Steamy WhatsApp messages Rebecca Grossman and her lover present the couple co-ordination tales whereas exchanging ‘I like yous’ as prosecutors tried to unravel what occurred on the night time the socialite mowed down two little boys on a crosswalk.
The messages between the convicted killer and ex-MLB pitcher Scott Erickson emerged in a bombshell civil lawsuit over the horrific 2020 crash that claimed the lives of Mark and Jacob Iskander in Westlake Village.
“There’s my lady,” the ex-Dodgers pitcher cooed to the rich socialite, simply days after the deadly collision on Sept. 29, 2020, that left the 2 boys, ages 11 and eight, useless on the street.
Grossman, of Hidden Hills, who was estranged from her plastic surgeon husband Dr. Peter Grossman, had been on a date with former Minnesota Twins pitcher Erickson, 58, who was driving simply forward of her.
The rich socialite raced down a suburban avenue after leaving the date, earlier than hitting the brothers and coming to a cease in her badly broken automobile on a close-by avenue.
The 4 years’ price of messages, now a part of courtroom filings within the Iskanders’ wrongful dying civil go well with in opposition to each Grossman and Erickson, present the lovers had been frequently in touch, at the same time as Grossman’s protection crew argued it was Erickson behind the wheel of the automobile that hit the 2 boys.
The messages have come to mild as Grossman seeks to overturn her double homicide conviction.
The romance was blossoming simply weeks after the tragedy in October, 2020 — the soppy messages reveal.
“I put my damaged coronary heart with a band support in that little field so I need you to maintain it subsequent to your bedside wherever you’re okay?” Grossman texted Erickson on Oct. 28, 2020.
“Thanks for the music video, LOVE YOU,” she gushed in December.
However issues took a sinister flip because the trial was heating up and Erickson messaged Grossman in shock as he realized her crew was attempting to pin the crime on him.
“Can’t imagine my ears right now, large and really silly mistake to allow them to make these accusations. I’m shocked.” he wrote.
“Simply misplaced your finest eye witness,” Erickson adopted up in one other message.
A few days later Grossman replied to disclaim her crew was blaming him.
“My crew has been very cautious to not use your title related to the automobile in entrance of me,” she wrote.
By early February, Erickson, nonetheless annoyed, wrote to Grossman, “Telling some loopy lies was a wierd strategy to get to the reality.”
Simply months after the crash, Grossman was already attempting to steer Erickson’s authorized technique.
“You might want to ship this to your lawyer,” she texted on Jan. 26, 2021, together with a hyperlink to a podcast titled “Second Driver a Thriller No Extra.”
Erickson, who pitched for the Dodgers, Twins, Orioles and Yankees throughout his 15-year MLB profession, had been driving close to Grossman that fateful night time. However precisely how shut and whether or not his automobile struck the boys — turned the million-dollar query.
Earlier in the course of the trial, Grossman messaged Erickson repeatedly attempting to persuade him to talk to her legal attorneys — and at one level advised him her daughter Alexis could be made to testify which might “elevate eyebrows” and look “badly for you.”
“Unsure why you’d attempt to threaten me, all it does is strengthen my place that I used to be already parked unable to return on foot,” Erickson wrote in December 2023.
Erickson is alleged to have fled his automobile and hid in bushes shortly after the crash. Grossman’s daughter noticed him and had an interplay — which she didn’t initially admit to authorities.
“Why did your mother cease? Why did your mother cease?” Alexis claimed Erickson stated, throughout a sworn statement in February 2024, in keeping with the LA Instances. “He appeared very indignant. He was frantic. I may odor alcohol on him. He was freaking out. I used to be scared.”
Throughout his panic-stricken rage, Erickson allegedly advised the teenager, “Don’t inform anybody you noticed me, or I’ll break you and your loved ones.”
The WhatsApp messages additionally embody texts the pair exchanged the day Grossman, 62, was discovered responsible in February 2024.
“Good luck my woman, praying for the perfect,” Erickson messaged on the morning of the decision.
When Grossman was discovered responsible, Erickson messaged Grossman to share his disbelief.
“Unbelievable!!!” the previous pitcher wrote.
Grossman’s son Nick later chimed in to close down the dialog, telling Erickson, “Please depart our household alone”.
“Not my fault. Wasn’t there.” Erickson replied, nonetheless sustaining his innocence.
In 2021, Grossman despatched a number of messages to Erickson to finish their relationship. In them, she defined that she was going to show her consideration to her husband Peter, who was standing by her all through her authorized battle and spending “an unlimited sum of money on my authorized protection.”
She advised Erickson in a single Whatsapp observe, “I don’t know if we [Peter] will ever be intimate once more however proper now his dedication to serving to me combat this authorized battle and his love for this household is really particular,”
She added, “I really feel that Peter deserves all my time and love proper now.”
Grossman was convicted of two counts every of second-degree homicide, vehicular manslaughter and one depend of hit-and-run driving and sentenced to fifteen years to life for the killings in June 2024.
She is now in search of a brand new trial — along with her lawyer claiming the decide who oversaw her trial didn’t give a jury sufficient directions earlier than they discovered her responsible.
At trial, a jury heard that she was doing as much as 81 mph in a forty five mph zone in a residential neighborhood seconds earlier than the deaths.
The disgraced socialite’s lawyer advised The Publish she is attempting to maintain a constructive demeanor behind bars.
“It’s not enjoyable as you possibly can think about. It’s jail, so it’s positively not a very good place,” Gressley stated. “However regardless of the horrible circumstances on this case and what occurred the jury didn’t have the suitable info to maintain a homicide cost which is placing her in jail for all times.”
The Iskanders’ dad and mom, Nancy and Karim, didn’t attend the listening to though different supporters confirmed up. The devastated dad and mom have since moved out of California with their two remaining youngsters to start out a brand new life amid their grief.
Nicole Mastro, an in depth household buddy, advised The Publish of Grossman: “There’s substantial proof that this girl murdered these two boys and he or she’s appearing like she didn’t. She doesn’t acknowledge what she did.”
She added of the Iskander household: “It’s horrific for them to relive any a part of this. There’s no closure.”
The Iskanders’ attorneys didn’t mince phrases of their authorized temporary.
“California regulation doesn’t allow a celebration to sanitize related proof of legal responsibility, credibility, bias, and consciousness of accountability merely as a result of it’s embarrassing or personally unflattering,” they wrote.
The romantic relationship, they argued, “explains why they communicated extensively, why they coordinated narratives, and why their pursuits had been aligned after the collision.”
The WhatsApp messages are a part of a movement by the Iskanders in response to Erickson making an attempt to have them excluded from the upcoming wrongful dying civil trial, which begins in April.
Erickson’s legal professionals didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
The civil trial is about to start April 13 in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom.
