A British woman who was shot dead while visiting her father in Texas had argued with him about US President Donald Trump earlier that day, an inquest has heard.
Lucy Harrison, 23, from Warrington in Cheshire, was shot in the chest on 10 January 2025 at her father’s home in Prosper, near Dallas.
Police initially investigated her death as possible manslaughter. However, no criminal charges were brought after a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict her father, Kris Harrison.
An inquest into her death opened at Cheshire Coroner’s Court, where her boyfriend, Sam Littler, gave evidence about the events leading up to the shooting.
Littler told the court the couple had travelled to the United States for a holiday. On the morning of the shooting, Lucy and her father had a “big argument” about Donald Trump, who was preparing to be inaugurated for a second term as US president.
He said Lucy often became upset when her father spoke about owning a gun.
During the argument, Littler said Lucy asked her father: “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
According to Littler, Kris Harrison replied that he had two other daughters living with him and that it would not upset him that much.
Littler told the court Lucy became “quite upset” and ran upstairs.
About 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.
Roughly 15 seconds later, he heard a loud bang.
“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 told the court.
In a statement read to the inquest, 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, which he kept in his bedside cabinet.
“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.
He added that he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger.
Harrison said he bought the weapon a few years earlier for a “sense of security” and denied ever previously discussing it with his daughter.
The inquest heard that Kris Harrison had previously undergone rehabilitation for alcohol addiction.
In his statement, he admitted relapsing on the day of the shooting and drinking about 500ml of white wine. CCTV footage showed he had bought two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay from a 7-Eleven store shortly before 13:00 CST.
Police officer Luciana Escalera, whose evidence was read in court, said she noticed the smell of alcohol on his breath when attending the scene.
Harrison said he had “briefly lapsed” because he was emotional about his daughter leaving.
At the start of proceedings, Harrison’s legal representative, Ana Samuel, asked coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself, arguing that a fair-minded observer might see a “real possibility” of bias.
She claimed the inquest had been conducted more like a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry.
Lois Norris, representing Lucy’s mother Jane Coates, described the application as an “ambush” and noted that Kris Harrison was the only other person in the room at the time of the shooting.
The coroner refused the application.
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.
Lucy’s mother described her daughter, who worked as a buyer for fashion brand Boohoo, as a “real force of life”.
“She cared. She was passionate about things. She loved to have debates about things that meant a lot to her,” Coates said.
The inquest has been adjourned until Wednesday, when the coroner is expected to deliver her conclusions.
