A British woman, Lucy Harrison, was shot dead by her father while visiting his home in Texas, United States over an argument with him earlier that day about US President Donald Trump, an inquest has heard.
Harrison, 23, from Warrington in Cheshire, was shot in the chest on 10 January 2025 in Prosper, near Dallas.
Police initially investigated her death as possible manslaughter, but no criminal case was brought against her father, Kris Harrison, after a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict him.
An inquest into Lucy Harrison’s death opened at Cheshire Coroner’s Court, where her boyfriend, Sam Littler, described a “big argument” about Trump, who was preparing to be inaugurated for his second term.
Littler told the court Lucy would often become upset when her father spoke about owning a gun.
The hearing also heard that Kris Harrison, who moved to the United States when Lucy was a child, had previously been to rehab for alcohol addiction.
In a statement sent to the court, Harrison admitted he had relapsed on the day of the shooting and drank about 500ml of white wine.
Littler said that during the argument on the morning of 10 January, Lucy had asked her father: “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
He said Harrison replied that because he had two other daughters living with him, it would not upset him that much.
Littler said Lucy became “quite upset” and ran upstairs.
He told the court that later that day, around half an hour before they were due to leave for the airport, Lucy was in the kitchen when her father took her by the hand and led her into his ground-floor bedroom.
Littler said he heard a loud bang about 15 seconds later before Harrison screamed for his wife, Heather.
He said: “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.”
In his statement, Kris Harrison said he and his daughter had been watching a news report about gun crime when he told her he owned a gun and asked if she wanted to see it.
He said they went into the bedroom so he could show her a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun kept in his bedside cabinet.
Harrison said he bought the gun a couple of years earlier because he wanted a “sense of security” for his family.
He denied ever discussing the gun with Lucy before.
He said: “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 told the court he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger.
Harrison acknowledged past issues with alcohol and said he “briefly lapsed” that day because he was emotional about Lucy leaving.
The inquest heard evidence from police officer Luciana Escalera, who noticed the smell of alcohol on Harrison’s breath when she arrived at the house.
CCTV footage showed Harrison had bought two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay from a 7-Eleven store shortly before 13:00 CST that day.
At the start of the hearing, Ana Samuel, representing Kris Harrison, applied for coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself, arguing a fair-minded observer might conclude there was a “real possibility she was biased”.
Samuel said the inquest was being conducted “in a manner more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry”.
Lois Norris, representing Lucy’s mother Jane Coates, called the application an “ambush” and said Harrison was the only person in the room when Lucy was shot.
Devonish refused the request to step aside.
In a statement issued through his solicitors, Kris Harrison said he “fully accepted” the consequences of his actions.
“There isn’t a day I don’t feel the weight of that loss, a weight I will carry for the rest of my life,” he said.
Coates described her daughter, who worked as a buyer for fashion brand Boohoo, as a “real force of life”.
She said: “She cared. She was passionate about things. She loved to have debates about things that meant a lot to her.”
The inquest was adjourned until Wednesday, when the coroner is expected to deliver her conclusions.
(BBC)
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