Latest / 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
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grease.
- 0:14Speaker 2: Drag racing. Really, we see it in movies like Fast
- 0:19Speaker 2: and Furious and on other big screen productions. Maybe on
- 0:24Speaker 2: TV we hear about it. But a high profile plastic
- 0:31Speaker 2: surgeon's wife, a socialite drag racing with our alleged lover
- 0:41Speaker 2: and mowing down two little boys in the process, that's
- 0:47Speaker 2: what we're talking about. Two little boys dead, ages eight
- 0:52Speaker 2: and eleven, while this plastic surgeon's socialite wife is drag
- 0:59Speaker 2: racing on the open road after a boozy lunch with
- 1:03Speaker 2: her lover. Uh uh no, what's the maximum in this jurisdiction.
- 1:08Speaker 2: I need to find that out. I mean to see grace.
- 1:11Speaker 2: This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here
- 1:13Speaker 2: at Crime Stories and on serious extem one eleven. Let
- 1:18Speaker 2: me just take these words in fitted together in one sentence,
- 1:23Speaker 2: A plastic surgeon, socialite wife mows down two little boys.
- 1:34Speaker 2: Wait a minute, has she been on bond this whole time?
- 1:39Speaker 2: So many questions. Let's start it off. Listen.
- 1:41Speaker 3: Just after seven pm on a September evening, Jacob and
- 1:44Speaker 3: Mark Iskander, their siblings and parents, go for an evening
- 1:47Speaker 3: stroll to a nearby lake. The boys enjoy ruller bleeding
- 1:50Speaker 3: and skateboarding. The six member family is heading home, crossing
- 1:54Speaker 3: in a crosswalk at a three way intersection when mother
- 1:56Speaker 3: Nancy heard a speeding car barreling their way. Says her
- 2:00Speaker 3: husband and daughter were further away from the street. She
- 2:03Speaker 3: tries to signal to the two SUVs heading their way
- 2:05Speaker 3: to slow down. She tried to pull the children back,
- 2:08Speaker 3: only managing to grab one of them, a five year old,
- 2:11Speaker 3: and dive out of the way. Jacob and Mark, who
- 2:13Speaker 3: were farther out in the crosswalk, are hit. Mark Iskinder
- 2:16Speaker 3: dies at the scene. Jacob dies later at the hospital.
- 2:19Speaker 3: According to police, Mark was thrown two hundred and fifty
- 2:22Speaker 3: four feet.
- 2:23Speaker 2: Two one hundred and fifty four feet. I've got an
- 2:27Speaker 2: all star panel joining me, but first I want to
- 2:30Speaker 2: go to private investigator. Former Federal Task Force officer for
- 2:34Speaker 2: the USDJ Department of Justice with the DEA in the
- 2:40Speaker 2: Miami Field Division. No lack of business in Miami Jade,
- 2:44Speaker 2: former homicide investigator. You can find him at Crispininvestigations dot com.
- 2:51Speaker 2: Robert Crispin, have you ever first of all, two hundred
- 2:54Speaker 2: and fifty four feet a child is thrown through the
- 2:58Speaker 2: air two hundred and fifty four feet. Wait, okay, now
- 3:04Speaker 2: I'm a lawyer. I'm not a sports broadcaster. But I
- 3:09Speaker 2: was a cheerleader only because I didn't make the basketball team.
- 3:13Speaker 2: One girl got cut me, so I became a cheerleader.
- 3:17Speaker 2: Isn't a football field one hundred yards? Okay? That's three
- 3:26Speaker 2: hundred feet Okay. As you can tell by my stilted questions,
- 3:32Speaker 2: they did not teach me that in law school. So
- 3:34Speaker 2: this child is thrown nearly the length of a football field?
- 3:40Speaker 4: Yeah, not, you know, not uncommon for the pedestrian to
- 3:44Speaker 4: be thrown a quite of a distance. This particular case.
- 3:48Speaker 4: If you look at the crash impact on the Mercedes,
- 3:52Speaker 4: it's pretty much a dead center hit.
- 3:54Speaker 2: Robert Crispin, I appreciate all of your knowledge, but that
- 3:58Speaker 2: was a yes no. This little child was thrown nearly
- 4:02Speaker 2: the length of a football field.
- 4:04Speaker 4: He was, and that's a long way.
- 4:08Speaker 2: Okay. Another quick question, This is a yes no too,
- 4:12Speaker 2: Robert Crispin. Before you, you know, lay all your knowledge
- 4:15Speaker 2: on me. Robert Crispin. Have you ever been out for
- 4:18Speaker 2: a walk or a jog, maybe with your family, and
- 4:21Speaker 2: somebody speaks by and you try to say slow down,
- 4:24Speaker 2: or you gesticulate towards them. Has that ever happened to you?
- 4:27Speaker 4: Of course, I think it's happened to everybody.
- 4:29Speaker 2: Okay, did they stop? Did they slow down?
- 4:32Speaker 4: Not at all? They're oblivious, not at all.
- 4:34Speaker 2: In fact, they speed off. I tried to take the
- 4:37Speaker 2: picture of a speeding car the other day that sped
- 4:39Speaker 2: by Lucy and me as we were walking. As soon
- 4:43Speaker 2: as I held my phone up, it scratched off Crispin.
- 4:46Speaker 2: So the mom. Can you imagine? There's all the children.
- 4:52Speaker 2: Let's see, there's Mark eleven, Jacob eight, The parents are there,
- 4:57Speaker 2: Kaem and Nancy, the your other Zachary who's just five,
- 5:02Speaker 2: the husband. They're all out for an evening stroll at
- 5:05Speaker 2: a lake I don't think too far from their home.
- 5:09Speaker 2: And this socialite married to a plastic surgeon, just stinking
- 5:15Speaker 2: of money, comes flying by and you can hear the
- 5:18Speaker 2: car first speeding, because I can hear it when I'm
- 5:22Speaker 2: with the twins, I'm like, go get off the roads,
- 5:24Speaker 2: get over. I hear a car coming, and sure enough,
- 5:27Speaker 2: here it comes, barreling down. The mom heard it first
- 5:31Speaker 2: and immediately starts trying to get everybody, and she couldn't
- 5:35Speaker 2: get the two little boys. Fast enough. You think I've
- 5:39Speaker 2: got those facts right, Robert Crispin.
- 5:42Speaker 4: Listen, your facts are right, and I've you know, with
- 5:46Speaker 4: my own son, when I'm all walking with him, he
- 5:48Speaker 4: gets so far away and someone comes speeding by. I
- 5:50Speaker 4: cannot imagine of how close she was to just potentially
- 5:55Speaker 4: grabbing them and pulling them back, and not being there
- 5:58Speaker 4: and watching that impact had to be horrific, horrific.
- 6:03Speaker 2: And you know, the other little brother, Zachary's five, he
- 6:06Speaker 2: remembers this crystal clear. Okay, let me get back to
- 6:10Speaker 2: the facts. Listen.
- 6:11Speaker 5: Nancy Eskander tells police that two SUVs were speeding toward
- 6:16Speaker 5: her family and were quote zigzagging with each other as
- 6:19Speaker 5: if they were playing or racing. She says the drivers
- 6:22Speaker 5: didn't stop at the intersection, not even when the eleven
- 6:26Speaker 5: year old was on the hood of the car. She
- 6:28Speaker 5: describes how eight year old Jacob was lying near the curb,
- 6:31Speaker 5: mark was in the road with a visibly broken arm
- 6:34Speaker 5: and quote blood coming out of his mouth. She says
- 6:37Speaker 5: her five year old watched paramedics perform CPR on his brother.
- 6:41Speaker 5: When asked if she could see which driver or suv
- 6:44Speaker 5: struck her son, Iskander said no. She was diving out
- 6:48Speaker 5: of the way, pulling her five year old along.
