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Did you hear about the little girl? (pg. 2)
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| UglyDave |
| quote: | Originally posted by Genesis Evolved
Yeah, as if the body would disappear in a fire. There would always be skeletorial remains. |
do bones not combust?
to be honnest, if it was your daughter, and u knew she was in the house, and if she wasn't in the house, she would have turned up an hour or so after the fire..
basically, would u bother to look through a massive pile of ash just to confirm she was dead? although in this extreme case she wasn't.. but generally, i dont think anybody would bother to check.. |
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| klingklang77 |
from the NY times:
March 3, 2004
Long Thought Dead, a Child Is Found Alive and Healthy
By JASON GEORGE
PHILADELPHIA, March 2 — A woman who police officials said kidnapped a newborn six years ago, set fire to the mother's house to make her believe that the baby girl had died in the blaze, and then raised the child as her own, surrendered to authorities on Tuesday.
The woman, Carolyn Correa, turned herself in at a Philadelphia police station just one day after the authorities publicized the case and issued an alert for her arrest. She was charged with kidnapping, arson, assault, concealing the whereabouts of a child and interfering with the custody of a child.
Police officials said the deception that Ms. Correa carried out for years began to unravel in January when the girl's natural mother, Luz Cuevas, saw the girl at a birthday party. Ms. Cuevas, 31, of Philadelphia, had last seen her daughter, whom she named Delimar Vera, when the girl was 10 days old.
She told law enforcement officials that she had become suspicious that the energetic young girl at the party could be her child when a relative emphasized, unprompted, that the 6-year-old, named Aaliyah Hernandez, was Ms. Correa's daughter, not Ms. Cuevas's.
Ms. Correa, 42, of Willingboro, N.J., is a cousin of Ms. Cuevas.
Later at the party, Ms. Cuevas snipped off some of the girl's hair while feigning to remove gum on the girl's head. Several days after the Jan. 24 party, Ms. Cuevas went to the office of State Representative Angel Cruz, a Democrat of Philadelphia, and told him her story.
Mr. Cruz went to law enforcement officials in Philadelphia, who, in turn, contacted the authorities in New Jersey. The investigators used the hair sample last week to match the girl's DNA with Ms. Cuevas's, proving that the girl was her child.
The authorities then asked Ms. Correa to submit to two DNA tests at a New Jersey laboratory. She complied, and when she arrived for the second test, state child welfare officials took the girl from her.
Cpl. Jim Pauley, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department, said he did not know why New Jersey authorities did not arrest Ms. Correa at that time.
The girl is now in a New Jersey foster home and is receiving counseling, learning that the only mother she has known is a fraud, said Andy Williams, a spokesman for the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services. It is not known when the girl and Ms. Cuevas will be reunited, Mr. Williams said.
Before the party, Ms. Cuevas had last seen her daughter the evening of Dec. 15, 1997, when a fire broke out on the second floor of her Philadelphia home, while her daughter was sleeping. Though Delimar's body was never found, Ms. Cuevas assumed that the infant died in the fire. The medical examiner and fire officials concluded that the child's remains had been consumed by the fire.
On Tuesday, Harold Hairston, commissioner of the Philadelphia Fire Department, said his department would review that finding.
The authorities said Ms. Correa was at Ms. Cuevas's house when the fire broke out. The Mercer County prosecutor's office in New Jersey said on Tuesday that Ms. Correa was convicted of arson in June 1998 in an unrelated case.
In that case, she pleaded guilty to setting a fire in 1996 at a medical office in Hamilton Township where she worked as a file clerk. Casey DeBlasio, the spokeswoman for the Mercer County prosecutor's office, said Ms. Correa set the blaze at the medical office after being dismissed from her job.
While assured that they had solved part of the mystery in the disappearance of Delimar Vera, investigators are just starting to try to unravel other questions in the case, including how Ms. Correa was able to persuade people six years ago that the child was hers.
Andre Moore, who said he was dating Ms. Correa at that time, said she appeared to be pregnant and later told him that the infant was his daughter. Mr. Moore said he learned that 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?" asked Mr. Moore, of Westampton, N.J. "It's a traumatic experience."
