Crash Kills 2 Children, Injures Father : Accidents: A third child was not hurt but has not spoken. Authorities blame the collision on the parent’s illegal turn on a busy street.

A father’s illegal turn on a busy street ended in a crash that critically injured him, killed two of his children, and left a third uninjured but not speaking, authorities said Thursday.

Police have been unable to find the mother of the young survivor, Anaztazia McVea, 6. The girl’s parents are separated, police said.

“You would think by now someone would have called,” said Detective Jim Mann of the Valley Traffic Division. “Who knows? We have also been in touch with the coroner and the hospitals and no one has called them.”

A 7-year-old boy, Cherokee McVea, was pronounced dead at the scene on Vanowen Street, near Kester Avenue, police said. His 4-year-old sister, Jamaica, died a short time later at Valley Presbyterian Hospital.

Sonny McVea, 40, was in critical condition Thursday afternoon at Holy Cross Medical Center with 11 broken ribs and other internal injuries, according to hospital officials.

The driver of the other car, Roosevelt Ward, was not at fault and was not injured, police said. Anaztazia appeared dazed when authorities arrived at the scene of the accident late Wednesday. She has not spoken since the incident.

“We even had the nurses try and she wasn’t saying a thing,” said Detective Jim Mann of the Valley Traffic Division. “When the officers got there, they found her wandering around the accident scene. She had already seen her (dead) brother.”

McVea had parked on the south side of Vanowen Street to pick up his children from the apartment of a baby-sitter that police have been unable to identify, authorities said.

The father put the children in the back seat--the 7-year-old behind the driver’s seat with a lap belt, the 4-year-old in the middle with no safety belt and Anaztazia on the passenger side wearing her lap belt--about 11:25 p.m., Mann said.

McVea, who was also wearing a safety belt, tried to pull away from the curb and make a U-turn into the westbound lane when Ward’s car struck the driver’s side of McVea’s car, Mann said.

“The driver . . . said he had nowhere to go,” said John Baby of Valley Traffic. “He just saw the lights come on and the vehicle whip around.”

The surviving child is being held at MacLaren Children’s Center.