As someone who’s photographed more than my share of weddings, I can tell you that the lead-up to getting hitched can be a stressful, particularly for the bride. When the big day finally comes — one she’s probably thought about since she was a little girl — it’s supposed to be all about her. So maybe it’s surprising that when something doesn’t go exactly as planned, more of them don’t go full Bridezilla. But even when they do, bloodshed is rarely a byproduct of the resulting meltdown. Sadly, that wasn’t the case with Christina George-Harvan . . .

The Pennsylvania newlywed had already completed her nuptials on Saturday and was letting loose at a local watering hole. That’s reportedly when the woman in white had a tiff with her niece, who apparently expected the bride to not only refrain from celebrating her own wedding with a glass of champagne, but to also be her own chauffeur.

From miamiherald.com:

Police say George-Harvan, of Conway, shot 21-year-old Katelyn Francis on Thursday as they left a bar in New Brighton, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. The wedding was held earlier that day.

Police say they were arguing about who would be the designated driver when the bride grabbed a gun from her husband’s truck and shot Francis, of Fairmont, W.Va.

If there was ever a better argument for springing for a limo or party bus to ferry the wedding party around after the ceremony, I haven’t heard it.

Sadly, Francis later died at a local hospital. And the newlywed’s attorney, the wonderfully named J. Lauson Cashdollar, claims that it was all an unfortunate accident, an example of bad Rule 2 discipline. His story is that George-Harvan was only trying to move the gun when it “went off.”

What really happened will no doubt be determined by a jury of her peers. In the mean time she’ll be getting an IGOTD award from her friends at TTAG. And it may be one of the few wedding gifts she doesn’t return to pay her legal fees.

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88 COMMENTS

    • Why? He found out how crazy she was early enough to get an annulment. The only pity here should be for the life lost so needlessly.

    • If a woman won’t take your name, don’t marry her.

      I f–king can’t stand hyphenates, as a general rule.

      • I’m old school too. The hyphen thing irritates me a lot. Yeah, I know the feminist answer to this, and wives are not possessions, etc, but it was an ok custom for HOW MANY years before suddenly it became a problem? I’m hoping the husband reassessed his situation and grabs his bachelorhood back with both hands. I’ve been around enough pschycotic neurotic women long enough to know that they don’t get “better”, meds don’t help much, and life is too short to deal with decades of crazy.

    • Tina was not the owner of the gun her husband is the owner. He had no business having a gun on their wedding night. This is a horrific traumatic accident that has dramatized all concerned. Please pray for the families and allow The Lord to guide us

  2. I would like to believe that attorney’s name is a joke, but the most prominent attorney in my hometown growing up was Richard Face, so I guess I’ll let it go…

  3. Yikes. Its sad for the families all around, but I can’t help but think the husband dodged a bullet coming his way further down the line.

    • Glad you pointed it out. I will make a general statement and say that women who have not built a name for themselves yet and still hyphenate their name when wed are difficult women. The worst piece of work I know still took her husbands last name.

    • Champagne is region in France . . .both, it seems, are specific geographical nomenclature, it’s just that the name of a drink only derives its spelling from one of them.

  8. I see a movie deal in the future: “Holding Cell Honeymoon”.

    Yes, I know – insensitive.

    • They knew.

      Their friends and family knew too and tried to warn them I’m sure.

      All guys know.

      It’s just that they think that women are this extremely rare commodity that is so hard to obtain that when they meet one that hangs around they are willing to overlook all kinds of crazy.

      Vitamin P is a powerful drug.

      Big dummies.

      Then when it all goes to hell they say to their friends “Why didn’t you guys warn me?”

      Derp.

  11. I’m not sure that “irresponsible” is the adjective I’d use to describe someone who murders her niece in a drunken rage.

  12. This report is inaccurate, first it says the husband got the gun and shot her, then it says the wife shot her, so which is the right story?

    • I just re-read it. You might want to do the same. Nowhere does it suggest the husband had anything to do with the shooting.

