Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Socialite Murder Trial: Mom of 2 Boys Mowed Down by "Drunk" Socialite Runs From Court Sobbing at Sight of Son's Lifeless Body

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Drag racing? Really? We see it in movies like Fast and Furious and on other big screen productions. Maybe on TV we hear about it. But a high-profile plastic surgeon's wife, a socialite, drag racing with her alleged lover and mowing down two little boys in the process? That's what we're talking about. Two little boys dead, ages 8 and 11, while this plastic surgeon's socialite wife is drag racing on the open road after a boozy lunch with her lover? Uh-uh. No. What's the maximum in this jurisdiction? I need to find that out. I'm Nancy Grace. This is

Starting point is 00:01:16 Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. Let me just take these words in, fit it together in one sentence. A plastic surgeon's socialite wife mows down two little boys. Wait a minute. Has she been on bond this whole time? So many questions. Let's start it off. Listen. Just after 7 p.m. on a September evening, Jacob and Mark Iskender, their siblings and parents, go for an evening stroll to a nearby lake. The boys enjoy rollerblading and skateboarding. The six-member family is heading home, crossing in a crosswalk at a three-way intersection when mother Nancy heard a speeding car barreling their way. The mom says her husband and daughter were further away from the street. She tries to signal to the two SUVs heading their

Starting point is 00:02:10 way to slow down. She tried to pull the children back, only managing to grab one of them, a five year old, and dive out of the way. Jacob and Mark, who were farther out in the crosswalk, are hit. Mark Iskender dies at the scene. Jacob dies later at the hospital. According to police, Mark was thrown 254 feet. 254 feet. I've got an all-star panel joining me, but first I want to go to private investigator, former Federal Task Force officer for the U.S. DOJ, Department of Justice, with the DEA in the Miami Field Division. No lack of business in Miami, Jade. Former homicide investigator.

Starting point is 00:02:51 You can find him at CrispinInvestigations.com. Robert Crispin, have you ever, first of all, 254 feet. A child is thrown through the air 254 feet. Wait. Okay. Now, I'm a lawyer. I'm not a sports broadcaster. But I was a cheerleader.

Starting point is 00:03:15 Only because I didn't make the basketball team. One girl got cut. Me. So I became a cheerleader. Isn't a football field a hundred yards? Okay. That's 300 feet. Okay. As you can tell by my stilted questions, they did not teach me that in law school. So this child is thrown nearly the length of a football field? Yeah, not uncommon for the pedestrian to be thrown quite of a distance. This particular case, if you look at the crash impact on the Mercedes,

Starting point is 00:03:56 it's pretty much a dead center hit. Robert Crispin, I appreciate all of your knowledge, but that was a yes, no. This little child was thrown nearly the length of a football field. He was. And that's a long way. OK. Another quick question. This is a yes, no to Robert Crispin before you, you know, lay all your knowledge on me. Robert Crispin, have you ever been out for a walk or a jog, maybe with your family, and somebody speaks by and you try to, you say, slow down, or you gesticulate toward them? Has

Starting point is 00:04:30 that ever happened to you? Of course. I think it's happened to everybody. Okay. Did they stop? Did they slow down? Not at all. They're oblivious. Not at all. In fact, they speed off. I tried to take the picture of a speeding car the other day that sped by Lucy and me as we were walking. As soon as I held my phone up, it scratched off Crispin. So the mom, can you imagine there's all the children. Uh, let's see, there's Mark 11, Jacob eight, the parents are there. Uh, Kareem and Nancy, the brother, Zachary, who's just five, the husband. They're all out for an evening stroll at a lake. I don't think too far from their home.

Starting point is 00:05:13 And this socialite married to a plastic surgeon, just stinking of money, comes flying by. And you can hear the car first speeding. Because I can hear it when I'm with the twins. I'm like, get off the road. Get over. I hear a car coming. And sure enough, here it comes barreling down. The mom heard it first and immediately starts trying to get everybody. And she couldn't get the two little boys fast enough. You think I've got those facts right, Robert Crispin? Listen, your facts are right. And I've, you know, with my own son, when I'm out walking with him, he gets so far away and someone comes speeding by. I cannot imagine of how close she was to just potentially grabbing them and pulling them back and not being there and watching that impact

Starting point is 00:06:04 had to be horrific. Horrific. And, you know, the other little brother, Zachary's five, he remembers this crystal clear. OK, let me get back to the facts. Listen. Nancy Iskander tells police that two SUVs were speeding toward her family and were, quote, zigzagging with each other as if they were playing or racing. She says the drivers didn't stop at the intersection, not even when the 11-year-old

Starting point is 00:06:30 was on the hood of the car. She describes how 8-year-old Jacob was lying near the curb. Mark was in the road with a visibly broken arm and, quote, blood coming out of his mouth. She says her 5-year-old watched paramedics perform CPR on his brother. When asked if she could see which driver or SUV struck her son, Iskander said no, she was diving out of the way, pulling her five-year-old along. As I mentioned, with me an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But now, I want to go to Eamon Murphy joining us, investigative reporter, writer for the Acorn newspapers.

