Crime & Law

Man Charged in Fatal Shooting of Loyola Freshman Sheridan Gorman to be Detained Pending Trial

A Venezuelan migrant will be held in the Cook County Jail after his arrest in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman as she walked with her friends on a Rogers Park neighborhood beach last week.

Jose Medina, 25, appeared virtually in a Cook County courtroom Friday afternoon where Judge D’Anthony Thedford ordered he be detained pending trial on charges that include first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault.

“This is a heartbreaking and senseless act of violence that took the life of (a) young woman with her entire future ahead of her and leaves a resounding impact on her friends who witnessed this terrifying shooting,” Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said in a statement Friday.

Gorman’s killing has garnered national attention, including comments from Gov. JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump, though her family has reportedly said they do not want her death to be “used in political arguments.”

The Department of Homeland Security has claimed Medina entered the U.S. illegally and has lodged an arrest detainer seeking to prevent his release.

According to Cook County prosecutors, Gorman and five friends left a Loyola dorm at around midnight on the morning of March 19 and walked to the nearby Tobey Prinz Beach where they planned to take photos and view the city skyline.

Once there, the group split up briefly as Gorman and three others continued walking toward a lighthouse pier where, unbeknownst to them, Medina was hiding with a firearm, prosecutors said.

Gorman walked ahead of the group and was the first to reach the lighthouse, where she was startled by Medina, according to prosecutors. She quickly walked back to her friends and whispered that someone was behind the lighthouse.

As she did so, Medina — who prosecutors said was dressed in all black including a black ski mask — jumped from behind the lighthouse with a .40 caliber handgun, prompting the group to run away. As they did so, Medina allegedly fired once, striking Gorman in the upper left back.

Gorman’s friends continued running and hid behind a nearby concrete barrier, where one of them allegedly watched Medina slowly pacing back and forth on the pier.

After Medina left the area, Gorman’s friends went to check on her and found her bleeding and unresponsive, prosecutors said. They called 911 and Gorman was rushed to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.

No surveillance footage captured the shooting, prosecutors said, but audio from a private camera recorded the sound of a single gunshot at 1:06 a.m.

Investigators recovered a single .40 caliber shell casing from the scene and discovered surveillance footage from an apartment building about a block from the shooting scene where Medina lives with his mother, prosecutors said.

That footage allegedly showed Medina walking from the building with a distinct limp before the shooting while wearing the ski mask and dark clothing, and returning later after the shooting without the mask, according to prosecutors.

Chicago police identified Medina through facial recognition software, as well as an apartment lease and aid from a witness who recognized Medina from the surveillance footage, prosecutors said.

Police also recovered additional footage which allegedly showed Medina’s path to and from the pier. After executing a search warrant at his apartment, officers recovered dark clothing consistent with what Medina appeared to be wearing on the surveillance footage and a .40 caliber handgun, prosecutors said, which was later connected to the recovered shell casing after forensic testing revealed a “high confidence correlation.”

Both Medina and his mother identified him in surveillance photos from before and after the shooting, and he admitted the handgun was his, but he denied being outside his apartment the night of Gorman’s death, prosecutors said.

Medina’s public defender on Friday made the unusual request that Medina remain held in Cook County Jail out of concerns that if he were to be released, he would immediately be taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deported.

Medina’s attorney said he was previously shot in the head during an armed robbery in Colombia where he and his mother had relocated, an injury that left him with the brain development of a child and required him to re-learn how to walk and talk.

Medina came to the U.S. in 2023 and immediately turned himself in at the border in Texas, his attorney said. After being held at a detention center there for months, Medina allegedly asked to be returned to Columbia, but was instead placed on a bus and driven to Chicago.

An online fundraiser collecting money for a memorial and/or scholarship in Gorman’s honor has raised nearly $200,000 as of Friday afternoon.

“Our thoughts are with Sheridan’s family, her friends, and the Loyola University community as they grieve this profound loss,” O’Neill Burke said. Our office is committed to seeking justice for Sheridan and holding the defendant fully accountable as we prosecute this case to the fullest extent.”

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