Kobe Bryant Crash Photos Trial Updates
Why a coroner shared graphic description of the bodies from the crash site in testimony
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Vanessa Bryant’s trial against Los Angeles County is set to resume Monday. Among the testimony so far, the jury has heard from a county coroner, who described in graphic detail the state of the victims’ bodies after the crash.
The county had previously opposed letting the coroner describe the bodies. Though the coroner did not share photos with the jury, her verbal description offered a glimpse into what photos shared by county first responders may have shown.
In a pre-trial conference A lawyer for the county told Insider that the plaintiffs aimed “to inflame the jury’s emotions by conflating the coroner’s photos, taken for an entirely different purpose, with the photos taken by the Sheriff’s and Fire Departments.”
But Judge John Walter granted attorneys the ability to call in the coroner, saying that the photos are “plaintiff’s best evidence of what the photos depicted,” and added that they would not be shown publicly at all, not even to the jury.
A law enforcement expert said it’s common for first responders to share victim photos, but that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department should have a policy in place related to photographing human remains
Donato Sardella/Getty Images
Adam Bercovici, a law enforcement expert, was called by Vanessa Bryant’s team to testify on Friday about the policies surrounding saving photos.
He told the court earlier that in his 30 years with the Los Angeles Police Department, he was shown photos of deceased victims on multiple occasions by other officers – including a Polaroid from the scene of Nicole Brown Simpson’s death. Sometimes, crash victims were kept by law enforcement in souvenir “ghoul books.”
Bercovici also chided the LASD’s lack of clear site photo policy related to human remains, and the ensuing deletion order and lack of discipline by Sheriff Alex Villanueva the month after the crash.
“That was not an inquiry, that was calling in deputies to delete evidence,” Bercovici told the court.
An LA Sheriff’s Deputy who photographed Kobe Bryant’s body after the crash has no regrets over the way the pictures were handled
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Doug Johnson was among the first to respond to the crash site in January 2020.
He told the court that he had taken close to 25 photos of human remains at the scene.
Johnson confirmed to the court on Friday that he had no regrets about taking the photos, or about airdropping all of them to LACFD Captain Brian Jordan who Johnson met at the scene. He also airdropped the photos to another man on the scene who he presumed to be a fire official – someone who has not yet been identified in the process of litigation.
Friday’s testimony exposed a worrisome blind spot in the County’s handling of the crash: Officials aren’t even entirely sure they can trace back every photo, and no staff phones were forensically searched in internal investigations.
A woman whose family members died in the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash later saw LA County officials sharing photos of the crash at a gala
Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images
A woman who lost two family members in the January 2020 helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna testified in court on Friday that weeks after the tragedy, she witnessed LA County fire officials sharing gruesome photos of the crash site at a gala.
Luella Weireter, an integral witness in Bryant’s case, is intrinsically tied to the tragedy; she lost her cousin and in-law in the crash; later witnessed LA county fire officials sharing photos from the scene; and testified on Friday that she previously witnessed an LA sheriff’s deputy snap a gruesome photo of a suicide victim in an unrelated matter when she worked as an EMT.
Weireter was one of two private citizens who filed complaints against LA County alleging that she saw two LA fire officials sharing graphic photos from the crash site at an awards ceremony less than a month after the tragedy.
Weireter testified that she heard one official say, “I can’t believe I just looked at Kobe’s burnt-up body and I’m about to eat.”
Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy showed a bartender graphic photos of Kobe Bryant’s body. Video evidence showed them laughing afterwards.
AP Photo/Jessica Hill
A private citizen said he felt a “sense of betrayal” when a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy showed grisly photos of Kobe Bryant’s dead body to a bartender, who went table-to-table telling patrons and employees about what he had just seen.
A top LA County coroner described in graphic testimony what Kobe Bryant’s body looked like
Matt Sayles/AP Images
A top Los Angeles County coroner on Thursday testified in graphic detail about the state of Kobe Bryant’s body following the 2020 helicopter crash.
Testimony from Capt. Emily Tauscher, the head of investigations at the LA County coroner’s office, took center stage on the second day of the trial between Vanessa Bryant and Los Angeles County.
Tauscher painted a gruesome picture of the crash site, offering detailed insight into the grisly scene that would’ve been captured in the photos. She also discussed the photo practices of the coroner’s office — describing a more ad-hoc approach to site photography in the sheriff’s department’s system that could’ve allowed photos to be taken and shared.
Lakers GM Rob Pelinka described visiting the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash site with Vanessa Bryant
(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Six months after the deadly helicopter crash, Lakers General Manager Rob Pelinka and Vanessa Bryant took an all-terrain vehicle up the nearly 1,200-foot hill where Kobe and Gigi died.
“Part of her journey of grief and healing was that she wanted to touch the soil from where they went to heaven,” Pelinka told the court on Wednesday of Vanessa’s decision to visit the crash site. “We just knew that they were with us.”
Pelinka’s emotional testimony provided a window into Vanessa Bryant’s emotional state after the crash, and how her distress was compounded after learning that illicit crash site photos were taken.
County lawyer says first responders ‘put their lives on the line’ to respond to crash
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)
In opening statements, county attorney Mira Hashmall said that first responders from various agencies documented the crash site per their agency policies and “put their lives on the line” to respond to the crash and put out a resulting bushfire.
Hashmall added in her opening statement that 18 different federal and state agencies responded to the crash scene, including the FBI – and claimed that media agencies were the only entities who publicly disseminated photos of the crash.
Hashmall said LASD Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s deletion order to staff who took photos helped “contain” the spread of the photos amid “lapses in judgment” from County staff who sent photos to each other.
Vanessa Bryant said in her deposition that she learned of the crash via social media.