- 6:51Speaker 2: As I mentioned, with me an all star panel to
- 6:53Speaker 2: make sense of what we know right now. But now
- 6:56Speaker 2: I'm want to go to Aimon Murphy joining us, investigative
- 7:01Speaker 2: reporter writer for the Acorn Newspapers. Amen, thank you for
- 7:06Speaker 2: being with us. Explain to me what facts I've left
- 7:09Speaker 2: out so far up to the point where cp CPR
- 7:13Speaker 2: is being given by the EMTs.
- 7:16Speaker 6: Well, Nancy, you basically you've got it right. It was
- 7:19Speaker 6: evening of September twenty ninth, twenty twenty. The family of
- 7:22Speaker 6: the Eskander family were out for a walk. You know,
- 7:25Speaker 6: this is during COVID, so they're getting out getting some air.
- 7:29Speaker 6: Nancy us Gander is crossing the road. It's called Tranfo
- 7:33Speaker 6: Canyon Road in Westlake Village. It runs right along the lake.
- 7:36Speaker 6: She's crossing towards the lake with her three boys. She's
- 7:39Speaker 6: got the youngest boy right at her hip and they're
- 7:42Speaker 6: in front. The two older boys are behind her. That's
- 7:45Speaker 6: Mark and Jacob. Her husband and their baby daughter are
- 7:49Speaker 6: continue walking up the road. They don't cross, so there's
- 7:51Speaker 6: some distance away. Nancy, as gender hears the roars of
- 7:56Speaker 6: two engines, she says, And she turns and she sees
- 7:59Speaker 6: these SUVs come. She's able to jump out of the
- 8:02Speaker 6: way of the first one, that's a black SUV with
- 8:06Speaker 6: her youngest son, but then behind her the second car,
- 8:09Speaker 6: which is a white Mercedes SUV, hits the other two boys,
- 8:14Speaker 6: and that's the one driven by Rebecca Grossman.
- 8:18Speaker 7: Authorities say, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- 8:21Speaker 2: Wait wait waite, wait a minute, Aimon Murphy, let's say
- 8:25Speaker 2: you know, all the facts are at the tip of
- 8:27Speaker 2: your fingers. You're telling a lot of people new information.
- 8:32Speaker 2: First of all, Rebecca Grossman, Okay, well, she's beautiful number one,
- 8:40Speaker 2: but she is married to a plastic surgeon. So I
- 8:43Speaker 2: don't know how much of that is God given, not judging,
- 8:46Speaker 2: don't care. But you know, you normally think of a
- 8:50Speaker 2: lady of her standing, her age. She's a grown woman.
- 8:57Speaker 2: I don't really picture her zig zag at what eighty
- 9:01Speaker 2: plus miles an hour and residential area zig zagging walk.
- 9:06Speaker 2: I'm fast and furious. You've seen that, right, I've seen
- 9:09Speaker 2: all of them with my son. Okay, Actually I liked them,
- 9:14Speaker 2: so I can't really blame him. Amen, have you ever
- 9:17Speaker 2: seen that the zig zagging and I'm trying to imagine.
- 9:20Speaker 2: I'm looking at her picture right now, this lady, Well,
- 9:24Speaker 2: she's no lady, she's killer. According to me, zig actually
- 9:29Speaker 2: zig zagging in a residential area at eighty plus miles
- 9:32Speaker 2: an hour, right.
- 9:34Speaker 6: I'll see it. It's a problem in the LA area.
- 9:39Speaker 6: I mean, in this quiet, sleepy part of town. I mean,
- 9:43Speaker 6: the first time I drove by this road, I saw
- 9:45Speaker 6: numerous pedestrians, numerous cyclists. The thought of going eighty one
- 9:50Speaker 6: miles an hour, which is the figure we've been given,
- 9:53Speaker 6: that is that's unthinkable on that road, I mean, completely unthinkable.
- 9:58Speaker 6: But the judge and and the preliminary hearing said that
- 10:01Speaker 6: Grossman was playing a high speed game of chicken with
- 10:04Speaker 6: the other driver in the incident, Scott Ericsson, and police
- 10:07Speaker 6: said that they were racing from a restaurant to a house.
- 10:12Speaker 6: The judge in the trial has taken a more skeptical
- 10:14Speaker 6: stance towards that term, and street racing is not part
- 10:18Speaker 6: of the charges in this case. But the prosecutor who
- 10:21Speaker 6: has said it's not a grease style dropping of the
- 10:23Speaker 6: handkerchief scenario, he doesn't want to have to stop a
- 10:26Speaker 6: witness from using that word in the colloquial sense to
- 10:29Speaker 6: describe what they saw as the mother in this case
- 10:32Speaker 6: has done the mother of the victims. But there is
- 10:36Speaker 6: a history of speeding tickets and this driving record, at
- 10:40Speaker 6: least one of which is going to come in because
- 10:42Speaker 6: it was accompanied by a warning from the highway patrolman
- 10:46Speaker 6: who said, you know, you could kill somebody driving like
- 10:48Speaker 6: this on the freeways.
- 10:50Speaker 2: How do we know? He said that on one of
- 10:52Speaker 2: her last spating tickets. Is it on bodycm?
- 10:55Speaker 6: I'm not sure if it's on bodycam or if it
- 10:58Speaker 6: was a note was made of it some other way.
- 11:02Speaker 2: Eighty one and a forty five. And when you say
- 11:05Speaker 2: this sleepy little area of LA, for most people we
- 11:08Speaker 2: think of LA. Although I live for there for a while,
- 11:11Speaker 2: I do know that there are sleepy little areas. Most
- 11:13Speaker 2: people think of, you know, the Walk of Fame. They
- 11:17Speaker 2: think of downtown LA. What we see in movies and TV.
- 11:21Speaker 2: What part of LA is a sleepy little borough.
- 11:24Speaker 6: Well, this is not the city of Los Angeles. This
- 11:26Speaker 6: is the absolute western edge of Los Angeles County. It's
- 11:30Speaker 6: a city called Westlake Village, which is less than eight
- 11:33Speaker 6: thousand people, and most of the city was annexed by
- 11:37Speaker 6: Ventura County. It became part of Thousand Oaks. So it's
- 11:39Speaker 6: a tiny, little affluent suburb just on the edge of
- 11:43Speaker 6: the county. And you know, really the point of it is,
- 11:46Speaker 6: it's not Los Angeles, the city. You know, it's a
- 11:49Speaker 6: different kind of a Please.
- 11:50Speaker 2: You know, Amon Murphy, I'm trying to parse everything you're
- 11:55Speaker 2: saying because you're giving me so much correct information. You
- 11:58Speaker 2: said that La has a problem with drag racing or
- 12:01Speaker 2: speed racing. I think that he said that, yeah, by
- 12:04Speaker 2: gang members. I don't think of some plastic surgeon. This
- 12:07Speaker 2: old lady out there's dragging with her lover after they
- 12:11Speaker 2: booze it up at lunch. That must have been some
- 12:13Speaker 2: long lunch because now it's the evening and she's drag
- 12:16Speaker 2: racing with her excuse me, alleged lover. Alleged. I haven't
- 12:22Speaker 2: seen them in bed together. I don't know for sure
- 12:26Speaker 2: that they're lovers. But that said, this grown lady drunks, skunk,
- 12:32Speaker 2: drag racing, and most all that. You know what money
- 12:36Speaker 2: cannot buy class that is for sure.
- 12:41Speaker 6: What do you buy an AMG car for? I mean,
- 12:44Speaker 6: one thing the prosecution wanted to bring in is the
- 12:46Speaker 6: fact that she took a one day you performance driving
- 12:49Speaker 6: course on a closed track in twenty eighteen, and the
- 12:54Speaker 6: judge said, no you wait.
