"Presumed Dead" girl found to be kidnapped!

[Nanny Fine]

It's a happy story for the mother but the little girl involved will have a lot of issues to deal with in the end.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...al/8081690.htm

Thought dead in fire, girl is found

Police believe a woman set fire to a Feltonville home in '97, abducted the baby, and raised her as her own.

By Thomas J. Gibbons Jr.

Inquirer Staff Writer


A recent chance encounter at a child's birthday party has resulted in a mother's finding her 6-year-old daughter - a child who investigators once believed perished in a Feltonville house fire when she was 10 days old.

Now the 41-year-old Willingboro woman suspected of kidnapping and raising the child thought to have died in the 1997 fire that consumed 4410 Hurley St. is being hunted as a fugitive, Philadelphia police said yesterday. Carolyn Correa is also suspected of setting the fire to conceal her abduction of the child, Delimar Vera.

Delimar was positively identified as the daughter of Luz Aida Cuevas, 31, after the Philadelphia Police Forensic Science Division analyzed swabs from the mouths of the pair.

"DNA is basically what proved the parentage here without a doubt," said Lt. Michael Boyle of the Special Victims Unit.

Delimar has yet to be reunited with her mother, officials said. The child is in the custody of the Division of Youth and Family Services in New Jersey.

In an interview last night with KYW-TV (Channel 3), Cuevas said she recognized Delimar as her child the moment she saw her. "My feelings when I see her, her face... it's my daughter," Cuevas said.

"I'm going to give her a lot of love, and a hug, and kisses," she said adding that she hopes "one day she calls me mommy."

The case was broken because of Cuevas' perseverance, police said, and the aid of State Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.), who listened to Cuevas' suspicions and then enlisted the aid of the District Attorney's Office and Special Victims.

Capt. John Darby, commander of Special Victims, joined Boyle, Cruz, Officer Manuel Gonzalez, and Detectives Kimberly Stone and David Thomas at a news conference yesterday afternoon, detailing the bizarre twists and turns of the case. "We cannot recall a case that is remotely similar to this," Darby said.

It began with a fire "that was pretty intense, but it was confined to the front bedroom of this two-story rowhouse," Boyle said.

It was fast-moving, one-alarm blaze - initially blamed on a faulty connection to a space heater - and it was believed to have killed Delimar, who was in a second-floor front bedroom when flames erupted there Dec. 15, 1997, about 7:04 p.m.

Cuevas, another adult, and two boys, ages 4 and 5, were on the first floor when the fire started. Cuevas ran upstairs to rescue her baby, but could not find her and was repelled by smoke and heat, Boyle said. She ran outside, wailing, "My baby! My baby!"

The fire was under control in 13 minutes.

"When the Fire Department was able to get inside, they did recover what they thought at the time was human remains," Boyle said. "They were not.

"Subsequently, the scene was examined again by the medical examiner, and several hundred pounds of debris was examined, and it was found to be building material," Boyle said. "... The child was presumed to be totally consumed by the fire."

Over the years, Cuevas harbored suspicions that her baby might not have died in the fire, police said. That she might have been kidnapped.

Then on Jan. 24, Cuevas went to a party in the city, an event that would lead her to her daughter.

"It was a birthday party for a child," Boyle said.

Correa was there with a 6-year-old girl who turned out to be Delimar.

Correa had somehow gotten a phony birth certificate for Delimar in the weeks after the fire, police said.

Cuevas was "struck by the resemblance to herself, to her other children, of this child, and that cemented or reinforced her earlier suspicions," Boyle said.

Cuevas was thunderstruck. She carried her suspicions to Cruz.

At the news conference, Cruz said that after listening to Cuevas' "mystery story," his suspicions were aroused and he reached out for the authorities.

Boyle said several pieces of Cuevas' account demanded a probe.

Cuevas had gone into the front bedroom "to find a baby that she knew was there, and the baby's not there," Boyle said. "The medical examiner says the child is presumed to have been consumed, but that's an unusual circumstance to be fully consumed, and for that reason, we had to chase it down."

Also, "the back bedroom window was open," Boyle said, and Cuevas told police she had left that window closed.

"And that's what led us to Willingboro, which led us to the DNA, which led us to this happy conclusion."

Said Darby: "I think the obvious response from all of us up here is that we had a very convincing, very compelling account or story that needed to be looked at, needed to be investigated."

Then last week, the DNA comparisons were made. Over the weekend, the results came back a match.

Officer Gonzalez carried the news to Cuevas. "She didn't know whether to cry, yell or scream. [She was] just looking at me, saying, 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God!' She was in total shock. She just sat there and shook and sobbed," Gonzalez said.

