A British woman was fatally shot by her own father while visiting his Texas home after a “big argument” about President Donald Trump took place earlier in the day, the BBC reports.
Lucy Harrison, 23, of Cheshire, was shot in the chest in Prosper, Texas, on January 10, 2025. Kris Harrison, who moved to the United States when his daughter was a child, was investigated for possible manslaughter but no criminal case was brought against him as a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict him.
An inquest into Lucy’s death was opened at Cheshire Coroner’s Court where her boyfriend, Sam Littler, who traveled to Texas with her, claimed the incident took place after a “big argument” about Trump, who was 10 days away from being inaugurated at the time. Littler said Lucy would often become upset when her father, who had previously been to rehab for alcohol addiction, spoke about owning a gun.
Kris, who didn’t attend the inquest, admitted in a statement sent to the court that he’d relapsed on the day of the incident, having consumed about 500ml of white wine. Littler said that Lucy had asked her father during the Trump argument, “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?” to which he replied that he had two other daughters who lived with him and wouldn’t be upset that much.
Littler said Lucy was “quite upset” by the response and ran upstairs and later in the day, about half an hour before the couple was set to leave to go to the airport, Lucy’s father took her by the hand and led her into his ground-floor bedroom. Littler said he heard a loud bang and Kris screaming for his wife, Heather, about 15 seconds later.
“I remember running into the room and Lucy was lying on the floor near the entrance to the bathroom and Kris was just screaming, just sort of nonsense,” Littler said.
Kris said he and his daughter had watched a news segment on gun crime when he told her he had a gun and asked her if she wanted to see it. The two went into the bedroom where the Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun was kept in a bedside cabinet.
Kris said he bought the gun a couple years prior as he wanted a “sense of security” for his family but denied ever discussing it with his daughter previously.
“As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell,” he said, claiming he couldn’t recall whether his finger was on the trigger at the time.
Harrison claimed he had “briefly lapsed” on alcohol as he was emotional about his daughter leaving. Police officer Luciana Escalera, whose evidence was read during the inquest, said she smelled alcohol on Kris’ breath when she responded to the shooting and surveillance footage showed he bought two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay at 7-Eleven earlier in the day.
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