Forensic pathologist: Injuries on Mark Iskander's body match SUV grille
Injuries to Mark Iskander’s 11-year-old body matched damage found on Rebecca Grossman’s SUV, investigators testified at her murder trial this week.
Mark and his brother Jacob, 8, were struck and killed while in a Westlake Village crosswalk on Sept. 29, 2020, according to earlier witness testimony. They were crossing Triunfo Canyon Road with their mom and younger brother shortly after 7 p.m.
A webbed pattern of injuries on the back of Mark's thighs was "almost an exact match" to the grille on Grossman's Mercedes SUV, a forensic pathologist said on the stand in the Van Nuys courtroom.
Grossman, 60, of Hidden Hills, faces two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run driving. She has pleaded not guilty to all counts.
The prosecution says she was driving 73 mph when she struck the boys. The speed limit on the road is 45 mph. She didn’t stop until the Mercedes crash safety features cut off the fuel, prosecutors have said.
Grossman’s defense team has told jurors another Mercedes SUV hit the boys first. Her attorneys say Mark and Jacob were hit by multiple vehicles and were outside of the crosswalk at the time of the crash.
Mark's injuries match Mercedes grille
Earlier this week, Dr. Matthew Miller, a Los Angeles County deputy medical examiner, testified about the boys' injuries. Autopsy photos were shown on monitors in the courtroom.
Both Mark and Jacob had multiple broken bones, said Miller, who performed autopsies on the boys. Mark had fractures to his right arm, pelvis, right leg, skull and spine.
Regarding the web of markings on the back of Mark's legs, Miller said it looked like the same pattern of the grille. But he could not say that they were made by Grossman's vehicle, he said.
Mark likely was knocked unconscious and died within minutes if not seconds, the forensic pathologist said.
Jacob also had multiple fractures and a spinal cord injury near his skull that would have caused instant paralysis below his head, he said. He was taken by ambulance to the Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks where he was later pronounced dead.
In his experience, Miller said, the injuries are common with a pedestrian being hit by a single vehicle and when a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle at a high rate of speed, he said.
Under cross examination, however, Miller told lead defense attorney Tony Buzbee that he could not rule out multiple cars hit either of the boys.
SUV black box records speed, braking
Seconds before the crash, Grossman floored the gas pedal, pressing down nearly as far as it could go, said Michael Hale, an investigator in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
She accelerated to 81 mph, Hale said. Then, she took her foot off the gas just under two seconds before the crash. Hale described what he called “light braking” over the next second. At the time of the crash, her speed was recorded at 73 mph.
The information gets stored in the vehicle’s event data recorder, which is part of the airbag system in the Mercedes, according to Hale. When the airbags are deployed, the device stores five seconds before the crash.
The device also stores the vehicle’s mileage and total driving time. Recorded data for Grossman's SUV showed a low number for the total driving time. Using that figure and the total mileage, the average speed would have been over 560 mph, Buzbee said.
Hale called the low driving time number an anomaly, saying that it is a known issue that has happened with other vehicles. Likely something causes the operating time to reset, he said.
But that doesn't affect the recorded crash data and does not invalidate those results, Hale said. Laws regulate how the crash data is recorded, he said.
Cheri Carlson covers the environment and county government for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at cheri.carlson@vcstar.com or 805-437-0260.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Rebecca Grossman murder trial: Witnesses testify about boys injuries
