On Tuesday, Jessica and Thomas Gorman gave CBS News their first interview since the horrific March murder of their daughter Sheridan, allegedly at the hands of an illegal alien who had been released into the United States in 2023, under the Biden administration.
As RedState reported, Sheridan Gorman was an 18-year-old Loyola University freshman who was out with friends in the early AM hours, walking the pier near the campus on Lake Michigan to look for the Northern Lights. Reportedly, Gorman was confronted by a gunman and attempted to run, when the gunman brutally shot her in the back.
According to the Gormans, Sheridan was the first to see Jose Medina-Medina, the Venezuelan illegal alien who has been charged with her murder, dressed in black and fully masked, tracking her and her friends. Sheridan warned her friends to run and attempted to run herself. She made it no more than 40 feet when Medina-Medina shot her in the back.
I was born and raised in Chicago, and had a good friend who attended that Loyola Lakefront campus. There were many late nights/early mornings that we would walk around to grab a bite to eat and enjoy Lake Michigan and the neighborhood, which was quiet and peaceful. That's what young college students do. We were the same age as Gorman and her friends, without a thought that someone, anyone would come up to us and threaten our safety, let alone brandish a gun.
No one's sense of safety and well-being should be shattered this way. Tragically, Jessica and Thomas Gorman will never be the same.
Read More: Outrage: Venezuelan Alien Arrested in Murder of College Student in Chicago
Now Confirmed: Suspect in Killing of Loyola Student Is an Illegal Alien
Thomas Gorman told CBS News:
"There's nothing that prepares you for going to the medical examiner's office and filling out paperwork. Your hand is trembling, and then, you have to go identify your daughter's body. And they ask you if you're ready and nothing makes you ready for that."
However, the Gormans are not taking this "preventable murder" lying down and are fighting for justice for their daughter and other daughters and sons who have lost their lives unnecessarily because of the government's inability to police its borders and keep its citizens safe.
Jessica Gorman told CBS News:
"I don't know what the longevity of this effort takes, but I will never rest. And yes, they've awakened a bear. They've awakened a big, grisly Mama Bear. I got to fight for my child. I have to fight for yours. I have to turn this devastating darkness into light somehow."
The 25-year-old Medina-Medina entered the country illegally in 2023. Thanks to the Biden administration's catch-and-release program, they gave the then-22-year-old a bus ticket to Chicago and released him into the United States. Once in Chicago, according to local reports, Medina-Medina had one encounter with law enforcement, where he was arrested for shoplifting. Law enforcement released him and instructed him on his trial date, a date for which Medina-Medina never showed up. A warrant was then issued for his arrest. However, Chicago is a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state, so law enforcement did not inform or coordinate with immigration enforcement to apprehend him. By all appearances, Medina-Medina was never pursued by the Chicago authorities either.
Fast-forward to 2026, where, with a criminal record and an active arrest warrant, Medina-Medina managed to obtain a gun and "allegedly" murder a young college student.
Thomas Gorman finds this lack of cooperation between local and federal law enforcement unacceptable. He said:
"Clearly there needs to be some cooperation between state and local governments and federal officials. When someone commits a crime and they've been here illegally, there needs to be cooperation. He was, you know, he was arrested for, yes, a non-violent crime, but he was also here illegally. He, in our mind, he should have been handed over to the feds."
Then there is Medina-Medina's "due process" rights. He has been assigned a public defender, who said that because of a traumatic brain injury he suffered when he lived in Colombia, South America, he has the mental capacity of a child and should not be held responsible for his actions. Jessica and Thomas Gorman bristled at this attempted defense of the person responsible for their child's murder.
"He had the mental capacity and wherewithal to buy a gun," Jessica Gorman said. "Yeah, to have a mask on and to be waiting. The mask was on, and he had a gun pointed at my daughter."
Thomas Gorman agreed. "A child does not do that. A man does not shoot a retreating child in the back," he said.
The Gormans have said they do not want this to become political; they simply want accountability. Sadly, it was the Democrat Biden administration that created the dangerous atmosphere which allowed anyone and everyone to cross our borders, and a Democrat mayor and governor who refuse to follow the law and place illegals back into the hands of immigration enforcement rather than coddle them like children. It is a Republican president who is making strides to correct these wrongs, yet we continue to have short memories about this. The damage of rampant open borders is what robbed the Gormans of their daughter Sheridan, and as long as open-borders Democrats continue to champion and defend illegal aliens over American citizens, we can expect to see more American parents robbed of their children by criminal illegals.
The Trump administration shared the interview with this message: "Open borders and sanctuary policies killed Sheridan Gorman. This is the human cost of failed leadership."
WATCH:
Every American needs to see this.
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 22, 2026
18-year-old Sheridan Gorman was brutally murdered in Chicago — just blocks from her college dorm — by an illegal alien who should never have been here.
At 1:30 a.m., while watching the northern lights near Lake Michigan, a masked gunman opened… pic.twitter.com/F5zhnqSNfj
Every American needs to see this.
18-year-old Sheridan Gorman was brutally murdered in Chicago — just blocks from her college dorm — by an illegal alien who should never have been here.
At 1:30 a.m., while watching the northern lights near Lake Michigan, a masked gunman opened fire. Sheridan warned her friends and ran — only making it about 40 feet before she was shot in the back and killed in cold blood.
Her devastated parents are calling it what it is: "It was a preventable murder."
The killer was released into the U.S. under Biden, arrested for shoplifting in sanctuary Chicago, released without notifying ICE, and then skipped court.
Her father demands accountability: "When someone commits a crime and they've been here illegally, there needs to be cooperation... He should've been handed over to the feds."
Open borders and sanctuary policies killed Sheridan Gorman.
This is the human cost of failed leadership.
Editor’s Note: We voted for mass deportations, not mass amnesty. Help us continue to fight back against those trying to go against the will of the American people.
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