- 12:56Speaker 2: Wait, wait, you're awesome number one A.
- 13:01Speaker 6: M yeah, AMG. It's it's it's a high performance kind
- 13:06Speaker 6: of a Mercedes, you know, these cars with the really
- 13:09Speaker 6: loud engines, and so that if you buy one of
- 13:14Speaker 6: these cars, you can participate in a course on a
- 13:17Speaker 6: closed racetrack where they kind of give you the You
- 13:20Speaker 6: have an instructor and you have a chance to you know,
- 13:22Speaker 6: drive fast, and of course you're not on the streets,
- 13:24Speaker 6: so it's not dangerous in that way. And you're told
- 13:28Speaker 6: that the course, you know, this is you know, very
- 13:31Speaker 6: controlled conditions. You can't drive like this in the real world.
- 13:34Speaker 6: So she attended one of these in twenty eighteen, and
- 13:37Speaker 6: the prosecution had wanted to introduce this and bring this
- 13:40Speaker 6: warning into show because re racing in the legal sense
- 13:44Speaker 6: is not part of the charges, but the prosecution means
- 13:47Speaker 6: that in the more cooquial sense of two cars driving
- 13:50Speaker 6: very quickly mirroring each other, something we see a lot
- 13:54Speaker 6: on the freeway, and something that a witness in the
- 13:57Speaker 6: case might say about this incident, as the mother of
- 14:01Speaker 6: the victims has done to get a murder conviction because
- 14:03Speaker 6: she's charged with secondary murder for killing these kids, as
- 14:06Speaker 6: well as vehicular manslaughter and hit and run.
- 14:08Speaker 2: Driving as she should be.
- 14:11Speaker 6: Yeah, but that's to get to that murder conviction. They
- 14:14Speaker 6: need to establish implied malice because you know it wasn't
- 14:18Speaker 6: exactly intentional.
- 14:32Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
- 14:36Speaker 2: Matthew Mangino, high profile lawyer joining US former prosecutor and
- 14:41Speaker 2: Lawrence County, PA. Author of The Executioner's Toll Wait for it,
- 14:45Speaker 2: The Executioner's Told the Crimes, arrest, Trials, appeals, last meals,
- 14:50Speaker 2: and final words. Executed persons forty six people across the US.
- 14:55Speaker 2: I love that title. You can find them at Mattmanngino
- 14:57Speaker 2: dot com. Matthew, we both tried a lot of homicide cases.
- 15:04Speaker 2: To show intent to a jury, you can show them
- 15:07Speaker 2: intent either implied or express express means. I say, Jackie,
- 15:13Speaker 2: I'm going to shoot you dead right now, and I
- 15:16Speaker 2: shoot her dead. That's not going to happen because I
- 15:19Speaker 2: need you desperately, And there is implied intent, such as
- 15:27Speaker 2: you choose to get stink and drunk walk to your car.
- 15:33Speaker 2: Insert the key, start the ignition, put it reverse, put
- 15:37Speaker 2: it in drive, hit the gas, or let me give
- 15:39Speaker 2: an easier one with implied intent. I go and I
- 15:44Speaker 2: practice shoot at arrange for twenty hours. Then I go by,
- 15:50Speaker 2: let's just go with a glock. Then I stop my husband,
- 15:54Speaker 2: who I find out has been cheating not true, and
- 15:57Speaker 2: then I get him in the crosshairs and I spy
- 15:59Speaker 2: on him till comes out of the office and I
- 16:02Speaker 2: train across the populant boom egone. All right, So that
- 16:08Speaker 2: is implied intent. It was a very long drawn out plan,
- 16:13Speaker 2: even though I didn't expressly say it. I think here,
- 16:16Speaker 2: I would argue to the jury. I'd show them this
- 16:18Speaker 2: picture of her car totally bashed in in the front
- 16:25Speaker 2: and go through what all she did before she landed
- 16:29Speaker 2: right here, all the warnings, all the speeding tickets, all
- 16:32Speaker 2: the booze that afternoon, and say that's implied intent, right.
- 16:39Speaker 8: You know, second degree murder in California is you have
- 16:43Speaker 8: to show malice of fore thought. You don't have. You
- 16:46Speaker 8: don't show deliberation or premeditation. Just that's that malice in
- 16:52Speaker 8: drinking where you have a blood alcohol content three hours
- 16:57Speaker 8: later that zero point zero eight, which is clearly indicative
- 17:01Speaker 8: that it would have been higher at the time you
- 17:03Speaker 8: are driving, and that you're driving eighty miles an hour
- 17:07Speaker 8: in a forty five mile an hour zone where there
- 17:10Speaker 8: are pedestrians frequently in that area is enough to show malice.
- 17:16Speaker 6: I mean, plus her.
- 17:17Speaker 8: History of driving and an excess of speed at times
- 17:22Speaker 8: all amounts to her malice. She's grossly negligent. She's reckless
- 17:28Speaker 8: in getting behind the wheel and driving at that speed
- 17:32Speaker 8: in an area in which there frequently are people and
- 17:36Speaker 8: young people exercising involved in recreation. And because of that
- 17:44Speaker 8: there's ample evidence to convict her of second degree murder.
- 17:49Speaker 2: Well, now we're getting a whole spin on it, and
- 17:52Speaker 2: luckily for tuitiously, today we have with us premier accident reconstruction.
- 17:58Speaker 2: As senior Engineer, owner of Vera Tech Consulting Engineering at
- 18:04Speaker 2: Vera Tech eng for Engineering dot Com. Joseph Tremblay, Joseph,
- 18:10Speaker 2: I got a few things to run by you. But first,
- 18:12Speaker 2: Stacy Stewart, the CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving MAD
- 18:18Speaker 2: which has now taken off across this country and is
- 18:22Speaker 2: a veritable force against drunk driving. Stacy Stewart Aman Murphy,
- 18:30Speaker 2: isn't it true that she would not willingly give a
- 18:33Speaker 2: blood draw, and that she wouldn't quote, really blow into
- 18:37Speaker 2: the breathalyzer.
- 18:38Speaker 6: I've heard that about them, that she wasn't really blowing
- 18:42Speaker 6: and that's why they wanted to get the blood. And
- 18:44Speaker 6: while you had those readings that were point oh seventy six,
- 18:47Speaker 6: and then later on the blood draw reading is higher.
- 18:49Speaker 6: She did not give consent to have the blood drawn.
- 18:52Speaker 6: She said she wanted to ask her her husband when
- 18:54Speaker 6: they said will you consent to this? So instead there
- 18:56Speaker 6: was a forced blood draw. She was taken to the
- 18:58Speaker 6: hospital by the police and there her blood was taken
- 19:02Speaker 6: and that's where they got the point oh eight results.
- 19:05Speaker 2: Okay, Stacy Stewart joining US CEO of Mothers Against Drunk
- 19:08Speaker 2: Driving Mad Stacy, if she's point eight hours later, once
- 19:14Speaker 2: she gets to the hospital and they perform the blood draw,
- 19:21Speaker 2: there's no telling what she was because alcohol dissipates in
- 19:25Speaker 2: the body.
- 19:26Speaker 9: That's in fact, you're right.
- 19:27Speaker 10: And if she was at point oh eight three hours
- 19:30Speaker 10: after the crash occurred, and she was significantly higher than
- 19:34Speaker 10: that presumably at the time of the crash, sure I
- 19:37Speaker 10: know that that's what the passecutors will will argue.
