A British woman vacationing at her father’s home in Texas was fatally shot in the chest following a heated argument about President Trump, an inquest heard Tuesday, February 10, 2026, at Cheshire Coroner’s Court.
Lucy Harrison, 23, from Great Sankey in Warrington, died on January 10, 2025, at her father Kris Harrison’s home in Prosper, Texas, after being shot with a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun. The shooting occurred just minutes before she was due to leave for the airport with her boyfriend, Samuel Littler.
The inquest revealed that Harrison and her father had engaged in a “big argument” about President Trump on the morning of her death. Trump was due to be inaugurated for his second term 10 days later. The disagreement escalated when Lucy, who was staunchly anti-gun, asked her father: “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
Kris Harrison replied that he had two other daughters who lived with him, so it would not upset him that much, according to Littler’s testimony.
The comment left Lucy “quite upset,” and she ran upstairs. The argument appeared to resolve, and the family shared lunch together before the couple’s planned departure.
About 30 minutes before they were scheduled to leave for the airport, Kris Harrison took his daughter by the hand and led her to his ground-floor bedroom. Littler told the court he heard a loud bang about 15 seconds later, followed by Harrison screaming for his wife, Heather.
“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 testified.
In a statement read to the court, Kris Harrison claimed he and his daughter had been watching a news segment about gun violence when he mentioned owning a firearm and asked if she wanted to see it. He said Lucy agreed, and they went to his bedroom where he kept the weapon in a lockbox in his bedside table.
Harrison purchased the gun two years earlier for what he described as a “sense of security” for his family. No license is required in Texas for firearms bought for home defense.
“As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang,” Harrison stated. “I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell.”
Harrison told investigators he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger when he removed the gun from its case.
The inquest heard that Harrison had previously attended rehab for alcohol addiction and acknowledged he “briefly lapsed” on the day of his daughter’s death because he was emotional about her leaving.
CCTV footage showed Harrison purchased two 500ml cartons of Chardonnay from a 7-Eleven store shortly before 1 p.m. that day. He consumed approximately 500ml of white wine over two to three hours. Police officer Luciana Escalera, whose evidence was read to the court, noted smelling alcohol on Harrison’s breath when she responded to the scene.
Lucy Harrison had no alcohol or drugs in her system at the time of her death. Five witnesses were present in the house when police arrived.
The Prosper Police Department initially investigated the incident as criminally negligent homicide. However, a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict Kris Harrison on June 10, 2025 — exactly five months after the shooting — voting “no-bill” to bring no criminal charges.
Jane Coates, Lucy’s mother, said the ruling was utterly perplexing and impossible to understand, adding that it meant there would be no responsibility taken for what had happened to her daughter.
In a statement issued through his solicitors, Kris Harrison expressed remorse for the tragedy.
Harrison did not attend the inquest in person. His legal team made an unsuccessful application for senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself from the case, alleging the inquest had been conducted “in a manner more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry.”
Coates described her daughter, who worked as a buyer for fashion brand Boohoo and was a Manchester Metropolitan University graduate, as “a real force of life.”
Littler, who met Harrison when they attended Great Sankey High School together, said he was “one of the very fortunate ones who met ‘their person’ at a very young age and I will be forever grateful to experience that, even for just one minute.”
The couple had purchased their first home together nine months before the trip and had hosted their first Christmas just days before flying to Texas from Heathrow. Lucy had texted her mother that she was “packed up” and ready to head to the airport just 15 minutes before the fatal shooting.
Lucy’s funeral was held at St Elphin’s Parish Church in Warrington on February 24, 2025.