Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / MISSING MADALINA, 11, PHOTOS GONE, HIDDEN BAG OF CASH, PRIESTS PAID THOUSANDS

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MISSING MADALINA, 11, PHOTOS GONE, HIDDEN BAG OF CASH, PRIESTS PAID THOUSANDS · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
0:07
Speaker 2: A beautiful little eleven year old girl, Madelina.
0:12
Speaker 1: Her photos are all gone. Then there's the.
0:16
Speaker 2: Hidden bag of cash, and why is a priest in
0:20
Speaker 2: another country pay thousands and thousands of dollars? What does
0:25
Speaker 2: that have to do with this eleven year old girl?
0:29
Speaker 1: Where is Madelina?
0:31
Speaker 2: I'm Nissy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for
0:34
Speaker 2: being with us.
0:35
Speaker 3: Investigators have developed and followed nearly two hundred and fifty leads,
0:40
Speaker 3: spending across state lines and across the globe. We have
0:43
Speaker 3: interviewed hundreds of people in North Carolina and other states,
0:46
Speaker 3: and again across the globe. We went door to door
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Speaker 3: to at least two hundred and forty five homes, focusing
0:52
Speaker 3: on the Victoria Bay community where Maddelena lives. We canvas
0:56
Speaker 3: businesses and scoured through hours of surveillance video from all
1:00
Speaker 3: over the area. We also led land and water searches
1:04
Speaker 3: around Lake Corneis.
1:06
Speaker 2: You are hearing Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson joining US. Deputy
1:10
Speaker 2: chief of Cornelia's Police Department, been with l E over
1:14
Speaker 2: twenty years. Believe it or not, Let's go straight out
1:18
Speaker 2: to the Deputy Chief Chief. You were just describing an
1:22
Speaker 2: exhaustive search so far for this eleven year old little girl, Madelina.
1:29
Speaker 1: What I hear?
1:30
Speaker 2: What all you and your people, men and women dedicated,
1:35
Speaker 2: have done. It's got to get exhaustive, exhausting. And I
1:38
Speaker 2: was looking at door to door to at least two
1:43
Speaker 2: hundred forty five homes just before I get into her
1:48
Speaker 2: disappearance and the missing photos, and the bag of cash,
1:53
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars of cash, and then the priest in
1:56
Speaker 2: another country getting paid thousands of dollars. Well, I want
2:01
Speaker 2: to talk about what you and your team have done
2:03
Speaker 2: so far to find her. How did you organize a
2:07
Speaker 2: search of two door to door two hundred and forty
2:11
Speaker 2: five homes at least and when did that happen?
2:14
Speaker 1: It happened pretty early on.
2:17
Speaker 4: We had the assistants with the FBI and the State
2:20
Speaker 4: Bureau of Investigations here in North Carolina. We arranged a
2:25
Speaker 4: border door canvas of Madelina's neighborhood. So hundreds of law
2:32
Speaker 4: enforcement officers teamed up and literally went door to door,
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Speaker 4: knocking each door, seeing if anybody knew anything, heard anything,
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Speaker 4: had any information on Madelina.
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Speaker 5: If they you know what.
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Speaker 6: Her kind of everyday activities was and if we didn't,
2:48
Speaker 6: if we weren't able to make contact with somebody, we
2:51
Speaker 6: followed up. So uh, literally each door we knocked on
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Speaker 6: and made sure we made contact with somebody.
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Speaker 2: Deputy Chief, question, you brought in such a variety of
3:03
Speaker 2: LA law enforcement, from the FBI to various local agencies.
3:09
Speaker 1: How do you pay them all? It's got to be
3:12
Speaker 1: over time.
3:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, when it comes to how do we pay all
3:15
Speaker 5: these officers that came in to assist us. From the beginning,
3:18
Speaker 5: that money did not matter to us. A lot of
3:21
Speaker 5: our officers who were off on the days of the
3:23
Speaker 5: searches volunteered their time to come in. We paid them,
3:28
Speaker 5: you know, so that money wasn't even on our radar.
3:32
Speaker 5: It was it was hitting the streets to try to
3:34
Speaker 5: find out information about Madelina. So the FEDS and the
3:38
Speaker 5: state agencies and the other agencies that helped us out.
3:41
Speaker 5: I mean, they sent people and it did not matter
3:45
Speaker 5: what it was going to cost.
3:46
Speaker 1: You know.
3:47
Speaker 2: So often, Chief, when we hear anything in the media
3:51
Speaker 2: about LA law enforcement, it's bad. It's always police brutality,
3:57
Speaker 2: Police did this, somebody used drugs, bl blah blah, And
4:00
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that's not true. What I am saying
4:04
Speaker 2: is all of the l e some of them some
4:08
Speaker 2: of the most honorable people I have ever met, or
4:11
Speaker 2: a law enforcement and I'm just thinking about when Madeleina
4:14
Speaker 2: goes missing, it's all hands on deck, whether they're getting
4:17
Speaker 2: paid or not to go to nearly three hundred.
4:20
Speaker 1: Homes door to door.
4:22
Speaker 2: You mentioned two things that really struck me. You refer
4:26
Speaker 2: to her or the situation in the past.
4:29
Speaker 1: That's all that finding Madelena was all was all that mattered.
4:37
Speaker 2: I'm curious about past tense there because with all of
4:41
Speaker 2: the evidence that we're digging up from these newly released
4:44
Speaker 2: documents regarding Moldova, it's very very, let me just say,
4:50
Speaker 2: intriguing that she disappears and a priest there is paid
4:56
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars. There's just a lot of trail to follow.
5:02
Speaker 2: But Chief the FBI, how did they get into this?
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Speaker 5: We called them. We knew that we needed assistants greater
5:10
Speaker 5: than what we had the manpower for. They have experience
5:14
Speaker 5: obviously in working missing persons cases, and they were on
5:18
Speaker 5: board pretty much from the get go. So with the
5:22
Speaker 5: help of the FBI and Saetgur of Investigations, it was
5:25
Speaker 5: all hands on deck pretty much from the get go.
