Disappearance of Elodia Ghinescu

The disappearance of Elodia Ghinescu was a heavily covered missing-person-become-murder case in Romania; according to several news sources, it was the most covered case of this kind in the history of mass media in the country. Background: Elodia was a lawyer, for whose disappearance and alleged murder in August of 2007 her husband, policeman Cristian Cioacă, was arrested on December 5, 2012. The two got married on July 18, 2004 and had a baby boy named Patrick in January 2005. Cristian was sentenced on July 2, 2013 to 22 years in jail, although he continues to maintain his innocence. The case is still undergoing the appeals process; most recently, on December 3, 2013, the High Court of Cassation and Justice decided that Cioacă should remain in custody while the appeals are ongoing. According to the prosecution, the motive for the murder was jealousy caused by an extramarital affair that Elodia had; her disappearance occurred right after she returned from a trip to Dubai with her alleged lover, a former SPP officer, who testified in court to their relationship. Her husband, Cristian, examined her e-mails to search for evidence that she was cheating, without her permission. Cristian tried to hide the blood stains from their apartment by painting the walls. A dirty police uniform, pictures with Elodia and her son, a parfume bottle and a pair of blood-stained gloves were found on 8 October, somewhere between Poiana Brasov and Râşnov. She was officially declared missing on February 12, 2009. Although Elodia's body was never found, the prosecution invoked forensic evidence, including blood droplets found in the couple's apartment and on a number of objects formerly found in the apartment, later discovered in a ravine. Several television stations were officially warned by the National Audiovisual Council (the Romanian telecommunications agency) for their inappropriate coverage of the case, and some of them, including OTV and Curier TV, were fined for their unbalanced coverage. The 2009 Media Sustainability Index noted that "From 2007 to 2008, OTV organized several hundred so-called episodes about the disappearance of Elodia Ghinescu, a lawyer who married a police officer. In one episode, Diaconescu [the OTV owner/host] instigated a hacker to break into Ghinescu’s e-mail inbox and show her personal messages on the air. Ghinescu became a popular icon, although she continues to be missing. Meanwhile, the mainstream media took over the case and followed OTV’s example in revealing personal details about her family." Writer Radu Paraschivescu described the Elodia case having become "the codename for a massive operation of prostituting the idea of television".