Starting point is 00:07:09 Eamon, thank you for being with us. Explain to me what facts I've left out so far up to the point where CPR is being given by the EMTs. Well, Nancy, you basically got it right. It was the evening of September 29th, 2020. The family, the Iskander family, were out for a walk. You know, this is during COVID, so they're getting out, getting some air. Nancy Iskander is crossing the road. It's called Tranfo Canyon Road in Westlake Village.

Starting point is 00:07:39 It runs right along the lake. She's crossing towards the lake with her three boys. She's got the youngest boy right at her hip and they're in front. The two older boys are behind her. That's Mark and Jacob. Her husband and their baby daughter continue walking up the road. They don't cross, so there's some distance away. Nancy Iskender hears the roars of two engines, she says, and she turns and she sees these SUVs coming. She's able to jump out of the way of the first one.

Starting point is 00:08:11 That's a black SUV with her youngest son. But then behind her, the second car, which is a white Mercedes SUV, hits the other two boys. And that's the one driven by Rebecca Grossman, authorities say. OK, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Amen, Murphy. Let's say, you know, all the facts are at the tip of your fingers. You're telling a lot of people new information. First of all, Rebecca Grossman.

Starting point is 00:08:40 Okay. Well, she's beautiful. Number one, but she is married to a plastic surgeon. So I don't know how much of that is God given. Not judging. Don't care. But, you know, you normally think of a lady of her standing. Her age, she's a grown woman.

Starting point is 00:09:01 I don't really picture her zigzagging at what, 80 plus miles an hour in a residential area. Zigzagging like on Fast and Furious. You've seen that, right? I've seen all of them with my son. Okay. Actually, I liked them, so I can't really blame him. Amen. Have you ever seen that? The zigzagging? And I'm trying to imagine,'m looking at a picture right now. This lady. Well, she's no lady. She's killer, according to me. Zig actually zigzagging in a residential area at 80 plus miles the L.A. area. I mean, in this quiet, sleepy part of town, I mean, the first time I drove by this road, I saw numerous pedestrians, numerous cyclists. The thought of going 81 miles an hour, which is the figure we've been given, that's unthinkable on that road. I mean, completely unthinkable.

Starting point is 00:10:02 But the judge in the preliminary hearing said that Grossman was playing a high-speed game of chicken with the other driver in the incident, Scott Erickson. And police said that they were racing from a restaurant to a house. The judge in the trial has taken a more skeptical stance towards that term. And street racing is not part of the charges in this case. But the prosecutor who has said it's not a grease-style dropping of the handkerchief scenario, he doesn't want to have to stop a witness from using that word in the colloquial sense to describe what they saw, as the mother in this case has done, the mother of the victims. But there is a history of speeding

Starting point is 00:10:41 tickets in this driving record, at least one of which is going to come in because it was accompanied by a warning from the highway patrolman who said, you know, you could kill somebody driving like this on the freeway. How do we know he said that on one of her last speeding tickets? Is it on body cam? I'm not sure if it's on body cam or if it was a note was made of it some other way. 81 and a 45. And when you say this sleepy little area of L.A., for most people, we think of L.A. Although I lived there for a while, I do know that there are sleepy little areas. Most people think of, you know, the Walk of Fame.

Starting point is 00:11:21 They think of downtown L.A., what we see in movies and TV. What part of L.A. is a sleepy little borough? Well, this is not the city of Los Angeles. This is the absolute western edge of Los Angeles County. It's a city called Westlake Village, which is less than 8,000 people. And most of the city was annexed by Ventura County and became part of Thousand Oaks. So it's a tiny little affluent suburb just on the edge of the county. And, you know, really the point of it is it's not Los Angeles, the city. You know, it's a different kind of a place. You know, Eamon Murphy, I'm trying to parse everything you're saying because you're giving me so much correct information. You said that L. that LA has a problem with drag racing or speed

Starting point is 00:12:06 racing. I think that he said that. Yeah, by gang members. I don't think of some plastic surgeons, old lady out there's dragging with her lover after they booze it up at lunch. That must have been some long lunch because now it's the evening and she's drag racing with her, excuse me, alleged lover, alleged. I haven't seen them in bed together. I don't know for sure that they're lovers. But that said, this grown lady, drunk as a skunk, drag racing and most all that. You know what? Money cannot buy class.

