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

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Madalina Cojocari was last seen just days before Thanksgiving, getting off her school bus at home in Cornelius. A bus camera captured her exit. In the released footage, the sixth grader walks down the aisle and steps off the bus at 4:59 p.m. That was the last day Madalina attended school. Two weeks after classes resumed and Madalina didn’t return, staff at Bailey Middle School contacted her mother, Diana, to ask about her. On December 15, Diana Cojocari went to the school and told a resource officer that Madalina was missing. Joining Nancy Grace today  Derek Smith  - Criminal Defense Attorney Dr. Heidi Green -  Clinical Psychologist, Trauma specialist, Author: ‘The Path to Self-Love and World Domination; IG: @drheidigreen Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson -  Cornelius Police Department; Instagram: @corneliuspolice Joseph Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, and Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan;" X@JoScottForensic Elaine Aradillas -  Investigative Reporter, Former Reporter for People Magazine; X: @elaineja, Instagram: @the_elaine See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A beautiful little 11-year-old girl, Madalena. Her photos are all gone. Then there's the hidden bag of cash. And why is a priest in another country paid thousands and thousands of dollars? What does that have to do with this 11-year-old girl? Where is Madalena? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Investigators have developed and followed nearly

250 leads spanning across state lines and across the globe. We have interviewed hundreds of people in North Carolina and other states and again across the globe. We went door to door to at least 245 homes focusing on the Victoria Bay community where Madalena lives. We canvassed businesses and scoured through hours of surveillance video from all over the area. We also led land and water searches around Lake Cornelius. You are hearing Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson joining us, Deputy Chief of Cornelius Police Department. Been with LE over 20 years, believe it or not. Let's go straight out to the deputy chief. Chief, you were just describing an

exhaustive search so far for this 11 year old little girl, Madalena. When I hear what all you and your people, men and women dedicated have done, it's got to get exhausting. And I was looking at door to door to at least 245 homes. Just before I get into her disappearance and the missing photos and the bag of cash, thousands of dollars of cash, and then the priest in another country getting paid thousands of dollars as well. I want to talk about what you and your team have done so far to find her. How did you organize a search of two door-to-door, 245 homes at least? And when did that happen? It happened pretty early on. We had the assistance with the FBI and the State Bureau of Investigations here in North Carolina. We arranged a door-to-door canvas of Madalena's

neighborhood. So hundreds of law enforcement officers teamed up and literally went door-to-door knocking on each door, seeing if anybody knew anything, heard anything, had any information on Madalena. If they, you know, what her kind of everyday activities was. And if we didn't, if we weren't able to make contact with somebody, we followed up. So literally each door we knocked on and made sure we make contact with somebody. Deputy Chief, question. You brought in such a variety of LA law enforcement from the FBI to various local agencies. How do you pay them all?

It's got to be overtime. Yeah, when it comes to how do we pay all these officers that came in to assist us from the beginning, that money did not matter to us. A lot of our officers who were off on the days of the searches volunteered their time to come in. We paid them, you know, so that money wasn't even on our radar. It was it was hitting the streets to try to find out information about Madalena. So the feds and the state agencies and other agencies that helped us out, I mean, they sent people and it did not matter what it was going to cost. You know, so often, Chief, when we hear anything in the media about LA law enforcement, it's bad.

It's always police brutality. Police did this. Somebody used drugs, blah, blah, blah. And I'm not saying that's not true. What I am saying is all of the L.A., some of them, some of the most honorable people I have ever met were law enforcement. It's all hands on deck, whether they're getting paid or not to go to nearly 300 homes door to door. You mentioned two things that really struck me. You refer to her or the situation in the past. That's all that finding. Madeline was all was all that mattered. scattered. I'm curious about past tense there, because with all of the evidence that we're digging up from these newly released documents regarding Moldova, it's very, very, let me just say, intriguing that she disappears and a priest there is paid thousands of dollars. There's just a lot of trail to follow. But, Chief, the FBI, how did they get into this? We called them. We knew that we needed assistance greater than what

we had the manpower for. They have experience, obviously, in working missing persons cases, and they were on board pretty much from the get-go. So with the help of the FBI and the State Bureau of Investigations, it was all hands on deck pretty much from the get-go. You know what I'm noticing with me is a renowned death investigator, professor of forensics, Joseph Scott Morgan at Jacksonville State University, which has an incredible criminal justice and criminal procedure wing. Author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, host of a hit series, Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan.

