Mom in Fatal Crash Did Drugs, Cops Say

(Oct. 29) -- A New York woman who crashed her minivan Monday, killing two foster children, admitted taking drugs and drinking before the wreck, officials said.

Sheila Bethea told investigators from her hospital bed that she smoked crack cocaine early Monday morning, took heroin around 9 a.m. and had a drink around noon, according to The New York Daily News. She lost control of the van and hit a car shortly before 5 p.m. Officials said none of the five children in the van was wearing a seat belt.

Two of the foster children Bethea's mother was caring for -- Katherine Willis, 15, and Melissa Elh-Mirra, 5 -- died of their injuries. Bethea's daughter, Tatiana, 6, is in a medically induced coma.

"The car was swerving; she was driving fast," Alyahh Garcia, one of the other foster children in the van, told the Daily News after being released from Jamaica Hospital. Alyahh, 11, said a passerby pulled her and her 10-year-old sister, Camara Sergonvich, out of the wreckage.

Alyahh and Camara's biological mother Pholia McArthur -- who put six of her 10 children in foster care -- accused the Bethea family of abusing the kids and using them as "paychecks," the Daily News reported.

Sheila Bethea pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of manslaughter, assault and endangering the welfare of a child. A judge ordered her held on $500,000 bail.