5:27
Speaker 2: You know what I'm noticing with me is renowned death investigator,
5:32
Speaker 2: professor forensics Joseph Scott and Morgan at Jacksonville State University,
5:36
Speaker 2: which has an incredible criminal justice and criminal procedure.
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Speaker 1: Author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.
5:43
Speaker 2: Host of a hit series Bodybags with Josephcott Morgan, Joe Scott,
5:47
Speaker 2: You and I have been called in over time so
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Speaker 2: many times, and the chief is right. You don't think about, Wow,
5:53
Speaker 2: I'm not getting paid for this. You think about the victim.
5:57
Speaker 2: And it's in this case it's really a race against
6:00
Speaker 2: the clock because when you've got a missing child, you're
6:04
Speaker 2: thinking has she been kidnapped?
6:05
Speaker 1: Has she been taken?
6:07
Speaker 2: Every hour if somebody's driving this speed limit is sixty mph,
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Speaker 2: sixty more miles away. And I don't think that way
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Speaker 2: when I'm called into a case.
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Speaker 7: No, you don't. And you know, the old timers used
6:20
Speaker 7: to refer to it as sleeping in your shoes, you know,
6:24
Speaker 7: because time is of the essence. You're going to move
6:26
Speaker 7: about and try to process every angle that you possibly can't.
6:31
Speaker 7: You know, one of the interesting things about this case
6:34
Speaker 7: is that You've got a major, a major thoroughfare, Interstate
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Speaker 7: highway that runs through this area, and I can only
6:42
Speaker 7: imagine the authorities explored this to the extent that they
6:45
Speaker 7: could at the time with seventy seven. I was seventy
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Speaker 7: seven running north and south, and just that roadway alone
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Speaker 7: and having access to it can get you just about
6:55
Speaker 7: any place that you need to go in America. And
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Speaker 7: so time is of the sain. Every time you delay,
7:01
Speaker 7: every time you wait that you're not deploying teams of people.
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Speaker 7: The individual in this case is poor child that's getting
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Speaker 7: further and further away potentially.
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Speaker 2: WT Chief Jennifer Thompson joining us at Cornelius PD Chief.
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Speaker 2: I have been told from other interviews that your people
7:21
Speaker 2: were actually running. Some of them were running from door
7:28
Speaker 2: to door that speak to one house, they might search it,
7:31
Speaker 2: they might search the curtilage, the buildings or the land
7:34
Speaker 2: around the home, and they would literally jog to the
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Speaker 2: next door. You had to be thinking about what Jesseph
7:42
Speaker 2: Scott Morgan just said. That interstate that's so close, so
7:46
Speaker 2: accessible to her home.
7:49
Speaker 5: Right, we were thinking all sorts of things were going
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Speaker 5: through our heads. I mean the Interstate, the tom frame,
7:56
Speaker 5: the timeline, just getting out there as quickly as we could.
8:00
Speaker 5: And you know, every missing person's case is important, but
8:04
Speaker 5: you know, an eleven year old girl. Lots of us
8:08
Speaker 5: in law enforcement that were here during that time are parents,
8:12
Speaker 5: and so we knew the importance of getting out there
8:17
Speaker 5: in the streets and talking in front of people. We
8:20
Speaker 5: knew that was most important.
8:22
Speaker 2: Joining me is a renowned attorney, criminal defense attorney Derek
8:27
Speaker 2: Smith at DW Smith Legal dot com. Derek, when you
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Speaker 2: look at these photos, as you and I have looked
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Speaker 2: at so many missing children, murdered children, kidnapped children, children
8:40
Speaker 2: that are part of a custody battle and they disappear.
8:44
Speaker 2: Did you see these photos, Derek? I mean this little girl.
8:47
Speaker 2: I was looking at the pictures. She is at Christmas
8:51
Speaker 2: getting presents. It looks at one point that she is
8:54
Speaker 2: at Yellowstone because.
8:55
Speaker 1: I see a steaming pool of.
8:58
Speaker 2: Water behind or there she is, you know, at there.
9:02
Speaker 2: That looks like to me when I took the children
9:05
Speaker 2: to Yellowstone. I mean, this child seems very loved. Look
9:11
Speaker 2: at all those candles one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
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Speaker 2: eight nine. That looks like her tenth birthday And that
9:18
Speaker 2: doesn't just happen Derek all of these photos showing all
9:23
Speaker 2: of these events in front of a dessert at a
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Speaker 2: party at Yellowstone. That doesn't happen with the child never
9:34
Speaker 2: being loved. This child, somehow, somewhere along the way there
9:41
Speaker 2: she is at Myrtle Beach was deeply loved, or Derek
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Speaker 2: Smith is like the House of Horrors. Remember that out
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Speaker 2: in California where the mom and dad would parade all
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Speaker 2: the children, like eleven of them out in matching outfits
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Speaker 2: on vacation and everyone would say, Wow, what an aw
10:00
Speaker 2: some Christmas card, all the while they were being tortured inside.
10:03
Speaker 1: But we don't get any hint of that here.
10:06
Speaker 2: And in that case the Turpins, let me bring them
10:09
Speaker 2: up to Ghule straight from hell. The Turpins homeschool their children,
10:15
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with that.
10:16
Speaker 1: My point is they were never really let out like
10:20
Speaker 1: Madalena is.
10:21
Speaker 2: She goes to school. She isn't swimming where she could
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Speaker 2: tell people if she wanted to, anything that was happening
10:29
Speaker 2: at home, unlike the Turping case where the children were
10:32
Speaker 2: literally chained to the beds. Okay, we don't have that here,
10:37
Speaker 2: but we're seeing all of this evidence of real love.
