As officers questioned Rebecca Grossman the night of the crash that left two young brothers dead in Westlake Village, her then-lover was nearby, hiding behind a tree, Grossman's daughter testified Friday.
Alexis Grossman told jurors that the man in question, former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, showed up at the family home shortly afterward. She said he smelled of alcohol and threatened her and her family if she told investigators what she had seen.
“Why did your mom stop? Why did your mom stop? she said Erickson told her. “He seemed very angry. He was frantic. I could smell the alcohol on it. He was crazy. He was scared. ”
She said he gave her a warning: “Don't tell anyone you saw me or I will ruin you and your family.”
Alexis Grossman's tearful testimony was presented to bolster the defense's argument that Erickson, not her mother, was the first to hit Mark and Jacob Iskander as they crossed a marked crosswalk on Triunfo Canyon Road on Sept. 29, 2020.
Erickson, 56, has denied any wrongdoing. He was initially charged with misdemeanor reckless driving after the accident, but it was dismissed after he made a public service announcement about the importance of safe driving.
Mark and Jacob Iskander.
(Iskander Family)
Rebecca Grossman, 60, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one count of hit-and-run resulting in death.
The night of the accident, Alexis Grossman was on her way to meet a pizza delivery man when she saw her mother's Mercedes surrounded by police cars, she said.
“I ran towards her. She was screaming, 'Mommy, mommy,' she testified. But a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy blocked her path and told her she couldn't get closer.
It was then, when he turned around, he said, that he saw Erickson in some bushes behind a tree. Using a pointer, the 19-year-old showed the courtroom the area at 3701 Triunfo Canyon Road where she said she saw him.
“He was sticking his head out and we made eye contact,” she testified.
Authorities had told him to leave the scene, and he did so, he said, driving a short distance to his family's home in Westlake Village. Shortly after he arrived, Erickson barged in, he testified.
During questioning, Los Angeles County Deputy. Lawyer. Ryan Gould asked why he hadn't told officers at the scene about Erickson.
“I wish I had because if I had, we wouldn't be here right now,” he responded.
Alexis Grossman said she told her parents, who were separated at the time of the accident, in 2021 what she had seen. She said her mother's lawyer at the time advised her not to tell anyone.
That same year, Alexis Grossman met with prosecutors and Gould asked her to remember what she had told him when she asked if Erickson had arrived at the Westlake Village home that night. She responded that she believes she said no.
“I wasn't trying to protect anyone,” she said through tears. “He was a big guy, a baseball player…he was scared.”
When the court closed, she and her mother hugged each other and sobbed.
Alexis Grossman's testimony capped an emotional day in court, in which her mother also, in a candid and tearful exchange with a reporter, accused prosecutors of not caring about getting to the bottom of what happened.
The brief comment came as the trial broke for lunch, shortly after prosecutors broke off a line of questioning prohibited by a pretrial motion under Section 402 of California's evidence code, which excludes prejudicial evidence.
“If they were truth seekers, why do they have so many 402 motions?” Rebecca Grossman asked a Times reporter that she was in the audience.
Prosecutors have repeatedly accused Grossman's lead attorney, Tony Buzbee, of trying to obtain prohibited evidence before the trial began, often in testy exchanges with opposing counsel.
They objected again Friday when Gould asked the judge to stop Buzbee's questioning of a defense collision expert.
Prosecutors allege that Grossman hit the children, ages 11 and 8, while driving behind Erickson after the two were having cocktails at a local restaurant.
Buzbee, however, has maintained since the beginning of the trial that it was a Mercedes driven by Erickson – not his client's vehicle – that first struck the brothers.
Cam Cope, a Texas-based accident reconstructionist, testified to that effect on Friday. Based on his analysis of the scene, Cope said, it was Erickson's black Mercedes SUV that struck the children; Mark was thrown onto his vehicle and into the hood of Grossman's white Mercedes, which was following behind him.
In that scenario, Cope said, there would be nothing the person in the second car could do.
“Those are the facts in this case,” he said.
But Gould attempted to discredit Cope's analysis, citing earlier testimony.
At the time of the accident, the children's mother, Nancy Iskander, said she was wearing inline skates when she began crossing Triunfo Canyon Road at Saddle Mountain Drive. Her youngest son, Zachary, was next to her on her scooter; with Mark, on a skateboard, and Jacob, on inline skates, ahead at the marked crosswalk.
Iskander testified that he saw Erickson's car pass through the crosswalk and rescued his 5-year-old son from its path before seeing his older children disappear after Grossman's vehicle passed.
Another witness, Susan Manners, testified that she saw a child hit in the left lane. Two other witnesses, Yasamin Eftekhari and Jake Sands, also testified that Grossman ran over a child in the left lane.
Cope said neither statement changed his conclusion that the black car initially hit the two children.
Justin Shaw, an accident reconstruction expert who testified for the defense, said he also believes it was the black Mercedes that hit the children first, although he acknowledged the lack of physical evidence.
When pressed by Gould, Shaw said the report he prepared for the case did not say that Erickson's vehicle hit the children.
“Without a vehicle inspection in front of the Grossman Mercedes, there is no way to know which vehicle hit the children,” he said, adding that there is testimony suggesting the black Mercedes hit the children first.
Shaw also said that an examination of video taken 360 feet from the crosswalk showed that Erickson was driving a 2016 Mercedes GL 63 AMG, not a 2007 Mercedes SUV, as he told investigators. Shaw said he based that conclusion on the vehicle's lights.
Rebecca Grossman's Mercedes SUV is shown after the 2020 accident at the Westlake crosswalk.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department)
He also disputed earlier testimony about the speed at which Grossman was traveling at the time of the accident, as well as data from his vehicle's “black box” that showed he was going up to 81 mph, on the quiet residential street. Investigators testified that he was going 73 mph when he fatally struck the children.
Based on his analysis, Shaw estimated he was going much slower, around 49 mph. Grossman also couldn't have stepped on the accelerator as indicated by the black box, he said, because if he had he would have gone much faster than the data shows, meaning some element of the data is incorrect.
Shaw also said that a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who calculated the vehicle's estimated speed based on Mark's body dumped 254 feet down the road was incorrect. Since the boy “was hit by another car after Mrs. Grossman,” he said, “the throw calculation is wrong.”
