Child believed to be lost in fire 6 years ago

[Shawn]

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

By Joann Loviglio, The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA -- Luz Cuevas took one look at the dimpled, dark-haired little girl with the big brown eyes at a birthday party and instantly knew two things: She was watching her daughter, presumed killed in a 1997 fire, and she needed a way to prove it.

She pretended the 6-year-old girl had gum in her hair, removed five strands from the child's head, folded them in a napkin and placed them in a plastic bag. After locking the evidence in a safe at home, she contacted a local lawmaker for help.

"Because of TV, I knew they needed hair for the DNA," Cuevas said Tuesday.

The DNA tests confirmed the mother's intuition. The girl was her only daughter, Delimar Vera -- the girl everyone else believed had died only 10 days after she was born.

Police said former family friend Carolyn Correa, 42, snatched the 10-day-old girl from her crib and torched the family's house to cover her tracks. Correa, of Willingboro, N.J., about 20 miles outside of Philadelphia, faces charges including arson and kidnapping, police said.

She surrendered to police in Philadelphia late yesterday afternoon, said her attorney, Jeffrey Zucker.

Cuevas, 31, said Correa was a family acquaintance who announced that she was pregnant during a visit to the new mother shortly after Delimar's birth. The one-time supermarket employee then abruptly ceased contact after the Dec. 15, 1997, blaze. That raised Cuevas' suspicion, as did several elements of the chaotic night when her home in the Feltonville neighborhood of North Philadelphia burned.

"I went inside the room and looked in the crib and she wasn't there," Cuevas said, adding that the window was inexplicably open though it was a cold winter evening. Police and fire officials that night told the hysterical mother that "maybe it was my nerves," she said.

Correa pleaded guilty to a November 1996 arson at a medical office in Hamilton Township, N.J., near Trenton, and was sentenced in August 1998 to five years probation and community service, according to court records. Authorities reached yesterday could not provide any additional details.

Fire officials believed the one-alarm blaze was sparked by a home-rigged extension cord connected to a space heater. The fire was extinguished in 10 minutes but Delimar's room was gutted, and investigators concluded that the infant's body must have been consumed by the intense heat and flames.

Cuevas, who speaks in halting English, said she instantly recognized the child called Aliyah as her daughter at the Jan. 24 birthday party, where she used the ruse of gum in the child's hair to gather a DNA sample. It was unclear what brought the child and her biological mother to the same party.

"When I see her, I saw that she was my daughter," she said. "I want to hug her. I want to run with her."

She sought help from state Rep. Angel Cruz, who represents the poor, largely Hispanic neighborhood where Cuevas lives. Cruz said he was initially skeptical at first but "something inside" told him that there could be something to the bizarre claim.

He called police, who contacted Correa for a DNA test that ultimately proved Cuevas right.

"It's a mother's way. It's motherly intuition," Cruz said.

Cuevas and Delimar's father, Pedro Vera, 39, had a baby boy after Delimar's death but broke up under the strain of losing their daughter. Cuevas also has two other boys who are older than Delimar.

"Right now I want to see my daughter," Pedro Vera said. "I am so happy. I just want to see my daughter."

Delimar was in foster care Tuesday and remained in the custody of New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services, spokesman Andy Williams said. It will be up to a Family Court judge to determine where the little girl should live, but no timetable had been immediately set for the courts to hear the case, Williams said.

Citing confidentiality rules, Williams would not say whether child welfare officials knew of any previous problems or when Delimar was removed from the home of Correa, who neighbors said had three older children -- a son in his 20s, a teenage daughter and a preteen son.

Neighbors who used garden hoses and fire extinguishers in futile attempts to help Cuevas reach her newborn on the night of the fire reacted to the recent news with joy and anger.

"When I heard it I went and got a drink. I was happy she was alive," said Jose Rosario, who recalled grabbing a fire extinguisher and trying to enter the window where Delimar was supposed to have been, only to be repelled by the flames.

"Somebody could have got hurt trying to save someone who wasn't in there," Rosario said. "The way she hurt those people, she should be put away in a crazy house."

source: Post Gazette

[Shawn]

Is this receiving heavy coverage in the States?

What a friggin nightmare.

[Yoda]

I haven't heard anything about this and I watch the news all the time. I'm surprised they haven't jumped on this like flies on shit like they normally do.

They are mostly on about John Kerry and all that political hubbub

[SamJam]

I'm suprised I haven't heard of it as well, since I'm in the U.S.

Amazing though how the woman knew this was her doughter. The child was only 10 days old when she disappeared. At least things turned out for the best in this situation.

[Crazy Diamond]

I wonder how this is going to affect the kid. She was raised believe someone else was her mother and now she'll be taken away from her and handed to someone who, as far as the kid is concerned, is a stranger.

It may be a mothers intuition that found her, but it may be too late to have the kind of mother/daughter relationship that she wants.

[Shawn]

I think you're dead right Crazy Diamond.