10:41
Speaker 8: Yes, Nancy, that's what makes these kind of cases so
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Speaker 8: tragic and so difficult. I mean, you can tell, as
10:46
Speaker 8: you see in some of these cases with children victims
10:48
Speaker 8: or one missing, you can see when you get some
10:51
Speaker 8: of the photos from the family, how they're manufactured. You know,
10:54
Speaker 8: this isn't really how they act. It's to see these
10:56
Speaker 8: pictures don't seem to match reality, but it's not. In
10:59
Speaker 8: this case. She looks genuinely happy, The parents look happy,
11:03
Speaker 8: they look they look like a normal, regular happy family.
11:06
Speaker 8: So what is going on here behind the scenes? What
11:09
Speaker 8: are we missing? And that's the thing that's really makes.
11:13
Speaker 2: You wish you to think, or maybe, Derek, we're not
11:16
Speaker 2: missing anything within the home. Of course, the first place
11:20
Speaker 2: you look when a child goes missing is in the home.
11:22
Speaker 2: But to doctor Heidi Green, following up on this train
11:25
Speaker 2: of thought, let's follow it through to its logical conclusion.
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Speaker 1: You see from when she's.
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Speaker 2: A little girl, all the activities, all the photos, all
11:35
Speaker 2: the videos, every which depicts everything they're doing.
11:39
Speaker 1: For guys.
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Speaker 2: Doctor Heidie Green, clinical psychologist, trauma specialist, author. You can
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Speaker 2: find her at doctor Heidigreen dot com. Yes, pictures can lie,
11:48
Speaker 2: of course, they can lie, saying that a million times,
11:50
Speaker 2: but these are not just snaps. They are out doing activities,
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Speaker 2: out with trips with the family, celebrating a birthday. That's
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Speaker 2: a family birthday. There's not a lot of kids around there.
12:01
Speaker 2: They're having a family birthday, maybe at the supper table.
12:05
Speaker 2: I've see Disney Yo Semite, Myrtle Beach. It paints a
12:09
Speaker 2: picture of a very happy family. So I'm trying to
12:14
Speaker 2: put the pieces together, figure out has this child been
12:18
Speaker 2: spirit away? To Jamal Dave, I just but what do
12:21
Speaker 2: the pictures, if anything, tell you, Doctor Heide, This was
12:26
Speaker 2: the one.
12:26
Speaker 9: Thing that I was so struck by as well. You
12:29
Speaker 9: mentioned the case from California, and in that case, even
12:32
Speaker 9: in those pictures, you could see that some of the
12:34
Speaker 9: children were emaciated. You could see that some of the
12:37
Speaker 9: children had sunken eyes, but not in this case. Her
12:40
Speaker 9: eyes are bright and shining. She's making very exuberant facial expressions.
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Speaker 9: She looks well fed. This does not look like a
12:48
Speaker 9: child who is being tortured or is living under any
12:53
Speaker 9: sort of distress whatsoever. Her facial expressions, her body expressions
12:58
Speaker 9: say that she is a genuinely happy child. And it
13:02
Speaker 9: does give a sense that this is a child who
13:04
Speaker 9: at home is well loved and who feels safe in
13:07
Speaker 9: her environment.
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Jesse Scott Morgan back to you.
13:23
Speaker 2: You're the professor of forensics at Jacksonville State. I just
13:27
Speaker 2: heard doctor Heidi Green say something very very telling, very
13:33
Speaker 2: very intuitive. A lot of us may look at those
13:38
Speaker 2: pictures of the Turpin family. For instance, there was the
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Speaker 2: picture of all of them at I think it was Disney,
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Speaker 2: and they're all wearing the Thing one, Thing two, Thing
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Speaker 2: three T shirts. I got those for the twins. I
13:51
Speaker 2: remember it very well. And they're vacations like we see here.
13:58
Speaker 2: But she looked beyond on the T shirts and the
14:03
Speaker 2: background and saw the sunken eyes and some of the
14:09
Speaker 2: children emaciated. Well, most people, a casual observer, would just see,
14:15
Speaker 2: like we're saying, right here, Look there she is at Yosinity,
14:18
Speaker 2: There she is at Yellowstone.
14:20
Speaker 1: There she is at Myrtle Beach. What do you see?
14:24
Speaker 2: Because I'm not seeing anything amiss in these photos and videos.
14:29
Speaker 2: She seems to be the right weight, she has the
14:32
Speaker 2: bright eyes, the smile, no bruises.
14:36
Speaker 7: Nothing, there's no wasting, there's no physical wasting, no diminishment.
14:41
Speaker 7: You know, looking at this and you know for us,
14:46
Speaker 7: particularly when we work cases in forensics of child abuse,
14:51
Speaker 7: the tail of the tape is not what you see
14:53
Speaker 7: when you have vacation photos, but what you see in
14:56
Speaker 7: the home. Was she being properly fit? Is their food
15:01
Speaker 7: because you can get a snapshot of the history, not
15:04
Speaker 7: just of the victim, but also of the familial circumstances
15:08
Speaker 7: surrounding us. What kind of life had they lit?
15:11
Speaker 1: Here?
15:12
Speaker 2: You see the last known depiction of eleven year old
15:18
Speaker 2: Madelina Coach. Great, there she is, there, she is, Nothing
15:23
Speaker 2: seems amiss. This is November twenty one, just before Thanksgiving break.
15:31
Speaker 2: Let's play it on a loop for a moment. Everybody's
15:34
Speaker 2: getting off the bus end of the day. Okay, look
15:42
Speaker 2: at her playing with her necklace, straightening it up, fixing
15:46
Speaker 2: her hair. A precious little eleven year old girl Madeleina,
15:52
Speaker 2: never seen again. Joining me an all star panel to
15:58
Speaker 2: makes sense of what we know right now. But I
16:01
Speaker 2: guarantee you, Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson joining us from Cornelie's PD,
16:05
Speaker 2: how many times did you look at that video for
16:08
Speaker 2: any clue at all? Because I sure have.