Joe Scott, you and I have been called in overtime so many times, and the chief is right. You don't think about, wow, I'm not getting paid for this. You think about the victim, and in this case, it's really a race against the clock because when you've got a missing child, you're thinking, has she been kidnapped? Has she been taken? Every hour, if somebody's driving, the speed limit is 60 MPH, 60 more miles away. And I don't think that way when I'm called into a case. No, you don't. And, you know, the old timers used to refer to it as sleeping in your shoes, you know, because time is of the essence. You're going to move about and try to process every angle that you possibly can.

You know, one of the interesting things about this case is that you've got a major, a major thoroughfare interstate highway that runs through this area. And I can only imagine the authorities explored this to the extent that they could at the time with 77, I-77 running north and south. And just that roadway alone and having access to it can get you just about any place that you need to go in America. And so time is of the essence. Every time you delay, every time you wait, that you're not deploying teams of people. The individual, in this case, this poor child is getting further and further away, potentially. Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson joining us at Cornelius PD. Chief, I have been told from other interviews that your people were actually running.

Some of them were running from door to door. They'd speak to one house. They might search it. They might search the curtilage, the buildings or the land around the home. And they would literally jog to the next door. You had to be thinking about what Justice Scott Morgan just said, that interstate that's so close, so accessible to her home. Right. We were thinking all sorts of things were going through our heads. I mean, the interstate, the time frame, the timeline, just getting out there as quickly as we could. And, you know,

every missing person's case is important. But, you know, an 11-year-old girl, lots of us in law enforcement that were here during that time are parents. And so we knew the importance of getting out there and in the streets and talking in front of people. We knew that was most important. Joining me is renowned attorney, criminal defense attorney, Derek Smith at DWSmithLegal.com. Derek, when you look at these photos, as you and I have looked at so many missing children, murdered children, kidnapped children, children that are part of a custody battle and they disappear. Did you see these photos, Derek? I mean, this little girl, I was

looking at the pictures. She is at Christmas getting presents. It looks at one point that she is at Yellowstone because I see a steaming pool of water behind her. There she is, you know, there. That looks like to me when I took the children to Yellowstone. I mean, this child seems very loved. Look at all those candles. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. That looks like her 10th birthday. And that doesn't just happen, Derek. All of these photos showing all of these events

in front of a dessert, at a party, at Yellowstone, it just, that doesn't happen with the child never being loved. This child somehow, somewhere along the way, there she is at Myrtle Beach was deeply loved or or Derek Smith is like the house of horrors remember that out in California where the mom and dad would parade all the children like 11 of them out in matching outfits on vacation and everyone would say wow what an awesome Christmas card. All the while they were being tortured inside, but we don't get any hint of that here. And in that case, the Turpins, let me bring them up to ghoul straight from hell. The Turpins homeschool their children. Nothing wrong with that. My point is they were never really let out like Madalena is.

She goes to school. She is in swimming where she could tell people if she wanted to anything that was happening at home. Unlike the Turpin case where the children were literally chained to the beds. OK, we don't have that here, but we're seeing all of this evidence of real love. Yes, Nancy, that's what makes these kind of cases so so tragic and so difficult. I mean, you can tell, as you've seen in some of these cases with children, victims are missing. You can see when you get some of the photos from the family, how they're manufactured. You know, this isn't really how they act.

