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The parents of an 18-year-old college freshman shared the heartbreaking details of how their daughter, in her final moments, urged her friends to flee before she was tragically shot by an undocumented immigrant in Chicago.
Jessica and Thomas Gorman recounted the devastating night they lost their daughter, Sheridan, casting light on her final acts of bravery.
Sheridan, who was in her first year at Loyola University, was strolling with friends on a Lake Michigan pier around 1:30 a.m. on March 19 when they encountered a man dressed in black and wearing a mask.
“He approached her in a menacing manner,” her mother explained to CBS News.
“She turned to her friends and warned them of the armed man, urging them to run. And they did,” her mother recounted.
Thomas said his daughter ran about 40ft before she was shot in the back and neck. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Jose Medina-Medina, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela, has been charged with murdering the young woman.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Medina was apprehended by US Border Patrol while crossing the border in May 2023 but was subsequently released into the country.
Sheridan Gorman’s parents, Thomas and Jessica Gorman, described how their daughter, Sheridan warned her friends that was a gunman moments before she was killed
Sheridan Gorman, 18, was struck in the head and was pronounced dead at the scene while walking with friends near Chicago’s lakefront last month
José Medina, a 26-year-old Venezuelan man who illegally entered the country in May 2023, is now facing felony charges of first-degree murder and aggravated use of a firearm
DHS also confirmed that Medina was arrested for shoplifting at a Macy’s in Chicago roughly one month after entering the US.
Chicago police believe the incident was a random shooting, according to the outlet.
The Gormans were told that their daughter’s warning likely saved her friends’ lives.
‘Presumably, that’s what we heard,’ Jessica said.
‘They say it was a senseless tragedy. It wasn’t. It was a murder. It was a preventable murder.’
Julie Koehler, a public defender who is Medina’s lawyer, said in a statement to CBS News that her client had been shot in the head in 2018 during a robbery in Colombia.
‘He survived but lost a portion of his brain and his skull, leaving him with the mental capacity of a child,’ she said.
However, the Gormans believe that Medina had the mental capacity to allegedly kill their daughter.
The Gormans were told that their daughters warning likely saved lives
Gorman’s death was also brought up several times during White House press conferences
‘He had the mental capacity and the wherewithal to buy a gun, to have a mask on, and to be waiting,’ Jessica said, told the outlet.
‘The mask was on, and he had a gun pointed at my daughter when she passed him.’
The killing has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who took the opportunity to publicly blame former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies for allowing Medina to remain in the country.
‘A precious 18-year-old college student named Sheridan Gorman was shot and killed while walking in a park, innocently,’ Trump said during remarks last month at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s annual fundraising dinner.
‘The illegal alien monster charged with Sheridan’s murder had come illegally from Venezuela and had been released into our country by Sleepy Joe Biden,’ he continued, while also criticizing Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago’s sanctuary city policies.
Trump later called the killing ‘devastating’. ‘These people were let in by Biden… We’re getting them out fast,’ he promised.
Officials in Illinois have pushed back, with Governor Pritzker describing the case as a ‘terrible tragedy’ while arguing that failures extend beyond the state and reflect broader national issues, including the lack of comprehensive immigration reform.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also criticized federal enforcement priorities, saying they do not reflect public safety realities.