Rebecca Grossman floored her high-powered Mercedes SUV on a quiet residential road, dashing as much as 81 mph and barely braking earlier than fatally hanging two boys in a Westlake Village crosswalk, a veteran crash investigator testified on the L.A. socialite’s homicide trial Wednesday.
Grossman tapped the brakes a second and a half earlier than she slammed into Mark and Jacob Iskander, touring 73 mph in a 45-mph zone, in line with Michael Hale, an investigator with the Orange County district lawyer’s workplace who analyzes vehicular murder knowledge.
Utilizing data from the “black field” inside Grossman’s automobile — an occasion knowledge recorder that depicts data similar to pace, brake utilization and airbag deployment — Hale mentioned the final 5 seconds of Grossman’s travels the night time of Sept. 29, 2020, have been captured earlier than a collision triggered her airbags. The “knowledge is according to two strikes with small objects,” he mentioned.
Exhibiting a chart of the info, Hale mentioned the SUV’s black field signifies that had Grossman been touring the 45-mph pace restrict, she would have pushed 326 ft in 5 seconds, versus the 559 ft she truly went. That timing, he mentioned, would have allowed 11-year-old Mark and 8-year-old Jacob to make it safely throughout the intersection.
“In the end, had that automobile been following the pace restrict, there would have been no crash,” he mentioned.
Prosecutors allege Grossman, 60, had been ingesting at a close-by restaurant together with her then-boyfriend, Scott Erickson, a former pitcher for Main League groups together with the Dodgers, earlier than the 2 raced again towards Grossman’s lakeside house in separate autos — Grossman in a white Mercedes SUV and Erickson in a distinct, black Mercedes SUV mannequin. Grossman was separated from her husband, Peter, on the time.
Two witnesses touring in one other automobile testified throughout a preliminary listening to that they noticed Erickson’s Mercedes dashing forward of Grossman’s on the quiet road.
Tony Buzbee, Grossman’s lead lawyer, advised jurors in opening statements that Erickson, now 56, struck each kids first, throwing Jacob to the curb and Mark excessive into the air earlier than he landed within the path of Grossman’s SUV.
However throughout cross-examination Wednesday, Hale advised Buzbee, “The crash level knowledge … reveals she hit these kids. There’s knowledge that helps two strikes.”
Grossman is charged with two counts of second-degree homicide, two counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and one rely of hit-and-run driving leading to dying.
Citing the automobile knowledge of Grossman’s Mercedes previous to the collision, Hale mentioned she solely frivolously tapped her brakes, for only a second, dropping her pace barely earlier than taking her foot off the gasoline.
As soon as the airbags have been triggered, the Mercedes’ gasoline system was lower off to stop a hearth and the automobile coasted to a cease, calling the producer’s emergency operator system. A sheriff’s deputy beforehand testified he discovered Grossman and her disabled automobile three-tenths of a mile from the crash scene.
Final week, a hospital technician testified that Grossman mentioned in an emergency room after her arrest that she would have been house in her storage if the security system had not disabled her automobile.
Buzbee on Wednesday questioned the accuracy of the black field knowledge, noting it confirmed the Mercedes traveled 42,249 miles in 4,461 minutes, which means it might have a mean pace of 568 mph.
Hale advised jurors that whereas the five-second pace data collected by a automobile’s occasion knowledge recorder is regulated and required by federal regulation to be correct, the specifics on distance traveled and time aren’t topic to the identical necessities.
Hale mentioned he believed the info error on this occasion was an anomaly in all probability attributable to the period of time the automobile had been pushed earlier than being reset in some unspecified time in the future, including that “that doesn’t invalidate the remainder of the info.”
Buzbee, nevertheless, continued to argue that Grossman’s automobile didn’t strike each boys. On Tuesday, he grilled Dr. Matthew Miller, a pathologist with the San Bernardino health worker’s workplace who was a deputy L.A. County health worker on the time of the kids’s deaths. Miller acknowledged throughout cross-examination the “chance” that the boys have been killed by two separate automobiles, however he additionally testified that the damage patterns on Mark’s physique matched the grille of Grossman’s automobile.
L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Apodaca additionally countered Buzbee’s assertion that Grossman’s automobile didn’t ship the deadly blows to the kids.
“I don’t see any direct injury to the highest of the hood,” he mentioned, including that Mark’s accidents matched up with injury to the entrance of Grossman’s automobile.
Grossman’s Mercedes SUV after the crash in 2020.
(Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division)
Apodaca testified that Grossman’s Mercedes was lacking two emblems from its grill and hood, constructing on prior testimony that comparable automobile components have been recovered on the scene of the crash.
Buzbee questioned one other automobile half that was documented on the scene — a fog gentle — implying that it couldn’t have come from Grossman’s white Mercedes and as an alternative was the identical sort of sunshine that was on Erickson’s black Mercedes.
And when the protection lawyer requested Apodaca how particles confirmed up 50 ft away from the crosswalk, the deputy mentioned analysis reveals particles could be thrown 20 ft in lower-speed crashes, however “these youngsters have been hit at freeway speeds so the particles goes to be quite a bit farther.”