It's the sick. These pictures don't seem to match reality, but it's not in this case. She looks genuinely happy. The parents look happy. They look like a normal, regular, happy family. So what is going on here behind the scenes? What are we missing? And that's the thing that really makes you think. Go ahead. Or maybe, Derek, we're not missing anything within the home. Of course, the first place you look when a child goes missing is in the home. But to Dr. Heidi Green, following up on this train of thought, let's follow it through to its logical conclusion. You see from when she's a little girl,

all the activities, all the photos, all the videos, every which depicts everything they're doing for guys, Dr. Heidi Green, clinical psychologist, trauma specialist, author. You can find her at drheidigreen.com. Yes, pictures can lie. Of course they can lie. I've seen that a million times. But these are not just snaps. They are out doing activities, out with trips with the family, celebrating a birthday.

That's a family birthday. There's not a lot of kids around there. They're having a family birthday, maybe at the supper table. I've seen Disney, Yosemite, Myrtle Beach. It paints a picture of a very happy family. So I'm trying to put the pieces together, figure out, has this child been spirited away to Moldova? I just, but what do the pictures, if anything,

tell you, Dr. Heidi? This was the one thing that I was so struck by as well. You mentioned the case from California. And in that case, even in those pictures, you could see that some of the children were emaciated. You could see that some of the children had sunken eyes, but not in this case. Her eyes are bright and shining. She's making very exuberant facial expressions. She looks well fed that she is a genuinely happy child. And it does give a sense that this is a child who at home is well-loved and who feels safe in her environment. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Joseph Scott Morgan, back to you. You're the professor of forensics at Jacksonville State. I just heard Dr. Heidi Green say something very, very telling.

Very, very intuitive. A lot of us may look at those pictures of the Turpin family. For instance, there was the picture of all of them at, I think it was Disney, and they're all wearing the Thing 1, Thing 2, Thing 3 t-shirts. I got those for the twins. I remember it very well. And their vacation is like we see here. But she looked beyond the T-shirts and the background and saw the sunken eyes and some of the children emaciated. While most people, a casual observer, would just see like we're saying right here.

Look, there she is at Yosemite. There she is at Yellowstone. There she is at Myrtle Beach. What do you see? Because I'm not seeing anything amiss in these photos and videos. She seems to be the right weight. She has the bright eyes, the smile, no bruises, nothing. There's no wasting.

There's no physical wasting, no diminishment, you know, looking at this. And, you know, for us, particularly when we work cases in forensics of child abuse, the tail of the tape is not what you see when you have vacation photos, but what you see in the home. Was she being properly fed? Is there food? Because you can get a snapshot of the history, not just of the victim, but also of the familial circumstances surrounding this. What kind of life had they led? Here you see the last known depiction of 11-year-old Madalena Kojikari. There she is. There she is. Nothing seems amiss.

This is November 21, just before Thanksgiving break. Let's play it on a loop for a moment. Everybody's getting off the bus. End of the day. Okay, look at her playing with her necklace, straightening it up, fixing her hair. A precious little 11-year-old girl, Madalena, never seen again. Joining me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But I guarantee you, Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson, joining us from Cornelius PD. How many times did you look at that video for any clue at all?

Because I sure have. Hundreds, at least doing the same thing you did, you know, constantly looking at her mannerisms, the people around her, you know, her clothing, her eyes, her body language. It's something that I've done so often and we all have looking for some sort of clue. Joining me, Elaine Adedias, investigative reporter, former reporter, People Magazine. Elaine, thank you for being with us. This case has been almost an obsession for you. You have combed over every detail.

What, if anything, did you observe on that last video of Madalena Kajikari? When I look at that video, I just see a regular girl exiting the bus with, you know, people that she rides with every day. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. If anything, I expect her to get back on the bus the next day. Deputy Chief Thompson, I assume you guys interviewed her classmates and people that rode with her on the bus to find out was anyone at the bus stop? Did she walk off on her usual route? Because we've had, oh gosh, there's a stat, Deputy Chief, that about well over 33% of all missing children revolve around the bus stop, the bus, the route to school, pickup, drop-off. Over one-third of missing children are somehow connected to a bus, a bus stop, or getting to

school. So did she take her regular path from the school bus? Did any of those students notice anything odd or unusual, including her teachers or the bus driver? We talked to everyone that you just mentioned. We sent a team to the school to interview her classmates, her teachers, spoke with kids that were on the bus. Nothing was out of the ordinary. It was just the same as she got off the school bus the week prior. Well, I can tell you this much, Jessica Morgan. You don't just get off the school bus and dematerialize.

