By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-09-24 21:56:54 | Updated at 2026-09-24 22:52:26
1 hour ago
The grieving mother of a young woman who was shot and killed by her father shortly after they had a heated argument about President Trump is demanding further investigation — and possible charges.
Kris Harrison, 52, claimed his Glock 9mm pistol accidentally fired as he lifted it out of a box, killing his 23-year-old daughter Lucy Harrison on January 10, 2025.
Lucy and her boyfriend, Sam Littler, had travelled from the UK to visit her dad and her two younger half-sisters in Texas. Hours before she was shot dead, she and her father had a “big argument” about Trump, who was about to be inaugurated for his second term, according to Littler.
Harrison, a telecommunications executive who lives outside of Dallas, was able to evade manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges after a grand jury ruled Lucy’s death an accident.
Now, the girl’s mother — Harrison’s ex-wife, Jane Coates — is traveling from her native England to Texas, demanding that the Collin County District Attorney’s Office reopen the investigation into her daughter’s death.
“I simply want the truth about what happened,” Coates told The Post. “I want the people responsible for investigating her death to sit down with us and listen to what we have been told by independent experts.”
Harrison has said that he took out the pistol to show his daughter after she asked him if he had a gun.
“It just went off as she stood there, like as I pulled it out it went off,” he told police in a video provided to a UK inquest into Lucy’s death in February.
Craig Miller, a leading Texas homicide detective, insists that Harrison’s claims do not add up after studying bodycam footage, reading all the police reports and Lucy’s autopsy findings.
“Guns just don’t go off,” Miller told The Post. “The only person who could have fired the gun is the dad.
“If he was trying to show it to her, he must have pulled the trigger. He may not have been familiar with the gun but there was a bullet in the chamber.
“But it is not a defense to not know. It is his gun and he should know how to operate his weapon.”
Miller, a retired deputy chief in Dallas with over 30 years of experience in homicide investigations, added: “[Harrison] said he took the gun out of the case and it just went off.
“If that was true, why didn’t the bullet come in through the side? It entered directly through the center of the chest.
“It was fired at a downward trajectory and that is not consistent … this does not add up.”
The Post has reached out to Harrison, Prosper Police Department and the Collin County District Attorney’s Office for comment.
In a statement through his attorney, Harrison previously said he “fully accepted” the consequences of his action, and that “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.”
Jacqueline Devonish, the Senior Coroner for Cheshire, where the UK inquest was based, also disputed Harrison’s claims and described him as a “functioning alcoholic.”
‘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,’ she told the inquest.
Devonish concluded that Lucy was “unlawfully killed” and her father’s actions amounted to gross negligence manslaughter in a ruling that carries significant weight in the UK but has no binding effect in US courts.
Miller pointed to police bodycam footage of Harrison’s first interaction with an officer denying that he’d been drinking before it later emerged he gulped down a 17-ounce carton of white wine that day.
“The dad lied to the police in the very first question asked,” he told The Post. “When a person lies and is inconsistent with their testimony, those are important facts for the police to look at and consider.
“It is on the officers to say we will have to get his blood drawn and see what level of intoxicated he is because if he is drunk, he won’t actually know what took place.”
Miller also believes Harrison should also have undergone a gun residue test and police should have searched through both his and Lucy’s cell phones for any clues.
“I don’t think the officers checked that, which I think is key,” he said. “[That] would have made it simpler and better for everybody else to look at the case properly.”
The grand jury notes are sealed, and it is not clear exactly what evidence was presented, but Miller said, “If the facts didn’t include that he was intoxicated and the forensics did not match up with how he said the gun went off, then the grand jury should be made aware.”
Coates is traveling to the US with her lawyer, Radd Seiger, who has helped secure justice in similar cases, including the high-profile death of British teenager Harry Dunn.
“I have dealt with families facing serious failures by public authorities in a number of jurisdictions around the world but I have never seen anything quite like this,” Seiger told The Post.
“Here we have a family raising serious questions about a homicide investigation and the authorities are simply closing the door rather than engaging with them.”
Coates is desperate to get justice for her daughter.
“There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about Lucy and everything she should have had in front of her,” the heartbroken mother told The Post. “I want people to see her as a person, not just as a case. She was funny, kind, loving and full of life. She had dreams. She had people who loved her deeply. She deserved a future.”