16:13
Speaker 5: Hundreds at least doing the same thing you did you
16:18
Speaker 5: know constantly looking at her mannerisms, the people around her,
16:22
Speaker 5: you know, her clothing, her eyes, her body language. It's
16:28
Speaker 5: something that I've done so often, and we all have
16:32
Speaker 5: looking for some sort of clue.
16:34
Speaker 2: Joining me, Elaine outa Das investigative reporter, former reporter, People Magazine, Elaine,
16:41
Speaker 2: thank you for being with us. This case has been
16:45
Speaker 2: almost an obsession for you. You have combed over every detail. What,
16:50
Speaker 2: if anything did you observe on that last video of
16:54
Speaker 2: Maddelina Kajagari.
16:55
Speaker 10: When I look at that video, I just see a
16:59
Speaker 10: regular girl exiting the bus with people that she rides
17:05
Speaker 10: with every day. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. If anything,
17:10
Speaker 10: I expect her to get back on the bus the
17:12
Speaker 10: next day.
17:13
Speaker 2: A Deputy Chief Thompson, I assume you guys interviewed her
17:16
Speaker 2: classmates and people that rode with her on the bus
17:19
Speaker 2: to find out was anyone at the bus stop did
17:22
Speaker 2: she walk off on her usual route? Because we've had
17:27
Speaker 2: oh gosh, there's a stat Deputy Chief that about well
17:33
Speaker 2: over thirty three percent of all missing children revolve around
17:38
Speaker 2: the bus stop, the bus the route to school pick
17:42
Speaker 2: up drop off. Over one third of missing children are
17:47
Speaker 2: somehow connected to a bus, a bus stop, or getting
17:51
Speaker 2: to school. So did she take her regular path from
17:54
Speaker 2: the school bus? Did any of those students notice anything
17:57
Speaker 2: odd or unusual, including her teachers, the bus driver.
18:01
Speaker 5: We talked to everyone that you just mentioned. We sent
18:04
Speaker 5: a team to the school to interview her classmates, her teachers,
18:09
Speaker 5: spoke with kids that were on the bus. Nothing was
18:14
Speaker 5: out of the ordinary. It was just the same as
18:18
Speaker 5: she got off the school bus the week prior.
18:20
Speaker 2: Well, I can tell you this much just got Morgan.
18:23
Speaker 2: You don't just get off the school bus and dematerialize, Okay,
18:28
Speaker 2: you don't get transported like in Harry Potter to Moldova.
18:33
Speaker 2: That doesn't happen. So I'm trying to figure out what,
18:37
Speaker 2: if anything, I can deduce from this. And I know
18:39
Speaker 2: many people may say, hey, you're over thinking this, but
18:43
Speaker 2: I want to know what's in her backpack. I want
18:45
Speaker 2: to know what she left with that morning. I want
18:46
Speaker 2: to know did she take her regular route home? Was
18:50
Speaker 2: her bus stop close to her home? Was it, Deputy Chief?
18:54
Speaker 2: Was it close to her home?
18:55
Speaker 5: It was close to her home?
18:57
Speaker 1: How close corner?
19:00
Speaker 5: I mean right near her house, not far at all
19:05
Speaker 5: at the corner.
19:06
Speaker 2: For Pete's sake, but you know, we've handled cases, investigated
19:11
Speaker 2: them and covered them of children missing from the school
19:14
Speaker 2: bus stop or on their.
19:15
Speaker 1: Way to the bus stop.
19:18
Speaker 2: For Pete's sake, being Omby, I'll never get his case
19:20
Speaker 2: out of my mind. And there were many other but
19:24
Speaker 2: Omby was taken near bus stop and he wasn't seen
19:27
Speaker 2: again for years. He had been taken by a mail predator.
19:32
Speaker 2: And when he got to the mail predator's apartment, there
19:34
Speaker 2: was another kid in there that had been taken from
19:37
Speaker 2: a bus stop that said, let me go straight back
19:40
Speaker 2: to Elaine on a DS. Elaine, I've got a real
19:44
Speaker 2: problem because that video we just showed was on November
19:48
Speaker 2: twenty one, November twenty one, but Elaine when was She
19:53
Speaker 2: reported missing.
19:55
Speaker 10: More than three weeks later on December fifteenth. Because they
20:01
Speaker 10: were forced to report her. The school officials finally went
20:08
Speaker 10: to Madelina's mother and asked where she was. They left
20:14
Speaker 10: a packet on her doorstep for truancy, and they eventually
20:19
Speaker 10: spoke to her on the phone and the mother agreed
20:23
Speaker 10: to go to the school with Madelina. But when she
20:28
Speaker 10: went for her meeting, of course, Maddelina wasn't there. And
20:31
Speaker 10: that was on December fifteenth, and it was then that
20:33
Speaker 10: the school officials raised several eyebrows and said we need
20:38
Speaker 10: to call authorities.
20:39
Speaker 11: On December fifteenth, Diana Kojacari tells the Bailey Middle School
20:43
Speaker 11: in Cornelias police she doesn't know where her daughter is
20:46
Speaker 11: and hasn't seen her since November twenty third. Investigators start
20:49
Speaker 11: searching for Medelina right away and begin work on a
20:52
Speaker 11: timeline for her disappearance. In the first hours of their investigation,
20:56
Speaker 11: detectives find a video of Madelina Kojacari on her school
20:59
Speaker 11: bus take in November twenty first, two days before she vanished.
21:03
Speaker 12: The FBI joins local police in the search for Madelina
21:06
Speaker 12: Kojakari as they canvassed the neighborhood by foot, going door
21:09
Speaker 12: to door. They searched Lake Cornelis with boats. The family
21:12
Speaker 12: home is also visited multiple times as the search for
21:16
Speaker 12: Madeleina continues. Her mother and stepfather say an argument between
21:19
Speaker 12: the two broke out the night Madeleina was last seen.