- 19:40Speaker 9: And one of the things. I think one of the
- 19:41Speaker 9: things that I think a lot of people Nancy don't
- 19:44Speaker 9: understand is that even at levels less than point oh eight,
- 19:49Speaker 9: drivers are impaired. You know, there's a there was a
- 19:52Speaker 9: bill introduced in California, and there's one that's been introducing
- 19:54Speaker 9: other states trying to move the legal limit two point
- 19:59Speaker 9: oh five blood alcohol concentration level, because all the studies
- 20:02Speaker 9: that we have seen have shown that the risk of
- 20:05Speaker 9: crash is significantly higher at point oh five, seven times
- 20:10Speaker 9: higher as compared to for drivers that are at anywhere
- 20:14Speaker 9: from point oh five to point oh eight as compared
- 20:17Speaker 9: to drivers with no alcohol in their system. So we
- 20:19Speaker 9: know that at any level of drinking and get in driving,
- 20:24Speaker 9: a driver can be impaired and can dangerously put themselves
- 20:28Speaker 9: at risk or others, as is the case here. Obviously
- 20:32Speaker 9: from the facts that we know.
- 20:33Speaker 6: There's one other thing to say here at Nancy, which
- 20:35Speaker 6: is that the toxicology report also showed a small amount
- 20:38Speaker 6: of value. So the prosecution is going to say that
- 20:41Speaker 6: there's an interaction between the value and the alcohol which
- 20:45Speaker 6: increases the impairment effect. Even if you have a level
- 20:49Speaker 6: of reading that is not all that high in terms
- 20:51Speaker 6: of the legal limit.
- 20:52Speaker 11: Nancy.
- 20:52Speaker 9: One thing I would just say about that is ahead.
- 20:54Speaker 9: One of the things I would just say about that
- 20:56Speaker 9: point is that we are seeing a concerning trend of
- 20:59Speaker 9: what we called polyuse, so the use of alcohol and
- 21:03Speaker 9: other substances like prescription drugs, value like cannabis, so in
- 21:08Speaker 9: states that has also legalized marijuana where it's more widely available.
- 21:15Speaker 9: Moving the blood alcohol concentration level too point oh five.
- 21:17Speaker 9: It's even more critical because multiple substances can lead to
- 21:21Speaker 9: even more impairment by drivers, and we're seeing a disturbing
- 21:24Speaker 9: trend about that where we've seen an increase in impair
- 21:28Speaker 9: driving fatalities. It's thirty five percent even over the past
- 21:31Speaker 9: few years. So we're seeing an increasing trend. And of
- 21:35Speaker 9: course this multiple use of substances is obviously an issue
- 21:39Speaker 9: that we have to address.
- 21:39Speaker 2: Joseph Scott Morgan's joining US Professor Forensics Shacksville State University,
- 21:43Speaker 2: author of Blood Beneath My Fate on Amazon, and star
- 21:47Speaker 2: of a hit series Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan.
- 21:51Speaker 2: Joe Scott, why and how does all that alcohol dissipate
- 21:56Speaker 2: in just three hours?
- 21:58Speaker 7: Well, it's metabolic change, share or or processing rather so
- 22:02Speaker 7: your body is actually metabolizing this alcohol that has been
- 22:08Speaker 7: ingested previously. And that's why you know, once someone has
- 22:13Speaker 7: become anebriated over a period of time, once they stop drinking,
- 22:18Speaker 7: it stands to reason that the body is still processing
- 22:22Speaker 7: all of this alcohol that's contained in the body of
- 22:25Speaker 7: the ethanol, and as it's being burned off in the body,
- 22:29Speaker 7: you begin to kind of return back to a level
- 22:32Speaker 7: of normalcy. But it takes a while for it to
- 22:35Speaker 7: all get out of your body. And so what's key
- 22:39Speaker 7: here is when you are in law enforcement and you're
- 22:42Speaker 7: attempting to conduct a test on an individual to measure it,
- 22:47Speaker 7: you're fighting. You're fighting against time here because you can't
- 22:51Speaker 7: fight metabolism in the body. So it's a race. So
- 22:55Speaker 7: the longer you wait, the less the level will be.
- 22:58Speaker 7: But you know, you can kind of project this back.
- 23:01Speaker 7: If you're talking about three hour delay, you can kind
- 23:04Speaker 7: of hypothesize that the level would have been much higher
- 23:09Speaker 7: and with a much greater level of impairment as well.
- 23:12Speaker 7: And you couple that with value, and it's a deadly mix.
- 23:15Speaker 2: They are throwing out everything they can to beat this charge.
- 23:21Speaker 2: Rebecca Grossman is estimated to be worth one hundred million dollars.
- 23:32Speaker 2: One hundred million dollars is her estimated net worth. The
- 23:38Speaker 2: latest that has been pulled out of the defense back
- 23:42Speaker 2: of tricks is to blame the lover, although witnesses say
- 23:47Speaker 2: it was Grossman's white Mercedes that hit the child, not
- 23:53Speaker 2: her lover's black vehicle. We'll see where that goes, but
- 23:58Speaker 2: let's get back to the facts as we know them.
- 24:00Speaker 2: Take a listen to Captain Salvador Materira.
- 24:03Speaker 12: Two cars were racing. We believe speed is a factor,
- 24:08Speaker 12: alcohol is a factor.
- 24:10Speaker 13: The family were in a marked crosswalk, clearly marked. As
- 24:16Speaker 13: she realized there were two cars speeding her way, she
- 24:19Speaker 13: was able to reach out and grab one of her
- 24:21Speaker 13: children off of a razor scooter, pulled the child back
- 24:25Speaker 13: with the stroller with another child a stroller as the
- 24:29Speaker 13: car entered the intersection and hit the other two boys.
- 24:32Speaker 2: What more do we know about what happened when these
- 24:35Speaker 2: two little boys were mowed down dead? Listen to our
- 24:40Speaker 2: forensic crime online.
- 24:41Speaker 3: Deputies reportedly catch up with the white Mercedes with significant
- 24:44Speaker 3: front end damage a third of a mile from the scene.
- 24:47Speaker 3: Behind the wheel is Rebecca Grossman. A deputy describes finding
- 24:51Speaker 3: the vehicle stopped at the curb and Grossman saying she
- 24:53Speaker 3: didn't know why her airbag had been triggered. As Grossman
- 24:56Speaker 3: speaks to a nine to one to one operator, she's
- 24:58Speaker 3: asked if she hit someone. Grossman can be heard saying
- 25:01Speaker 3: I don't know what I hit.
- 25:03Speaker 14: One of the boys struck in the crosswalk is pronounced
- 25:05Speaker 14: dead on the scene, according to KCl, and another boy
- 25:08Speaker 14: dies in the hospital. Police were able to arrest fifty
- 25:10Speaker 14: seven year old Rebecca Grossman, a well known figure in
- 25:13Speaker 14: the community who appeared on KCl in the past as
- 25:16Speaker 14: the founder and chair of the Grossman Burne Foundation. She's
- 25:19Speaker 14: also been recognized for her humanitarian work around the world.
- 25:22Speaker 14: Captain Salvador Besa says it is senseless and could have
- 25:26Speaker 14: been avoided by ordering an uber or calling a friend.
- 25:29Speaker 14: Rebecca Grossman did not stay on the scene. She was
- 25:31Speaker 14: arrested a quarter of a mile away.
- 25:33Speaker 2: So Amon Murphy from the Acorn Newspapers. She flees the
- 25:37Speaker 2: scene and it starts saying I don't know what I hit.
- 25:39Speaker 2: She's in the wide high powered Mercedes with all of
- 25:44Speaker 2: the damage to the front, right in the middle of
- 25:46Speaker 2: the grill.
- 25:46Speaker 6: That's right. She kept driving the engine was cut off
- 25:51Speaker 6: remotely because the airbag had deployed, so the car eventually
- 25:55Speaker 6: stopped and she's gone. By deputy.