Starting point is 00:12:43 That is for sure. What do you buy an AMG car for? I mean, one thing the prosecution wanted to bring in is the fact that she took a one day performance driving course on a closed track in 2018. And the judge said, no, you wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're you're you're awesome, number one. AMG. Yeah, AMG, it's a high-performance kind of a Mercedes. You know, these cars with the really loud engines.

Starting point is 00:13:24 And so if you buy one of these cars, you can participate in a course on a closed racetrack where they kind of give you the, you have an instructor and you have a chance to, you know, drive fast. And of course you're not on the street, so it's not dangerous in that way. And you're told at the course, you know, this is, you know, very controlled conditions. You can't drive like this in the real world. So she attended one of these in 2018 and the prosecution had wanted to introduce this and bring this warning in to show because street racing in the legal sense is not part of the charges. But the prosecution means it in the more colloquial sense of two cars driving very quickly, mirroring each other, something we see a lot on the freeway and something that a witness in the case might say

Starting point is 00:14:02 about this incident as the mother of the victims has done. To get a murder conviction, because she's charged with secondary murder for killing these kids, as well as vehicular manslaughter and hit and run driving. As she should be. Yeah, but that's to get to that murder conviction, they need to establish implied malice because, you know, it wasn't exactly intentional. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Matthew Mangino, high-profile lawyer, joining us, former prosecutor in Lawrence County, PA, author of The Executioner's Toll. Wait for it. The Executioner's Toll, the crimes, arrests, trials, appeals, last meals and final words of executed persons. Forty six people across the U.S. I love that title. You can find him at mattmangino.com. Matthew Mangino, we both tried a lot of homicide cases. To show intent to a jury, you can show them intent either implied or express.

Starting point is 00:15:15 Express means I say, Jackie, I'm going to shoot you dead right now. And I shoot her dead. That's not going to happen because I need you desperately. And there is implied intent, such as you choose to get stinking drunk, walk to your car, insert the key, start the ignition, put it in reverse, put it in drive, hit the gas. Or let me give an easier one with implied intent. I go and I practice shoot at a range for 20 hours. Then I go by, let's just go with a Glock. Then I stalk my husband who I find out has been cheating. Not true. And then I get him in the crosshairs and I spy on him until he comes out of the office and I train across the parking lane boom he gone all

Starting point is 00:16:11 right so that is implied intent it was a very long drawn-out plan even though I didn't expressly say it I think here I would argue to the jury, I'd show them this picture of her car totally bashed in in the front and go through what all she did before she landed right here. All the warnings, all the speeding tickets, all the booze that afternoon and say that's implied intent. Right. implied intent right you know second-degree murder in California is you have to show malice of forethought you don't have you don't show deliberation or premeditation just that that malice and in drinking where you have a blood alcohol content three hours later that point zero eight which is clearly indicative that it would have been higher at the time you were driving and that you're driving 80 miles an hour in a 45 mile an hour

Starting point is 00:17:13 zone where there are pedestrians frequently in that area is enough to show malice. I mean, plus her history of driving at an excess of speed at times all amounts to her malice. She's grossly negligent. She's reckless in getting behind the wheel and driving at that speed in an area in which there frequently are people and young people exercising, involved in recreation. And because of that, there's ample evidence toitech Consulting Engineering at Veritech, E-N-G for engineering dot com, Joseph Tremblay. Joseph, I've got a few things to run by you. But first, Stacey Stewart, the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MAD, which has now taken off across this country and is a veritable force against drunk driving. Stacey Stewart, Eamon Murphy, isn't it true that she would not willingly give a blood draw and that she wouldn't, quote, really blow into the breathalyzer? I've heard that about them, that she wasn't really blowing. And that's why they wanted to get the blood and why you had those readings

Starting point is 00:18:50 that were 0.076. And then later on, the blood draw reading is higher. She did not give consent to have the blood drawn. She said she wanted to ask her husband when they said, well, you consent to this. So instead, there was a forced blood draw. She was taken to the hospital by the police. And there her blood was taken. And that's where they got the 0.08 result. Okay. Stacey Stewart joining us, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mad. Stacey, if she's 0.08 hours later, once she gets to the hospital and they perform the blood draw, there's no telling what she was because alcohol dissipates in the body. That's exactly right. And if she was at 0.08, three hours after the crash occurred, then she was significantly higher than that, presumably at the time of the crash. I know

