Madalina’s school sent a guidance counselor to the house on Dec. 12 to find out why the sixth grader had not been in class, according to police. No one answered the door, but Diana Cojocari went to the school three days later and reported Madalina missing.

“Diana Cojocari said she and her husband, Christopher Palmiter, argued that night, and the next morning he drove to his family’s house in Michigan to recover some items,” police said in an affidavit. That was Nov. 23.

The mother told police she looked in Madalina's room at about 11:30 a.m. the next day, but the girl was gone. Some clothes and a backpack were gone too, according to investigators.

Diana Cojocari said she waited for her husband to return on Nov. 26 to ask if he knew where Madalina was, police said.

“Christopher Palmiter did not and asked the same question in return,” investigators said.

“Detectives asked Diana Cojocari why she waited to report Madalina missing, and she stated that she was worried it might start a ‘conflict’ between her and Christopher Palmiter,” the affidavit states.

According to search warrants, investigators seized two cellphones. Police also asked for a warrant for location data, call records, text messages and other information off the phones.

Authorities also searched the Cojocari home shortly after Madalina was reported missing.

The warrants are partially redacted, but investigators do single out “an area blocked off with plywood in the kitchen” in the warrant application.

“Det. Nichols asked about the area and Mr. Palmiter stated that they had planned to make a separate apartment,” according to the warrant application.

The mother told investigators that her family in Moldova said she should call the police, according to warrants filed in the case. She never did.

The search warrants said Palmiter told investigators that he had not seen the girl for a week before he left to drive to Michigan.

Search warrants released last year say Diana Cojocari asked someone described as a “distant relative” for help to get her and her daughter away from Palmiter.

Police talked to that relative, the warrant shows. “He stated that Diana Cojocari and her mother asked him if he would assist Diana with ‘smuggling’ her and Madalina Cojocari away from the residence,” the search warrant states.

A search of Diana Cojocari’s car last February found passports for the mother and daughter, along with work and education documents, according to the warrant.

The man “stated that she told him she was in a bad relationship with co-defendant, Christopher Palmiter, and wanted a divorce,” the warrant said.

Diana Cojocari had a long phone call with the relative Dec. 2, according to the warrant. That was after Madalina was last seen at school but before she was reported missing.

“In reviewing this subject’s phone records, there was multiple calls to phone numbers belonging to unidentified targets involved in ongoing T3 drug/narcotic trafficking investigations,” the warrant states.