21:22
Speaker 12: Early the next morning, Saturday, Christopher Palmitter left the house
21:26
Speaker 12: and drove to his family home in Michigan. Diana Kojacari
21:29
Speaker 12: says she noticed Madeleina was gone, along with her bag
21:32
Speaker 12: and clothing the next day, but never said anything to
21:35
Speaker 12: police asks why she didn't report Madelina missing. Diana tells
21:39
Speaker 12: police she's worried it might start a conflict with her husband.
21:42
Speaker 2: Okay, let me understand something, lyne on ideas she's last
21:47
Speaker 2: saying by anyone else. November twenty one. The school is
21:53
Speaker 2: looking into a truancy problem. In other words, she's not
21:56
Speaker 2: showing up for school. The mom says, okay, well come
22:00
Speaker 2: in and we'll explain everything. The mom shows up without Madeleina.
22:06
Speaker 2: That is when a missing person's report is filed. When
22:10
Speaker 2: the school gets about three inches up the mom's tailpipe,
22:14
Speaker 2: and then the story unfolds that the mom and this
22:18
Speaker 2: is not Madelina's bio dad, I believe this is her stepfather.
22:22
Speaker 2: The mom and the stepdad have an argument the night before.
22:27
Speaker 2: I'm curious, what did that have to do with anything?
22:32
Speaker 2: I find that curious that they even talked about that.
22:35
Speaker 2: I mean, was the argument about why didn't you pay
22:37
Speaker 2: the guinea pig outside? Or was it about why are
22:41
Speaker 2: you mistreating Madeleine? I mean, that's a big issue, an
22:44
Speaker 2: argument about what. Then mom says the next morning she
22:49
Speaker 2: realizes that Madeleina is gone, but doesn't say anything because she.
22:54
Speaker 1: Doesn't want to cause a conflict with the new husband.
22:57
Speaker 1: What that doesn't even make.
22:58
Speaker 10: Sense to me, Elaine, I know, so it seems, you know,
23:03
Speaker 10: in the affidavits with investigators speaking to them, you there
23:12
Speaker 10: are not a lot of details, but they talk about
23:15
Speaker 10: this argument, and at that time Diana says that her
23:19
Speaker 10: daughter was in her bedroom. We don't know what the
23:23
Speaker 10: argument was. Then we find out that she's gone the
23:28
Speaker 10: next day, but there's no concern about you know, where
23:34
Speaker 10: is my daughter? Did she go with her stepdad to Michigan.
23:39
Speaker 10: I mean it's twenty twenty five. People have cell phones,
23:42
Speaker 10: you know, so I don't know why there wasn't any
23:45
Speaker 10: sort of outreach or wondering where she was. And then
23:50
Speaker 10: the stepdad returns and they casually ask each other, have
23:56
Speaker 10: you seen her?
23:57
Speaker 1: Have you seen her?
23:58
Speaker 10: No one has seen her.
23:59
Speaker 1: They don't talk about what you're making my head hurt.
24:04
Speaker 2: A Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson, hasn't anybody heard of Life
24:07
Speaker 2: three sixty? I mean, I can tell you where my
24:10
Speaker 2: children are right now by looking at Life three sixty,
24:12
Speaker 2: because there's no way in hubl they're going to separate
24:15
Speaker 2: from their cell phones.
24:17
Speaker 1: That is not happening.
24:18
Speaker 2: And so the husband comes home and she does say,
24:21
Speaker 2: where's Madelina?
24:23
Speaker 1: See none of this is fitting together with me. It's
24:25
Speaker 1: like they know where she is.
24:27
Speaker 5: There are certain parts of that that are part of
24:30
Speaker 5: our interview that I can't go into detail. But you
24:34
Speaker 5: know that was in one of the affidavits.
24:36
Speaker 1: What do you mean it was in one of the affidavits.
24:38
Speaker 2: What was in one of the affidavits?
24:39
Speaker 5: What the other lady just spoke about? Was that mentioned
24:44
Speaker 5: the argument between the parents?
24:46
Speaker 1: Did they ever tell you what the argument was about?
24:48
Speaker 5: Never really got a clear understanding as to what the
24:51
Speaker 5: argument was about.
24:52
Speaker 1: See right they are.
24:53
Speaker 2: I don't like it, chief because to Heidie Green, I
24:57
Speaker 2: can tell you. But my last argument before we have
24:59
Speaker 2: the children, doctor Heidi, we never argued ever once they
25:03
Speaker 2: came along. Oh yeah, a lot of arguments about we
25:06
Speaker 2: should do this, no, we should do that. Our last
25:10
Speaker 2: argument was about the guinea pig. David didn't put the
25:14
Speaker 2: guinea pig outside for the day. That was the big argument.
25:18
Speaker 2: So was the argument about something silly like that or
25:23
Speaker 2: did the argument have something to do with Madalina? And
25:26
Speaker 2: when you can't tell somebody what was your last argument
25:29
Speaker 2: with your husband. You should be able to remember unless
25:32
Speaker 2: it was like ancient history. So the fact that they
25:35
Speaker 2: can't tell me what the argument is about, I believe
25:38
Speaker 2: that's incriminating.
25:39
Speaker 9: Nancy, you're a mother.
25:41
Speaker 13: I'm a mother.
25:41
Speaker 9: Anyone who's a parent who's watching this nose that there
25:44
Speaker 9: isn't an argument that you could be in with a
25:47
Speaker 9: person on this planet that would keep you from reporting
25:51
Speaker 9: your missing child. Any typical parent is going to be
25:55
Speaker 9: losing their mind when they realized that their child is
25:58
Speaker 9: missing and high water they're making that call to the police.
26:03
Speaker 9: So this is a very difficult story to buy.
26:05
Speaker 2: You know, doctor Heidie Green, talk about an urgent nine
26:10
Speaker 2: on one call when someone realizes the child has been
26:14
Speaker 2: missing for an extended.
26:16
Speaker 1: Period of time.
26:18
Speaker 2: Does the name tot mom, Casey Anthony ring a bell.