Ms. Correa lives with three of her children and her mother in a peeling yellow ranch house in Willingboro, just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.
On Tuesday at the house, which has broken furniture and tires on the front porch, no one answered the door.
Jeffrey Murray, who lives next door, said Ms. Correa doted on the children.
Representative Cruz said that as unbelievable as the story sounded now, before the benefit of the DNA results it was only Ms. Cuevas's determination and persistence that kept him from nicely ushering her out of his office.
"Not that I didn't believe her," he said. "It was just a little bit difficult to digest."
After spending more than an hour talking to Ms. Cuevas, though, Mr. Cruz said he had one assurance concerning her story that prompted him to take action.
"Mother intuition can never go wrong," he said. |
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| Boomer187 |
wow this was all over the news yesterday. Surprised most of you didn't hear.
quite an amazing story, although the kid is almost 7 so I am not very sure how well it is gonna adapt to the new mom. Its prolly gonna end up with a ton of problems later in life.
but at least they got it away from the psycho that claomed it as her own.....wierd people.
well she turned herslf in... http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/8094450.htm |
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| KilldaDJ |
thats one ed up story.
only my 2 pence though. |
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| Redeye |
| being in Philly, this was played and replayed every 30 minutes here |
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| ToAd@* |
| quote: | Originally posted by StereoPrincess
This sounds like a lie to me. You can't get DNA from the end of the hair. You need the follicle to actually get DNA so she couldn't have just cut the hair. |
There ws gum in the hair and in the gum were traces of saliva. From saliva you can get everything(DNA)
-sarah |
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| tortoise |
| quote: | Originally posted by whiskers
urban legend? |
nope saw it in the news |
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| BaRTeZ |
strange story, and sad for the kid...
curious what they are gonna do know, im glad i'm not that kid :( |
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| cammie |
update:
Woman surrenders in girl's kidnapping
By Natalie Pompilio and Thomas J. Gibbons Jr.
Inquirer Staff Writers
Carolyn Correa, the Willingboro woman accused of snatching a 10-day-old girl six years ago and raising her as her own, was in police custody last night. At the same time, the child's mother was getting ready to bring her home to Philadelphia.
And the little girl at the center of it all, Delimar Vera, was in the custody of New Jersey's Division of Youth and Family Services last night. Department spokesman Andy Williams said it would be up to a Family Court judge to determine where she would live, and a court hearing had not been set.
Still, the child's mother, Luzaida Cuevas, 31, said she was anxious to make a home for Delimar. Mother to three sons, she looks forward to "buying Barbies and clothes for her."
"I know that it will be hard for her," Cuevas said. "She sees for all these years that Carol is her mother. But I have patience. I know someday soon she'll call me mother."
Correa, 41, accompanied by her attorney, surrendered to Philadelphia police shortly after 4:15 p.m. at the Special Victims Unit on the campus of Episcopal Hospital. She is accused of taking Delimar from Cuevas' Feltonville home on Dec. 15, 1997, then setting fire to a bedroom to cover up the kidnapping. After the fire was extinguished and the baby could not be found, authorities concluded that her body had been consumed by the flames.
Investigators said yesterday that Correa went to New Jersey authorities on Jan. 6, 1998, and reported that she had given birth to Delimar - whom she called Aliyah - on Dec. 12, 1997, at home in Willingboro.
Cuevas said she wanted Correa to go to prison.
"If she was so evil then, and started a fire, she could do that now," Cuevas said.
Cuevas said she met Correa on the day of the fire. Correa told her then that she had also just had a baby, Cuevas said.
Cuevas, who speaks halting English and lives with her three sons, Wilfredo, 11, Israel, 10, and Samuel, 4, on Amber Street in the Port Richmond section of the city, said she recognized Correa's daughter as her own at a child's birthday party on Jan. 24. The party was held by Evelyn Vera, whose brother, Pedro Vera, is Delimar's father.
During the party, Cuevas said, Evelyn Vera - who was holding the party for her granddaughter - brought Delimar over to her and said: "Isn't Carol's daughter beautiful? She's not your baby."
That sparked her suspicions, Cuevas said. Those concerns were heightened when Correa called the girl away from her, Cuevas said.
