COLLISION IN QUEENS KILLS 2 GIRLS & COPS FIND A CRACK PIPE IN THE MINIVAN!

A second girl has died from injuries suffered in a Queens collision and three other children were still hospitalized early Tuesday.
Police said a 5-year-old girl died at Long Island Jewish Hospital about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. A 15-year-old girl, a foster child, died soon after the Monday wreck.

Police said the children were passengers in a minivan driven by Shelia Bethea, 45, of Queens. At about 5 p.m., Bethea crossed the double-yellow line on Dunkirk St. in Saint Albans while going between 60 and 70 miles an hour, slamming her minivan into another van.

The Queens woman was charged with reckless endangerment after authorities found the Mazda van had no car seats for the young passengers. Sources told the Daily News Bethea had been drinking, but she took a Breathalyzer test and was found to be under the legal limit.

Besides the two dead passengers, there were three other girls - ages 5, 10, and 11 - who survived the wreck. They're recovering at area hospitals.

Police withheld the victims' names pending notification of their families.

It was unclear whether Bethea or her sister Genevieve Bethea, the only adults, was the foster mother of the children in the van.

A woman who said she was the 15-year-old girl's birth mother came to the 103rd Precinct stationhouse early Tuesday and said, "I'm in shock."

Her cousin, who was with her, said the mother was "devastated."

The horrific wreck was the latest in a series of accidents involving cars packed with children - following the Taconic State Parkway crash in July in which a drunken mother drove the wrong way and killed her daughter, three nieces, three men and herself, and the Henry Hudson Parkway crash this month that killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado.

Witness Charnele Melvin, 19, said she saw the Mazda speed down Arcade Ave., turn onto Dunkirk St. Monday and strike a Toyota van - causing the vehicles to wind up on opposite sides of the street.

"I saw that car driving really fast," Melvin said, referring to the Mazda, which was carrying five foster children, all girls.

When Sheila Bethea came out of the vehicle, Melvin said, she looked disoriented and said she was driving the girls, who ranged in age from 5 to 15, to a foster care office in Jamaica.

"The lady told me she had a bad leg and her foot got stuck on the gas pedal," said a shaken Melvin, who ran to the Mazda to help the injured girls, one of whom is disabled.

"I grabbed the handicapped girl and took her to my lawn," Melvin said. "I just tried to keep her conscious, but she wasn't talking."

The 63-year-old man driving the Toyota van was in stable condition at North Shore University Hospital.