Is it OK to omit the "there was" in the following sentence without changing its meaning?

Never in her life had she seen such shocking footage, not to mention two in one day. The experience had shaken her like nothing before. But there was
something else in them that had disturbed her. Something that still
lingered in her mind, like the afterimage of a picture she had overlooked.

I thought of omitting the "there was" in the sentence above:

But something else in them had disturbed her.

Is that grammatically correct? Does the meaning change?

Answer

The longer version emphasises the presence of ‘something else’. The shorter version emphasises her being disturbed.