- 25:58Speaker 2: That's probably the only reason she stopped, as the car
- 26:01Speaker 2: forced her to stop when the airbag deployed. With me
- 26:04Speaker 2: is Joseph Tremblay, a premier accident reconstruction, a senior engineer,
- 26:09Speaker 2: co owner Veritech Consulting Engineering. Joseph, I wanted you to
- 26:14Speaker 2: hear these facts so you could give me your analysis.
- 26:19Speaker 15: What do you think, Well, let's talk about that car
- 26:22Speaker 15: a little bit more and the damage to the front end.
- 26:27Speaker 15: It's pretty obvious that there's significant damage to both the
- 26:31Speaker 15: front clip and the hood, which is very consistent with
- 26:35Speaker 15: contact made between the car and a pedestrian in this case.
- 26:41Speaker 2: Oh wait, I see what you're talking about when you
- 26:43Speaker 2: say the front grill or I say grill and you
- 26:46Speaker 2: say hood. You know, if you look at that picture,
- 26:49Speaker 2: Joseph Tremblay, and of course I'm a civilian in this matter,
- 26:53Speaker 2: it looks like there is a spot where a boy's
- 26:58Speaker 2: body could lay, almost like a hammock has been formed
- 27:03Speaker 2: in her hood.
- 27:03Speaker 15: Yeah, that's correct, and I think that's probably what happened
- 27:07Speaker 15: in this case. Is that one of the little boys
- 27:11Speaker 15: actually ended up on the hood, as tragic as that sounds,
- 27:14Speaker 15: and was carried by the car for a significant distance
- 27:18Speaker 15: after impact. And another thing that's interesting to note. On
- 27:24Speaker 15: that picture that you're referring to, where you see the
- 27:27Speaker 15: front end damage, you also see underneath the car there's
- 27:31Speaker 15: a puddle of fluid, almost as if perhaps the car
- 27:37Speaker 15: sustains some sort of mechanical damage from this contact. And
- 27:42Speaker 15: not only was the car disabled because of the airbag deployment,
- 27:46Speaker 15: it may not have been driveable at all because of
- 27:48Speaker 15: the coolant leak. That's probably what happened here.
- 27:52Speaker 2: Well, I'm trying to furiously take notes as you write.
- 27:56Speaker 2: It's amazing to me that she her new defense is
- 28:00Speaker 2: that it was her boyfriend that did it, the one
- 28:03Speaker 2: driving the other car. When they pull this vehicle over,
- 28:08Speaker 2: she had been forced to stop, either from the fluid
- 28:10Speaker 2: leakage or because the airbag deployed. She did you hear
- 28:16Speaker 2: this part to you, Robert Crispin. She wouldn't quote really
- 28:21Speaker 2: blow into the breathalyzer, don't you know. It's because she
- 28:26Speaker 2: knew she was drunk, and she thought by just going
- 28:29Speaker 2: and not really blowing into it, fully, she might beat
- 28:33Speaker 2: the breathalyzer.
- 28:34Speaker 4: So listen, the breathalyzer machines are very accurate, and they're
- 28:38Speaker 4: very sensitive, and they're built for people that are going
- 28:41Speaker 4: to do that. So clearly it obtained a reasonable sample
- 28:46Speaker 4: to come up with an indication and a reading being
- 28:50Speaker 4: the point zero seven to six. So yes, I've had
- 28:55Speaker 4: a bunch of people and I've arrested over one hundred
- 28:58Speaker 4: people for DUI in my career. Yeah, people always try
- 29:01Speaker 4: to do that, They always try to very lightly blow,
- 29:04Speaker 4: but these machines are built for that. They sense that
- 29:07Speaker 4: the machines aren't stupid. So if I could just add.
- 29:10Speaker 6: One thing about the.
- 29:13Speaker 4: Point when she went up to the point eight, and
- 29:16Speaker 4: I think your doctor will also be able to confirm
- 29:18Speaker 4: with this. You know, you can drink alcohol and have
- 29:22Speaker 4: three drinks right now and getting your car two seconds,
- 29:26Speaker 4: which is a very stupid thing to do, but you
- 29:27Speaker 4: can drive a half a block away and get home
- 29:30Speaker 4: and you're probably still under the legal limit because, as
- 29:33Speaker 4: the doctor says, the alcohol hasn't processed your body. Clearly,
- 29:37Speaker 4: she was going up in her BAC level or her
- 29:40Speaker 4: blood alcohol level, which I surmise is why the prosecution
- 29:44Speaker 4: did not charge her with DUI because at the time
- 29:48Speaker 4: she took that first test. Now maybe it was a
- 29:51Speaker 4: PBT test, maybe it was a roadside test, I don't know,
- 29:54Speaker 4: but whatever machine she blew into. And then they took
- 29:58Speaker 4: the other blood tests at the hospital, I believe in
- 30:01Speaker 4: the three hours and the doctor can confirm us her blood.
- 30:04Speaker 6: Autohol level was going up.
- 30:06Speaker 4: And I have a feeling that the prosecution said err
- 30:09Speaker 4: on the side of caution because they're going to say
- 30:12Speaker 4: she wasn't DUI at the time of the crash. At
- 30:16Speaker 4: the time of the crash, that's a big deal at
- 30:19Speaker 4: the time of the crash.
- 30:21Speaker 2: Yeah, And that explains why they didn't charge her driving
- 30:23Speaker 2: under the influence, because I think that's why that count.
- 30:26Speaker 2: It could taint or poison the rest of the counts.
- 30:30Speaker 2: They absolutely know they can prove to be UI. Yeah,
- 30:35Speaker 2: to be DUI across the country, you got to be
- 30:37Speaker 2: in most jurisdictions point zero eight. And at first she
- 30:40Speaker 2: blew point zero seven six, which rounds up too point eight.
- 30:45Speaker 2: But that's not good enough. When she gets to the
- 30:49Speaker 2: hospital she does the blood test shows point zero eight.
- 30:54Speaker 2: I personally trust a blood test more than the breathalyzer.
- 30:58Speaker 2: And the breathalyzer may have hit low because she's going
- 31:02Speaker 2: not really blowing into it. But we're gonna hear more
- 31:05Speaker 2: about that during the trial. You know another thing, and
- 31:09Speaker 2: I'm very curious about this. I'll throw this to Joseph Tremblay.
- 31:13Speaker 2: Our accent reconstruction is joining us. A former La County
- 31:17Speaker 2: Sheriff's deputy who specializes in traffic crashes, testified at a
- 31:22Speaker 2: preliminary hearing his name Robert Appadaka, that he had never
- 31:27Speaker 2: seen a person thrown two hundred and fifty four feet
- 31:31Speaker 2: by impact. It's the farthest he has ever known a
- 31:34Speaker 2: human to be thrown in a crash.
- 31:38Speaker 15: What about it, Tremblay, I think that is a significant distance,
- 31:43Speaker 15: and I am also very surprised at that distances. That's incredible.
- 31:48Speaker 15: And I think there's probably two factors that really contributed
- 31:52Speaker 15: to that number. And the first was that as we
- 31:56Speaker 15: touched on earlier, I think one of these pedestrians, one
- 31:59Speaker 15: of these little boys, was actually up on the hood
- 32:03Speaker 15: for a distance while the car was driving. And you know,
- 32:06Speaker 15: this car's going pretty fast, seventy eighty miles per hour
- 32:10Speaker 15: according to evidence, and it doesn't take a whole lot
- 32:14Speaker 15: of time to cover that kind of distance. So there
- 32:17Speaker 15: was probably a portion of that two hundred and fifty
- 32:21Speaker 15: four feet in which the little boy was on the
- 32:24Speaker 15: hood and then was vaulted off of the hood at
- 32:28Speaker 15: some point, and then you know, unfortunately came to rest
- 32:33Speaker 15: where where he did. But both of those factors kind
- 32:38Speaker 15: of contribute to that distance. And I want to swing
- 32:42Speaker 15: back and talk about this car a little bit more.
