Nancy Iskander recalled in court on Monday morning how she crossed the road within a marked crosswalk in Westlake Village in September 2020 with three of her sons, as she gave evidence in the trial of Rebecca Grossman, who is accused of their murder.
Wearing a beige jacket and T-shirt which read, 11:11 - a reference to her son Mark's age - Iskander said she was nearly across Triunfo Canyon Road when saw and heard two cars coming towards them at “crazy speeds,” “zigzagging,” and “racing.”
She said that she dived out of the way of a black SUV, along with her youngest son Zachary. Iskander said she is still haunted every night by the "black bumper" coming towards her.
Iskander described then hearing a crash as the second car, a white SUV, hit two of her sons, Mark, 11, and 8-year-old Jacob, and didn’t stop.
“She killed my kids. They’re not at school, they’re not playing sports. They’re at the cemetery,” she told the jury.
Iskander was shown a defense reconstruction of the scene, which showed the black vehicle impacting Mark and Jacob first, and vaulting Mark into the air, before landing on the hood of Ms Grossman's white SUV. "Pure science fiction," said Iskander, dismissing the defense version of events.
"I wouldn’t have missed that, Mark going up in the sky," she told the jury.
Iskander pointed out that the black SUV would have hit her and Zachary if they hadn't dived out of the way. She spoke of seeing the second vehicle, the white SUV, then cross the crosswalk where Mark and Jacob were "arms-length" behind her, and her panic at not being able to find them. She said when she found Jacob, he "looked like he was sleeping." Jacob received CPR but died later at the hospital.
Mark, she recalled, she found further up the road, with "blood coming from his mouth and every bone in his body broken."
"I knew he was dead," she said.
Mark was found 254 feet from the crash site.
Rebecca Grossman, a 60-year-old socialite, is charged with murder, vehicular manslaughter and hit and run causing death. She denies the charges.
