posted on March 2, 2004 01:00:34 PM new
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A fire that authorities six years ago thought killed a 10-day-old girl was a ruse to kidnap the infant, Philadelphia police said Monday.
The baby, Delimar Vera, was sleeping in the upstairs front bedroom when a fire broke out at her family's two-story row house in north Philadelphia on December 15, 1997.
Luz Cuevas, her mother, could not find Delimar when she ran into the room. She eventually ran out of the house, overcome by smoke and burned on her face. Her two other children also survived, police said.
Remains of the infant's body were never found, and police concluded they had been incinerated in the flames.
The official cause of the fire was listed as an overheated extension cord attached to a space heater.
But Cuevas never fully believed her daughter died in the fire.
In January, she attended a birthday party for the child of an acquaintance and was struck by the resemblance of a 6-year-old girl to herself and her other children.
Telling the girl she had bubble gum in her hair, Cuevas was able to take strands of her hair in hopes a DNA test would prove she was right, according to Philadelphia police Lt. Michael Boyle of the special victims unit.
Luz Cuevas never fully believed her daughter died in the fire.
A state legislator helped put Cuevas in touch with police, who launched an investigation and had DNA tests performed that confirmed the girl is her daughter.
Police say Carolyn Correa, 41, a resident of Willingboro, New Jersey, a Philadelphia suburb, started the fire and kidnapped Delimar, whom she passed off as her own daughter.
Before the results of the DNA tests were in, officials placed the child in New Jersey state custody.
When police returned to Correa's home to confront her about the DNA results, she had fled, leaving behind three other children.
She remains a fugitive from multiple arrest warrants on charges that include arson, kidnapping and concealing the whereabouts of a child.
Lt. Thomas McDevitt of the special victims unit said Cuevas told police that Correa was a distant friend of a cousin of the baby's father, from whom she has separated.
Cuevas had met Correa the day before the fire, McDevitt said. Correa returned December 15, saying she had left her purse upstairs, he said.
The fire was discovered shortly after Correa left the house, McDevitt said.
It has not yet been determined when Delimar will be reunited with Cuevas.
Boyle said that when police told Cuevas about the DNA test results Saturday night she was "overwhelmed with joy."
"She sat there and shook and cried and kept saying, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you,'" Boyle said.
Police say they cannot fully explain why Delimar was declared killed.
Officers at the time found bone fragments they thought were the baby's remains, but tests later showed them to be nonhuman, McDevitt said.
When investigators returned to the scene, firemen had already dumped several hundred pounds of debris from the gutted bedroom in the back yard, McDevitt said.
The officers sifted through the debris but found mostly dry wool particles, which they were told resemble human ashes, but only those burned at 1,000 degrees for an hour or longer, McDevitt said.
The fire, which was confined to the bedroom, lasted only about 15 minutes and was nowhere near 1,000 degrees, McDevitt said.
McDevitt admitted this scenario is an explanation only "up to a point." On the other hand, officers had no reason to suspect arson or a kidnapping, he said.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on March 2, 2004 04:21:33 PM new
I agree Bunni - All of the random variables that had to comet together to bring them both to that party ... it really is mind boggling.
I wonder where the other three kids came from.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on March 2, 2004 05:54:18 PM newother three children
I wondered the same thing, fenix. I'm also surprised, since no bones from this 'infant' were found after the fire, that she didn't press more on the 'why' that would be.
I can only imagine the mother's joy at finding her daughter, and verifying what she's felt all these years - that her daughter hadn't died. It's going to take some major adjustments for the little girl to get reacquainted with her new mom.
Woman sought in baby kidnapping surrenders
Mom finds kidnapped daughter six years later
Tuesday, March 2, 2004 Posted: 7:35 PM EST (0035 GMT)
Carolyn Correa walks into the Philadelphia Police Department Special Victims Unit office to turn herself in.
Story Tools
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- A woman accused of kidnapping a 10-day-old girl six years ago has surrendered to police in Philadelphia and is being questioned by detectives, CNN has learned.
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Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there --Clare Booth Luce
posted on March 5, 2004 09:26:33 PM new
I'm happy for the birth mother, but I have to say there's something a bit "off" about this story. I cannot believe that I, who adore my daughters, would "recognize" them at a party after six years of growth. They don't look anything like their baby pictures, really. I have a big feeling that someone is going to spill the beans on this to the press or police; I think someone who KNEW the baby wasn't the supposed mother's finally told the birth mother. Something like that.
___________________________________
Give a person a fish and you feed him for a day; teach that person to use
the Internet and he
won't bother you for weeks.
posted on March 5, 2004 10:14:33 PM new
Road - she recognized the girl based on dramatically similar she looked to her other kids. If you were a mother who was convinced your daughter had not really died and then saw a girl that looked like your other children and was the same age that your missing daughter would have been, don't you think your wheels would start turning?
I think that he most amazing aspect of this story is that authorities even listened to her as opposed to writing her off as just an obsessed bereived mother.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on March 6, 2004 04:38:26 AM new
Roadsmith, I wondered the same thing until our local news showed pictures of the daughter and interviewed the mother. Stunning resemblance, and from the baby pics the news had, she did look like her baby pics.
From what the news is reporting, the mother went to state Representative Angel Cruz for assistance with this first. The news, of course did not say, but she probably thought the police would write her off aas a nut case. Kudos to the Hon. Mr. Cruz
What a bizarre case this is.
Hdangith
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
[ edited by snowyegret on Mar 6, 2004 04:39 AM ]