OK, you don't get transported like in Harry Potter to Moldova. That doesn't happen. So I'm trying to figure out what, if anything, I can deduce from this. And I know many people may say, hey, you're overthinking this. But I want to know what's in her backpack. I want to know what she left with that morning. I want to know, did she take her regular route home? Was her bus stop close to her home?

Was it, Deputy Chief, was it close to her home? It was close to her home. How close? The corner, I mean, right near her house. How close? The corner. I mean, right near her house. Not far at all. At the corner, for Pete's sake. But, you know, we've handled cases, investigated them and covered them of children missing from the school bus stop or on their way to the bus stop.

Oh, for Pete's sake, Ben Omby, I'll never get his case out of my mind. And there were many other, but Ownby was taken near bus stop and he wasn't seen again for years. He had been taken by a male predator. And when he got to the male predator's apartment, there was another kid in there that had been taken from a bus stop. That said, let me go straight back to Elaine Adedias. Elaine, I've got a real problem because that video we just showed was on November 21, November 21. But Elaine, when was she reported missing? More than three weeks later on December 15th.

And that's because they were forced to report her. The school officials finally went to Madalena's mother and asked where she was. They left a packet on her doorstep for truancy and they eventually spoke to her on the phone and the mother agreed to go to the school with Madalina. But when she went for her meeting, of course, Madalina wasn't there. And that was on December 15th. And it was then that the school officials raised several eyebrows and said, we need to call authorities. On December 15th, Diana Kojikari tells the Bailey Middle School and Cornelius Police she doesn't know where her daughter is

and hasn't seen her since November 23rd. Investigators start searching for Madalena right away and begin work on a timeline for her disappearance. In the first hours of their investigation, detectives find a video of Madalena Kojikari on her school bus taken November 21st, two days before she vanished. The FBI joins local police in the search for Madalena Kojikari. As they canvas the neighborhood by foot going door to door, they search Lake Cornelius with boats. The family home is also visited multiple times. As the search for Madalena continues, her mother and stepfather say an argument between the two broke out the night Madalena was last seen. Early the next morning, Saturday, Christopher Palmiter left the house and drove to his family home in Michigan.

Diana Kojikari says she noticed Madalena was gone, along with her bag and clothing, the next day, but never said anything to police. Asked why she didn't report Madalena missing, Diana tells police she's worried it might start a conflict with her husband. Okay, let me understand something, Elaine Adedias. She's last seen by anyone else November 21. The school is looking into a truancy problem. In other words, she's not showing up for school. The mom says, okay, we'll come in and we'll explain everything.

The mom shows up without Madalena. That is when a missing persons report is filed. When the school gets about three inches up the mom's tailpipe. And then the story unfolds that the mom and this is not Madalena's bio dad. I believe this is her stepfather. The mom and the stepdad have an argument the night before. I'm curious, what did that have to do with anything? I find that curious that they even talked about that. I mean, was the argument about why didn't you pay the guinea pig outside? Or was it about why are you mistreating Madeline? I mean, that's a big issue.

An argument about what? Then mom says the next morning she realizes that Madeline is gone, but doesn't say anything because she doesn't want to cause a conflict with the new husband. What? That doesn't even make sense to me, Elaine. I know. It seems, you know, in the affidavits with investigators speaking to them, you there are not a lot of details, but they talk about this argument. And at that time, Diana says that her daughter was in her bedroom. We don't know what the argument was. Then we find out that she's gone the next day. But there's no concern about, you know, where where is my daughter? Did she go with her stepdad to Michigan? I mean, it's 2025. People have cell phones, you know, so I don't know why there wasn't any sort of outreach or wondering where she was.

