Disappearance of Elodia Ghinescu

Elodia Ghinescu, a lawyer born September 27, 1968, disappeared in August 2007 under circumstances that led investigators and prosecutors to treat the case as a murder despite the absence of a body. Ghinescu had married police officer Cristian Cioacă on July 18, 2004, and the couple had a son, Patrick, born in January 2005. Her disappearance reportedly occurred shortly after she returned from a trip to Dubai with a man she was allegedly having an affair with, a former officer of Romania's Protection and Guard Service (SPP), who later testified in court about their relationship.

According to the prosecution, Cioacă's motive was jealousy stemming from the affair. Investigators said he had accessed Ghinescu's email without her permission while searching for evidence of infidelity, and that he attempted to conceal blood stains in the couple's apartment by repainting the walls. On October 8 (year not specified in the source), a dirty police uniform, photographs of Ghinescu and her son, a perfume bottle, and a pair of blood-stained gloves were found in an area between Poiana Brașov and Râșnov. Forensic evidence cited by the prosecution included blood droplets found in the couple's apartment and on objects later discovered in a ravine. Ghinescu was officially declared dead on February 12, 2009.

Cristian Cioacă was arrested on December 5, 2012, and was sentenced on July 2, 2013, to 22 years in prison. He has continued to maintain his innocence. As of the most recent information available, the case remained in the appeals process; on December 3, 2013, Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled that Cioacă should remain in custody while appeals continued.

The disappearance became, according to several news sources, the most covered case of its kind in the history of Romanian mass media. Television stations, including OTV and Curier TV, were officially warned and later fined by Romania's National Audiovisual Council for what regulators deemed inappropriate and unbalanced coverage. The 2009 Media Sustainability Index reported that OTV aired hundreds of episodes on the case between 2007 and 2008, and that the channel's owner/host at one point encouraged a hacker to break into Ghinescu's email account and broadcast her personal messages. OTV's viewership reportedly doubled in the months after it began covering the story. Other mainstream channels, including Pro TV, also engaged extensively with the case; Pro TV ran a screenwriting contest called "Elodia's Enigma," which drew over 2,000 submissions with a promise to adapt the winning entry into a film. The case also generated cultural spin-offs, including a browser game titled "Find Elodia!" and references in football stadium chants, leading commentators to describe Ghinescu as having become a folkloric or "brand"-like figure in Romanian popular culture despite remaining, formally, a missing person.