Mother finds 'dead' daughter 6 years later!

[mrpayroll]

http://www.local6.com/news/2888425/d...103022004&ts=H

Police: Baby Thought Killed In '97 Fire Was Kidnapped
Details Still Emerging About Case

POSTED: 8:41 a.m. EST March 2, 2004
UPDATED: 2:14 p.m. EST March 2, 2004



PHILADELPHIA -- The mother of a Philadelphia girl who was thought to have died in a house fire in 1997 is eagerly awaiting a reunion with her daughter.

Delimar Vera was just 10 days old when the fire destroyed her family's home in the Feltonville section of North Philadelphia on Dec. 15, 1997. Although a body was never found, authorities believed the infant had been consumed by the heat and flames of the fast-moving blaze.

But not everything added up, according to state Rep. Angel Cruz. Cruz said a woman had come to the house twice on the day of the fire, and left once with the baby's father, Pedro Vera.

Now, police say, it turns out that the infant was actually kidnapped by a woman who set the blaze to cover her tracks.

In January, the girl's mother, Luz Aida Cuevas, contacted police after spotting the now-6-year-old girl at a birthday party thrown by Vera's side of the family and recognizing the child as her own.

"I looked at her. She walked in front of me. She looked at me. I looked at her. I said to my sister, 'That is my daughter. She got my daughter.' My sister said, 'You have to take it easy. You need proof. We have to find proof,'" Cuevas said.

Luz Cuevas told The Associated Press Tuesday that she recognized the girl and was certain that it was her daughter, Delimar Vera. She says she pretended that the little girl had chewing gum stuck in her hair to remove five strands from the child's head.

She folded them in a napkin and placed them in a plastic bag, which she locked in a safe at home, then turned over to authorities. Cuevas says she knew from watching television that they would need hair for DNA tests.

"She bumps into the lady who had come to her house the day of the fire, and she sees the lady with a child, and all of a sudden, her motherly instincts say, 'that's my child.' She left there saying, 'that's my child, that's my baby," Rep. Cruz said.

The investigation was reopened and the DNA test results announced Monday confirmed that the girl Cuevas saw is her missing daughter.

Delimar has been placed in the custody of New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services. It is not clear when she will be reunited with her biological mother, but Cuevas knows how she will greet her daughter.

She said that she will "go and give her a kiss and a hug and say, 'I love you, I love you."'

Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of 41-year-old Carolyn Correa of Willingboro, N.J., on charges of arson, kidnapping and conspiracy. She remains at large.


She was last seen living in Willingboro, N.J., driving a burgundy 2003 Chevrolet with a New Jersey license plate of NTL71H.

Birth Mother Talks To WCAU-TV

Philadelphia TV station WCAU-TV talked exclusively to Cuevas about her relief at finally finding her daughter.

"I screamed (when I was told the test results). I felt so happy. I don't know what to say. Cry? You know, because I was in shock when they say, 'It's your daughter,'" Cuevas said happily.

Cuevas said she knew she had just met her daughter because she recognized the moles on the girl's cheek. She also said the girl looked like her sons, who never gave up hope they would be reunited with their sister.

"Every Christmas, my sons say, 'Mommy, we have to find (her).' I said, 'Don't worry, we'll find her.' I knew she was alive," Cuevas said.

Cuevas is thrilled, but she also has bitter questions for the woman accused of kidnapping her child.

"Why'd she do that to me? Kidnapping my daughter? You know? She do a fire to my house to take my daughter," Cuevas said.

Correa's husband told WCAU that he is devastated to find out the girl he thought was his daughter belonged to someone else.

Girl's Birth Father Says He's Stunned

Pedro Vera said was stunned and excited that his daughter was alive and revisited the address where he last saw her. He told WCAU-TV that he couldn't wait to see his daughter.

Vera went to the same birthday party where Cuevas first laid eyes on Delimar. Correa is his cousin and introduced the girl to him as her own daughter, named Aaliyah.

"I got the feeling that was my daughter because she looked like me," Vera said.

Vera also had the feeling that the girl looked just like his son.

"A lot of years, I think she's dead. And now, when I looked at her and I said, 'Oh my God, that's my daughter. She's not dead,'" Vera told WCAU.


Wow!

Chris

[filmerp]

So is there any relation to Carolyn Correa? Who is this lady and why did she leave with the baby's father the day of the fire?

[mrpayroll]

Originally posted by filmerp
So is there any relation to Carolyn Correa? Who is this lady and why did she leave with the baby's father the day of the fire?

You will have to wait for the movie of the week!

Mark my words, tv execs are reading this story right now, saying how can we fill the whole 2 hours?

Chris

[MonkeyG]

How surreal will it be when the girl grows up and gets to visit her grave.

[bigsoos]

or the fact that everyone keeps saying that she looks like their boy.

I'm glad that they found her

[Groucho]

Originally posted by mrpayroll
Correa's husband told WCAU that he is devastated to find out the girl he thought was his daughter belonged to someone else.

This part makes no sense. Your wife shows up one day with a 10-day-old baby and says "This is yours!" and you accept it at face value?

[mrpayroll]

Originally posted by Groucho
This part makes no sense. Your wife shows up one day with a 10-day-old baby and says "This is yours!" and you accept it at face value?

Maybe he came into the picture after the abduction, but since she was still very young, felt that she was his daughter?

If not he is a dodo head!

Chris

[LurkerDan]

Something in this whole story seems wrong. Mark my words, we'll see some more "developments" before this is through.

[PixyJunket]

Crazy.

[mrpayroll]

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/ne...04-256828.html

Woman used lock of hair to prove kidnapped daughter's identity
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.

Carolyn Correa, 41, of Willingboro, N.J., about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia, was being sought by federal and local authorities on charges including arson and kidnapping. She remained at large Tuesday.

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. Correa 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.

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," he said.

Cuevas and Delimar's father, Pedro Vera, 39, had a baby boy after Delimar's disappearance 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 Correa's home.

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 (to celebrate). I was happy she was alive," said Jose Rosario, who still lives next door to the house that burned. He recalled grabbing a fire extinguisher and desperately trying to enter the window where Delimar was supposed to have been, only to be repelled by the intense 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."


Chris

[mrpayroll]

http://www.courierpostonline.com/new.../m030204bb.htm

News shocks mother of child, suspect's neighbors

Tuesday, March 2, 2004

By JIM WALSH
Courier-Post Staff

A woman who was told in 1997 that her baby's body was consumed in a house fire reacted with "total shock" after learning the child was actually a kidnap victim, authorities said Monday.

"She just stood in shock," Philadelphia Police Officer Manuel Gonzales said of the mother, who is now awaiting a reunion with the 6-year-old girl.

A Willingboro woman, Carolyn Correa, 41, of Peacock Lane, is being sought as a suspect in the kidnapping. She also is charged with a 1997 arson fire set in a Philadelphia home in an apparent attempt to conceal the abduction.

The baby's mother "didn't know whether to cry, to yell or to scream," Gonzales said.

Police did not release the mother's name, but news reports from the time of the blaze identified her as Luz Ada Cuevas and said she was burned on her face as she frantically tried to reach her newborn's room before flames forced her back.

She could not be reached for comment Monday.

Correa's neighbors in the Pennypacker section also were stunned.

"It just doesn't make sense," said James Murray, who lives next door to Correa's yellow Cape Cod. "She's a single mother who already has three kids of her own.

"If it's true, it's a crazy thing to do," said Murray, who noted Correa's mother also lives with the family. "I just don't see her doing it. I don't see her mother letting her do it."

Dionisio Pagan, who lives opposite the Correa home, said he saw nothing unusual.

"She seemed happy," Pagan said of Correa. "She looked like she loved the child.

"The kid seemed happy, too," he said. "I'd see her riding her bike."

"I was scared because I was watching TV and it said somebody was kidnapped in Willingboro," said Jasmine Pratt, 11, who lives at the end of the street. "Then I was like, `Oh my god, I know them!' "

"That's scary," said Jasmine's mother, Masheka Harvey. "I let my children play out here. You think it's safe, but you never know."

Authorities ordered DNA tests for the abducted girl, Delimar Vera, after her biological mother saw the child at a party in January and suspected she was her child.

State Rep. Angel Cruz of Philadelphia, who helped the woman contact and work with police after she spotted the little girl, credited "motherly instinct" for connecting mother and child.

Delimar was placed in the custody of New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services. It was not immediately clear when she would be reunited with her biological mother.


Chris

[wildcatlh]

This has been top of the evening news here for a couple of days. This is just an incredible story.

[mrpayroll]

Originally posted by WildcatLH
This has been top of the evening news here for a couple of days. This is just an incredible story.

What must being going thru the mind of this young girl? The person that she has known all her life as her mother has disappeared and now she is being kept in foster care. I wonder how much she knows and I wonder how she will adjust to life with her real mother.

That being said, once they determine that the real mother is fit, she should absolutely go back to the birth mom.

I will keep everybody updated during the weeks and months to come.

Chris

[nazz]

I saw the mother telling her story on the news today and the attorney said today they were going to tell the child the truth.

I do hope that the kid has been taught spanish because I could hardly understand one word of the mother's english.

[Goldberg74]

"Stay tuned for scenes from the next all new episode of Law & Order... ripped from the headlines!"

[DarkestPhoenix]

She'll be able to learn spanish fairly easily until the age of ten or twelve.

[mrpayroll]

http://www.local6.com/news/2888425/d...103032004&ts=H

N.J. Woman Accused Of Arson, Kidnapping Surrenders
Police Say Woman Set Fire To Cover Tracks While Taking Friend's Child

POSTED: 8:41 a.m. EST March 2, 2004
UPDATED: 6:53 p.m. EST March 2, 2004

PHILADELPHIA -- A New Jersey woman surrendered to police Tuesday in Philadelphia to face charges that she kidnapped an acquaintance's baby and made it appear the infant died in a 1997 house fire.


Chris

[mrpayroll]

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/...al/8092165.htm

Posted on Wed, Mar. 03, 2004


Hunt for 'mom' ends: Baby-kidnap suspect surrenders to cops

She has prior arson case

By GLORIA CAMPISI & RON GOLDWYN

campisg@phillynews.com



CAROLYN CORREA hadn't been running from the law, her attorney said last night.

Saturday was her birthday, and she'd been away with her husband celebrating it, lawyer Jeffrey Zucker said.

Correa learned she was at the center of an incredible movie-like saga only when a relative called to tell her that police were looking for her, Zucker said.

Yesterday, Correa, 42, surrendered to Philadelphia's special victims unit to face charges that she torched a Feltonville home Dec. 15, 1997, to conceal the kidnapping of a 10-day-old girl from her crib.

The child's real mother, Luz Aida Cuevas, thought Delimar had burned to death in the fire.

The blaze was not the first arson case Correa has been involved in. She set a fire at a medical office in Hamilton Township, N.J., in November 1996, according to Casey DeBlasio of the Mercer County, N.J., prosecutor's office, and was sentenced to five years' probation and community service.

Police say Correa, a former supermarket clerk, took baby Delimar Vera to her home in Willingboro, N.J., and raised her as her own child, renaming her Aliyah Hernandez. Neighbors said Correa has three older children, a son in his 20s, a teenage daughter and a pre-teen son.

Relatives of Correa and Cuevas would not discuss the case yesterday.

Cuevas, 31, said that she recognized Delimar from her dimple when Correa brought the child, now 6, to a Jan. 24 birthday party Cuevas also attended.

Last week, DNA tests determined that Delimar was indeed Cuevas' child, and the girl was removed from Correa and turned over to New Jersey Youth and Family Services, where she reportedly has been placed in foster care.

A spokesman for the agency said it would be up to a Family Court judge to determine where the little girl should live, but no timetable has been set for a hearing.

Zucker said the child was very upset to be taken away from the only mother she has ever known.

"She's a 6-year-old, lovely little girl. It's a tragedy," Zucker said.

Zucker said the petite Correa, who was dressed in a light-blue sweat suit at her 4:15 p.m. surrender, was "resigned to face the charges and do what she has to do."

Local and national media flocked to the surrender.

Capt. John Darby of the Philadelphia police special victims unit said Correa faces 15 charges, including kidnapping, arson and conspiracy.

Besides the arson conviction, Correa pleaded guilty in 1993 to theft by deception for overpayment of welfare benefits in Burlington County. She was placed on two years' probation and ordered to make restitution of $7,067 at the rate of $50 a month.

The incredible story involving Delimar was the talk yesterday of quiet Peacock Street in Willingboro, where Correa and various family members have lived for years.

Neighbor Lisa Wright, 47, said the only contact she had with the Correas was when a pit bull chained in the back yard of the Correas' yellow Cape Cod got over her fence.

Said neighbor Patricia Acheampong: "It wasn't like she [Correa] had no children. They say her mother was living there. I'm appalled her mother went for this."



Chris

[LurkerDan]

I still think we're going to find out more details about this. Something just seems too fishy; there were too many people who should have known something was up.

[littlefuzzy]

Hmm, I wonder if they are going to do DNA tests on her "real" children... Maybe this isn't the first time she's done this.

[mrpayroll]

Originally posted by littlefuzzy
Hmm, I wonder if they are going to do DNA tests on her "real" children... Maybe this isn't the first time she's done this.

Now THAT would be interesting!

Chris

[mrpayroll]

http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/...al/8101663.htm

Posted on Thu, Mar. 04, 2004

Steven M. Falk / Daily News
Luzaida Cuevas, biological mother of Delimar Vera, holds her daughter's birth certificate yesterday.



SUSPECT WAS PREGNANT, TOO

QUESTION IS, WHAT HAPPENED TO HER BABY?


IN LATE 1997, Luzaida Cuevas lived in a Feltonville rowhouse eagerly awaiting the birth of a little girl. At the same time, 15 miles away in Willingboro, N.J., Carolyn Correa also was pregnant with a girl.

Cuevas gave birth to Delimar Vera at Temple University Hospital at 5:45 p.m. on Dec. 5.

Correa told relatives and authorities that she had given birth to a girl inside her modest four-bedroom yellow frame home on Dec. 12.

Correa named the girl Aliyah Hernandez and later groomed her to become an actress and beauty-pageant princess. Police now say that Correa set a fire in a bedroom of Cuevas' home and snatched 10-day-old Delimar, changed her name to Aliyah and raised her as her own.

Somehow, the lie lived on for six years until Cuevas recognized Delimar at a birthday party in January. And now, in this bizarre tale of betrayal and deceit that has drawn international attention, relatives wonder what happened to Correa's baby.

"If Aliyah is not my sister, where's my sister?" Angelica Correa, Correa's 17-year-old daughter, asked yesterday.

Correa also may have been pregnant in 1998 when she was sentenced for torching a medical office where she worked in Hamilton, Mercer County, a police source said.

She was stealing business checks from Williams Medical Associates where she worked as a billing clerk, and she set a fire to hide evidence on the morning of Nov. 20, 1996, said Hamilton Police Lt. James Kostoplis.

"She used an accelerant and started with papers and it got going real good," he said. Some employees were in the office at the time, but patients had not arrived yet.

On Aug. 7, 1998, she was sentenced to five years' probation. "It appeared she was pregnant...that's possibly why the sentence was so light," a police source said. "Police now are looking into what happened to that baby."

Correa now faces 16 charges in Delimar's case, including kidnapping, arson and conspiracy. Bail was set yesterday at $1 million.

Correa's attorneys, Jeffrey Zucker and Saul Steinberg, argued for lower bail, saying that she had agreed to DNA tests and had turned herself in to police.

But Assistant District Attorney Leslie Gomez told officials that before DNA mouth-swab tests were taken last Tuesday, Correa sprayed something in Delimar's mouth and told her not to swallow. Gomez would not identify the substance.

Furthermore, according to Gomez, when Delimar was whisked away, Correa said: "Goodbye, this is the last time you're going to see Mommy. You're not going to see Mommy anymore."

Insanity defense mulled

Correa clings to the belief that Delimar is her biological daughter, Zucker said. He added that he wants a psychiatrist to evaluate Correa and that he's considering an insanity defense.

Delimar has been in foster care under the supervision of the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services since last Wednesday. A hearing will be held this afternoon at New Jersey Superior Court in Burlington County to move towards reunifying Delimar and her mom.

"This will not happen in one day. We have to make sure we do this in the best interest of the child," said DYFS spokesman Andy Williams. Cuevas and Delimar will be reunited gradually, beginning with supervised visits.

Cuevas plans to sue the city of Philadelphia while lawmakers scrutinize the fire investigation. They say they are baffled as to why authorities did not search for Delimar when they could not find a trace of her remains in the fire-ravaged house.

City Councilman Juan Ramos and state Rep. Angel Cruz will call for public hearings to examine city agencies' handling of the fire.

"Somehow this case fell through the cracks," Ramos said. "We need to know all the procedures that were followed so that his doesn't happen again."

Correa's family and friends are confused and devastated by the news.

"When I first heard about it, I just cried," said Anthony Correa, who was married to Carolyn for about 10 years. "I knew from now on, my kids' life will not be the same. My prayers go out to Carol. She was a good mother."

At Paramount Drug store in Riverside, N.J., where Carolyn worked for the last four years, workers were shocked by her arrest.

"The Carol that we knew was a good person," said co-worker Eunics who would not give her last name. "She was just a normal regular mom."

Kin thought she gave birth

Sometime in 1997, Correa, who had two sons and a daughter, became pregnant. She called relatives the night of Dec. 12, saying she had given birth to a girl at her house, Anthony Correa said.

"I had no reason to question it," he said.

Three days later, a fire roared through the upstairs of Cuevas' home on Hurley Street, and Cuevas was told her newborn daughter had perished in the blaze.

But she always believed Delimar was alive.

Cuevas met Correa for the first time the day of the fire. Cuevas said that Correa came to her house on Hurley Street and asked Pedro Vera, Delimar's father, to fix the brakes on her car.

Correa returned to the house alone. The two women sat in the living room and Correa told her she had a baby around the same time. "She said the baby's with the father," Cuevas recalled.

Suddenly, Cuevas heard an explosion upstairs and ran through flames to try to find her baby, but couldn't see Delimar in the smoke-hazed crib. She noticed an open window.

What authorities thought were remains of an infant turned out to be a congealed portion of a mattress and other debris.

Back then, Cuevas wanted to find Correa to ask her about that night, but didn't know how to find her.

She asked Vera for help because his family was acquainted with Correa. Relatives say Correa's mother is married to Vera's uncle.

She said Vera didn't sign Delimar's birth certificate. "He believed the child wasn't his," she said.

"I tried to communicate with him. I tried to make peace with him, but he didn't want to," Cuevas said last night in Spanish with help of a translator.

Jose Ayala, Cuevas' brother-in-law, said Cuevas asked Vera for $500 to hire a private investigator to find Delimar. Vera, Ayala said, told her he didn't have the money.

Vera has denied any involvement whatsoever in the fire and police say he is not a suspect.

But Ayala said he went with Vera to the charred remains of the house two days after the fire. Vera told him investigators said that the explosion hurled Delimar from the crib towards a window.

Then, when they went to the second bedroom where a window was ajar, Vera said, "If the baby is not found, someone could have taken her out the window," according to Ayala.

"Someone could have taken her before the fire."

Cuevas, who speaks halting English, said she couldn't do more to push the investigation forward.

"I didn't have any proof," she said. "I had no paperwork."

She 'had everything'

Meanwhile in Willingboro, Andre Moore, Carolyn Correa's boyfriend at the time of the fire, named the baby Aliyah.

Moore reportedly said he learned the girl was not his child in 1999, when he requested a paternity test. "My question is, 'Where is the child she and I had together?' " he has asked.

Delimar lived with Correa's mother and her children, Angelica and Anthony Correa Jr., 14. Anthony Correa came to the Willingboro house every weekend to pick up his children.

Delimar called Carolyn's live-in boyfriend, Brian Busardo, "Daddy," Carolyn's daughter, Angelica, said.

Correa doted on her little girl, relatives and friends said.

"She had everything," Anthony Correa said.

As the scenario unfolds, he still finds it hard to believe.

"I wish I could take this all away," he said. "I wish I could make things better. I would never think that something like this would ever happen."

Relatives said Delimar slept in a bed in the bedroom of Correa and Busardo, because they were building an addition to the house for her.

Correa treated Delimar the same as she treated her children, Correa's co-worker, Eunics said.

Correa sent Delimar and her son Anthony to All Saints Parochial School in Burlington, because she thought they would receive a better education than at the local public school, Eunics said. Delimar was a kindergartner.

Delimar is outgoing, talkative and feminine, and she loves to dress up and play with dolls, Anthony Correa said.

The brown-haired girl with sparkling almond-shaped eyes participated in beauty contests and did modeling and television appearances, Correa's family said. She appeared in an episode of the children's television show "Blues Clues" last year, Angelica said.

"She had complete confidence," Anthony Correa said.

That confidence will probably be jolted as she learns the truth of her past.

Back in Philadelphia, Cuevas awaits to hold her daughter and become her mom once again.

One welcome message has already been drawn in white paint on the back of Cuevas' sister's van:

"Welcome home my niece Delimar."


Chris

[Groucho]

Originally posted by mrpayroll
Correa named the girl Aliyah Hernandez and later groomed her to become an actress and beauty-pageant princess.

Hmm...if I were the biological parent I'd be tempted to say "Keep her." Don't really want one of those little monsters in my house.

[mrpayroll]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20040304_2203.html

N.J. to Reunite Kidnapped Girl With Mom

Judge Approves Plan to Gradually Reunite Kidnapped New Jersey Girl With Her Real Mother

The Associated Press

MOUNT HOLLY, N.J. March 4 — A judge approved a plan Thursday to grant custody to the biological mother of a 6-year-old girl who was allegedly snatched from her crib as a newborn.
"I'm going to have her pronto very, very soon," said Luz Cuevas, the mother of Delimar Vera.

Her lawyer, Andrew Micklin, said the custody transfer will be a gradual process before the girl lives permanently with her mother.

The little girl's case was thrown into the national spotlight Monday, when authorities in Philadelphia announced they were charging the only mother she has ever known Carolyn Correa with kidnapping, arson and 13 other crimes.

Police said Correa took the 10-day-old baby from her crib in December 1997 and then set fire to the home to cover her tracks. The infant was thought to have been consumed in the flames.

Cuevas attorney Anthony Cianfrani said the biological mother told authorities she believed Delimar had been kidnapped, but that nothing was done.

In the meantime, Correa, 42, named the baby Aliyah Hernandez and raised her in Willingboro, N.J., just a few miles from Philadelphia.

Six years passed before Correa, the little girl and Cuevas all wound up at the same birthday party, where Cuevas said she had a hunch Aliyah Hernandez was really her own daughter.

To obtain possible DNA evidence Cuevas thought would prove the girl was hers, Cuevas pretended there was gum in the child's hair so she could pull off several strands. The strands were later turned over to police.

But Chad Summerfield, a forensic scientist with the Philadelphia police, said tests were unable to produce any DNA because the strands lacked roots or follicles. As a result, authorities took swabs of saliva from the girl, Correa and the couple who were believed to be the little girl's biological parents.

Within days, authorities were able to prove Cuevas and Pedro Vera were the biological parents. Correa was charged this week, and is being held on $1 million bail. Delimar Vera has been in the care of New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services.

According to the custody plan approved Thursday by Superior Court Judge James Morley, Cuevas and the girl's biological father, Pedro Vera, will share legal custody but the girl will live with Cuevas.

Micklin said a child psychologist will be present at the initial meetings. Officials have said they need to proceed cautiously because the girl has grown up knowing the woman charged with her kidnapping as her mother.

Another complication in the new mother-daughter relationship is that Delimar does not speak Spanish and her mother speaks very little English.

Cuevas said she intended to improve her English and hopes her daughter will learn Spanish. She also said at first she will call the girl Aliyah, the name she's been known as virtually all of her life.

The judge also laid out a timeline for transferring custody, but Family Court proceedings are private and Micklin would not divulge details of the judge's ruling.

Cuevas, 31, said she has been told her daughter is excited to meet her.

"I don't think she understands," everything that has happened, Cuevas said.

Vera arrived at court Thursday afternoon carrying a giant stuffed dog, apparently a gift for his daughter, who was not present at court.

In Philadelphia, the case has prompted calls for an investigation into how authorities could incorrectly conclude Delimar Vera died in a fire. Cianfrani has said he intends to sue Philadelphia over the botched fire investigation.

"Why was it that we did not find out that this child was alive? How did we conclude so fast that this child was consumed by fire?" City Councilman Juan Ramos asked Thursday.


Chris

[naughty jonny]

I wonder if when she found her dead daughter, the rest of the family said "I didn't even know she was lost. I thought Mom had just kept her in the sock drawer for the last six years."

Seriously though, this can't be pleasant for the little girl. She's probably going to be devastated to have her mother taken away and put into jail - and then be forced to live in some stranger's house.

It's great news that they've been reunited, but it's going to take years of work to get over that sort of shock.