- 32:45Speaker 15: One thing that's kind of unique to Mercedes is Mercedes
- 32:51Speaker 15: has done a lot of safety improvements to their vehicles
- 32:56Speaker 15: because they know that pedestrian accidents are very, very dangerous,
- 33:00Speaker 15: and they're usually fatal, and it's very serious when these occur.
- 33:06Speaker 15: So one of the safety features on all Mercedes cars
- 33:09Speaker 15: ever since twenty nineteen is called pre Safe, and that's
- 33:15Speaker 15: a system that's designed to detect pedestrians. Now, the only
- 33:22Speaker 15: way that that system will work is if the car
- 33:26Speaker 15: is traveling forty five miles per hour or less. So
- 33:31Speaker 15: it goes to stay that we could consider if this driver, Grossman,
- 33:37Speaker 15: if she was traveling the speed limit, this accident may
- 33:40Speaker 15: have never happened.
- 33:41Speaker 2: Wow, I didn't know about pre Safe on Mercedes. But
- 33:45Speaker 2: it's got a big question. What is a grown woman
- 33:49Speaker 2: doing drag racing, drunk as a skunk and high as
- 33:54Speaker 2: a kite off of valium and booze. Karen start joining
- 33:58Speaker 2: me renown psycholol just joining us out of the Manhattan
- 34:01Speaker 2: jurisdiction at karenstart dot com, Karen with the Sea, Karen,
- 34:05Speaker 2: what's the grown woman doing drag racing with her alleged lover?
- 34:10Speaker 2: And this guy is no schlump La Dodgers, play with
- 34:14Speaker 2: the La Dodgers and with the New York Yankees. And
- 34:18Speaker 2: he's having this alcohol soaked lunch with this married multimillionaire
- 34:24Speaker 2: and then they decide to go drag racing.
- 34:27Speaker 16: Really, well, you're not talking about the kind of grown
- 34:31Speaker 16: woman that we would imagine that They've been spending the
- 34:34Speaker 16: whole afternoon having a great time drinking. Allegedly he's an
- 34:40Speaker 16: ex lover and where I don't know, supposedly for Tris.
- 34:47Speaker 16: I don't know what they were doing. But she's not
- 34:50Speaker 16: just a jate controlled person. She's now has value in
- 34:54Speaker 16: her system. She's drinking, she's having this great time with
- 34:58Speaker 16: an ex lover, and she's just loose. What's really telling
- 35:01Speaker 16: to me? I don't know about this? Isn't my expertise.
- 35:05Speaker 9: But the fact that she said.
- 35:08Speaker 16: I don't know what I hit to me is saying
- 35:11Speaker 16: that she knows she hit something. She just doesn't know
- 35:14Speaker 16: what it is that she hit.
- 35:16Speaker 2: But I mean, get real, Karen Stark, come on, please
- 35:19Speaker 2: get out of that Ivory tower. She drives what was
- 35:22Speaker 2: it a quarter of a mile, a half a mile,
- 35:24Speaker 2: Emon Murphy with the little boy on her hood?
- 35:29Speaker 16: Exactly how far.
- 35:31Speaker 2: Did she drive? Amon with the boy on the hood?
- 35:33Speaker 6: Well, I'm not The detail about the boy on the
- 35:37Speaker 6: hood has has been contested a bit, so we'll have
- 35:41Speaker 6: to see what they say a trial.
- 35:43Speaker 2: What does the state say.
- 35:44Speaker 6: I mean, initially, I'm not. I don't want to say
- 35:49Speaker 6: the say that the figures in the past because they've
- 35:52Speaker 6: been they've been challenged. I mean the car, the car
- 35:54Speaker 6: continued driving before she stopped, either a quarter mile or
- 35:57Speaker 6: a half mile, so she was, you know, she was continuing.
- 36:00Speaker 2: Well, where was the little boy's body found?
- 36:02Speaker 6: There was? One of them was found in the crosswalk basically,
- 36:06Speaker 6: and another was found around two hundred two hundred some
- 36:11Speaker 6: feet away.
- 36:12Speaker 2: Okay, Tremblay, that's to you. The little boy was found
- 36:17Speaker 2: two hundred feet away, at least two hundred feet away,
- 36:21Speaker 2: So she drove two thirds of a football field with
- 36:25Speaker 2: the boy on her hood. What she can see that, Oh.
- 36:29Speaker 15: I think she's oblivious. And it really surprises me that
- 36:33Speaker 15: not only did she not see these two little boys
- 36:36Speaker 15: before impact. I mean, this is a wide open intersection,
- 36:40Speaker 15: and it's a very well lit, well marked crosswalk. It's
- 36:43Speaker 15: got there's flashing lights overhead. You can see it for
- 36:47Speaker 15: about one thousand feet before you get to it. So
- 36:49Speaker 15: it's let's let's make sure that that's a point that
- 36:53Speaker 15: we talk about here, is that there's no visual obstructions
- 36:57Speaker 15: to what you know she can see. But not only
- 37:01Speaker 15: that after impact she's completely oblivious. There's there's a little
- 37:05Speaker 15: boy on her hood and she continues to drive. That's
- 37:09Speaker 15: that's how serious this is. That's just plain egregious.
- 37:13Speaker 2: You know, Matthew Mangino. Sometimes the defense shoots themselves in
- 37:18Speaker 2: the foot, and I think that happened here because the
- 37:22Speaker 2: defense came up with a new theory as defense claiming
- 37:25Speaker 2: the alleged lover he's the one that was driving her
- 37:29Speaker 2: Mercedes as they were drag racing and chasing each other
- 37:33Speaker 2: through this residential neighborhood. And now the prosecutor Jamie Castro
- 37:39Speaker 2: will argue that she, Rebecca Grossmann, and the professional athlete
- 37:49Speaker 2: Scott Erickson had been in a sex affair. They said
- 37:54Speaker 2: they were not going to bring it up until she's
- 37:57Speaker 2: now blaming him, claiming it is now become relevant because
- 38:01Speaker 2: the defense intends to argue that the black car is
- 38:05Speaker 2: at issue in this particular scenario and that they had swapped.
- 38:10Speaker 2: So by coming up with this defense, now their sex
- 38:14Speaker 2: affair is going to come into evidence.
- 38:17Speaker 8: Yeah, it will. And as you said, it wasn't the
- 38:21Speaker 8: state's intention to bring up the affair until they tried
- 38:25Speaker 8: to put forward this this defense that that he was
- 38:30Speaker 8: driving her vehicle. So that whole issue with regard to
- 38:34Speaker 8: their relationship is now something that can be brought before
- 38:39Speaker 8: the jury. And and and obviously, you know a jury
- 38:42Speaker 8: is going to make a decision here and they're going
- 38:44Speaker 8: to consider the fact, but they also are going to
- 38:47Speaker 8: consider the credibility the believability of witnesses, uh, you know,
- 38:52Speaker 8: if she should take the stand, you know, so there,
- 38:56Speaker 8: you know, there there are issues here that are.
- 38:58Speaker 2: I guarantee if she's not going to take the stand,
- 39:01Speaker 2: because she'll have to be subjected to cross exam, especially
- 39:05Speaker 2: on comments she made like she did not know why
- 39:09Speaker 2: her airbag deployed. Hello, because you just hit two children
- 39:14Speaker 2: and one you drove along with on your hood.
