Idealogian

Stranger Than Fiction

Mom finds kidnapped daughter six years later

A fire that authorities six years ago thought killed a 10-day-old girl was a ruse to kidnap the infant, Philadelphia police said Monday.

The baby, Delimar Vera, was sleeping in the upstairs front bedroom when a fire broke out at her family's two-story row house in north Philadelphia on December 15, 1997.

Luz Cuevas, her mother, could not find Delimar when she ran into the room. She eventually ran out of the house, overcome by smoke and burned on her face. Her two other children also survived, police said.

Remains of the infant's body were never found, and police concluded they had been incinerated in the flames.

The official cause of the fire was listed as an overheated extension cord attached to a space heater.

But Cuevas never fully believed her daughter died in the fire.

In January, she attended a birthday party for the child of an acquaintance and was struck by the resemblance of a 6-year-old girl to herself and her other children.

Telling the girl she had bubble gum in her hair, Cuevas was able to take strands of her hair in hopes a DNA test would prove she was right, according to Philadelphia police Lt. Michael Boyle of the special victims unit.

Luz Cuevas never fully believed her daughter died in the fire.

A state legislator helped put Cuevas in touch with police, who launched an investigation and had DNA tests performed that confirmed the girl is her daughter.