By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH
A prosecutor urged jurors Wednesday to convict Rebecca Grossman of murder and other charges stemming from a crash that killed two young brothers, saying the co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation was traveling at 73 mph when she plowed into the boys and that she drove about a third of a mile away before her vehicle’s engine turned itself off.
“This was not a tragic accident. This was murder,” Deputy District Attorney Jamie Castro told jurors during the prosecution’s closing argument in Grossman’s trial.
The nine-man, three-woman jury was expected to hear Wednesday afternoon from Grossman’s lead defense attorney, Tony Buzbee.
Grossman, 60, is charged with two counts each of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one felony count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death in the Sept. 29, 2020, crash in Westlake Village that left 11-year-old Mark Iskander and his 8-year-old brother Jacob dead.
Buzbee — who contends that Grossman was driving 52 mph “at best” — has put the blame on former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, whom he alleges was driving a black Mercedes SUV just ahead of Grossman’s white Mercedes SUV.
Erickson was described by the prosecution as Grossman’s boyfriend at the time.
The deputy district attorney described Erickson as “absolutely reckless,” but said “there is not a shred of evidence that he hit them, not a shred.”
Starting her presentation with photos of the two boys smiling, Castro said Grossman hit and killed “these two precious children” as they walked in a marked crosswalk. The prosecutor said the defendant “made the decision to drink” and “decided to drive at an excessively high rate of speed through her own neighborhood,” saying that an analysis of data from Grossman’s white SUV showed that she had been speeding at 81 mph just seconds before impact.
The prosecutor said the evidence, including statements from…
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