A woman was shot dead by her alcoholic father after the pair argued about President Donald Trump.
Lucy Harrison, 23, was shot dead by her father Kris Harrison at his home in a Dallas suburb, after they argued about the president and she said, “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
Her father, who had been drinking heavily, took her by the hand to his bedroom and 15 seconds later, opened fire.
But her death, on Jan. 10 2025 only came to light a year later because the dead woman was a British citizen who was visiting her father at his Texas home.
Under English law, sudden deaths, even those abroad, are investigated by special courts in hearings known as inquests.
In court in Warrington, Cheshire, on Tuesday, her British boyfriend, Sam Littler, told how the young couple had traveled to Texas to visit Kris over the holidays last year, the BBC reported. The dead woman worked for a fashion company in the U.K.
Littler said Kris had previously been to rehab for alcohol abuse issues, and that Lucy would often get upset with her father over his gun ownership.
On the morning of the shooting, at her father’s four-bedroom, $900,000 home, Littler said Lucy had asked her father, “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?” while they were discussing Trump.
Kris responded that he had two other daughters living in their home, so it would not upset him very much. Littler recalled that Lucy grew “quite upset” with that response and went upstairs.
Later that day, just before Littler and Lucy were supposed to leave for the airport to head back to the U.K., Kris took Lucy by the hand and led her to his bedroom. Littler said he heard a loud bang, and then 15 seconds later heard Kris scream for his wife, Heather, who was not the dead woman’s mother.
“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 said.
Kris did not attend the inquiry in court, but said in a statement sent to the court that he had relapsed on the day of Lucy’s fatal shooting and had drunk nearly an entire bottle of white wine.
Kris claimed that he and Lucy were watching a news segment on gun crime when he asked his daughter if she would like to see his gun. He said they went into his bedroom so he could show her his Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun.
“As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell,” Kris’s statement to the court said.
Prosper police originally investigated her death as a possible case of manslaughter, but a criminal case in Texas was not brought after a grand jury in Collin County opted not to indict Kris.
The Daily Beast contacted Prosper P.D. for comment.
Kris Harrison, 51, did not attend the hearing but was represented at it. Sky News reported that his legal representative had complained that the court hearing was “biased” against him.
He did not attend the hearing, but his representative, Ana Samuel, said it was “more akin to a criminal investigation than a fact-finding inquiry.”
In a statement issued by his lawyers, the killer said, “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 am deeply sorry for the pain others feel from this tragedy. Lucy’s spirit - her warmth, her humor, her kindness - will live on in all of us who loved her.”
In a statement, Lucy’s other family members 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,” the family said. “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.”
