Vanessa Bryant: I’m willing to go through hell and back to get justice for my husband and daughter

(CN) — Vanessa Bryant, the surviving wife of Laker star Kobe Bryant, told a court on Friday, “I live in fear every day of being on social media and the pictures coming out.” She was referring to photos of the crash scene taken by a sheriff’s deputy and Los Angeles County fire officials on the day of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, daughter and seven others.

Bryant is suing the county over the handling of the photos. But in the first eight days of the trial, almost everything about them is up for debate: how much they are, what exactly they show, why they were taken and why they were shared. The photos were never published. But both Bryant and the other plaintiff in the case, Christopher Chester, whose wife and daughter were also killed in the crash, say they remain haunted by the possibility that the graphic images will one day surface.

Bryant’s emotional testimony on Friday was one of the first times she has publicly addressed the crash and the controversy surrounding the photos. She told the court she was “devastated” when she learned the pictures had been taken, that her first instinct was to “run across the block and just scream”.

“I expected them to have compassion, respect,” she said, referring to first responders. “My husband and daughter deserved dignity.

“Every night,” she said, “I think about what was done to them.”

She later said she sometimes imagines lawmakers sharing their photos and laughing at them. She said the fear of having the photos made public gave her panic attacks.

During cross-examination, Mira Hashmol, the attorney representing Los Angeles County in the case, suggested that Bryant’s panic attacks may have come from other sources. For example, she pointed to numerous companies, foundations, trusts and LLCs all controlled — at least on paper — by Bryant.

“On top of everything else, it sounds like you’re juggling a business empire,” Hashmol said. She added that perhaps the lawsuit itself is stressing her out even more.

I am willing to go through hell and back to get justice for my husband and daughter,” Bryant replied.

In their opening arguments, attorneys for Bryant and Chester described some of the photos of the crash scene taken by a sheriff’s deputy and two fire officials as close-ups of human remains, gruesome images of headless torsos, severed limbs and organs strewn over charcoal land. Some testimony given by first responders, as well as early interviews conducted by the sheriff’s department’s internal affairs division, supported that story.

But much of the testimony of law enforcement officials called to testify by the plaintiffs during this trial paints a much different picture. Sheriff’s deputies and fire officials now say the photos were wide shots depicting the crash scene as a whole, rather than focusing on human remains. Deputies also say the photos served a real investigative purpose: They documented a scene that may have been about to be changed and helped first responders understand the scope of the scene. They could also help identify the helicopter.

Plaintiffs, meanwhile, claim the deputies took the photos as macabre souvenirs or trophies. Their account was supported by news interviews given by Sheriff Alex Villanueva in the weeks after the crash. At the time, the Los Angeles County Sheriff-elect told the media that the only people who had a legitimate reason to photograph the crash victims were the coroner’s office and the National Transportation Safety Board, a federal agency. He also said there was a long-standing practice of deputies collecting gruesome photographs of dead bodies from crime scenes and storing them in so-called “death books.”

After Bryant’s testimony, the plaintiffs dropped their case. As their first witness, the county called Sheriff Villanueva, in part to explain those early interviews. He attempted to do so by explaining that he was speaking with limited information and had not been “educated” about the procedures governing crash scene photos taken by personal cellphones. The situation, he said, was unique — “the first to my knowledge.”

He defended the actions of some of his deputies, saying the deputy who originally took the photos “did his job” and that some of the photos were shared for legitimate reasons.

A key question in the trial is exactly why Sheriff Villanueva ordered the photos deleted, an action the plaintiffs argue amounts to destruction of evidence, perhaps even a cover-up.

But the sheriff said deleting the photos was the only way to prevent them from getting out.

When he first heard of the existence of the crash site photos, he told his staff, “These photos will never see the light of day.” Soon all the MPs who had taken and received the pictures were asked to come in to discuss the situation. But some wanted to have a lawyer with them. That, Villanueva said, would take too much time.

“In soccer, they call it sonic,” Villanueva said. He took what he called a “bold step”: he offered the deputies “amnesty” as long as they came forward immediately, deleted the photos and told investigators who they sent them to. While the images never appeared online, employees would leave with only a “performance log entry” — essentially a warning.

“That was the deal that got them into the station,” Villanueva testified. — And it worked. He added: “That was our main concern: to make sure the pictures never got out. Then responsibility. We had to choose one or the other, and we chose correctly.” He later added, “The fact that [they] haven’t hit social media, tells me they’ve done a thorough job.”

Hashmall had previously asked Bryant if deleting the photos wasn’t the right thing to do — that is, if it didn’t make them less likely to get out. Bryant responded, “It made it less likely that we would be able to recover evidence.”

The case will resume on Monday, with closing arguments expected early in the week.