By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH | City News Service
VAN NUYS – The mother of two young boys struck and killed as they crossed a Westlake Village street in 2020 testified today that the family was in the crosswalk when she saw two vehicles heading toward them at an “insane, crazy speed” and that she ducked out of the way of the first vehicle with her youngest son — and that she believes her other two boys were hit by the second vehicle that was allegedly driven by socialite Rebecca Grossman.
“I know who killed them,” Nancy Iskander — the mother of 11-year-old Mark and his 8-year-old brother, Jacob — told a Van Nuys jury as testimony began in Grossman’s trial.
Iskander added that she would have said if someone else had killed the boys.
Grossman, the 60-year-old co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation, was charged in December 2020 with two felony counts each of murder and vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, along with one felony count of hit-and-run driving resulting in death, in connection with the Sept. 29, 2020, deaths.
In opening statements Friday, Deputy District Attorney Ryan Gould told jurors that Grossman was speeding when she hit the brothers in a crosswalk on Triunfo Canyon Road.
Grossman’s attorneys insisted she was not the driver responsible for the deadly crash, which they contend occurred outside a crosswalk. The defense pointed the blame at former Dodgers pitcher Scott Erickson, whom they allege was driving a black Mercedes-Benz SUV just ahead of Grossman’s white Mercedes-Benz SUV.
Erickson was described by the prosecutor as Grossman’s boyfriend at the time.
“I saw two cars coming towards us at an insane, crazy speed,” the victims’ mother told jurors in an emotional morning of testimony.
“I am 100 percent sure I was (in) the crosswalk with all of them,” Iskander added of herself and her three sons, saying her two older sons were behind her within about arm’s reach of her in the crosswalk.
Iskander…
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