LOS ANGELES \u2013 Vanessa Bryant broke down and cried on the witness stand here Friday in federal court, wiping her eyes and struggling through much of her testimony as she described her reaction to a troubling discovery in February 2020.<\/p>\n
She remembers it vividly. She was in a game room watching television with her family and friends when another friend called her to share the news:<\/p>\n
Gruesome photos of her deceased daughter and husband, Kobe, the NBA legend, had apparently been taken and shared after they died in a helicopter crash on Jan. 26, 2020. Two days after the accident, a Los Angeles County sheriff\u2019s deputy trainee even showed grisly crash scene photos to a bartender at a Mexican restaurant<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI bolted out of the house, and I ran to the side of the house so my girls couldn\u2019t see me,\u201d Bryant testified. \u201cAnd I broke down and cried and just felt like I wanted to run.\u00a0I just wanted to run down the block and just scream\u2026 \u00a0like wanting to run down the pier and just taking your clothes off and running and jumping into the ocean. But the problem is I just can\u2019t escape. I can\u2019t escape my body. I can\u2019t escape what I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n This was Day 8 of Bryant\u2019s civil trial against Los Angeles County<\/a>, arguably the biggest day of the trial so far because it was the first day the jury of five men and four women heard from Bryant and the county sheriff, Alex Villanueva. Bryant brought this case to trial after suing the county and accusing county sheriff\u2019s and fire department employees of taking grisly close-up photos of human remains<\/a> from the crash scene despite having no\u00a0legitimate business reason for doing so.<\/p>\n Bryant answered questions on the stand for nearly three\u00a0hours and covered several key areas of the case, including why she filed this lawsuit, how she learned of the crash and how the photos issue has affected her.\u00a0She said\u00a0she has suffered\u00a0panic attacks about it, to the point she says it feels like she can\u2019t breathe.<\/p>\n \u201cI live in fear every day,\u201d Bryant testified, implying the photos could re-emerge at any moment, even though the county says they were deleted soon after the crash and were never posted online.<\/p>\n\n Bryant said she says a special prayer every night for her husband and daughter and thinks about \u201cwhy they\u2019re not here.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then I think about what was done to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She noted her husband\u2019s body was recovered on the day of the crash, but her daughter\u2019s body was not recovered until the next day.<\/p>\n \u201cHer body was found in a ravine, so anyone who has photographs of her, they would have had to go out of their\u00a0way,\u201d Bryant said through tears. \u201cSo they violated her, taking advantage of the fact that her daddy couldn\u2019t protect her. He was at the morgue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Bryant is joined at trial by Chris Chester, who lost his wife and daughter in the same crash and also sued the county for similar reasons. Both say the county violated their constitutional rights to control the death images of their loved ones. They claim they suffered emotional distress because of the county\u2019s conduct and are seeking damages to be determined at trial.<\/p>\n Bryant started her testimony by telling the jury about her background and family life before recounting how she learned of the fatal crash. Her testimony about this was similar to her pretrial deposition testimony last year<\/a> but still brought the tragedy to life for the jurors on Friday.<\/p>\n She testified about\u00a0how an assistant knocked on her door in an aggressive manner that morning and eventually told her there had been a helicopter accident. The initial word was that there were\u00a0\u201cfive survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n Then Bryant\u00a0looked at her phone and saw comments that read, \u201cRIP Kobe.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE:<\/strong>Why the Vanessa Bryant trial over Kobe crash photos has gotten so gruesome<\/a><\/p>\n MORE:<\/strong>Witnesses squirm as they testify about Kobe crash photos<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Vanessa](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2022\/08\/19\/USAT\/bb92dd69-c1be-4476-ab1a-3d8bd42bba3e-newvanessa.jpg?width=660&height=440&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
<\/figure>\nThe day of the crash<\/strong><\/h2>\n