Coroner rules Lucy Harrison was unlawfully killed in Texas

A British woman who was fatally shot as she visited her father in Texas was unlawfully killed, a coroner's verdict. 

Lucy Harrison, 23, of Warrington, Cheshire, was killed on 10 January 2025 after being shot in the chest at a location in Prosper, in the area of Dallas. 

Police first investigated her death as a possible case of manslaughter in Prosper. 

Her criminal father, Kris Harrison, was, however, never charged with a criminal case after a grand jury in Collin County refused to indict him. 

In the Cheshire Coroner, Coroner Jacqueline Devonish pronounced that Lucy Harrison had died due to unlawful killing in the grounds of gross negligence manslaughter. 

The coroner stated, "To shoot her through the chest whilst she was standing would have required him to have been pointing the gun at his daughter, without checking for bullets, and pulling the trigger.

"I find these actions to be reckless."

Lucy Harrison's mother Jane Coates marked, "Today's outcome has finally given Lucy her voice back after what has been an unrelenting year of deep shock, grief and fight - fight with quiet focus and steely determination to allow Lucy to speak her truth with the only voice she has now."

"While we recognise an unlawful killing outcome has been decided in a coroner's court and not a criminal court, we welcome the coroner's conclusion and thank her for exploring all the evidence fairly and as fully as she could and fearlessly for Lucy."

The inquest heard the father, described by the coroner as a functioning alcoholic, claimed the gun had gone off accidentally.

The hearing was told by Lucy Harrison's boyfriend, Sam Littler, who had accompanied her to the United States.

Moreover, he heard an argument between her and her father about Donald Trump, who was to be inaugurated as president later that month.