. 15, Diana Cojocari showed up at the school without her daughter, saying that Madalina had gone missing.

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