Delimar Vera Cuevas
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Delimar Vera Cuevas (born 1997) is a Puerto Rican girl who was apparently a kidnapping victim. She made headlines early in 2004, when her natural mother unexpectedly found her and was able to reclaim her.
Delimar is the daughter of Pedro Vera and Luz Aida Cuevas. Ten days after she was born, a woman, named Carolyn Correa, was spotted walking around her house frequently.
A fire destroyed the Vera-Cuevas home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When her mother ran to her bed to try to rescue her, she did not find the baby. Firefighters supposed her body was buried under the rubble left by the fire, and she was written off as dead. Luz Aida Cuevas, however, refused to believe that Delimar had died, but her family and friends thought that she hung on to hope only because of a nervous breakdown.
Pedro was invited to a birthday party in 1999. He coincidentally spotted his cousin, Carolyn Correa at the party, with a girl named Aaliyah. Cuevas felt that Aaliyah looked a lot like his baby. When he returned home he mentioned seeing his cousin and her 'daughter'. Luz Aida remembered Carolyn visiting earlier the day of the fire. When Luz Aida finally met the girl, she smiled, and Luz Aida noticed a dimple to the side of her mouth, just like the one her baby had. Certain that this was her daughter, Luz Maria went to her sister, and asked her to speak to the girl. As Luz Maria's sister entertained Aaliyah, Luz Maria pretended there was gum in the child's hair and cut a piece of the young girl's hair and put it in her pocket. It was later sent to police lab, where the police later found out, through DNA testing, that Aaliyah was in fact, Delimar Vera Cruz, the girl who had been written off as dead after the 1997 fire. The initial hair sample was found to be insufficient but alerted the police to the case[1].
In February 2004, Carolyn Correa was arrested, accused of arson, kidnapping and attempted murder. A judge in Philadelphia determined that Delimar will return to Luz Maria, but only after extensive psychological treatment, because she grew up believing Carolyn to be her birth mother.
Delimar asked Luz Maria if she was her real mother and played with her during their first meeting after six years. Because of this, psychologists believe the process of accepting Luz Maria as her mother will be a quick one for Delimar.