And then the stepdad returns and they casually ask each other, have you seen her? Have you seen her? No one has seen her and they don't talk about it. You're making my head hurt. Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson, hasn't anybody heard of Life 360? I mean, I can tell you where my children are right now by looking at Life 360 because there's no way in H-E-L-L they're going to separate from their cell phones. That is not happening. And so the husband comes home and she doesn't say, where's Madalena? See, none of this is fitting together with me. It's like they know where she is. There are certain parts of that that are part of our interview that I can't go into detail, but

you know, that, that was in one of the affidavits. What do you mean it was in one of the affidavits? What was in one of the affidavits? What, you mean it was in one of the affidavits? What was in one of the affidavits? What the other lady just spoke about was that mentioned the argument between the parents. Did they ever tell you what the argument was about? I never really got a clear understanding as to what the argument was about. You see, right there, I don't like it, Chief, because Dr. Heidi Green, I can tell you what my last argument, before we had the children, Dr. Heidi, we never argued ever. Once they came along. Oh, yeah. A lot of arguments about we should do this.

No, we should do that. Our last argument was about the guinea pig. David didn't put the guinea pig outside for the day. That was the big argument. So was the argument about something silly like that? Or did the argument have something to do with Madalena? And when you can't tell somebody, what was your last argument with your husband? You should be able to remember unless it was like ancient history. So the fact that they can't tell me what the argument is about, I believe that's

incriminating. Nancy, you're a mother. I'm a mother. Anyone who's a parent who's watching this knows that there isn't an argument that you could be in with a person on this planet that would keep you from reporting your missing child. Any typical parent is going to be losing their mind when they realize that their child is missing. And come hell or high water, they're making that call to the police. So this is a very difficult story to buy. You know, Dr. Heidi Green, talk about an urgent 911 call when someone realizes the child has been missing for an extended period of time. Does the name Totmom Casey Anthony ring a bell? It's not her

that calls 911-0-H-E-L-L-N-O. It's the grandma that loves baby Kelly. Listen to her on the 911. My daughter finally admitted that the baby's in the store. I need to find her. Your daughter admitted that the baby is where? That the baby sitter took her a month ago. That's what my daughter's been looking for. I told you my daughter was missing for a month. I just found her today, but I can't find my granddaughter. She just admitted to me that she's been trying to find her herself.

There's something wrong. I found my daughter's car today, and it smells like there's been a dead body in the damn car. Okay, what is the three-year-old's name? Kaylee. C-A-Y-L-E-E. Anthony. Now that is a concerned grandparent. So Derek Smith, you're a veteran criminal defense attorney. You try cases all over your jurisdiction. Won a lot of them. So I smell a rat that nobody can tell me. This is the night that Madeline disappears or is shuttled off to another location. Why? That leads me to the next question. Why would she be sent overseas or elsewhere? This 11 year old girl, how do we find out about a big bag of money? Why is a priest in Moldova paid off thousands of dollars, $4,000. Now, Derek Smith, they can't tell me what that argument was about. And I want to know why, you know, there's a problem there, right?

Oh, absolutely. There's a problem. But you know, as well as I do when we're working in this business, the one thing that can overcome the love of another, especially of a child, is fear. And in this situation, I believe there is some genuine fear going on. Fear of what? We still don't know. But as we heard from the other panelists here, every parent, their child goes missing for a short amount of time, they're going to freak out. They're going to call people. They're going to try to find out what's going on. It didn't happen here. Every parent, their child goes missing for a short amount of time. They're going to freak out. They're going to call people. They're going to try to find out what's going on. It didn't happen here. Now, why didn't that happen here? Maybe because somebody knows what's going on and they're afraid to bring that out for whatever reason. They're afraid of their spouse as if

the mother was saying that she was afraid that something might happen with the husband. If she were to say something, maybe that's a possibility. Maybe something going on that we don't even know about that's an extra party in this that she's afraid of. But the one thing that will stop someone that loves and cares about the other is fear. Fear for themselves, fear for their daughter in this case, possibly fear from a spouse. We just don't know that. Then we learn about sightings, credible sightings of 11-year-old Madalena. And we learn

