A British woman visiting her father in Texas was shot fatally in the chest during a tense argument about President Trump, an inquest heard on Tuesday, February 10, 2026, at Cheshire Coroner’s Court.
Lucy Harrison, 23, from Great Sankey in Warrington, died on January 10, 2025, at the home of her father, Kris Harrison, in Prosper, Texas, after being hit by a round fired from a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun. The shooting occurred just minutes before she and her boyfriend, Samuel Littler, were due to leave for the airport.
The inquest was told that Harrison and her father had engaged in a “serious argument” about President Trump earlier that day. Trump’s second inauguration was set to take place 10 days later. The discussion escalated when Lucy, who opposed firearms, asked her father: “How would you feel if I were the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
Kris Harrison replied that he had two other daughters living with him, so it “wouldn’t upset him that much,” according to Littler’s testimony.
The comment left Lucy “very distressed,” and she ran upstairs. Later on, the family appeared to have made peace and shared a meal before her planned trip home.
About half an hour before they were due to leave for the airport, Kris Harrison took Lucy by the hand and led her to his ground-floor bedroom. Littler stated that he heard a loud bang roughly 15 seconds later, followed by Harrison calling out for his wife, Heather.
“I ran into the room and saw Lucy on the floor near the bathroom doorway, and Kris was just shouting incoherently,” Littler told the court.
In a statement presented to the court, Kris Harrison said he and Lucy had been watching a news segment about gun violence when he mentioned owning a firearm and asked whether she wanted to see it. He said she agreed, and they went to his bedroom, where the gun was kept in a locked container inside his bedside drawer.
Harrison had bought the firearm two years earlier, saying he wanted it for a sense of protection for his family. Texas law does not require a license for firearms kept at home for defensive purposes.
“As I picked up the gun to show her, I suddenly heard a loud bang,” Harrison said. “I didn’t understand what had happened. Lucy collapsed immediately.”
He told investigators he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger when he removed the handgun from its storage case.
The inquest heard that Harrison had previously undergone treatment for alcohol dependency and admitted he had “briefly relapsed” on the day Lucy died, saying he was emotional about her upcoming departure.
Security footage showed Harrison purchasing two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay at a 7-Eleven shortly before 1 p.m. He consumed about 500ml of wine over the next two to three hours. Police officer Luciana Escalera, whose testimony was read in court, reported detecting alcohol on his breath when she responded to the incident.
Tests confirmed that Lucy Harrison had no alcohol or drugs in her system when she died. Five individuals were inside the house when police arrived.
The Prosper Police Department initially treated the case as a potential criminally negligent homicide. However, a grand jury in Collin County chose not to indict Kris Harrison on June 10, 2025 — exactly five months after the shooting — issuing a “no-bill” ruling.
Jane Coates, Lucy’s mother, said the decision was bewildering and impossible to accept, noting that it meant no one would be held responsible for her daughter’s death.
Through his legal representatives, Kris Harrison released a statement expressing profound remorse for what had occurred.
Harrison did not appear at the inquest. His legal team unsuccessfully attempted to have senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish step aside, arguing the proceedings had started to resemble “a criminal investigation rather than a fact-finding inquiry.”
Coates described her daughter — a fashion buyer for Boohoo and a graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University — as “a tremendous force of life.”
Littler, who first met Lucy when they were students at Great Sankey High School, said he was “one of the lucky few who found ‘their person’ at a young age, and I’ll always be grateful for that, even if only for a moment.”
The pair had purchased their first home nine months before the trip and had celebrated their first Christmas together just days before flying to Texas from Heathrow. Lucy had texted her mother that she was packed and preparing to leave for the airport just 15 minutes before the shooting.
Her funeral was held at St Elphin’s Parish Church in Warrington, England, on February 24, 2025.