Investigators have learned that a British woman was shot and killed by her father last year, right after the pair argued about President Donald Trump.
Lucy Harrison, a 23-year-old woman from Cheshire in northwest England, had traveled to the United States to visit her family in Dallas, Texas, shortly after the holidays when she died.
Her father, 51-year-old Kris Harrison, had moved to the United States when Lucy was young.
Harrison’s boyfriend, Sam Littler, told investigators that he accompanied her on the trip overseas.
On Jan. 10, 2025, the day Littler and Harrison were set to leave Texas, Littler said a “big” argument broke out between Harrison and her father about Trump, shortly before his inauguration.
“Kris and Lucy ended up having quite a big argument which led to Lucy running upstairs and being upset,” Littler told investigators.
Littler recalled Lucy asking her father, “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
Her father responded by saying he had two other daughters in his home, so he would not be that upset.
Shortly before Littler and Harrison were set to head to the airport, Littler said Lucy had been in the kitchen when her father grabbed her by the hand and led her to his ground-floor bedroom.
In those next few moments, Littler said he heard a loud bang and then heard Kris Harrison call for his wife.
“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 reportedly told investigators.
In a statement from Kris Harrison obtained by the BBC, Harrison claimed that he and Lucy were watching a news piece on gun crime, and he used that as a segue to ask if she wanted to see a gun he owned.
When he took her into his bedroom to show her a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun that he kept in his bedside cabinet, he said the gun went off.
“As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell,” Harrison’s statement said.
He added that he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger.
Harrison said he bought the gun a couple of years ago because he wanted a “sense of security” for his family, but he never discussed the firearm with Lucy before.
Littler said that Lucy would often become upset when her father talked about owning guns.
Authorities learned that Kris Harrison had previously been to rehab for alcohol addiction. The 51-year-old also admitted that he relapsed the day of his daughter’s death because he was upset about her leaving for the United Kingdom.
Harrison did not attend an inquest hearing to provide a defense. His attorney, Ana Samuel, said the inquest into his daughter’s death was “more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry.”
Harrison later issued a statement through his attorneys:
“I fully accept the consequences of my actions, and 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, and I know that nothing I say can ease the heartbreak this tragedy has caused.
I cannot undo what happened, but I can honour Lucy by being the best father I can be to her sisters and by carrying her memory forward in everything we do.
I am deeply sorry for the pain others feel from this tragedy. Lucy’s spirit – her warmth, her humour, her kindness – will live on in all of us who loved her.”
Lucy’s mother, Jane Coates, remembered her daughter 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.
Other family members also described her as having “a huge capacity to love and be loved.”
“She could be dramatic and elaborate situations like it was the end of the world, yet she could also be straight talking and not afraid to have bold conversations. She was truly thriving in life and although this gives us great comfort, we are utterly heartbroken at the loss of our beautiful, gorgeous Luce,” the family wrote in a statement, per the Cheshire Constabulary.