about an attempt to smuggle her out of the country for what? Investigators believe Madalena's mother took a trip to the mountains of North Carolina during the three-week period that she failed to report her daughter missing. Unsealed search warrants state that Kojikari sent a text message in early December indicating that she was in the presence of the missing child. Kojikari claimed to be searching for Madalena. Less than two weeks later, surveillance photos captured a girl and a man at Lowe's Foods. The man reported to be Madalena's only known blood relative in the U.S. Search warrants reveal that Diana Kojikari asked a distant relative if he would help with smuggling her and Madalena away from her bad relationship with her husband.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Search warrants reveal in the weeks after Madalena's disappearance that Diana Kojikari pays a priest in Moldova a combined $4,000 after talking with him by the phone for more than 10 minutes. It was determined by Cornelius police detective Gina Patterson that Western Union money was sent to Diana Kojikari's mother and a priest in Moldova. Why? Then we learn even more. Listen. Madalena Kojikari's grandmother, Rodica Kojikari, through a translator accuses Diana's husband, Christopher Palmiter, of trafficking Diana and Madalena for $5 million. While that might seem a wild accusation, a search warrant suggests Diana and Rodica Kojikari contacted a distant relative asking if he would help in smuggling Diana and Madalena from their home in North Carolina before Madalena disappeared. Diana told the relative she was in a bad relationship with Palmiter and wanted a divorce.

Paying a priest in another country, Moldova, thousands of dollars. We also learned that the mom was spotted with a huge amount of cash. All that money seems to belie the claim that this was all because she wanted to get out of a relationship. She could do that right here in the U.S. So to Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson, why pay a priest $4,000? Why is mom seen with stacks of cash? What do you think? The priest situation, you know, her being from Moldova and some of her religious beliefs, you know, it was explained to us that it was sent for prayers.

You know, throughout the investigation, we have uncovered some other information about that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Four thousand dollars for prayers? Here in the U.S., you can get prayers for free. I can say prayer right now, and it won't cost me a nickel. $4,000 for a priest in Moldova to pray? Really? You bought that? Oh, I didn't say we bought it. I just said that's what we were told initially. Okay, so I'm taking you didn't buy it. Praise the Lord. Deputy Chief, I've only heard good

things about you, and you scared me there for a moment. But then we're learning more. Listen. One theory is that Madalena may have been the victim of human trafficking. Court documents detail a call in which Kojikari and her mother discuss a large bag of money and a theory that the girl's stepfather gave the girl away for money. Palmetto is heard in calls with his brother and sister-in-law saying Diana Kojikori had a lot of cash and he didn't know where she got it.

Straight out to Elaine Adedias, investigative reporter formerly with People magazine. Elaine, you have scoured all the court records, all the documents, all the affidavits. Is there anything to this theory? And where did all that money come from? I mean, that is, that's what they're trying to find out. I mean, they put search warrants for safety deposit box, loan records, credit cards, bank accounts, their telephones. So police have scoured everything trying to find out who's getting money. Is that what this is all about? I mean, we don't know what the reason anyone's being paid.

But we do know that Diana paid $4,000 to a priest. That is what we know for sure. We've had conversations about smuggling the child to another country. But my question is, why? Why send the child all the way to Moldova? And why is the mom still here? But based on discoveries by Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson and others, another and possibly more sinister picture appears. Carolina State Bureau of Investigation search warrant shows investigators seized a phone early in the investigation that identified with a Discord account with 37 unread messages. Investigators believe the Discord account belongs to Madalena.

The same warrant noted this investigation involves the believed sexual exploitation of a minor child victim. Discord is a voice, video, and chat app popular among video gamers, but child predators are known to use Discord to groom victims and trade sexual exploitation material. Do we have the crux of her disappearance? Is she dead or alive? Was she sex exploited? Was she trafficked for sex? Jessica Morgan, could you explain what is Discord? Well, yeah, it's actually, if you're around kids, which I'm around a lot of them, college students that are gamers, they have the ability to hop onto these networks and talk to one another. And there's also, as was mentioned in the report, a video element to this as well. So you're already in a community of people

that might be made up of underage people. And all it takes is for some predator out there to get their hooks into some kind of linkage through Discord and you can begin to talk to individuals. Also, look, there are many disaffected kids that are out there. And if they have someone that pops onto their feed that just wants to be their friend, quote unquote, it can be quite dicey at best. Let me go now to Deputy Chief Jennifer Thompson. What do you make of this little girl having 37 messages, obviously some of them sex related, because now the investigation is veering into a sexploitation of a child direction.

