Nancy Iskander sobbed at the memory, her voice shaking.
The mother of four described how she saw a black sport utility vehicle speeding toward the intersection where she and her three children were crossing. She grabbed her 5-year-old son, Zachary, and pulled him to safety as that van crossed the marked crosswalk on Westlake. The high-powered vehicle flew by.
But another SUV, a white Mercedes, was following closely behind, Iskander said. His older children were further into the intersection and Iskander said he lost sight of them when he jumped out of the way.
“I saw two cars coming toward us at incredible speed,” Iskander testified Monday in the murder trial of Rebecca Grossman, accused in the deaths of the Iskander children, 11-year-old Mark and 8-year-old Mark. Jacob. “I didn't see her hit the children. “I saw her pass by where the boys were and I heard the crash.”
Los Angeles County prosecutors say Grossman was behind the wheel of the white Mercedes that fatally struck the brothers in September 2020. Authorities say he was driving at a speed of 81 mph and traveled a quarter-mile after crashing into the children before their car turned off.
“I heard a loud noise and I heard the driver of that car keep going,” Iskander told the jury. “I started screaming, 'I can't find them.'
“No one came back to help,” Iskander said. “She did not return to the scene.”
As the first witness in Grossman's trial, Iskander gave a firsthand account of how an exercise plan at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown ended in tragedy on bucolic Triunfo Canyon Road on September 29, 2020.
She described finding Jacob near the sidewalk. Authorities say he was thrown about 50 feet in the collision. She said it looked like he was sleeping, she put her ear on her chest and listened to her heartbeat. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a few hours later, Los Angeles County sheriff's officials said in a statement.
Mark was 254 feet away, a distance that a crash incident officer previously testified was the furthest distance he knew of to a human being in a crash. His mother said that his body was destroyed and blood was coming out of his nose. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Every bone in his body was broken,” he testified.
Mark, left, and Jacob Iskander.
(Courtesy of the Iskander family)
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. If she is convicted of all charges, she faces 34 years to life in prison.
Defense attorneys have argued that Grossman's former boyfriend, former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, is responsible for the deaths because his vehicle struck the children first.
Grossman and Erickson had been drinking cocktails earlier that day at a nearby restaurant, Julio's Agave Grill, according to court records. The couple was joined by retired baseball player Royce Clayton, who testified Monday that Erickson drank two margaritas and Grossman drank one. Afterward, he said, they all agreed to meet at Grossman's house and watch a presidential debate. He said Grossman did not appear to be impaired when she left the now-closed restaurant.
Mikaela Kennedy, who worked at Julio's, told the court that Grossman was served a Casamigos margarita at the restaurant. She also said that the Hidden Hills socialite did not appear to be shaken when she left the restaurant.
But prosecutors say Grossman drove Erickson's powerful black Mercedes SUV down the street at 45 mph and his actions prove implied malice, knowing his behavior was reckless. Although Grossman was not charged with driving under the influence, her blood alcohol level three hours after the accident registered 0.08%, California's legal limit. She also had Valium in her system at the time of the fatal incident, prosecutors allege.
Iskander described how Erickson's black pickup truck flew toward her and Zachary, who was on his scooter. She said that if she hadn't grabbed Zachary and jumped out of the way, the black car would have killed them. But she said she had no doubt that the white van hit and killed her two oldest children.
Tony Buzbee, Grossman's lead attorney, told jurors during opening statements Friday that “she didn't do anything, but someone else did,” adding that authorities never examined Erickson's vehicle after the deadly incident.
On Monday, Iskander rejected the defense's argument that Erickson hit Mark and Jacob first, sending one of the boys into the air before landing in Grossman's path and bouncing off his car.
“I wouldn't have missed that, Mark going up to heaven,” the distraught mother said.
Buzbee has said Erickson, 55, lied to sheriff's investigators about the vehicle he was driving that night, noting that he “stopped on the road and hid in the bushes and watched” as police investigated the crash before going to the scene. to Grossman's house, talking to his daughter and then returning home.
Clayton, who was also supposed to go to Grossman's house that night, never arrived. The baseball coach at Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village testified that he learned about the accident after speaking with Erickson on the phone a few hours later. When asked if he was still friends with Erickson, who denied any wrongdoing, the former Giants shortstop said, “No.”
“I have children. I just don't understand how he could be so negligent and responsible for running over children,” Clayton said.
Erickson had a misdemeanor charge dismissed after making a public service announcement to teenagers about the importance of safe driving. His attorney, Mark Werksman, said he does not currently plan to address the issues raised in Grossman's trial, but added that “this may change over the course of the next few days.” [or] weeks.”
Trying to establish the sequence of events, Buzbee repeatedly asked Iskander what he had seen, citing how dark it was at the time of the accident, which occurred around 7:10 p.m.
“Didn't you see how they killed the children?” the lawyer asked.
“It was too fast,” he responded, but noted: “If someone else had done it, I would have said it.”
Westlake Village cyclist Chris Morgeson told jurors he heard three cars approaching quickly in Lindero Canyon, two dark-colored sedans and a white pickup truck that he thought he was driving “recklessly.” He said he later saw a similar pickup truck with front-end damage stopped on the side of Triunfo Canyon Road. He said he never saw a black van and that he could not describe the driver of the white van.
But Iskander testified that he only remembered two vehicles that night. She said her oldest children were an arm's length or a little further away and inside the marked crosswalk, not cutting in front as Buzbee suggested in her opening statements Friday.
“She killed my children,” Iskander said of Grossman. “They're not at school. They don't play sports. “They are in the cemetery.”