  13. Prisons should be co-ed, that way there wouldn’t be so much rape. Just let them do it consensually.

    • Do you really think that would eliminate the rape problem? And do you think rape is an unfair punishment for most of the people in jail? I went to high school with some kids who did some gruesome evil and I rest easy knowing that their lives are probably miserable because of what the family of the victims(killedthe mom, the little girl survived an attempted throat cutting) is still going through years later.

  16. Something tells me the niece didn’t want the bride drinking for a reason. Maybe she’s gotten wasted and “moved a gun” before.

    • Maybe the niece made a furtive movement or was holding a cell phone in her hand that could easily be mistaken for a gun.

  20. Here comes the bride, here comes the groom,
    Here’s the maid of honor with a sucking chest wound.
    (It ALMOST rhymes)

  22. “Big day, all about her…”

    Yeah.

    Most women want a big wedding/princess party.

    Few want to actually be wives. Giggle. 🙂

    Lady in the story is ‘tarded.

    • Who doesn’t enjoy being the center of attention at a crazy expensive (relative to your income) party? I’d go to a wedding every night if I could find one!

  23. My crazy Ex-wife would have done something like that. She carried a pearl handled .38( very illegally). Long ago & far away.

  25. I’d give the IGOTD award to the hubby. It was his gun she used. Proper security.
    I figured out my first wife was crazy about one day in. Still stuck around for 18 years. The reason men stick with a bridezilla is that some of know we are no great shakes in the looks department.
    I knew early on that the only way a woman would take me was if she was blind or crazy. As I mentioned, the first one was crazy. I almost got the grave stone to prove it. Wife #2 was blind. Yes, really!
    That didn’t work out either.
    Wife #3 is from Central America, one of those latinos coming up here and taking the jobs no one else wants.
    Can I back that up? Well, my mother is still alive and well past 90. When I went to see her last week, she did not recognize me. When I told her who I was, she blurted out, “well, you sure got better looking with age.”

    • They were already married so, per communal property, I think she qualifies as an ‘owner’ for the purposes of IGOD.

  26. Hells bells…they (women) are all crazy. Some just crazier than others. But who is crazier, the woman or the man who married her?

  27. It a was a horrible accident that Tina is having nightmares about, she never meant to shoot her……you people are disgusting. ….know the facts first…..she is a good hearted person, a good nurse and a Damn good mother and she loved Katelyn, she did not mean to shoot her

    • Then how did she shoot her? Fill us in on what we are missing.

      Did she pick up a firearm, point it at another human being and pull the trigger or not?

      If so, each one of those actions is a deliberate act. Not just ONE deliberate act, but three distinct ones. They take human will to accomplish.

      So, if you have an explanation as to how she did this without meaning to, I for one would love to hear it.

  28. She was moving the gun, she was in the passenger side and Katy was outside the drivers side anyway her husband did not have the safety on And the gun went off and shot Katy in the stomach…..it truly was an accident and Katy’s parents said they also believe it was an accident

    • “the gun went off “

      Ah, there it is. It’s the gun’s fault. The safety was not on, so it’s the gun’s or the husband’s fault.

      Got it. She bears no responsibility whatsoever. She’s just a poor innocent victim herself. No, wait. The only victim here is the deceased cousin.

      It could also be said that she CHOSE to handle a firearm without practicing the Four Rules of Firearm Safety. But, I guess we won’t actually say that since that would make HER responsible for this tragic incident.

      She’s got to live with doing this the rest of her life. There’s an old saying….”The Truth Will Set You Free.” Denial will not help her nightmares stop.

      • Uuummmmm I don’t remember saying it was the guns fault or her husbands. …..oh wait I didn’t!!!!! She was moving it and it went off she has no gun training and hates guns, point is it was a horrible tragic accident for both sides and she loved Katy dearly, it wasn’t intentional or malicious!!!!!

        • When you say the gun ‘just went off’ you are saying it was the gun’s fault. If that gun had not “gone off,” this would not have happened, right?

