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A British woman who was fatally shot while visiting her father’s home in Texas had argued with him about President Donald Trump earlier that day, the BBC reported.
Lucy Harrison, 23, from Warrington, Cheshire, died on Jan. 10, 2025, inside the home in Prosper, near Dallas, the Cheshire Constabulary said in a previous release. An autopsy report from the Collin County Medical Examiner, obtained by Fox News Digital, revealed that Harrison died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
Police in Texas investigated her death as possible manslaughter, but no criminal case was brought against her father, Kris Harrison, after a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict him, the BBC reported.
However, authorities in England opened an inquest into her death. The inquest — a fact-finding proceeding that examines the circumstances of a death — was opened at Cheshire Coroner’s Court in Warrington and adjourned pending a formal conclusion, according to an official Cheshire Constabulary release.
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According to the BBC, Lucy Harrison’s boyfriend, Sam Littler, who was in the house at the time, said the father and daughter had a “big argument” about Trump, who was preparing to be inaugurated for his second term of office 10 days later.
Littler told the inquest that Harrison had asked her father during the dispute: “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation, and I’d been sexually assaulted?”
He said her father replied that he had two other daughters who lived with him, and it would not upset him that much, and that Lucy became “quite upset” and ran upstairs. About half an hour later, while they were preparing to leave for the airport, Kris Harrison took Lucy by the hand into his ground-floor bedroom and a loud bang was heard, Littler said.
He testified he then saw Lucy lying on the floor and heard Kris Harrison screaming “just sort of nonsense,” the BBC reported.
The BBC also reported that Kris Harrison, who did not attend the inquest, submitted a statement to the court saying he had relapsed on the day of the shooting and had drunk about 17 fluid ounces of white wine.
According to that statement, he and his daughter had been watching a news item on gun crime when he told her he had a gun and asked if she wanted to see it.
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They went into the bedroom so he could show her a Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun kept in a bedside cabinet. Harrison said he bought the gun for a “sense of security” for his family and denied previously discussing it with her.
In his statement to the court, Harrison said, “As I lifted the gun to show her I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell.”
He told the inquest he could not recall whether his finger was on the trigger and acknowledged past issues with alcohol, saying he had “briefly lapsed” because he was emotional about his daughter leaving.
The inquest heard that a responding officer noticed the smell of alcohol on Harrison’s breath, and CCTV showed he had bought two 500-ml cartons of Chardonnay shortly before 1 p.m. that day, the BBC reported.
At the start of the hearing, a lawyer representing Kris Harrison applied for coroner Jacqueline Devonish to recuse herself from the case, arguing that a “fair-minded observer” could conclude there was a “real possibility” of bias, the BBC reported.
The coroner declined the request and continued the proceedings.
In a statement issued through his solicitors and read to the court, Kris Harrison said he “fully accepted” the consequences of his actions.
“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,” he said, according to the BBC.
The inquest was adjourned until Wednesday, when the coroner is expected to deliver formal conclusions.
In a previous statement released by Cheshire Constabulary, Harrison’s family described her as having a “huge capacity to love and be loved.”
“She was the embodiment of wonderful contradictions. She adored travel and being away, experiencing new places and cultures, yet, at the same time, she loved nothing more than snuggling up in her pajamas with her candles on at home,” the family said.
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The family said she was “truly thriving in life” before her death.
“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 statement continued. “We are utterly heartbroken at the loss of our beautiful, gorgeous Luce.”
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report
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