The mother of two children who were killed by an SUV while crossing a street in the city of Westlake Village, Los Angeles County, on September 29, 2020, testified in court Monday against a woman accused of the deaths.
Nancy Iskander stated, through tears, that she was clear about who had caused the death of her children, based on what she saw and heard before the tragedy: "I know who killed them," she said.
Rebecca Grossman, who is 60 years old and is the wife of well-known plastic surgeon Dr. Peter Grossman, is charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and hit-and-run.
His trial began last Friday.
Nancy Iskander and her husband, Karim, leave court during Rebecca Grossman's trial in April 2022.Getty Images
Grossman, according to authorities, fled the scene after hitting Mark and Jacob Iskander, ages 11 and 8, respectively, with his car.
Prosecutors have asserted that Grossman was driving at high speed, negligently and under the influence of alcohol, after having drank one and a half margaritas, and ingested a Valium pill.
Grossman
is not charged with driving under the influence
.
According to the police report, Grossman was driving a white Mercedes around 7:00 p.m. local time after having been at a Mexican restaurant during
happy hour
.
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The indictment indicates that Grossman and Scott Erickson, who was her boyfriend at the time and is a former pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, were speeding in their respective cars.
Prosecutors have claimed that Grossman was driving 81 mph (130 km/h) on a stretch where the speed limit is 45 mph (72 km/h).
Rebecca Grossman, with her husband, Dr. Peter Grossman, in court in Los Angeles on January 23, 2024. Getty Images
Iskander stated that he was crossing the street with Mark and Jacob when they were hit.
According to Iskander's story, he was on skates right in front of his children, along with his youngest son, Zachary, 5 years old.
Mar was on a skateboard and Jacob was also using skates, he explained.
He added that he was almost on the other side of the street with his youngest son when he saw an all-terrain car coming
at full speed
.
"That's when I first saw the cars racing," he said, referring to the white SUV driven by Grossman and another black one driven by Erickson.
He said both cars were going at high speed, apparently competing with each other and changing lanes.
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"Two seconds passed until the black car reached the crosswalk [...] I still see it in my dreams, the black bumper on the way to kill Zachary and me," he said.
She said her instinct was to grab her youngest son and lunge out of reach of the car, causing her and her son to fall into a bike lane on the side of the road.
"I heard a loud noise and I heard that the driver of the car was not stopping the car," Iskander said in court.
Seconds after the event – he said – his instinct was to quickly look for his other two children: first he found Jacob, who was unconscious, but alive.
When she saw Mark, he explained, she knew immediately that he was dead.
It seemed like every bone in his body was broken, she said.
“No one came back to help.
“She [Grossman] did not return to the scene,” she indicated.
Initial investigations revealed that Mark
had fallen 254 feet (77 meters) from the impact site
, a distance that – according to a police officer specializing in car accidents who testified in court – is the greatest distance a human being has ever traveled. been thrown in a crash in the investigation of which he participated.
Jacob was thrown about 50 feet (15 meters) and then taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead, a report from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office said.
Grossman's defense has suggested that her car was not the first to hit the minors, and that instead, it was the car driven by Erickson that hit them first, so the jury should acquit the woman.
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Defense attorneys have also suggested that
the family was not crossing at the crosswalk
when the hit-and-run occurred, a claim Iskander denied during his testimony.
Grossman was found about 400 meters from the accident site.
With reporting from ABC7, Courthouse News Service and the Los Angeles Times