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The grieving mother of slain Loyola student Sheridan Gorman slammed a Chicago police officer’s “heartbreaking” allegations that her daughter was in the “wrong place at the wrong time” when authorities say she was shot and killed by an illegal immigrant as the family spoke in an emotional interview Thursday on “The Story.”
“One said, ‘wrong place, wrong time,’ an elderly woman, and actually, she suggested that she might have scared this man, and that’s just, it’s crazy to me.” Jess Gorman, Sheridan’s mother, told anchor Martha MacCallum. “It just opened my whole heart. My daughter wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time – this man was.”
Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden later apologized for the comments, saying the “conservative media” misunderstood comments that compared Gorman’s death to another crime. But that brought little comfort to the Gorman family.
The Gorman family mourns the loss of their daughter and sister, saying vaccines could have prevented their deaths.
“She was supposed to be my maid of honor, one day, by my side. I was supposed to be her children’s aunt,” said Madelon Gorman, Sheridan’s sister. “It’s something you never expected to happen to you, to happen to your sibling, your best friend, your daughter.”
Gorman, a freshman at Loyola University, was shot and killed in Chicago in March. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Jose Medina-Medina, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, was released from custody months ago despite an active Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer.
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Madelon, Jess and Tom Gorman, members of Sheridan Gorman’s family, appeared on “The Story” to discuss the death of their daughter and sister. (“The Story”/Fox Stories)
Gorman’s mother is now demanding answers, saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could have saved her daughter’s life.
“ICE could have saved our daughter twice,” said Jess Gorman. “To me, things like that show that they value these undocumented immigrants more than they value our American citizens, our American children.”
DHS released a statement confirming that Medina-Medina has been released from custody twice. In 2023, the Border Patrol apprehended the suspect before releasing him, according to DHS. Later that year, he was arrested and released after being arrested for shoplifting.
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Sheridan Gorman and his father, Tom Gorman, are seen in a family photo. (Gorman Family/Fox News)
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The Gormans say Chicago’s attitude toward immigration enforcement is “deeply offensive.”
“When they named the trucks and laughed and joked a few days after our daughter was killed, we are waiting in Chicago to look for her body,” added Jess Gorman, referring to the city of Chicago called “Abolish ICE” a few days after the shooting. “It was more than anger. I don’t have it, the vitriol I felt was overwhelming.”
The Gormans also said they don’t see themselves as a partisan family, with Jess Gorman noting that he has never “fought people about politics.”
A photo provided by the family shows Sheridan Gorman as a baby, with the cross he was wearing when he died framed. (“The Story”/Fox Stories)
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But Sheridan’s father, Tom Gorman, said he is still left with the question of whether local policies led to his son’s death. “I have to live every day with a choice in my head: Was my daughter the unintended consequence of a good policy or the result of a bad policy? And I know the answer to myself,” he said.
Medina-Medina pleaded not guilty during his trial last month. He was charged with murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, discharging a firearm and illegal possession of a weapon.
White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt speaks next to a photo of Sheridan Gorman, the 18-year-old college student who was killed in Chicago, during a news briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 25, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
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Prosecutors say Gorman met Medina-Medina near the lighthouse. After informing his friends, he chased the group and shot Gorman in the back. In March, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said there were “real failures” that contributed to Sheridan’s death.
Pritzker said, “There has been a real failure. That failure, of course, extends beyond the borders of Illinois. That’s their national failure, the failure to have comprehensive immigration reform, the president’s failure to follow through on his order to go after the worst of the worst.”