Starting point is 00:19:42 that that's what the prosecutors will argue. And one of the things that I think a lot of people in the NC don't understand is that even at levels less than 0.08, drivers aren't paired. There was a bill introduced in California, and there's one that's been introduced in other states trying to move the legal limit to 0.05 blood alcohol concentration level because all the studies that we have seen have shown that the risk of crash is significantly higher at 0.05, seven times higher as compared to for drivers that are anywhere from 0.05 to 0.08 as compared to drivers with no alcohol in their system. So we know that at any level of drinking and driving, a driver can be impaired and can dangerously put themselves at risk or others,

Starting point is 00:20:34 as is the case here, obviously, from the facts that we know. There's one other thing to say here, Nancy, which is that the toxicology report also showed a small amount of Valium. So the prosecution is going to say that there's an interaction between the Valium and the alcohol, which increases the impairment effect, even if you have a level of reading that is not all that high in terms of the legal limit. Nancy, one thing I would just say about that is one of the things I would just say about that point is that we are seeing a concerning trend of what we call polyuse. So the use of alcohol and other substances like prescription drugs, Valium, like cannabis. So in states that have also legalized marijuana, where it's more widely available, moving the blood alcohol concentration level to 0.05, it's even more critical because multiple substances

Starting point is 00:21:25 can lead to even more impairment by drivers. And we're seeing a disturbing trend about that, where we've seen an increase in impaired driving fatalities of 35%, even over the past few years. So we're seeing an increasing trend. And of course, this multiple use of substances is obviously an issue that we have to address. Joseph Scott Morgan joining us, professor of forensics, Shaxsville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon and star of a hit series, Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan. Joe Scott, why and how does all that alcohol dissipate in just three hours? Well, it's metabolic change or processing rather. So your body is actually metabolizing this alcohol that has been ingested previously. And that's why, you know, once someone has become inebriated over a period of time, once they stop drinking,

Starting point is 00:22:23 it stands to reason that the body is still processing all of this alcohol that's contained in the body, the ethanol. And as it's being burned off in the body, you begin to kind of return back to a level of normalcy. But it takes a while for it to all get out of your body. And so what's key here is when you are in law enforcement and you're attempting to conduct a test on an individual to measure it, you're fighting against time here because you can't fight metabolism in the body. So it's a race. So the longer you wait, the less the level will be. But you kind of project this back. If you're talking about a three-hour delay, you can kind of hypothesize that the level would have been much higher and with a much greater level of impairment as well. And you couple that with

Starting point is 00:23:18 Valium and it's a deadly mix. They are throwing out everything they can to beat this charge. Rebecca Grossman is estimated to be worth $100 million. $100 million is her estimated net worth. The latest that has been pulled out of the defense bag of tricks is to blame the lover. Although witnesses say it was Grossman's white Mercedes that hit the child, not her lover's black vehicle. We'll see where that goes, but let's get back to the facts as we know them. Take a listen to Captain Salvador Becerra. Two cars were racing. We believe speed is a factor.

Starting point is 00:24:13 Alcohol is a factor. The family were in a marked crosswalk, clearly marked. As she realized there were two cars speeding her way, she was able to reach out and grab one of her children off of a Razor scooter, pull the child back with the stroller, with another child in the stroller, as the car entered the intersection and hit the other two boys. What more do we know about what happened when these two little boys were mowed down dead? Listen to our friends crime online. Deputies reportedly

Starting point is 00:24:46 catch up with the white Mercedes with significant front end damage a third of a mile from the scene. Behind the wheel is Rebecca Grossman. A deputy describes finding the vehicle stopped at the curb and Grossman saying she didn't know why her airbag had been triggered. As Grossman speaks to a 911 operator, she's asked if she hit someone. Grossman can be heard saying, I don't know what I hit. One of the boys struck in the crosswalk is pronounced dead on the scene, according to KCAL, and another boy dies in the hospital. Police were able to arrest 57-year-old Rebecca Grossman, a well-known figure in the community who appeared on KCAL in the past. As the founder and chair of the Grossman Byrne Foundation, she's also been recognized for

Starting point is 00:25:25 her humanitarian work around the world. Captain Salvador Becerra says it is senseless and could have been avoided by ordering an Uber or calling a friend. Rebecca Grossman did not stay on the scene. She was arrested a quarter of a mile away. So Eamon Murphy from the Acorn newspapers, she flees the scene and asserts saying, I don't know what I hit. She's in the white, high-powered Mercedes with all of the damage to the front, right in the middle of the grill. That's right. She kept driving. The engine was cut off remotely because the airbag had deployed. So the car eventually stopped and she was found by deputies. That's probably the only reason she stopped is because the car forced her to stop when the airbag deployed. With me is Joseph Tremblay, a premier

Starting point is 00:26:11 accident reconstructionist, senior engineer, co-owner Veritech Consulting Engineering. Joseph, I wanted you to hear these facts so you could give me your analysis. What do you think? Well, let's talk about that car a little bit more and the damage to the front end. It's pretty obvious that there's significant damage to both the front clip and the hood, which is very consistent with contact made between the car and a pedestrian. In this case... Oh, wait, I see what you're talking about. When you say the front grill, or I say grill, and you say hood,

Starting point is 00:26:52 you know, if you look at that picture, Joseph Tremblay, and of course, I'm a civilian in this matter, it looks like there is a spot where a boy's body could lay, almost like a hammock has been formed in her hood. Yeah, that's correct. And I think that's probably what happened in this case is that one of the little boys actually ended up on the hood, as tragic as that sounds, and was carried by the car for a significant distance after impact. And another thing that's interesting to note on that picture that you're referring to,

Starting point is 00:27:31 where you see the front end damage, you also see underneath the car there's a puddle of fluid, almost as if perhaps the car sustained some sort of mechanical damage from this contact. And not only was the car disabled because of the airbag deployment, it may not have been drivable at all because of the coolant leak. That's probably what happened here. I'm trying to furiously take notes as you write. It's amazing to me that she, her new defense is that it was her boyfriend that did it, the one driving the other car. When they pull this vehicle over, she had been forced to stop either from the fluid leakage

Starting point is 00:28:15 or because the airbag deployed. She, did you hear this part to you, Robert Crispin? She wouldn't, quote, really blow into the breathalyzer. Don't you know it's because she knew she was drunk and she thought by just going and not really blowing into it fully, she might beat the breathalyzer. So listen, the breathalyzer machines are very accurate and they're very sensitive and they're built for people that are going to do that. So clearly it obtained a reasonable sample to come up with an indication in a reading being the.076. So, yes, I've had a bunch of people and I've arrested over 100 people for DUI in my career. Yes, people always

Starting point is 00:29:05 try to do that. They always try to very lightly blow, but these machines are built for that. They sense that the machines aren't stupid. So if I could just add one thing about the, the, uh, the point, uh, once you went up to the 0.08, and I think your doctor will also be able to confirm with this, you know, you can drink alcohol and have three drinks right now and get in your car in two seconds, which is a very stupid thing to do, but you can drive a half a block away and get home. And you're probably still under the legal limit because, as the doctor says, the alcohol hasn't processed your body. Clearly she was going up in her BAC level or her blood alcohol level, which I surmise is why the prosecution did not charge her with DUI because at the time she took that first test. Now, maybe it was a PBT test. Maybe it was a roadside test. I don't know, but whatever machine she blew into. And then they took the other blood tests at the hospital, I believe, in the three hours,

Starting point is 00:30:07 and the doctor can confirm this, her blood alcohol level was going up. And I have a feeling that the prosecution said err on the side of caution because they're going to say she wasn't DUI at the time of the crash, at the time of the crash. That's a big deal, at the time of the crash. Yeah, that explains why they didn't charge her driving under the influence, because if they lost that count, it could taint or poison the rest of the counts. They absolutely know they can prove. To be DUI across the country, you've got to in most jurisdictions.08 and at first she blew.076 which rounds up to.8 but that's not good enough.

Starting point is 00:30:51 When she gets to the hospital, she does the blood test shows.08. I personally trust a blood test more than the breathalyzer and the breathalyzer may have hit low because she was going and not really blowing into it. But we're going to hear more about that during the trial. You know, another thing, and I'm very curious about this. I'll throw this to Joseph Trimbley, our accident reconstructionist joining us. A former L.A. County Sheriff's deputy who specializes in traffic crashes testified at a preliminary hearing, his name Robert Apodaca, that he had never seen a person thrown 254 feet by impact. It's the farthest he has ever known a human to be thrown in a crash. What about it, Tremblay? I think that is a significant distance,

Starting point is 00:31:47 and I am also very surprised at that distance. That's incredible. And I think there's probably two factors that really contributed to that number. And the first was that, as we touched on earlier, I think one of these pedestrians, one of these little boys, was actually up on the hood for a distance while the car was driving. And you know, this car is going pretty fast, 70, 80 miles per hour, according to evidence. And it doesn't take a whole lot of time to cover that kind of distance. So there was probably a portion of that 254 feet in which the little boy was on the hood and then was vaulted off of the hood at some point. Uh, and then, you know, um, unfortunately came to rest where, where he did. Uh, but both of those, uh,

Starting point is 00:32:42 factors kind of contribute to that distance. And I want to swing back and talk about this car a little bit more. One thing that's kind of unique to Mercedes is Mercedes has done a lot of safety improvements to their vehicles because they know that pedestrian accidents are very, very dangerous. And they're usually fatal. And it's very serious when these occur. So one of the safety features on all Mercedes cars ever since 2019 is called PreSafe. And that's a system that's designed to detect pedestrians. Now, the only way that that system will work is if the car is traveling 45 miles per hour or less. So it goes to say that we could consider if this driver, Grossman, if she was traveling the speed limit, this accident may have never happened. Wow. I didn't know about pre-safe on Mercedes. But, you know, I just got a big question. What is a grown woman doing drag racing, drunk as a skunk and high as a kite off of Valium and booze?

Starting point is 00:34:01 Karen Stark joining me, a renowned psychologist joining us out of the Manhattan jurisdiction at Karen Stark dot com. Karen with a C. Karen, what's a grown woman doing? Drag racing with her alleged lover. And this guy is no schlump. L.A. Dodgers play with the L.A. Dodgers and with the New York Yankees. And he's having this alcohol soaked lunch with this married multimillionaire. And then they decide to go drag racing? Really? Oh, you're not talking about the kind of grown woman that we would imagine, Nancy. They've been spending the whole afternoon having a great time drinking. Allegedly, he's an ex-lover. And I don't know, supposedly

Starting point is 00:34:50 for a trip, I don't know what they were doing, but she's not a sedate, controlled person. She's now had Valium in her system. She's drinking. She's having this great time with an ex-lover, and she's just letting loose. What's really telling to me, I don't know about this isn't my expertise, but the fact that she said, I don't know what I hit to me is saying that she knows she had something. She just doesn't know what it is that she hit. I mean, get real, Karen Stark. Come on, please get out of that ivory tower. She drives. What was it? A quarter of a mile, a half a mile. Eamon Murphy. Right. With the little boy on her hood. Exactly. How far did she drive, Eamon, with the boy on the hood?

Starting point is 00:35:38 Well, I'm not. The detail about the boy on the hood has has been contested a bit. So we'll have to see what they say at trial. What does the state say? I mean, initially, I don't want to say the figures in the past because they've been challenged. I mean, the car continued driving before she stopped either a quarter mile or a half mile. So she was continuing. Well, where was the little boy's body found there was one of them was found in the crosswalk basically and another was found um around 200 200 some feet away okay trembley that's to you the little boy was found 200 feet away, at least 200 feet away.

Starting point is 00:36:25 So she drove two thirds of a football field with the boy on her hood. What? She couldn't see that? I think she's oblivious. And it really surprises me that not only did she not see these two little boys before impact. I mean, this is a wide open intersection and it's a very well lit, well-marked crosswalk. It's got, there's flashing lights overhead. You can see it for about a thousand feet before you get to it. So it's, let's, let's make sure that that's a point that we talk about here is that there's no visual obstructions to what, you know what she can see. But not only that, after impact, she's completely

Starting point is 00:37:08 oblivious. There's a little boy on her hood and she continues to drive. That's how serious this is. That's just plain egregious. You know, Matthew Mangino, sometimes the defense shoots themselves in the foot. And I think that happened here because the defense came up with a new theory as defense claiming the alleged lover. He's the one that was driving her Mercedes as they were drag racing and chasing each other through this residential neighborhood. And now the prosecutor, Jamie Castro, will argue that she, Rebecca Grossman, and the professional athlete, Scott Erickson, had been in a sex affair. They said they were not going to bring it up until she's now blaming him, claiming it has now become relevant because the defense intends to argue that the black car is at issue in this particular scenario and that

Starting point is 00:38:13 they had swapped. So by coming up with this defense, now their sex affair is going to come into evidence. Yeah, it will. And as you said, it wasn't the state's intention to bring up the affair until they tried to put forward this defense that he was driving her vehicle. So that whole issue with regard to their relationship is now something that can be brought before the jury. And obviously, you know, a jury is going to make a decision here and they're going to consider the fact. But they also are going to consider the credibility, the believability of witnesses. You know, if she should take the stand, you know, so so there are, you know, there are issues here that are... Oh, I guarantee you she's not going to take the stand because she'll have to be subjected to cross-exam,

Starting point is 00:39:09 especially on comments she made like she did not know why her airbag deployed. Hello, because you just hit two children and one you drove along with on your hood. She acknowledges... All the things that she said. ...that she hit something. You know, she doesn't the things that she said that she hit something. You know, she doesn't know what it is, but she did something. Crime stories with Nancy Grace. sobbing. Eamon Murphy joining us, investigative reporter, writer for the Acorn newspapers. Go ahead.

Starting point is 00:40:10 Well, Nancy, we heard from the mother of the victims, Nancy Iskander, who described having to jump out of the way of an oncoming black SUV with her youngest son, then a white SUV coming just up behind it, ran through the intersection where her other two boys were. She didn't see it hit them, but she heard a crash as it went by, and then they'd been struck. At one point after she had testified, there were photographs shown that another witness had taken of the aftermath of the scene, including of a broken skateboard. Her oldest son, Mark, had been on a skateboard and also of Mark's body. And Nancy Iskender at that point cried out her son's name, Mark's name, and had to leave the courtroom in distress. We also heard from some

Starting point is 00:40:58 other witnesses of the collisions. None of them saw the white car hit both of the boys, but two of them saw the white car hit one of the boys. And none of them attributed any impact to a black vehicle, which has been the defense's claim that the black car driven by Grossman's then boyfriend, Scott Erickson, was responsible for hitting the boys. We also saw the defense very aggressively cross-examine two investigators, one of whom did the initial crash report. They were going after his measurements of the debris, which led to his conclusion that speed was the cause of the accident, as well as his conclusion that all the debris was consistent with the white Mercedes. He was also the same officer to initially come into contact with Rebecca Grossman and with the white Mercedes. He was also the same officer to initially come

Starting point is 00:41:45 into contact with Rebecca Grossman and her disabled white Mercedes after the accident. And then the officer who conducted the field sobriety test under cross-examination acknowledged that not all of the tests were conducted according to the book, which cast some doubt onto his conclusions that she was impaired when he arrested her. Testimony has gotten up to the point where Rebecca Grossman's blood was drawn at the hospital after a warrant was obtained to do a blood draw. So next they're going to get into the chemist's account of the test results, which is important because that result is what was at the 0.08 level three hours after the incident. The breathalyzer results were 0.076 and 0.075, which are just below that threshold for impairment. You can still be impaired technically

Starting point is 00:42:41 below that limit, but it's going to be important for the prosecution to get that test established at that.08 level. And the defense is going to go after the blood draw and the testing method. You know, Stacey Stewart, CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mad, I don't get why after all the publicity that MAD has generated, people still drive drunk. You know, it's a problem. And as I mentioned earlier, Nancy, we're seeing the numbers going in the wrong direction. A 35% increase in the past several years is astounding. And I think one of the things that's really important is it's really time for us to revisit the laws and the technology that we have in place. I just was just listening to the technology in Mercedes.

Starting point is 00:43:24 You know, even that technology is not sufficient to stop something like this. But I do want you to know and others to know that in 2021, November 2021, the HALT Act was passed. It is new legislation that now requires passive advanced impaired driving prevention systems to be integrated into all new cars starting in 2026. This is passive technology that would detect impaired driving. And it's these kinds of cases that this technology, if it were in place, would have prevented anyone getting behind the wheel at the level of illegal impairment would not be allowed to operate their car. And right now, MADS' biggest priority is getting this technology implemented, getting the legislation implemented. We're in the process of public commentary right now. This is a huge win, but it's not a win for drivers and for

Starting point is 00:44:20 public safety if we, every day that we don't have this technology included in cars, but we are close to it. And frankly, this kind of prevention system would have been enormously helpful to have saved the lives of these two precious little boys. Well, you're right. You're right, Stacey Stewart. And you know what else would have been helpful? If Rebecca Grossman hadn't gotten drunk as a skunk at lunch and hopped behind the wheel of her high-powered Mercedes. That would have helped. Listen to Captain Salvador Becerra. We've arrested Rebecca Grossman, female, white, 57, for two counts of vehicular manslaughter. She's being held $2 million bail. Wow. $2 million bail. That means at the worst for her, she had to put up $200,000 and she did that and did not blink an eye.

Starting point is 00:45:08 Eamon Murphy with us with the Acorn newspapers. How much money do they have and where do they get it? Well, I'm not sure what the total net worth is. Her husband, Peter Grossman, is a prominent plastic surgeon in Los Angeles. His father was a very eminent doctor, very innovative in the treatment of burns. And so his son sort of followed in his footsteps. And that's obviously a very lucrative practice. They live in Hidden Hills, which is a particularly wealthy enclave in that area of Los Angeles County. And Rebecca Grossman participated in these philanthropic