Super concerning. And those search warrants were done in the beginning of the investigation through a North Carolina SBI investigator that handles specifically those types of cases, exploring if that was a possibility of what happened to Madalena. What in the discord messages made them believe that she had been trafficked or sexually exploited? What in those 37 messages, Chief? I wish I could go into detail, but I can't go into detail about the specifics of the messages. Elaine Adedias joining us, investigative reporter formerly with People Magazine. Elaine, I'm very concerned that the mother was out burning her daughter's photos, her mattress, which I find very disturbing. Why would you burn your child's mattress in a fire pit? Her pictures, the mattress, her clothing, her Halloween costume,

family photos in a fire pit. What can you tell me about that? I mean, officially there, you know, police have not revealed motive or a lot of reasons, but we can think that burning her personal belongings, it's almost as if she's getting rid of the fact that she existed. Anything personal related to Madalena was burned in that fire pit. And in fact, neighbors remember seeing a fire going on at the house. But one witness said, we didn't even know that Madalena was missing. So without that information, they just they saw it more as a fire hazard versus anything nefarious going on. You know, Dr. Heidi Green, a clinical psychologist at drheidigreen.com, I find it hard, like if I'm making a scrapbook or a photo album, if I have a duplicate picture of the twins, I have a hard time even throwing that duplicate in the trash, right? After I make the

album, I'm attached to it. And I actually have big bags that say dupes on the outside where I won't throw away a picture of the twins. And this mom, according to reports, innocent till proven guilty, is burning her photos, her Halloween. I have every Halloween costume the twins have ever worn. I don't know if that's crazy, but I don't want to throw them away. They bring back all these amazing memories of trick-or-treating, but her clothing, her pictures, her Halloween costume, but her mattress. Why would you burn pictures of your child? This is where the story really gets bizarre and even more difficult to understand. Because while we do know that everybody responds differently to trauma, and sometimes when people are in a

trauma state, they do things that seem very unusual. But it is, again, very hard to believe that a grieving or panicked mother would be burning her child's pictures. If anything, she would be passing these pictures out, trying to get the word out that her daughter is missing. Where is 11-year-old Madalena Kojikari? In recently released documents, we're learning a lot. Straight out to Professor Forensics Death Investigator Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, I understand that multiple search warrants were executed in the home. Stains were swabbed in several areas from a light switch to the carpet in a bedroom. I wonder if that's the same bedroom where the mattress was burned.

There's nothing good about mommy burning the mattress in the backyard. No, it's a very specific item. And that's what, you know, when you said that, I was scratching my head thinking, you know, why in the heck would you burn a mattress? Generally, we find all kinds of biological samples on mattresses. And particularly when you're talking about violent problems, we're talking about the issuance of blood. There would be blood deposition, perhaps. I can't imagine in my wildest dreams why someone would purpose to destroy a mattress other than it would hold some kind of physical evidence relative to this.

And the fact that they would do it in a fire pit, it would really draw attention to you in that. And I find it interesting that the neighbors thought, well, it's a fire hazard. They had no connectivity between this missing child and the burning of these items at that point in time. We wait as the investigation goes on. If you know or think you know anything about the disappearance of this 11-year-old little girl, Madalena Kojikari, please dial 704-892-7773. Repeat, 704-892-7773. There is a $25,000 reward. We remember American hero, Detective Benjamin Campbell, Maine State Police, passed away in the line of duty. Nine years with law enforcement, survived by grieving wife Hillary and their son, sentenced to life without dad.

American hero, Detective Benjamin Campbell. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend.