My parents were told I’d burned to death – but I was kidnapped

A mother who was told her 10-day old baby had died in a house fire was stunned when six years later, she saw her at a birthday party.

Warning: Distressing content

It was like something out of a Hollywood movie: a child believed dead is found alive by a mother who never gave up hope.

Luzaida Cuevas was told her newborn died in a fire. Six years later, at a party, she spots a girl with familiar dimples and takes a lock of hair. DNA tests confirm it is her daughter, Delimar.

The kidnapper, Carolyn Correa, a cousin by marriage of Delimar’s father, Pedro Vera, had abducted the baby and set the fire to cover her tracks.

Correa then raised the girl as her own, naming her Aaliyah Hernandez, The Sun reports.

Another shocking twist came when Correa claimed Pedro had given her the child – an accusation he has always denied and was never charged for.

Now, a new documentary, Back from the Dead: Who Kidnapped Me? follows Delimar as she tries to investigate what really happened that fateful night.

“People think that you get kidnapped and in the aftermath, everything is rainbows, butterflies and life moves on,” Delimar, 26, told The Sun.

“But sadly, that’s not the truth. There’s a lot of work that goes into repairing those relationships and moving on.”

Despite no body being found, authorities told Delimar’s parents she likely died in the December 1997 fire, blamed on a heater’s extension cord.

However, Luzaida always believed her daughter was alive because, as fire ripped through her home, she rushed to the upstairs bedroom where the baby had been sleeping and found her cot empty. The window was wide open.

As firefighters dragged her from the blazing home, she was heard screaming that her baby had been stolen.

Delimar Vera, now aged 26, was thought to have died in a house fire. Picture: Instagram/delimar_vera

But she was actually kidnapped aged just 10 days old. Picture: AP Photo/WPVI-TV

Pedro has told how he tried to convince authorities of their suspicions, but as an immigrant with little money and limited English, his concerns were not taken seriously.

“They never returned my calls or looked into it,” he said in 2004.

“There was no corpse. I asked to see the remains but they told me it was too burned to see anything.”

The couple went on to have another child together, Samuel, now 25, but later split.

Striking similarity

Delimar grew up in US-state of New Jersey with Correa and her older children.

It’s hard to believe her kidnapper got away with it, as Delimar says her birth family were “just 25 minutes right over the bridge”.

“I never thought I looked like her [Correa]. Her daughter was more fair skinned like myself. So, I always thought me and her daughter look alike. I just don’t look like my mum.”

For six long years, Luziada remained convinced her daughter was still out there. Then, in January 2004, she attended a birthday party and spotted a dark-haired girl who looked just like her.

Thinking on her feet, she pretended the girl had chewing gum in her hair and offered to fix it, pulling out strands in a bid to get a DNA sample.

“I actually do remember her pulling my hair,” Delimar said.

“I remember seeing her and thinking to myself, ‘Wow, this woman is really pretty.’ I kept looking at her, like, ‘Oh, she’s so beautiful.’

“And, you know, my mum says, it was like ‘blood called’, like you could feel when you’re near your family. I just naturally gravitated towards her.”

Carolyn not only kidnapped Delimar, but started the house fire in the first place. Picture:Philadelphia Police

And she says of their striking similarities: “I have my mum’s eyes. I have her face shape. I have a few features from my dad as well. They both say I’m like, the perfect mix of the both of them.”

Determined to prove her case, Luzaida turned to local politician Angel Cruz for help after they met. Despite being sceptical about the bizarre tale, “something inside” made him believe that it could be true.

He called the police and an investigation prompted DNA tests that showed that Luzaida and Pedro were, after all, Delimar’s parents.

Correa was arrested and taken into custody, while little Delimar was placed in foster care by the New Jersey division of youth and family services.

Correa was jailed for nine to 30 years after pleading no contest to kidnapping, interference of child custody and conspiracy in 2005.

Her defence earlier argued she had suffered from a psychotic condition in which women believe they are pregnant and came to believe the baby was hers

Luzaida faced an uphill battle to get her concerns looked at by authorities.

Car mechanic Pedro recalls in the documentary that the night of the fire, she had turned up out of the blue at his home, despite having not seen her for years, telling him that she too had just given birth.

It has previously been reported that the baby Correa had in December 1997 could have been either stillborn or miscarried.

Pedro, who was out of work at the time, says she tricked him into leaving the house with the promise of a job offer.

He also recalls how she suggested they stop to visit a family member before she told him she had forgotten her purse, leaving him there while she returned to the property alone.

He says when he arrived home, the fire brigade were already there.

Growing pains

After bonding with her at the foster home, Luzaida and Pedro were given supervised visits before she was allowed to go live with her mother, with her dad sharing custody.

Speaking at the time, little Delimar said: “I’m at my real home.” Asked how she felt, she replied with a giggle: “Happy.”

Despite authorities saying her daughter was dead, Luzaida never lost hope that she was still out there – and was vindicated. Picture: AP PicWPVI/TV

But she now admits that it wasn’t an easy transition, not least because of the language barrier. Her parents spoke little English and she didn’t speak Spanish.

“I don’t want to say everybody, but a lot of people wanted to exploit us, but nobody thought for a second, maybe this family needs help,” she shared.

“You know, how about we give them some resources for therapy? How about we check in with them and make sure that you know they’re adjusting smoothly.

“There was none of that. It was just, let’s take pictures, and, you know, do that.”

There was even a film, Little Girl Lost: The Delimar Vera Story, made in 2008.

As Delimar entered her teens, she reveals she became “depressed” as what happened to her finally hit her.

“I was feeling suicidal. When I turned 12 years old, I think that was the first time that the magnitude of my kidnapping had hit me,” she said.

“I went, ‘Oh my gosh, I got kidnapped, you know, wow’. It was the weirdest thing in the world.

“My mum wasn’t really super warm and fuzzy, just because of the way that she was raised, which is understandable, because how do you give something to somebody else that you’ve never had, and you’ve never been taught to give that?

“So I don’t blame her for being that way at all. But me, as a teenager, I kind of needed more of the ‘mushiness’, and not already having that initial bond together, it just made it all the more difficult.”

While Delimar was initially happy to be reunited with her family, her unusual upbringing led to mental health troubles as a teenager. Picture: WAG TV

Father accused

To this day, Correa’s motive for kidnapping little Delimar and passing her off as her own is unclear.

She already had children of her own and Delimar claims she was subject to abuse in the home.

“I think that’s the biggest question of all – why kidnap a child if you’re not going to treat them well?” Delimar said.

Correa was released from prison after serving eight years and Delimar says she is not allowed to contact her or her parents.

“My mum said, ‘If you ever have the opportunity to sit down and speak to Carolyn, the one thing I would want you to ask her, why? Just why. Why did you have to take my child?’”

Correa did not respond to a request for an interview by the documentary makers, The Sun reports.

“Even if she were to tell her side of the story, she’s a pathological liar, so it’s really hard to believe anything that she says,” Delimar added.

“I would love to know how everything happened but, coming from her, I just can’t trust it, so that’s something that I’ve put to the side.”

Delimarnow now has a close relationship with both parents, particularly her mum. Picture: Instagram/delimar_vera

Something that has always troubled Delimar though is Correa claiming in court she had an accomplice.

Delimar said: “That person deserves consequences just as much as she did. But unfortunately, she is keeping her mouth shut and she’s protecting that person with her life.

“It is something that I’ve thought about throughout the year since I’ve always known, there’s no way that she took me out of that window by herself.”

At the time, Correa publicly accused Pedro of helping her commit the crime. However, he was dismissed as a possible suspect and no evidence was found to support further investigation.

“It was tough growing up, because I felt like my dad and I had a wall between us and we couldn’t get past that unless I knew the truth,” Delimar admitted.

“So I’ve always loved my father but definitely had a wall built up with him and I didn’t 100 per cent trust him, because I didn’t know if that was something that he participated in.”

Mum’s intuition

During filming, Delimar meets up with her dad, who agrees to take a lie-detector test.

“Beforehand, I got excited, maybe there might be an answer at the end of this. My life would have been a lie. I probably would have never known it,” she said.

“Maybe we might find out more about who the accomplice was. But I think that the biggest closure was ruling my father out, because that was something that haunted me.

“Every night I would think about it, like ‘Oh, my goodness, what if my dad was somebody that had something to do with it?’”

Delimar, who married her husband Isaiah Robinson, 31, last year, said she now has a close relationship with both parents, particularly her mum.

“My mum and I, already this week, have talked on the phone for two hours, two days in a row,” she said.

“We have a great relationship. We’re stronger than ever right now.”

And had it not been for Luzaida’s intuition that her baby was still alive, Delimar said: “I would have still been there.

“I think it’s scary. You know, my life would have been a lie. I probably would have never known it.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as My parents were told I’d burned to death – but I was kidnapped