Mum who thought her baby died in house fire shocked after recognising daughter years later thanks to one give-away clue
On 15 December 1994, mother-of-three Luz Cuevas was informed by police that her 10-day-old baby girl, Delimar Vera tragically had perished in a mysterious house fire that had consumed her entire Philadelphia property.
Despite the gut-wrenching news, Luz held onto a suspicion that her daughter was still alive.
Little did she know that six years later, she and her ex-husband Pedro Vera would discover the chilling truth of what really happened that night, after coming face-to-face with her missing daughter and noticing one distinct similarity in her appearance.
At this point, however, Delimar had been raised to believe her name was Aaliyah, having been raised just a handful of blocks away by a former friend of the Cuevas-Vera family, Carolyn Correa.
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Such is the eerie tale being told for the first time in a brand new U documentary called Back From The Dead: Who Kidnapped Me?, which sees a now 26-year-old Delimar Vera reflect on the moment she was reunited with her birth parents - Luz Cuevas and Pedro Vera - after being kidnapped as a baby.
Delimar sat down with Tyla this week, where she revealed the impact that her harrowing childhood still has on her today - beginning with the birthday party, which the women she believed to be her mother at the time, Carolyn Correa, had brought her along to.
"I was so intrigued"
"When I got to the party, we were all hanging out downstairs, and that's when I saw my [birth] mother for the first time," Delimar told us, reflecting on the moment Luz set eyes on the child she believed to be dead.
"I just thought, 'Oh, my god, look at this beautiful woman'. I just gravitated towards her, I don't know why. I was just so intrigued.
Later on that night, Luz approached the child offering to remove a piece of bubblegum that had supposedly become tangled in her brunette locks.
"She kept smiling at me, and we kept looking at each other. Of course, I didn't know in that moment that we had any relation to one another."
Delimar says Carolyn - who hadn't been 'much of a mother' to her growing up - had rushed her out of the party as a child, having realised that Luz had noticed a similarity.
"It was the family resemblance. My oldest brother, I look like the woman version of him, and he looks like the male version of myself.
"She thought, 'Oh, that must be my daughter'. The resemblance was eye-catching for her."
"She put a mysterious spray into my mouth"
That night, Luz - who was also a son to two boys - had actually hacked off a chunk of Delimar's hair and pocketed it at the party, believing that Carolyn had stolen her baby from house fire that destroyed her life.
"I remember being home with Carolyn and her telling me, 'There's this bad woman that wants to take you away from us', and I told her, 'I'm not going to get let do that'. She never gave me any details about who she was, and that she'd claimed to be my mother."
Within a matter of weeks, however, a DNA test finally confirmed what Luz believed to be the truth.
After being called into the forensic officer's office, however, Carolyn - who had previously been acquainted with the Vera family - attempted to do all she should to disguise Delimar's true identity.
"A couple of times, we went into the bathroom together and that's what she began putting a mysterious spray into my mouth," Delimar told us.
"I later found out this was her own saliva. She would tell me, 'Don't swallow, don't swallow'. But I told the officers what she'd done."
"I didn't understand what was going on"
The child was removed from the home she believed she'd been born in, taken away from the mother she'd always known and informed that her three siblings - Carolyn's other children - were not her own.
"I remember crying," she recalls. "I didn't understand what was going on."
Thankfully, however, she was immediately able to form strong bonds with her parents - who split up not long after her kidnapping - still crediting her mother with having taken it upon herself to bring her daughter home.
Carolyn - who had a criminal history with arson - was arrested in 2004 before pleading no contest to kidnapping, interference of child custody and conspiracy.
She was sentenced a year later to between nine and 30 years in prison.
Luz and Pedro's other children assisted in Delimar's transition, being that both of her parents were Puerto Rican and only spoke very broken English.
With their help, Delimar grew up a healthy and happy child, going on to sail through college, marry the love of her life - a husband named Isaiah Robinson - and become stepmother to his 11-year-old son.
"My experience has definitely made me more protective of my family," she admitted. "And I have post-traumatic stress disorder, so meeting my husband, I had to unlearn a lot of things that were actually trauma responses.
"Navigating that and maintaining a healthy relationship was a learning curve, because you can get triggered.
"But he's been with me through it all."
"We have the same laugh"
Now, she and her mother's relationship is stronger now than ever, with Delimar claiming that the duo enjoy an hour-long phone-call to one another at least once week.
"As I've gotten older, I've realised that we have a lot more in common than I would have thought," she revealed. "We have the same exact laugh, the same mannerisms.
"She's a joy to be around. We have a beautiful relationship."
And when it comes to her father, Delimar and Isaiah visit her father - who now resides in Puerto Rico - as and when they can.
"I always felt like my dad was more of a sibling," she confessed. "Not in a bad way - he was just more laid back, so, we speak every now and again. He'll call me every other week or so."
"There's definitely someone who assisted her"
Delimar has only visited Carolyn Correa once since she was jailed, where she claims she asked her captor about the possible involvement of an accomplice.
"I try to put that aspect of the case to bed, but if I could find out, I'd love to, because justice needs to be brought for that. There's somebody still walking around who hasn't paid any consequences for what they did.
"I know that she didn't take me out of that window by herself - there's definitely somebody out there that assisted her."
She added: "But, whoever it was, Carolyn is protecting that person with her life."
Delimar went on to confess what the 'biggest question she had was': "Why? Why did you kidnap me? I did ask that when I saw her. I pointed out that she already had three other children and asked why she took me, but she didn't provide an answer.
"And she's a sociopathic liar, even if she did answer those questions, she'd probably have told another lie."
She also insisted she'd never like to sit down with Carolyn again.
Discussing the process of making the U documentary - a reflection of the events of the last 20 years - Delimar tells us that the experience took 'a lot of preparation, meditating and praying'.
Back From The Dead: Who Kidnapped Me? is available to watch as a boxset on U.
Topics: Crime, True Crime, US News, News, Documentaries, TV And Film, Parenting
Rhianna Benson