26:22
Speaker 1: It's not her that calls nine on one.
26:25
Speaker 2: Oh hble l n oh, it's the grandma that loves
26:30
Speaker 2: baby Kelly.
26:31
Speaker 1: Listen to her on the nine one one.
26:34
Speaker 14: Oh, my daughter, babysomer, I need to find her.
26:39
Speaker 5: Your daughter admitted that the baby is where you kind
26:42
Speaker 5: of took her a.
26:43
Speaker 14: Month ago, that that my daughter's been looking for I
26:45
Speaker 14: told you my daughter was looking for a month. I've
26:47
Speaker 14: just found her today that I can't find my granddaughter.
26:50
Speaker 14: She just admitted to me she's been trying to find
26:53
Speaker 14: for herself. There's something wrong. I found my daughter's cars
26:57
Speaker 14: to day and it's not sent a deadlock.
27:01
Speaker 5: Okay, what is the three year old's name?
27:03
Speaker 14: Chailey cy l Ee Anthony.
27:06
Speaker 2: Now that is a concerned grandparent. So, Derek Smith, you're
27:11
Speaker 2: a veteran criminal defense attorney. You try cases all over
27:15
Speaker 2: your jurisdiction, won.
27:17
Speaker 1: A lot of them.
27:18
Speaker 2: So I smell a rat that nobody can tell me
27:22
Speaker 2: this is the night that Madeline disappears or is shuttled
27:27
Speaker 2: off to another location.
27:30
Speaker 1: Why?
27:30
Speaker 2: That leads me to the next question. Why would she
27:33
Speaker 2: be sent overseas or elsewhere? This eleven year old girl?
27:38
Speaker 2: How do we find out about a big bag of money?
27:41
Speaker 2: Why is a priest in Moldova paid off thousands of dollars?
27:45
Speaker 1: Four thousand dollars?
27:47
Speaker 2: Now, Derek Smith, they can't tell me what that argument
27:51
Speaker 2: was about, and I want to know why.
27:53
Speaker 1: You know there's a problem there, right, Oh, absolutely.
27:55
Speaker 8: There's a problem. But you know as well as I
27:58
Speaker 8: do what we were working in this and it's the
28:00
Speaker 8: one thing that can overcome the love of you know,
28:03
Speaker 8: of another, especially if a child is fear and in this,
28:07
Speaker 8: in this situation, I believe there is some genuine fear
28:10
Speaker 8: going on, fear of what we still don't know. But
28:13
Speaker 8: as we were you know, we heard from the other
28:15
Speaker 8: panelists here, every every parent and their child goes missing
28:19
Speaker 8: for a short amount of time, they're going to freak out.
28:21
Speaker 8: They're going to call people, they're going to try to
28:22
Speaker 8: find out what's going on. It didn't happen here. No,
28:25
Speaker 8: why didn't that happen here? Maybe because somebody knows what's
28:29
Speaker 8: going on and they're afraid to bring that out for
28:32
Speaker 8: whatever reason. They're afraid of their spouse. As the mother
28:36
Speaker 8: was saying that she was afraid that something might happen
28:39
Speaker 8: with the husband if she were to say something. Maybe
28:42
Speaker 8: that's a possibility. Maybe something going on that we don't
28:44
Speaker 8: even know about. That's an extra party in this that
28:48
Speaker 8: she's afraid of. But the one thing that will stop
28:51
Speaker 8: someone that loves and cares about the other is fear.
28:54
Speaker 8: Fear for themselves, fear for their daughter in this case,
28:57
Speaker 8: possibly fear from a spouse.
28:59
Speaker 2: We just know this, then we learn about sightings credible
29:04
Speaker 2: sightings of eleven year old Madeleina, and we learn about
29:10
Speaker 2: an attempt to smuggle her out of the country.
29:12
Speaker 13: For what investigators believe. Madelina's mother took a trip to
29:16
Speaker 13: the mountains of North Carolina during the three week period
29:19
Speaker 13: that she failed to report her daughter missing. Unsealed search
29:22
Speaker 13: warrants state that Kojakari sent a text message in early
29:25
Speaker 13: December indicating that she was in the presence of the
29:28
Speaker 13: missing child. Ko Jakari claimed to be searching for Madalina.
29:33
Speaker 13: Less than two weeks later, surveillance photos captured a girl
29:36
Speaker 13: and a man at Loew's Foods. The man reported to
29:39
Speaker 13: be Madeleina's only known blood relative in the US. Sirch
29:43
Speaker 13: warrants revealed that Diana Kojakari asked a distant relative if
29:47
Speaker 13: he would help with smuggling her and Madelina away from
29:50
Speaker 13: her bad relationship with her husband.
30:00
Speaker 1: Crime stores with Nancy Grace.
30:06
Speaker 12: Search warrants reveal in the weeks after Madelina's disappearance that
30:09
Speaker 12: Diana Kojakari pays a priest in Moldova a combined four
30:13
Speaker 12: thousand dollars after talking with him by the phone for
30:16
Speaker 12: more than ten minutes. It was determined by Cornelia's police
30:19
Speaker 12: detective Gina Patterson that Western Union money was sent to
30:22
Speaker 12: Diana Kojakari's mother and a priest in Moldova.
30:26
Speaker 1: Why then we learn even more listen.
30:29
Speaker 12: Madelina Kojakari's grandmother, Rodka ko Jakari, through a translator, accuses
30:34
Speaker 12: Diana's husband, Christopher Palmitter, of trafficking Diana and Madelina for
30:39
Speaker 12: five million dollars. While that might seem a wild accusation,
30:43
Speaker 12: a search warrant suggests Diana and Rodka Kojakari contacted a
30:47
Speaker 12: distant relative asking if he would help in smuggling Diana
30:52
Speaker 12: and Madelina from their home in North Carolina. Before Madelina disappeared,
30:56
Speaker 12: Diana told the relative she was in a bad relationship
30:59
Speaker 12: with Palmitter and I wanted a divorce, paying.
