Van Stolen From Family With Baby and Triplets

Although hardly a work of art, David and Terri Williams’ pink-and-maroon van was invaluable, the only vehicle big enough to carry their entire family: 22-month-old triplets and a 5-month-old baby.

On Thursday, they were coping with a transportation nightmare after waking to find the 1990 Chevrolet van--car seats and all--stolen from the driveway of their San Simeon Drive home in La Palma.

“I can’t believe anyone would steal it, seeing the car seats in the back,” said Terri Williams, 37, who had no way to get one child to a doctor’s appointment Thursday. “The van itself is ugly, but it worked for us.”

By the end of the afternoon, the La Palma Police Assn. donated four new car seats for Jason, Blake, Phillip and Matthew.

“They’ve been very helpful,” said 35-year-old David Williams, an attorney. “It was very, very nice of them.”

But the van remained at large, probably snagged in the middle of the night, police said.

“It looks like there was a window smashed and that they probably broke the ignition and got away,” Police Sgt. Mark Yokoyama said.

The Williamses said that they were tending to one of the feverish triplets who suffers from asthma at the time police suspect the van was taken Wednesday night. “We were giving him breathing treatments all night. We didn’t hear anything and we even have a watchdog,” Terri Williams said. “If we had only looked out the window, just once.”

The last time they saw the van was about 9 p.m., when David Williams went to fill it up with gas. The next morning there was an empty space in the driveway.

Anyone with information on the van, license 2ROD928, should call police at (714) 523-4552, Ext. 0.