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Steamy WhatsApp messages Rebecca Grossman and her lover show the couple co-ordination stories while exchanging ‘I love yous’ as prosecutors attempted to unravel what happened on the night 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 girl,” the ex-Dodgers pitcher cooed to the wealthy socialite, just days after the fatal collision on Sept. 29, 2020, that left the two boys, ages 11 and 8, dead in 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 just ahead of her.
The wealthy socialite raced down a suburban street after leaving the date, before hitting the brothers and coming to a stop in her badly damaged car on a nearby street.
The four years’ worth of messages, now part of court filings in the Iskanders’ wrongful death civil suit against both Grossman and Erickson, show the lovers were continually in contact, even as Grossman’s defense team argued it was Erickson behind the wheel of the car that hit the two boys.
The messages have come to light as Grossman seeks to overturn her double murder conviction.
The romance was blossoming just weeks after the tragedy in October, 2020 — the soppy messages reveal.
“I put my broken heart with a band aid in that little box so I want you to keep it next to your bedside wherever you are ok?” Grossman texted Erickson on Oct. 28, 2020.
“Thank you for the music video, LOVE YOU,” she gushed in December.
But things took a sinister turn as the trial was heating up and Erickson messaged Grossman in shock as he realized her team was trying to pin the crime on him.
“Can’t believe my ears today, huge and very stupid mistake to let them make those accusations. I’m shocked.” he wrote.
“Just lost your best eye witness,” Erickson followed up in another message.
A couple of days later Grossman replied to deny her team was blaming him.
“My team has been very careful not to use your name associated with the car in front of me,” she wrote.
By early February, Erickson, still frustrated, wrote to Grossman, “Telling some crazy lies was a strange way to get to the truth.”
Just months after the crash, Grossman was already trying to steer Erickson’s legal strategy.
“You need to send this to your attorney,” she texted on Jan. 26, 2021, including a link to a podcast titled “Second Driver a Mystery No More.”
Erickson, who pitched for the Dodgers, Twins, Orioles and Yankees during his 15-year MLB career, had been driving near Grossman that fateful night. But exactly how close and whether his vehicle struck the boys — became the million-dollar question.
Earlier during the trial, Grossman messaged Erickson repeatedly trying to convince him to speak to her criminal attorneys — and at one point told him her daughter Alexis would be made to testify which would “raise eyebrows” and look “badly for you.”
“Not sure why you would try to threaten me, all it does is strengthen my position that I was already parked unable to go back on foot,” Erickson wrote in December 2023.
Erickson is alleged to have fled his car and hid in bushes shortly after the crash. Grossman’s daughter spotted him and had an interaction — which she didn’t initially admit to authorities.
“Why did your mom stop? Why did your mom stop?” Alexis claimed Erickson said, during a testimony in February 2024, according to the LA Times. “He seemed very angry. He was frantic. I could smell alcohol on him. He was freaking out. I was scared.”
During his panic-stricken rage, Erickson allegedly told the teen, “Don’t tell anyone you saw me, or I will ruin you and your family.”
The WhatsApp messages also include texts the pair exchanged the day Grossman, 62, was found guilty in February 2024.
“Good luck my lady, praying for the best,” Erickson messaged on the morning of the verdict.
When Grossman was found guilty, Erickson messaged Grossman to share his disbelief.
“Unbelievable!!!” the former pitcher wrote.
Grossman’s son Nick later chimed in to shut down the conversation, telling Erickson, “Please leave our family alone”.
“Not my fault. Wasn’t there.” Erickson replied, still maintaining his innocence.
In 2021, Grossman sent several messages to Erickson to end their relationship. In them, she explained that she was going to turn her attention to her husband Peter, who was standing by her throughout her legal battle and spending “an enormous amount of money on my legal defense.”
She told Erickson in one Whatsapp note, “I don’t know if we [Peter] will ever be intimate again but right now his dedication to helping me fight this legal battle and his love for this family is truly special,”
She added, “I feel that Peter deserves all my time and love right now.”
Grossman was convicted of two counts each of second-degree murder, vehicular manslaughter and one count of hit-and-run driving and sentenced to 15 years to life for the killings in June 2024.
She is now seeking a new trial — with her lawyer claiming the judge who oversaw her trial didn’t give a jury adequate instructions before they found her guilty.
At trial, a jury heard that she was doing up to 81 mph in a 45 mph zone in a residential neighborhood seconds before the deaths.
The disgraced socialite’s attorney told The Post she is trying to keep a positive demeanor behind bars.
“It’s not fun as you can imagine. It’s prison, so it’s definitely not a good place,” Gressley said. “But despite the terrible circumstances in this case and what happened the jury did not have the appropriate information to sustain a murder charge which is putting her in prison for life.”
The Iskanders’ parents, Nancy and Karim, did not attend the hearing although other supporters showed up. The devastated parents have since moved out of California with their two remaining children to start a new life amid their grief.
Nicole Mastro, a close family friend, told The Post of Grossman: “There’s substantial evidence that this woman murdered these two boys and she’s acting like she did not. She doesn’t acknowledge what she did.”
She added of the Iskander family: “It’s horrific for them to relive any part of this. There’s no closure.”
The Iskanders’ attorneys didn’t mince words in their legal brief.
“California law does not permit a party to sanitize relevant evidence of liability, credibility, bias, and consciousness of responsibility merely because it is embarrassing or personally unflattering,” they wrote.
The romantic relationship, they argued, “explains why they communicated extensively, why they coordinated narratives, and why their interests were aligned after the collision.”
The WhatsApp messages are part of a motion by the Iskanders in response to Erickson attempting to have them excluded from the upcoming wrongful death civil trial, which begins in April.
Erickson’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The civil trial is set to begin April 13 in Los Angeles Superior Court.
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