Starting point is 00:45:56 efforts associated with the Byrne Center when she and her husband started this foundation. To Joe Scott Morgan, joining us, death investigator. Joe Scott, let's think just one moment what this case is really about. I want everyone, as much as it pains you, to think about your child or your children. Mine have just turned 16. But it seems like I blinked my eye because it feels like they're about 7 or 8 years old. That's the age of one of these victims, 8 years old and 11. Joe Scott, what did these boys endure before they were pronounced dead? I think that in my estimation, they would have suffered massive blunt force trauma. Now, as far as the level of suffering, I can only hope that it was minimal, but it would have been something that if they had survived, one obviously did for a time,

Starting point is 00:47:06 it would, unless they're, you know, and this is the hope that I have, as horrible as it sounds, I hope that they were unaware that their life was slipping away because they were in an unconscious state. But, you know, they say that every cloud has a silver lining. Nancy, in this case, case is about not this woman and not her wealthy surgeon husband and not the baseball players, but these babies. And the key here, and I'm still waiting to hear the silver lining. Well, I'm getting there and the justice is going to come in that in their absence, these kids are going to bear witness

Starting point is 00:47:45 in that courtroom. Because I think that a lot of the forensic evidence that's going to be tied up in here, remember all the sleight of hand that's going on with saying it was another vehicle and all this nonsense, the trace evidence perhaps that is left behind on their little fractured, broken bodies is going to tell the tale. and also the degree to which they were harmed. When you start talking about blunt force trauma that is meted out by a motor vehicle being driven by someone that is out of their mind under alcohol, at this level of force, you're going to hear about the extent of these injuries. You're also going to hear about trace evidence that may have come from that car and wound up on their little bodies like chipped paint.

Starting point is 00:48:28 And maybe some of their biological samples will be left in the grill of that car, things like hair, blood, skin. And we recover all this stuff all the time at car accidents. That is as best as silver lining I can get you. I'm sorry if that disappoints you but that's the reality of what we're dealing with we've got these two little lost children in this broken family i don't think i could be any more disappointed than i already am because you know a lot of times and everybody on this panel has has seen what goes on in our

Starting point is 00:49:01 courtrooms you see defendants that have committed a heinous crime and you will hear the apologist state, well, you know, they never had a chance. They had no education, broken family, bad neighborhood, and now they commit a crime. That means nothing to me. But in this case, you've got a highly educated socialite worth a billion plus dollars with her husband, who, by the way, is standing by her, who mows down these two boys, then tries to pretend it wasn't her, trying to get out of it till the bitter end. As a matter of fact, I want you to hear what the boy's mom, Nancy Iskander, says. Listen to our Cut 19. She didn't care enough to come. All the order to come to court says it, right?

Starting point is 00:49:55 Right. Above the law, I guess, in her mind. Grossman doesn't show up to court on multiple occasions and more. At least I need to stop having to come to court, stop hearing updates and be able to take care of myself and my surviving children, let alone my broken child who saw both his brothers die in front of his very eyes. She continues speaking to KTLA. It's been a trend, right, of the lack of responsibility and just the complete disregard of the two lives that were gone, that were just taken like that. She describes the little boy's futures. They had so much in front of them,

Starting point is 00:50:34 so much in this life, all of my hopes, all my dreams, and they're just, they were just taken. And now I see lack of responsibility. Two little boys no one seems to ever write or talk about, but not so with the defendant, multimillionaire Rebecca Grossman. We've seen articles written in LA Magazine on her behalf. I've seen her actually pose to take a picture and say that her life is now a nightmare. Her life is a nightmare? Her life is a nightmare. Did she actually dare to say that? She did. She did. This isn't the first time. She had chances to turn her life around. Listen. It's not the first time, right? We've seen Mrs. Grossman, you know, pretend nothing happened before. And to further the pain to the family, Rebecca Grossman has actually called news accounts of this fake news. I have actually seen her on LinkedIn call it fake news. Two boys are at the cemetery.

Starting point is 00:51:42 Their picture is on a tombstone and she's calling it fake news. What is she denying it even happened? The boys are six feet under. Their pictures are on their tombstone. It's not fake news. Listen. If I want to see them, I have to go to the cemetery or just look at their friends and try to imagine how they would look like. Just really, really thank you so, so much for all the support, all the love. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the hugs when you see me. Thank you for the tears. I miss them. I miss them so much.

Starting point is 00:52:16 That is the mother breaking down in tears. She was at a walk to support justice for Jacob and Mark. That's what she has now. A picture on a tombstone. That's what she's got. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.

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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Socialite Murder Trial: Mom of 2 Boys Mowed Down by "Drunk" Socialite Runs From Court Sobbing at Sight of Son's Lifeless Body

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Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Socialite Murder Trial: Mom of 2 Boys Mowed Down by "Drunk" Socialite Runs From Court Sobbing at Sight of Son's Lifeless Body

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