British woman shot dead by father after explosive Donald Trump argument at his Texas home

On Jan. 10, 2025, Lucy Harrison, a 23-year-old British woman, visited her father, Kris Harrison, in Prosper, Texas, a few days before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Kris had been struggling with alcohol addiction, and after an extreme argument about Trump and gun laws with his daughter, a few hours later Kris ended up shooting Lucy in the chest. And the justice system is still picking up the pieces one year later.

Police in Prosper initially investigated the case as a possible manslaughter. However, the case was soon dropped, and no criminal charges were brought against Kris after a grand jury in Collin County opted not to indict him. The shooting was believed to be a mistake caused by Kris mishandling a gun that he legally owned.

Lucy’s boyfriend, Sam Littler, had traveled with her to Texas for the holidays, and according to his account, the first major argument was about Trump’s spotty record with sexual assault allegations. According to the BBC, Littler heard his partner ask her father, “How would you feel if I was the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?” To which Kris reportedly replied that he had two other daughters and that he wouldn’t be that upset.

As if that wasn’t a dark enough prognosticator of their fatal ending, the two also had another major argument about Kris owning a gun. Littler’s account of the day Kris ended up shooting his daughter was that after their heated arguments, there was a sense of calm before the storm.

Lucy went upstairs and waited for her flight, but around half an hour before departure, Kris came for her and took her by the hand downstairs. The two were alone in a ground-floor bedroom, and before Littler knew it, there was a loud bang. Littler later told the court, “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.”

In his initial police statement, Kris said that he and his daughter were watching a news report about gun crime, and when he told Lucy that he also had a gun, she wanted to see it. Kris claimed that he had relapsed that night and had consumed at least one glass of wine. When he went to show Lucy his Glock 9mm semi-automatic handgun, Kris added, “As I lifted the gun to show her, I suddenly heard a loud bang. I did not understand what had happened. Lucy immediately fell.”

This is a precarious moment in which gun violence and political violence are increasingly intertwined. It’s therefore not surprising that many people initially suspected Lucy’s death was the result of their political argument. Kris’ lawyer, Ana Samuel, even accused the coroner of being biased against her client as a result and insisted that she should recuse herself from the case.

The layers of the case are still being unraveled by the courts and authorities. But Kris has already said that, however it ultimately turns out, a part of him has accepted that his family is forever broken. He said, “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.”