A British coroner has ruled that 23-year-old Lucy Harrison was unlawfully killed by her father at his Texas home after the pair had a heated argument about Donald Trump and sexual assault, even though a local grand jury declined to charge him.
Lucy, a fashion buyer from Warrington, England, was shot in the chest on 10 January 2025 while staying with her father, Kris Harrison, in Prosper, a suburb of Dallas, as she prepared to fly home later that day.
She and her boyfriend, Sam Littler, had been visiting over the holidays and were due to leave for the airport about half an hour after the shooting. A Collin County grand jury later decided not to indict Kris, but the inquest held in the UK this week examined the circumstances of her death in detail, according to Sky News.
The inquest heard that on the morning of her death, Lucy and her father got into what witnesses described as a "big" and "heated" argument about Donald Trump, who was about to be inaugurated for a second term as president. Sam testified that Lucy became upset when her father defended Trump in the context of sexual assault allegations and gun ownership.
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During the dispute, Lucy asked her father how he would feel if she were the woman in such a situation and had been sexually assaulted, and Kris allegedly replied that he had two other daughters, so it would not upset him that much. Sam said Lucy ran upstairs in tears after that exchange, the BBC reported.
Later that day, Kris led Lucy by the hand into his ground-floor bedroom, where he kept his Glock 9mm handgun, telling investigators he wanted to show her the weapon while they watched a segment on gun crime. He claimed the gun went off accidentally as he lifted it, striking his daughter in the chest and causing her to collapse by the bathroom door.
Sam told the inquest he heard a loud bang, ran to the room and found Lucy on the floor while her father screamed. The Texas investigation concluded there was not enough evidence to prove an intentional killing, but the Cheshire coroner described Kris's actions as reckless and said Lucy was unlawfully killed, as per Yahoo News.
The ruling has added to public anger in both the UK and online, where critics question how a political argument and access to a loaded gun ended with a young woman's death and no criminal charges.
