Virginia police officer charged with woman’s death

A Culpeper police officer was charged on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a woman, while his mother was charged with trying to destroy negative information in his police personnel file. Daniel Harmon-Wright, 32, of Gainesville, was charged with murder and other gun charges in the February 9, shooting of Patricia Ann Cook, 54. The murder occurred when Harmon-Wright was responding to a report of a suspicious woman in a vehicle in a church parking lot. The original police reports state that Cook closed the driver’s side of her window, trapping the officer’s arm inside, and drove away, dragging him until he shot her and the vehicle crashed.

After further investigation into the shooting, requested by Fauquier County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Fisher, the initial description of the events were only “partially accurate.” Harmon-Wright turned himself in and is held in the Fauquier County Adult Detention Center without bond pending a June 8 hearing. He was suspended from the police department without pay. Harmon-Wright’s mother, Bethany P. Sullivan, 55, of Orange, was charged with three counts of forgery of public document for attempting to purge the records while she was an administrative secretary to the police chief. She was released on an unsecured bond.