Vanessa Bryant testifies this Friday that while she was only beginning to overcome the loss of her husband, basketball star Kobe Bryant, and their 13-year-old daughter Gianna when she discovered that the sheriff's officers and firefighters had taken photos of their bodies at the scene of the fatal helicopter crash, she was confronted with a brand-new nightmare.

“I felt like I wanted to run, run down the block and scream,” she said, her tears turning to sobs and her voice quickening. “It was like the feeling of wanting to run down a pier and jump into the water. The problem is I can’t escape. I can’t escape my body.”

Bryant testified for three hours in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles where she is suing L.A. County for invasion of privacy related to the images. Bryant claimed that she had struggled to attend both public and private memorials for her loved ones as well as seven other people who were killed on January 26, 2020, and that she had felt ready to start grieving about a month later. When she got the call about the Los Angeles Times report on the crash-site images, she was cuddling her 7-month-old newborn and hanging out with friends and her surviving girls.

“I bolted out of the house and around to the side so my girls wouldn’t see,” she said. “I was blindsided again, devastated, hurt. I trusted them. I trusted them not to do these things.”

At trial, it was established through evidence that firefighters shared pictures of Bryant's body with one another at an awards banquet and that a sheriff's deputy had shown a bartender a picture of Bryant's body while they were both drinking. This caused another man drinking nearby to file a formal complaint. Others gave them to their partners. According to a county attorney, the images were only taken because they were necessary for assessing the crash site right away, and L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva sought their deletion as soon as he heard they were being shared.

Even though no photos emerged publicly, Vanessa Bryant said she has the constant worry that some still might.

“I live in fear every day of being on social media and these popping up,” she testified. “I live in fear of my daughters being on social media and these popping up.”

As she sleeps next to her 3- and 5-year-old children, she claims that the thought keeps her up at night and can occasionally cause panic episodes that leave her unable to breathe. Bryant stated during cross-examination by J. Mira Hashmall, the attorney defending LA County at the trial, that she had never been diagnosed with having panic attacks or any other mental health issue, and she had never taken any drugs for them.

She said she had talked to a therapist for about 18 months after the crash but had not since.

“I feel like sometimes it helps,” Bryant said, “but sometimes it’s completely draining.”

Hashmall focused a large portion of her 90-minute cross-examination on Bryant's current professional responsibilities, which include leading the foundation for Kobe and Gianna, establishing several other businesses, serving as president of her husband's multimedia company, Granity Studios, supervising the publication of one book he wrote and assisting with the completion and publication of another, acting as president of one book.

Hashmall suggested that Bryant’s ability to do all of this meant she was functioning well and was not overcome with fear and anxiety.

“It sounds like on top of everything else you’re juggling a business empire,” Hashmall said at one point.

“For me, it’s a labor of love,” said Bryant, who remained calm and composed during cross-examination.

She cried frequently, and laughed occasionally, during the questioning of her attorney Luis Li, who had her describe her life with her “proud girl-dad” husband and their daughters.

“He was just such a beautiful and devoted father,” she said.

After learning through an assistant that there were five survivors, Bryant wrote about the day of the disaster, her suffering, and her frustration in trying to find out if her husband and daughter were still alive.

She related how she waited in a room at the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station when Sheriff Villanueva entered and confirmed that her husband and daughter had been dead. If there was anything he could do to help her, he enquired.

“I told him, if you can’t bring my babies back, then please secure the area,” Bryant said. “I’m concerned about paparazzi.”

“Did the sheriff tell you one of his deputies had already gone to the hill to take close-up pictures of crash victims?” Li asked.

“No,” Bryant responded.

Deputy Doug Johnson, who trekked over challenging terrain into the hills in northern Los Angeles County to the crash site and took the images that were ultimately shared, was just trying to utilise them to analyse the situation, according to Hashmall under cross-examination.

“You can understand why he would want the same information you did,” Hashmall said.

“I don’t think you need to take close-up photos of people to determine how many people are on an aircraft,” Bryant replied. “I think he could have just counted.”

Bryant’s side rested its case after her testimony, which came on the eighth day of the trial.

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