Karim Iskander jogged on a Westlake Village street, pushing his youngest in a stroller on Sept. 29, 2020.
He and his family had gone out for some fresh air, heading to a familiar spot near Westlake Lake. His oldest sons – Mark, 11, and Jacob, 8 – stayed back with their mom Nancy and younger brother on that outing.
As Karim jogged, Violet, around 18 months, suddenly woke up in the stroller. He had turned around and started to head back when his phone rang. It was Nancy, he said, testifying in a wrongful death trial in a Van Nuys courtroom on May 14. She told him Mark was dead.
“Don’t say that. Don’t say that,” he remembers screaming.
He started to run.
Moments earlier, Mark and Jacob were crossing Triunfo Canyon Road with their mom and younger brother when witnesses said they saw and heard vehicles speeding toward them.
Rebecca Grossman, co-founder of the Grossman Burn Foundation, and Scott Erickson, former professional baseball player and her then-boyfriend, had been headed to her home near the lake. They drove separate vehicles after having drinks nearby with Erickson’s longtime friend.
Grossman, wife of plastic surgeon Dr. Peter Grossman, was driving a white SUV. A black SUV, reportedly driven by Erickson, reached the crosswalk first.
Nancy Iskander grabbed her youngest son, the closest to her, and dove out of the path of the vehicle, she has said. She looked up and saw the white SUV pass the spot where Mark and Jacob had been.
In 2024, a jury found Grossman, of Hidden Hills, guilty of two counts of second-degree murder and hit-and-run driving. She was driving 73 mph in a 45 mph zone at the time of the crash, experts said.
The Iskander family brought a wrongful death suit against Grossman and Erickson, and the weeks-long trial started in April.
From the stand, Karim Iskander told jurors he saw a fire truck blocking the road as he ran back that evening. He could see one of his boys lying on the ground, with paramedics and others trying to help him. But it was Jacob, not Mark.
Nancy told him Mark was farther down the road.
Who were Mark and Jacob Iskander?
Karim testified that he ran to the 11-year-old he saw lying on his side, blood and vomit near his mouth. A paramedic was working on him, and Karim started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, he said.
But with every breath, more blood streamed from Mark’s ears, he said.
After a minute or two, the paramedic told him to stop, that his son was dead. Sometimes people come back, Karim remembered saying. As he held Mark’s hand, the dad couldn’t feel any bones. The arm had shattered in the crash.
When he ran back to Jacob, Karim said he tried to tell Nancy that the 8-year-old was strong and that he would recover. Karim said that he said that, but his son looked so pale.
“I was trying to comfort Nancy and myself,” he said.
Karim sat down in the grass on the side of the road exactly midway between Jacob and Mark and cried, he said. He remembers telling himself this was not happening. He thought it was shock but said it still feels unreal.
“I can’t imagine not taking Mark next year to college,” the dad told the jurors. “I can’t imagine that Jacob is not a 14-year-old boy.”
Karim described Mark as intelligent, with a gift for understanding people’s feelings. He excelled in math, could engage people from a stage or in social settings and was the center of the family, he said. The two took long bike rides together, with Karim in the bike lane and Mark on the sidewalk beside him.
“Mark is an awesome kid, and it’s not because he’s my son and it’s not because he passed away,” he said. “He is truly, truly, sincerely the kid that you would wish for yourself.”
He dreamed of becoming a brain surgeon by day and a comedian by night but also wrote and sang his own songs.
Karim called Jacob naturally cool, confident and athletic. He gave everything his all, his father said. He liked pushups, climbed walls and ran regularly with his dad around the track and on local trails.
“He got me in the best shape since graduate school,” Karim said.
Jacob liked building things and wanted to work in construction or become an architect someday.
“I miss them every day,” he said.
What happened after the crash?
Grossman, now 62 and in state prison, was sentenced to 15 years to life. She appealed, and a state appellate court upheld her murder conviction in March. She has since petitioned the California Supreme Court to review her case.
Erickson, who testified earlier this week, was charged with misdemeanor reckless driving in 2021. The court ordered judicial diversion, and the case was later resolved, officials said.
In the courtroom, Karim talked about how much he loved the Thousand Oaks-Westlake Village area when the family first moved there from Texas when the boys were little. Amgen, a biopharmaceutical company based in Thousand Oaks, had offered him a position. Karim called the community super safe and family oriented, with big wide sidewalks and a network of bike lanes.
The family recently moved to Boston, though they still talk about possibly moving back to California, he said.
Karim told jurors about the toll of losing the boys on himself and also on his wife and his son Zachary, describing them as completely heartbroken. Zachary, 5 at the time of the crash, doesn’t laugh or smile like he did before, his dad said.
That night, paramedics took Jacob to Los Robles Regional Medical Center. The doctors told the Iskander family that Jacob would not survive, explaining that the 8-year-old had been internally decapitated.
His mom and dad sat with him for hours before his heart stopped. It was close to morning when they left for home.
“It felt horrible to go back,” Karim said, his voice breaking. “We left as a full family. We came back without Mark and Jacob forever.”
Cheri Carlson is a reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at cheri.carlson@vcstar.com.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Father tells jurors about sons, the crash as Grossman trial continues
Reporting by Cheri Carlson, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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