          Here’s a hint for you: Guns do NOT ‘just go off.’ That’s a falsehood created by the media and accepted by folks that wish to remove personal responsibility and attach responsibility to the gun’s mechanism for some sort of failure.

          She failed to handle the firearm safely and killed another human being. If she did not know how to safely and properly handle a firearm, then she should NOT have been handling it.

          There are Four Rules of Firearm Safety (as a starting point):

          1 – Guns are always loaded.

          That is, one never assumes that one you are holding is NOT a deadly weapon.

          2 – NEVER point the gun at something are you are not willing to destroy.

          Here was her biggest failure. If the gun was not pointed at her cousin…SHE COULD NOT HAVE SHOT HER COUSIN.

          Even if it were somehow remotely possible for a gun to “go off” without human action, if it is pointed it a safe direction, it will not cause harm.

          3 – Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

          Again, another failure. Sorry; I know you don’t want to hear this, but she had to have pulled the trigger for the gun to fire.

          Guns do NOT ‘go off.’

          If this was a modern firearm, there’s a good chance it had internal safeties that prevent it from firing unless the trigger has been pulled all the way to the rear. This is not a safety that her husband could have put on or taken off….it’s part of the design of the firing mechanism.

          Some guns require over 10 lbs of force to actuate the firing mechanism or don’t even have a external safety that can be put on or off. In all these cases, the design of the firearm REQUIRES the trigger to be pulled to fire, and such pulling may not even be ‘easy.’

          So, to not put too fine a point on it….”it just went off” is bull.

          And, let’s just say for the sake of argument that through some very complicated set of statistically HIGHLY improbable mechanical failures that the gun mechanism somehow did allow the gun to RANDOMLY FIRE at the exact moment she happened to be holding it AND pointing it at her cousin…see Rule 2 above.

          4 – Be sure of your target.

          This one refers to purposeful firing…know what you are shooting. But, it overlaps with Rule 2….that big one mentioned above…in that you have to KNOW where the gun is pointing at ALL times.

          Following these basic rules is the most basic principle of handling firearms.

          When tragedies happen, it is not the fault of the gun (“it went off”) or the husband’s fault (“he left the safety off”)…it is precisely and solely because one or more of these rules were broken by the person holding the gun.

          At best, it could be said she was ignorant of safe handling and did not know the Four Rules. The question then becomes why did she think it was a good idea to handle a deadly weapon if she did not know how to do it safely?

          A gun is not a pack of chewing gum or a tube of lipstick. It’s not something you just pick up and wave around.

          I agree this was a tragedy. The best next step is to be objectively honest about what happened and you and her family should work very, very hard to help EDUCATE people on the following two points:

          1 – Don’t handle guns if you don’t know how to do so properly and safely

          and

          2 – If you DO handle guns, know the four rules and LIVE THEM diligently.

          That’s how to prevent additional tragedies, not by hiding behind excuses like “it went off.”

  30. Well my husband has a hand gun and i accidentally sent it off by moving it from one place in the safe to another….Thank god into his safe and yes it was due to improper handling and me not being educated enough…..I just do not see how everyone can be quick to judge and say she is a horrible person who needs life in prison over an accident she will live with the rest of her life and her son also be without a mother.

  31. People are cruel and mean. Everybody wants to pass judgement and give their opinions. I see only one person on here who knows Tina! Yes, Danette, Tina was an excellent mom, nurse, friend and person! Tina would never intentionally hurt another person. Prayers for the entire family and especially for Tina who has to be reminded of this daily and Katy’s boy. I am hoping and praying for something good tomorrow at the hearing. If the parents of Katy know in their hearts it was an accident, than why can’t the rest of you believe it was an accident as well?

  32. she’s nothing but a low life murdering scumbag bottom feeder psycho bitch.,she intentionally grabbed the gun pointed it at the two and squeezed the trigger, thts fact!..she’s pulled a gun, knife and baseball bat on the husband before…too bad death by a firing squad is illegal..she’ll rot in hell no doubt

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