Closing arguments start in Rebecca Grossman's murder trial
A prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that Rebecca Grossman's speed hit 81 mph just seconds before she struck and killed two young boys in a Westlake Village crosswalk.
"This was not a tragic accident," Deputy District Attorney Jamie Castro said of the crash on Sept. 29, 2020. "This was murder."
Closing arguments started Wednesday as the trial started its sixth week. Grossman, 60, of Hidden Hills, has been charged with two counts of murder, two counts of vehicular manslaughter and hit-and-run driving. She has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Prosecutors say she was driving her white Mercedes SUV 73 mph on the residential street when she hit Mark Iskander, 11, and his brother Jacob, 8. The speed limit was 45 mph.
The boys' photos were shown on courtroom monitors as Castro started her closing argument. They had been crossing the road with their mom and younger brother, but Mark and Jacob never made it. After the crash, Grossman didn’t stop until the Mercedes crash safety features cut off the fuel, prosecutors said.
Grossman's defense team is expected to start its closing arguments later Wednesday. Her attorneys have said the boys were hit by another vehicle first. They say a black SUV driven by their client's then-boyfriend Scott Erickson passed through the crosswalk before Grossman. They regularly questioned whether his vehicle was ever examined.
Earlier this week, the defense team rested its case without calling Grossman to the stand.
Grossman on the way home
On the night of the crash, she had been driving to her home near Westlake Lake after having drinks with Erickson, a former professional baseball player, and his friend.
The three planned to meet up at Grossman's house to watch the presidential debate. Erickson drove away in his black Mercedes SUV, and Grossman drove her white Mercedes SUV. The friend had stopped at a store.
The Iskanders were in the crosswalk when witnesses say they saw and heard vehicles speeding toward them. The boys' mom, Nancy Iskander, grabbed her youngest son, the closest one to her, and dove out of the path of the black vehicle.
She testified she saw that vehicle pass without hitting anyone. She looked up and saw the white SUV go through the spot where her other sons had just been, she said.
In 2021, Erickson was charged with reckless driving, a misdemeanor. The court ordered judicial diversion, and the case was later resolved.
Prosecutors: Grossman drives 81 mph
Erickson came close to hitting the boys but the evidence shows he did not hit them, Castro told jurors during her closing argument Wednesday morning.
Seconds before the crash, Grossman floored the gas pedal, pressing down nearly as far as it could go, Michael Hale, an investigator in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office previously testified.
She accelerated to 81 mph and then took her foot off the gas just under two seconds before an impact. Hale described what he called “light braking” over the next second. At the time of impact, 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 the previous five seconds.
The defense team’s collision reconstruction engineer Justin Schorr, however, questioned the accuracy of the crash data.
Crash data disputed
Schorr testified last week that the speed and gas pedal information didn’t add up.
He calculated the speed her Mercedes should have reached if she had floored the gas based on acceleration rates. Instead of 81 mph, she should have hit 93 mph, he said. That means one of those data points is wrong, he said.
On Tuesday, Hale returned to the stand and used Mercedes’ published figures to calculate the acceleration rate. That rate did match up with the crash data, he said, going through the calculations he used.
The acceleration rate starting from 73 mph would be different than the carmaker’s rates starting at zero, he said.
Closing arguments were expected to continue at least through Wednesday and possibly into Thursday.
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: Closing arguments start in Rebecca Grossman's murder trial