- 39:17Speaker 8: She acknowledges all the things that she said that she
- 39:20Speaker 8: hit something. You know, she doesn't know what it is,
- 39:23Speaker 8: but she did something.
- 39:37Speaker 1: Time Stories with Nancy Grease.
- 39:41Speaker 2: In the last hours in a court of law where
- 39:43Speaker 2: Rebecca Grossman is being tried for murder, the mother of
- 39:48Speaker 2: the two little boys who were mowed down dead actually
- 39:53Speaker 2: runs out of the courtroom sobbing. Amon Murphy joined us
- 40:01Speaker 2: investigative reporter writer for the Acorn Newspapers.
- 40:05Speaker 8: Go ahead, well, Nancy.
- 40:07Speaker 6: We heard from the mother of the victims, Nancy, a scander,
- 40:10Speaker 6: who described having to jump out of the way of
- 40:13Speaker 6: an oncoming black suv with her youngest son. Now a
- 40:17Speaker 6: white suv coming just up behind it ran through the
- 40:20Speaker 6: intersection where her other two boys were. She didn't see
- 40:24Speaker 6: it hit them, but she heard a crash as it
- 40:26Speaker 6: went by, and then they'd been struck. At one point,
- 40:30Speaker 6: after she had testified, they were photographs shown that another
- 40:34Speaker 6: witness had taken of the aftermath of the scene, including
- 40:38Speaker 6: of a broken skateboard. Her oldest son, Mark had been
- 40:41Speaker 6: on a skateboard and also of Mark's body, and Nancy,
- 40:45Speaker 6: a scander at that point, cried out her son's name,
- 40:49Speaker 6: Mark's name and had to leave the courtroom in distress.
- 40:53Speaker 6: We also heard from some other witnesses of the collisions.
- 40:57Speaker 6: None of them saw the white hit both of the boys,
- 41:02Speaker 6: but two of them saw the white car hit one
- 41:03Speaker 6: of the boys, and none of them attributed any impact
- 41:07Speaker 6: to a black vehicle, which has been the defense's claim
- 41:10Speaker 6: that the black car driven by Grossman's then boyfriend, Scott Erickson,
- 41:15Speaker 6: was responsible for hitting the boys. We also saw the
- 41:19Speaker 6: defense very aggressively cross examined two investigators, one of whom
- 41:24Speaker 6: did the initial crash report. They were going after his
- 41:27Speaker 6: measurements of the debris, which led to his conclusion that
- 41:31Speaker 6: speed was the cause of the accident, as well as
- 41:34Speaker 6: his conclusion that all the debris was consistent with the
- 41:37Speaker 6: white Mercedes. He was also the same officer to initially
- 41:40Speaker 6: come into contact with Rebecca Grossman and her disabled white
- 41:44Speaker 6: Mercedes after the accident, and then the officer who conducted
- 41:48Speaker 6: the field sobriety test under cross examination acknowledged that not
- 41:52Speaker 6: all of the tests were conducted. According to the book,
- 41:56Speaker 6: which cast some doubt onto his conclusion that she was
- 42:01Speaker 6: impaired when he when he arrested her. Testimony has gotten
- 42:05Speaker 6: up to the point where Rebecca Grossman's blood was drawn
- 42:09Speaker 6: at the hospital after a warrant was obtained to do
- 42:12Speaker 6: a blood draw. So next they're going to get into
- 42:16Speaker 6: the chemist's account of the test results, which is important
- 42:19Speaker 6: because that result is what was at the point eight level.
- 42:25Speaker 6: Three hours after the incident. The breathalyzer results were point
- 42:29Speaker 6: seven six in point seven to five, which are just
- 42:32Speaker 6: below that threshold for impairment. You can still be impaired
- 42:36Speaker 6: technically below that limit, but it's going to be important
- 42:40Speaker 6: for the prosecution to get that test established at that
- 42:44Speaker 6: point eight level. And the defense is going to go
- 42:46Speaker 6: after the blood draw and the testing method, you know.
- 42:49Speaker 2: Stacy Stewart's CEO. And we get of mothers against drunk
- 42:52Speaker 2: driving MAD. I don't get why, after all the publicity
- 42:56Speaker 2: that MAD has generated, people still drive drunk.
- 43:00Speaker 9: It's a problem, and as I mentioned earlier, Nancy, we're
- 43:03Speaker 9: seeing the numbers going in the wrong direction. A thirty
- 43:05Speaker 9: five percent increase in the past several years is astounding,
- 43:10Speaker 9: and I think one of the things that's really important.
- 43:12Speaker 9: Is it's really time for us to revisit the laws
- 43:15Speaker 9: and the technology that we have in place. I just
- 43:17Speaker 9: was just listening to the technology and Mercedes. You know,
- 43:20Speaker 9: even that technology is not sufficient to stop for something
- 43:23Speaker 9: like this. But I do want you to know and
- 43:25Speaker 9: others to know that. In twenty twenty one, November twenty
- 43:28Speaker 9: twenty one, the Halt Act was passed. It is new
- 43:32Speaker 9: legislation that now requires passive, advanced and pair driving prevention
- 43:36Speaker 9: systems to be integrated into all new cars starting in
- 43:40Speaker 9: twenty twenty six. This is passive technology that would detect
- 43:45Speaker 9: in pair driving and it's these kinds of cases that
- 43:49Speaker 9: this technology, if it were in place, would have prevented
- 43:52Speaker 9: anyone getting behind a wheel at the level of illegal
- 43:56Speaker 9: impairment would not be allowed to operate their car. And
- 44:01Speaker 9: right now, Matt's biggest priority is getting this technology implemented,
- 44:05Speaker 9: getting the legislation implemented. We're in the process of public
- 44:09Speaker 9: commentary right now. This is a huge win, but it's
- 44:12Speaker 9: not a win for drivers and for public safety if
- 44:17Speaker 9: we every day that we don't have this technology included
- 44:20Speaker 9: in cars. But we are close to it, and frankly,
- 44:23Speaker 9: this kind of prevention system would have been enormously helpful
- 44:26Speaker 9: to have saved the lives of these two precious little boys.
- 44:30Speaker 2: Well, you're right, you're right, Stacy Stewart. You know what
- 44:33Speaker 2: else would have been helpful? If Rebecca Grossman hadn't gotten
- 44:37Speaker 2: drunk as a skunk at launch and hot behind the
- 44:40Speaker 2: wheels of her high power in Mercedes, that would have helped.
- 44:43Speaker 2: Listen to Captain Salvador Bacerra.
- 44:45Speaker 12: We've arrested Rebecca Grossman, female white, fifty seven for two
- 44:50Speaker 12: counts of a hicular manslaughter. She's been held two million
- 44:52Speaker 12: dollars bail.
- 44:53Speaker 2: Wow, two million dollars bail. That means the worst for her.
- 44:57Speaker 2: She had to put up two hundred thousand dollars and
- 45:00Speaker 2: she did that and did not blank an eye. Aimon
- 45:04Speaker 2: Murphy with us with the Acorn newspapers. How much money
- 45:09Speaker 2: do they have and where do they get it?
- 45:12Speaker 6: Well, I'm not sure what the total net worth is.
- 45:16Speaker 6: Her husband, Peter Grossman, is a prominent plastic surgeon in
- 45:20Speaker 6: Los Angeles. His father was a very eminent doctor, very
- 45:24Speaker 6: innovative in the treatment of burns, and so his son
- 45:30Speaker 6: sort of followed in his footsteps. And there's that's obviously
- 45:35Speaker 6: a very lucrative practice. They live in Hidden Hills, which
- 45:39Speaker 6: is a particularly wealthy enclave in that area of Los
- 45:44Speaker 6: Angeles County, and Rebecca Grossman participated in these philanthropic efforts
- 45:53Speaker 6: associated with the Burn Center when she and her husband
- 45:56Speaker 6: started this foundation.