Boyle identified Correa as a "loose acquaintance" of a cousin of Delimar's father, Pedro Vera.

Vera, 39, however, identified Correa as a cousin of his - and said he and Cuevas suspected her years ago.

Vera, who lived with Cuevas six years ago, said Correa started coming around after their baby was born, telling the couple she was also expecting.

But after the fire, they rarely saw Correa, Vera said last night outside in an interview outside the house he and Cuevas once shared.

Nevertheless, they did not go to police with their suspicions, Vera said, because their hearts would have been broken to know for sure that their hunch was not true and Delimar was really dead.

Now, he is overjoyed.

"I'm feeling really good right now. I got my daughter back," Vera said. "All these years later, I never stopped thinking about her."

He said there were so many things he was curious to learn about her.

He placed his trembling hand to his waist in a gesture for how tall he imagined she would be right now.

"I want my daughter to call me daddy," he said. "I want to pick her up and tell her I love her."

He said that he was at the same party Cuevas attended in January and that he saw Delimar.

"She came up to me and said, 'Mommy, who is this?' And my cousin told her, 'This is your cousin Pedro.' "

Police said they believe that Correa had help kidnapping the child and setting the fire.

"We have proof that Carolyn Correa raised this child and, I believe, in concert with someone else abducted that child. And I believe that she or some confederate set the fire to cover the kidnapping," Boyle said.

She was charged with more than a dozen crimes, including kidnapping, unlawful restraint, arson, interfering with the custody of a child, concealment of the whereabouts of a child, aggravated and simple assault, burglary, criminal trespass, and conspiracy.

Correa, who neighbors said worked nights at a local grocery store, has disappeared from her house on Peacock Lane in Willingboro and is being sought by police. Her name has been entered as a suspect in the National Crime Information Center.

The yellow ranch house - which was empty last night - is owned by Correa's mother, said James Murray Jr., who lives next door and has known Correa for more than 30 years.

Correa has lived there sporadically since high school, he said.

Murray said he last saw Correa, whom he described as a single mother with three other children - a boy about 10, a teenage girl, and a son in his early 20s - on Saturday.

Murray said Correa told him about her troubles involving her 6-year-old daughter, telling him that the woman making the allegations and a former boyfriend were trying to get her in trouble.

"She said she expected the DNA to show that it was her daughter," Murray said, adding that she cried during their conversation. "I believe her when she says it is her child, but it is hard to explain the DNA results.

"Carol is a good mom," Murray said. "She takes care of her kids, and she is protective of her kids."

It was unclear last night when Cuevas would be reunited with her daughter.

"It's going to be difficult for the child," Boyle said. "She grew up with a woman, knowing a woman as her mother, but [she] is in fact her kidnapper, so it's going to be a very difficult psychological process or emotional process.

"And that's going to have to be dealt with very delicately by professionals. That would be outside our scope," Boyle said.

[Mijada]

Wow. I'm really happy for the mom but it has to be pretty traumatic for the child. The woman she thought was her mother is not her mother at all. I'm sure with enough counseling she will come out of it OK though.

[Brent88]

This is unbelievable! I saw it on Today this morning and couldn't believe it!

[Nanny Fine]

Originally posted by Brent88
This is unbelievable! I saw it on Today this morning and couldn't believe it!

Yah, I saw it on the Today Show too and then went and looked it up online. The mother was very hard to understand - I hope they reunite the two soon. It's going to be a long road for the entire family.

[*Pleasant Tomorrow*]

That's great, but I feel bad for the little girl. It's going to be hard dealing with it all.

[EricIdlefan]

Yeah that little girl is messed up and will take her awhile to get back to normal!! But it is excellent that it reminds people of the Elizabeth Smart case!!

[dawsongirl]

That's awesome. I hope that woman who kidnapped her gets it good.

Does anyone else smell TV Movie?

[Nanny Fine]

Originally posted by dawsongirl
That's awesome. I hope that woman who kidnapped her gets it good.

Does anyone else smell TV Movie?

Yes I'm sure this one will turn into a Lifetime movie.

[Nanny Fine]

Originally posted by Jen1989
I saw that story on the news. It mentioned that the woman who believed the little girl was hers, "pretended that the girl had gum in her hair and removed three strands for later DNA testing."

It's sad that the one who will suffer the most is the little girl.

The woman turned herself in. Was on the news this morning. She should go to jail for the rest of her life. The trauma that this little girl, Delimar, will deal with in this transition will be with her for a long time. The woman isn't just in trouble for kidnapping though, she'll have arson charges set against her for starting to fire to cover up the kidnapping.

[EricIdlefan]

I smell TV Movie already in the works!!