Cuevas said she followed the girl, got close to her, and pretended to pull gum from her hair. She kept a few strands of hair, wrapping them in a napkin for DNA testing - as she had seen done on television.
She then took her suspicions to State Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.), who talked to authorities about investigating the case. Subsequent DNA testing confirmed the girl was Cuevas' daughter.
Cruz said yesterday that efforts were under way to reunite mother and child as soon as possible.
"We're still trying to work it out, trying to find out if we can make this happen tonight," Cruz said last night. "If not, first thing tomorrow morning."
In a brief statement yesterday evening outside the Special Victims Unit, Capt. John Darby said Correa surrendered to police in the company of her attorney, Jeffrey C. Zucker of Camden.
"We are pleased that this phase of a complex, protracted and emotionally charged investigation has been completed with the subject's arrest in this short time," Darby said.
After being interviewed, Correa, handcuffed and dressed in a blue sweat suit, was led to a police van about 6:55 p.m. Authorities said she was being taken to the Police Detention Unit in Police Headquarters for processing and would be arraigned today on 15 charges, including kidnapping, arson and other offenses.
Evelyn Vera said that Correa was related to the extended Vera family by marriage and that they considered her a cousin. She recalled that on the day the baby was thought to have died in the fire, "Carol was there. She was hugging my brother and giving him support. How could she do that, when she was doing all this?"
Vera said she had not been surprised when Correa subsequently turned up with a baby because she believed that Correa was pregnant around that time.
Correa, who has three older children - a boy about 10, a teenage girl, and a 22-year-old son - spoiled Delimar, or, as she was known, Aliyah, Vera said.
"She treated that little girl better than her three other kids," she said. "She had her in private school. She took her for modeling. She did everything for her."
About a month ago, Vera said, detectives came to her home on the 3000 block of F Street in Kensington looking for Correa. Vera then called Correa in Willingboro and said she needed to call Philadelphia police.
"She was surprised," Vera said. "Like, 'Why? I haven't done anything?'"
This isn't the first time Correa, who lives in Willingboro with her mother, has been accused of setting a fire to cover up a crime.
In 1996, she was arrested and charged with torching the Hamilton, Mercer County, medical office where she worked as a billing clerk. She had been stealing business checks and cashing them in Philadelphia, Hamilton Police Lt. James Kostoplis said. When she realized her boss had caught on to her, Correa tried to destroy evidence by setting fire to the office the morning of Nov. 20, 1996.
Because there were people in the building when the blaze was set, Correa was charged with aggravated arson in addition to theft and fraud. She struck a deal whereby she pleaded guilty to third-degree arson in exchange for five years' probation and community service.
Olga Caban, a friend of Correa's mother, said yesterday red flags went up when Correa brought the baby home six years ago. Correa had shown no signs of pregnancy, and the baby did not resemble the Correa family, she said.
"She looked different," she said. "She was very beautiful - gorgeous - but not part of that family."
The bizarre kidnapping case has attracted international attention. Cuevas spent much of yesterday fielding press interview after press interview. Cruz, the state representative who played a key role in getting authorities to look into the case, said Cuevas had already gotten two movie offers.
Cuevas said she was concerned about Delimar's adjustment to the new situation.
The 6-year-old will be leaving the only home she has ever known, a yellow ranch house in Willingboro, for a white, two-story rowhouse on a narrow street in Port Richmond. She will be called Delimar, not Aliyah. Cuevas is more comfortable speaking Spanish than English. Delimar, she said, doesn't seem to know the language.
"I worry she's going to feel like a stranger," Cuevas said. "I worry she's going to feel I stole her away from Carol instead of Carol stealing her away from me."
i feel sorry for the little girl. it will be really hard for her. :sadgreen: |
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| King_Mack |
| man...its like this was ripped right out of "Out of Time" hehehe |
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| albertoR |
| this would make a nice Lifetime movie:rolleyes: |
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| smokeape |
Her music is great, but her face hurts me.
So, this little 6-7 year old is going back with old Mom, pretend Mom, or a Foster Home?
:conf:
[[[smoke]]] |
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