- 45:58Speaker 2: To Joe Scott Morgan joining US death investigator, Scott, let's
- 46:04Speaker 2: think just one moment what this case is really about.
- 46:09Speaker 2: I want everyone, as much as it pains you to
- 46:12Speaker 2: think about your child or your children. Mine just turned sixteen,
- 46:18Speaker 2: but it seems like I blinked my eye because it
- 46:21Speaker 2: feels like they're about seven or eight years old. That's
- 46:26Speaker 2: the age of one of these victims, eight years old
- 46:29Speaker 2: and eleven, Joe Scott, what did these boys endearre before
- 46:35Speaker 2: they were pronounced dead?
- 46:37Speaker 7: I think that in my estimation, they would have suffered
- 46:42Speaker 7: massive blunt force trauma. Now, you know, as far as
- 46:46Speaker 7: the level suffering, I can only hope that it was minimal,
- 46:52Speaker 7: but it would have been something that if they had survived.
- 46:58Speaker 7: One obviously did for a time, it would and unless
- 47:02Speaker 7: they're you know, and this is the hope that I have,
- 47:05Speaker 7: as horrible as it sounds, I hope that they were
- 47:07Speaker 7: unaware that that their life was slipping away because they
- 47:11Speaker 7: were in an unconscious state. But you know, every they
- 47:15Speaker 7: say that every cloud has a silver lining. Nancy in
- 47:19Speaker 7: this case is about not this woman and not her
- 47:22Speaker 7: wealthy surgeon husband and not the baseball players, about these
- 47:27Speaker 7: babies and the key here, And.
- 47:30Speaker 2: I think the silver lining, well.
- 47:34Speaker 7: I'm getting there, and the justice is going to come
- 47:37Speaker 7: in that in their absence, these kids are going to
- 47:40Speaker 7: bear witness in that courtroom because I think that a
- 47:43Speaker 7: lot of the forensic evidence, it's going to be tied
- 47:46Speaker 7: up in here. Remember all the slight of hand that's
- 47:47Speaker 7: going on with saying it was another vehicle and all
- 47:50Speaker 7: this nonsense. The trace evidence perhaps that is left behind
- 47:55Speaker 7: on their little fractured, broken bodies is going to tell
- 47:58Speaker 7: the tale and all so the degree to which they
- 48:02Speaker 7: were harmed. When you start talking about blunt force trauma
- 48:06Speaker 7: that is meted out by a motor vehicle being driven
- 48:10Speaker 7: by someone that is out of their mind under alcohol
- 48:14Speaker 7: at this level of force, you're gonna hear about the
- 48:17Speaker 7: extent of these injuries. You're also going to hear about
- 48:19Speaker 7: trace evidence that may have come from that car and
- 48:21Speaker 7: wound up on their little bodies. Like chip paint, and
- 48:24Speaker 7: maybe some of their biological samples will be left in
- 48:28Speaker 7: the grill of that car, things like hair, blood, skin,
- 48:32Speaker 7: And we recover all this stuff all the time at
- 48:35Speaker 7: car accidents. That is as best as silver lining I
- 48:39Speaker 7: can get you. I'm sorry if that disappoints you, but
- 48:42Speaker 7: that's the reality of what we're dealing with. We've got
- 48:44Speaker 7: these two little lost children in this broken family.
- 48:48Speaker 2: I don't think I could be any more disappointed than
- 48:50Speaker 2: I already am, because you know, a lot of times
- 48:54Speaker 2: and everybody on this panel has seen what goes on
- 48:56Speaker 2: in our courtrooms. You see defendants that have committed a
- 49:00Speaker 2: heinous crime, and you will hear the apologist state, well,
- 49:04Speaker 2: you know they never had a chance, they had no education,
- 49:07Speaker 2: broken family, bad neighborhood, and now they commit a crime
- 49:13Speaker 2: that means nothing to me. But in this case, you've
- 49:16Speaker 2: got a highly educated social white worth a billion plus
- 49:21Speaker 2: dollars with her husband, who, by the way, standing by her,
- 49:26Speaker 2: who mows down these two boys, then tries to pretend
- 49:29Speaker 2: it wasn't her, trying to get out of it till
- 49:34Speaker 2: the bitter end. As a matter of fact, I want
- 49:36Speaker 2: you to hear what the boy's mom Nancy Escander says,
- 49:43Speaker 2: listen to our cut nineteen.
- 49:45Speaker 11: She didn't care enough to come all the order to
- 49:47Speaker 11: come to court, says.
- 49:50Speaker 2: It right right above the law. I guess in her mind.
- 49:53Speaker 2: Grossmand doesn't show up to court on multiple occasions and more.
- 49:57Speaker 11: At least I need to stop having to come to court,
- 50:00Speaker 11: hearing updates and be able to take care of myself
- 50:03Speaker 11: and my surviving children, that alone, my broken child who
- 50:07Speaker 11: saw both his brothers die in front of his very eyes.
- 50:10Speaker 2: She continues, speaking to Katie La.
- 50:13Speaker 11: It's been a trend right of the lack of responsibility
- 50:16Speaker 11: and just the complete disregard of the two lives that
- 50:21Speaker 11: were gone, that were just taken like that.
- 50:24Speaker 2: She describes the little boy's features.
- 50:27Speaker 11: They had so much in front of them, so much
- 50:30Speaker 11: in this life, all of my hopes, all my dreams,
- 50:32Speaker 11: and they're just they were just ticking. And now I
- 50:35Speaker 11: see lack of responsibility.
- 50:37Speaker 2: To little boys no one seems to ever write or
- 50:40Speaker 2: talk about. But not so with the defendant, multimillionaire Rebecca Grossman.
- 50:45Speaker 11: We've seen articles written in LA magazine on her behalf.
- 50:50Speaker 11: I've seen her actually posed to take a picture and
- 50:53Speaker 11: say that her life is now a nightmare.
- 50:56Speaker 2: Her life is a nightmare. Her life is a nightmare.
- 51:02Speaker 2: Did she actually dare to say that she did? She did?
- 51:08Speaker 2: This isn't the first time she had chances to turn
- 51:11Speaker 2: her life around.
- 51:12Speaker 11: Listen, it's not the first time. Right, we've seen missus Grossman,
- 51:18Speaker 11: you know, pretend nothing happened before.
- 51:20Speaker 2: And to further the pain to the family, Rebecca Grossman
- 51:24Speaker 2: has actually called news accounts of this fake news.
- 51:29Speaker 11: I've actually seen her on LinkedIn call it fake news.
- 51:35Speaker 11: Two boys are at the cemetery, their picture is on
- 51:38Speaker 11: a tombstone, and she's calling it fake news.
- 51:41Speaker 2: Why is she denying it even happened. The boys are
- 51:44Speaker 2: six feet under, their pictures are on their tombstone. It's
- 51:49Speaker 2: not fake news. Listen. If I want to.
- 51:52Speaker 11: See them, I have to go to the cemetery or
- 51:56Speaker 11: just look at their friends and try to imagine how
- 51:58Speaker 11: they would look like. I'm just really, really, thank you
- 52:00Speaker 11: so so much for all the support and all the love.
- 52:03Speaker 11: Thank you for being here, thank you for the hugs
- 52:05Speaker 11: when you see me. Thank you for the tears. I
- 52:08Speaker 11: miss them, I miss them so much.
- 52:12Speaker 2: That is the mother breaking down in tears. She was
- 52:15Speaker 2: at a walk to support justice for Jacob and Mark.
- 52:19Speaker 2: That's what she has now, A picture on a tombstone.
- 52:25Speaker 2: That's what she's got. We wait as justice and faults. Goodbye, sir,