A Culpeper police officer is facing a murder charge for allegedly shooting a woman to death in a church parking lot while on duty.
Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, was charged with murder, malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle, malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle resulting in a death, and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, according to Virginia State Police.
On Feb. 9, police say, Harmon-Wright approached 54-year-old Patricia A. Cook while she was in a Jeep Wrangler. During the encounter, Harmon-Wright fatally shot Cook, authorities said.
Shortly after the shooting occurred, Virginia State Police said that during the incident Cook closed the driver’s-side window of the Jeep, trapping Harmon-Wright’s arm, and started driving away while dragging him. Harmon-Wright allegedly shot Cook after she refused to stop driving.
However, a multimillion-dollar wrongful-death lawsuit that Cook’s husband filed against Harmon-Wright claims the officer didn’t have his arm trapped in the Jeep’s window and wasn’t dragged by the vehicle.
Harmon-Wright turned himself in to state police Tuesday evening. He is being held without bond pending a hearing on June 8.
“Without commenting on the particulars of the investigation, over the course of the month of May, [a] special investigative grand jury heard from more than 45 witnesses, received more than 100 separate exhibits and was presented with reams of documentary evidence,” Fauquier County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Fisher said in a news release.
Harmon-Wright was hired by the Town of Culpeper Police Department in 2006. According to a statement from Culpeper Mayor Chip Coleman, Harmon-Wright has been suspended without pay.
“We share in the community’s outrage and concern regarding the alleged action of this one officer,” Coleman said in a news release.
The special grand jury also indicted Harmon-Wright’s mother, 55-year-old Bethany P. Sullivan, on three counts of uttering and three counts of forgery of public documents. Sullivan allegedly was involved in forging public records in an attempt to remove negative information from her son’s personnel file, police said. She worked as a secretary to the chief of police at the time Harmon-Wright was hired, and left the police department in 2010.