31:01
Speaker 2: A priest in another country in Maltova thousands of dollars.
31:06
Speaker 2: We also learned that the mom was spotted with a
31:09
Speaker 2: huge amount of cash.
31:12
Speaker 1: All that money seems to belie.
31:15
Speaker 2: The claim that this was all because she wanted to
31:18
Speaker 2: get out of a relationship. She could do that right
31:21
Speaker 2: here in the US. So to WSU Jennifer Thompson. Why
31:26
Speaker 2: pay a priest four thousand dollars? Why is mom seeing
31:30
Speaker 2: with stacks of cash?
31:33
Speaker 5: What do you think the priest situation? You know, her
31:36
Speaker 5: being from Moldova and some of her religious beliefs. You know,
31:41
Speaker 5: it was explained to us that it was sent for prayers.
31:45
Speaker 5: You know, throughout the investigation we have uncovered some other oa.
31:49
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, whoa wait, four thousand dollars for prayers. Here
31:56
Speaker 2: in the US, you can get prayers for three for free.
32:00
Speaker 2: I can say prayer right now and it won't cost
32:02
Speaker 2: me a nickel. Four thousand dollars for a priest in
32:05
Speaker 2: Moldova to pray.
32:07
Speaker 1: Really, you bought that?
32:08
Speaker 3: Oh?
32:09
Speaker 5: I didn't say we bought it. I just said that's
32:11
Speaker 5: what we were told initially.
32:12
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm taking you didn't buy it. Praise the Lord,
32:17
Speaker 2: Deputy Chief. I've only heard good things about you, and
32:19
Speaker 2: you scared me there for a moment, But then we're
32:22
Speaker 2: learning more.
32:24
Speaker 1: Listen.
32:25
Speaker 13: One theory is that Madelina may have been the victim
32:27
Speaker 13: of human trafficking. Court documents detailed call in which ko
32:31
Speaker 13: Jakari and her mother discuss a large bag of money
32:35
Speaker 13: and a theory that the girl's stepfather gave the girl
32:38
Speaker 13: away for money. Palmeter is hurting calls with his brother
32:42
Speaker 13: and sister in law, saying Diana Kojacari had a lot
32:45
Speaker 13: of cash and he didn't know where she got it.
32:48
Speaker 2: Straight out to Elaine Atadias investigative reporter formerly with People magazine, Elaine,
32:55
Speaker 2: you have scoured all the court records, all the documents,
32:58
Speaker 2: all the affidavits. Is there anything to this theory? And
33:04
Speaker 2: where did all that money come from? I mean, that
33:06
Speaker 2: is that's what they're trying to find out.
33:09
Speaker 10: I mean they put search warrants for a safety deposit box,
33:18
Speaker 10: loan records, credit cards, bank accounts, their telephones, So police
33:26
Speaker 10: have scoured everything trying to find out who's getting money.
33:32
Speaker 10: Is that what this is all about? I mean, we
33:35
Speaker 10: don't know what the reason anyone's being paid, but we
33:42
Speaker 10: do know that Diana paid four thousand dollars to a priest,
33:48
Speaker 10: that is what we know for.
33:49
Speaker 2: Sure, and had conversations about smuggling the child to another country.
33:53
Speaker 2: But my question is why why send the child all
33:58
Speaker 2: the way to Moldova and why is the mom still here?
34:02
Speaker 2: But based on discoveries by Deputy Chi Jennifer Thompson and others.
34:10
Speaker 2: Another and possibly more sinister picture appears.
34:15
Speaker 12: The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation search warrant shows
34:18
Speaker 12: investigators seized a phone early in the investigation that identified
34:23
Speaker 12: with a Discord account with thirty seven unread messages. Investigators
34:27
Speaker 12: believe the Discord account belongs to Madelina. The same Warren
34:31
Speaker 12: noted this investigation involves the belief sexual exploitation of a
34:35
Speaker 12: minor child victim. Discord is a voice, video and chat
34:39
Speaker 12: app popular among video gamers, but Chile predators are known
34:42
Speaker 12: to use Discord to groom victims and trade sexual exploitation material.
34:47
Speaker 2: Do we have the crux of her disappearance? Is she
34:51
Speaker 2: dead or alive? Was she sex exploited? Was she trafficked
34:57
Speaker 2: for sex? J Justscott Morgan? Could you explain what is
35:03
Speaker 2: in Discord?
35:04
Speaker 7: Well, yeah, it's actually if you're around kids, which I'm
35:08
Speaker 7: around a lot of them college students that are gamers,
35:12
Speaker 7: it's they have the ability to hop onto these networks
35:15
Speaker 7: and talk to one another. And there's also, as was
35:18
Speaker 7: mentioned in the report, a video element to this as well.
35:22
Speaker 7: So you're already in a community of people that might
35:26
Speaker 7: be made up of underage people and all it takes
35:28
Speaker 7: is for some predator out there to get their hooks
35:32
Speaker 7: into some kind of linkage through Discord and you can
35:36
Speaker 7: begin to talk to individuals. Also, Look, there are many
35:40
Speaker 7: disaffected kids that are out there, and if they have
35:42
Speaker 7: someone that pops onto their feed that just wants to
35:45
Speaker 7: be their friend, quote unquote, it can be quite dicey
35:49
Speaker 7: at best.
35:50
Speaker 2: Let me go now to WT Chief Jennifer Thompson, what
35:54
Speaker 2: do you make of this little girl having thirty seven messages?
36:00
Speaker 2: Obviously some of them sex related because now the investigation
36:05
Speaker 2: is veering into a sexploitation of a child direction.
36:10
Speaker 5: Super concerning, and those search warrants were done in the
36:16
Speaker 5: beginning of the investigation through a North Carolina SBI investigator
36:21
Speaker 5: that handles specifically those tops of cases, exploring if that
36:27
Speaker 5: was a possibility of what happens about Elena?
