Vanessa Bryant cried on the stand on Friday as she recalled her agony at finding that first responders had released photographs of the scene where her husband, NBA icon Kobe Bryant, and their teenage daughter’s bodies were discovered after their helicopter crashed in January 2020.

Bryant sobbed so hard that her body trembled and she looked to be hiccupping and gasping for air. She said she fled out of her house when she learned the images were being published in a Los Angeles Times piece so her surviving kids wouldn’t see her cry.

“I felt like I wanted to run down the block and scream,” she stated in the court. “I can’t escape my body. I can’t escape what I feel.”

Bryant indicated that she was “surprised, upset, wounded, and betrayed” by the county workers who released the images, although she had not seen them.

“I don’t ever want to see these photographs,” she stated. “I want to remember them as they were.”

Bryant is still concerned that they may end up on the internet.

“I live in fear everyday of seeing on social media and having these images pop up,” she says.

On cross-examination, Bryant resisted accusations that her anxiety stemmed from feeling burdened by the task of raising her family alone while carrying on her late husband’s inheritance.

“I’m willing to go through hell and back for my husband and daughter,” she stated.

She contends that just deleting the photographs, as the county claims the first responders have done, is insufficient for the parents of a child pornography victim.

“Evidence is evidence and should be treated as evidence,” she added.

Bryant’s three-hour testimony came on the eighth day of her invasion of privacy trial in federal court in Los Angeles. She has attended every day of the trial, wiping away tears and exiting the courtroom when particularly unpleasant testimony or evidence is presented.

Bryant, dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, smiled at the cameras as she entered the courthouse with her attorneys on Friday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva testified after Bryant that he made the “brave move” of extending amnesty to any first responder who came forward and gave up their accident site images.

Los Angeles County had opposed the motion to depose Villanueva and other county officials, claiming that they were not defendants in the lawsuit and that the leaders of government agencies are not normally subject to depositions. Last October, a local magistrate disagreed and ordered Villanueva to testify.

When the sheriff was forced to admit that several deputies who were involved in a botched internal investigation into the crash site photos had subsequently been promoted, including his chief of staff, Cmdr. John Satterfield, the questioning of Villanueva by Bryant’s attorney, Luis Li, became hostile.

In response to the leaked images, Villanueva stated that he believes they were all destroyed, but that only “God knows and that’s all there is to it.”

Villanueva, who is seeking reelection, will be joined on the campaign trail next week by Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone.

Bryant and Chris Chester, whose wife, Sarah, and daughter, Payton, 13, were also killed in the incident, are suing Los Angeles County in federal court for unspecified damages for mental anguish.