The mother of a British student shot dead in the US by her father is hoping detectives reinvestigate the case after a UK coroner’s recent ruling.
The Cheshire-based mum, Jane Coates, is hoping that police will examine new evidence after a UK inquest ruled that the 23-year-old was unlawfully killed.
Lucy Harrison was shot through the heart during a visit to her dad Kris’s Texas home after an apparent disagreement about Donald Trump.
Mr Harrison, an alcoholic who had been drinking earlier in the day, pointed the gun at his daughter and pulled the trigger, senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish ruled.
He was never charged by Texas police in relation to her death, after claiming the gun went off accidentally while he “lifted it to show her”.
Ahead of Trump’s second inauguration, Lucy reportedly said: “How would you feel if I were the girl in that situation and I’d been sexually assaulted?” to which Kris allegedly said he had two other daughters, so it wouldn’t bother him, the inquest was told.
The same day, Kris claims he offered to show his gun to Lucy before taking her to his bedroom.
“I said to her, ‘I have a gun — do you want to see it?’ She did, and so we went to the bedroom where I kept my gun,” he told the coroner, despite claims by Lucy’s family that she already knew he had a firearm and wouldn’t want to see it.
Around 15 seconds later, Lucy’s boyfriend, Sam Littler, heard a gunshot wound and Kris calling for his wife.
Littler said: “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.”
Mr Littler reportedly called 911, but Lucy’s dad did not say that his daughter had been shot; instead, he claimed she had fainted.
“I got it out and it just went off as she stood there,” bodycam footage worn by officers on the day reveals Kris said.
Despite local police initially investigating a 'criminally negligent homicide', it was eventually ruled accidental and he was never charged in relation to her death.
One former prosecutor told the New York Post they suspected that Kris avoided indictment in the pro-gun state because it happened in a “conservative county in Texas, and this was the result.”
“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 pulled the trigger,” the coroner said. “I find this action to be reckless,” she added.