36:29
Speaker 2: What in the Discord messages made them believe that she
36:35
Speaker 2: had been trafficked or sexually exploited? What in those thirty
36:40
Speaker 2: seven messages?
36:41
Speaker 5: Chief, I wish I could go into detail, but I
36:43
Speaker 5: can't go into detail about the specifics of the messages.
36:46
Speaker 2: Elaine atidiis joining US investigative reporter formerly with People magazine.
36:51
Speaker 1: Elaine.
36:51
Speaker 2: I'm very concerned that the mother was out burning her
36:57
Speaker 2: daughter's photos, which I find very disturbing. Why would you
37:03
Speaker 2: burn your child's mattress in a fire pit, her pictures,
37:08
Speaker 2: the mattress, her clothing, her Halloween costume, family photos.
37:12
Speaker 1: And a fire pit. What can you tell me about that?
37:16
Speaker 10: I mean, officially there, you know, police have not revealed
37:22
Speaker 10: motive or a lot of reasons, but we can think
37:27
Speaker 10: that burning her personal belongings, it's almost as if she's
37:32
Speaker 10: getting rid of the fact that she existed. Anything personal
37:37
Speaker 10: related to Madelina was burned in that fire pit. And
37:41
Speaker 10: in fact, neighbors remember seeing a fire going on at
37:47
Speaker 10: the house. But one witness said, we didn't even know
37:52
Speaker 10: that Madelina was missing, so without that information, they just
37:57
Speaker 10: they saw it more as a fire hazard versus anything
38:01
Speaker 10: nefarious going on.
38:03
Speaker 2: You know. Doctor Heidie Green a clinical psychologist at doctor
38:07
Speaker 2: heidigreen dot com.
38:09
Speaker 1: I find it hard Like if I'm making a.
38:11
Speaker 2: Scrapbook or photo album, if I have a dupe, a
38:14
Speaker 2: duplicate picture of the twins, I have a hard time
38:17
Speaker 2: even throwing that duplicate in the trash right after.
38:20
Speaker 1: I make the album.
38:22
Speaker 2: I'm attached to it, and I actually have big bags
38:27
Speaker 2: that say dupes on the outside where I won't throw
38:29
Speaker 2: away a picture of the twins.
38:32
Speaker 1: And this mom, according to reports, and.
38:35
Speaker 2: I sit till proven guilty, is burning her photos, her Halloween.
38:40
Speaker 2: I have every Halloween costume the twins have ever worn.
38:45
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's crazy, but I don't want
38:47
Speaker 2: to throw them away. They bring back all these amazing
38:50
Speaker 2: memories of trick or treating, but her clothing, her pictures,
38:55
Speaker 2: her Halloween costume, but her mattress.
39:00
Speaker 1: Why would you burn pictures of your child?
39:04
Speaker 9: This is where the story really gets bizarre and even
39:08
Speaker 9: more difficult to understand, because while we do know that
39:11
Speaker 9: everybody responds differently to trauma, and sometimes when people are
39:15
Speaker 9: in a trauma state, they do things that seem very unusual,
39:19
Speaker 9: but it is again very hard to believe that a
39:23
Speaker 9: grieving or panicked mother would be burning her child's pictures.
39:29
Speaker 9: If anything, she would be passing these pictures out trying
39:32
Speaker 9: to get the word out that her daughter is missing.
39:35
Speaker 2: Where as eleven year old Madeline Cojacari and recently released documents,
39:41
Speaker 2: we're learning a lot straight out to professor forensic's death
39:45
Speaker 2: investigator Joe Scott, Morgan Jo Scott. I understand that multiple
39:49
Speaker 2: search warrants were executed in the home. Stains were swabbed
39:54
Speaker 2: in several areas, from a light switch to the carpet
39:57
Speaker 2: in a bedroom. I wonder if that's the same bedroom
40:00
Speaker 2: where the mattress was burned. There's nothing good about mommy
40:03
Speaker 2: burning the mattress in the backyard.
40:05
Speaker 7: No, it's a very specific item.
40:07
Speaker 1: And that's what you know.
40:08
Speaker 7: When you said that, I was scratching my head thinking,
40:11
Speaker 7: you know, one heck, would you burn a mattress? Generally
40:14
Speaker 7: we find all kinds of biological samples on mattresses, and
40:19
Speaker 7: particularly when you're talking about violent prompts, we're talking about
40:22
Speaker 7: the issuance of blood, there would be blood deposition. Perhaps
40:25
Speaker 7: why I can't imagine, in my wildest dreams, why someone
40:30
Speaker 7: would purpose to destroy a mattress other than it would
40:33
Speaker 7: hold some kind of physical evidence relative to this and
40:37
Speaker 7: the fact that they would do it in a fire pit.
40:39
Speaker 7: It would really draw attention to you in that and
40:43
Speaker 7: I find it interesting that the neighbors thought well as
40:45
Speaker 7: a fire hazard. They had no connectivity between this missing
40:49
Speaker 7: child and the burning of these items. At that point
40:51
Speaker 7: in time.
40:52
Speaker 1: We wait, as the investigation goes on.
40:55
Speaker 2: If you know or think you know anything about the
40:59
Speaker 2: disappearance this eleven year old little girl, Madelina ko Jakari,
41:03
Speaker 2: please dial seven zero four eight nine two seven seven
41:08
Speaker 2: seven three repeat seven zero four eight nine two seven
41:12
Speaker 2: seven seven three. There is a twenty five thousand dollars reward.
41:19
Speaker 2: We remember American hero Detective Benjamin Campbell Main State Police
41:23
Speaker 2: passed away in the line of duty. Nine years with
41:27
Speaker 2: law enforcement. Survived by grieving wife Hillary and their son.
41:33
Speaker 2: Sentenced to life without dad. American hero Detective Benjamin Campbell.
41:40
Speaker 2: Nancy Gray signing off goodbye friend,