Kobe Bryant's widow fears fatal crash photos will spread

Kobe Bryant's widow told a court on Friday she was devastated when she learnt first responders had snapped graphic photographs of her dead husband and daughter in the wreckage of the helicopter crash that killed them.

A tearful Vanessa Bryant said she lives in fear of the pictures surfacing on the internet, and "constantly being spread".

"It's like Covid. Once it's spread, you can't get it back," she said.

The late US basketball player Kobe Bryant and wife Vanessa Bryant attend the 2019 Vanity Fair Oscar Party following the 91st Academy Awards. AFP

US basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his teenage daughter were among nine people who died when their chopper smashed into a hillside near Los Angeles, California in 2020.

Ms Bryant alleges she has suffered emotional distress because personnel from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and firefighters took pictures of the scene which they later shared, including at a bar, with friends and other first responders.

She is suing Los Angeles County for unspecified millions of dollars in damages, in a case that has been joined to that of Chris Chester, whose wife and daughter also perished in the crash.

The suits allege negligence and invasion of privacy.

“I was blindsided again, devastated, hurt. I trusted them. I trusted them not to do these things," Ms Bryant testified.

Attorneys say the grisly mobile phone pictures were snapped as "souvenirs" by first responders who had no business taking photos.

Lawyers for Los Angeles County do not dispute that the photos were taken, but insist they have never been made public and have now been deleted.

Mr Chester told the courtroom in Los Angeles of his disbelief when he learned of the pictures a month after the tragedy — including that they