Shaken parents of Sheridan Gorman speak out in 1st TV interview, call for accountability

Jessica and Thomas Gorman, the parents of Sheridan Gorman.

The grieving parents of Sheridan Gorman, the 18-year-old college freshman who was killed last month in cold blood by an illegal immigrant, according to authorities, spoke out Wednesday in their first TV interview since their daughter's slaying. The couple called their daughter's death "preventable," and criticized the policies the created the conditions for such a brutal murder to take place. 

Gorman, a college freshman at Loyola University Chicago, was out with friends in the very early-morning hours as they tried to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Instead, just a few blocks from the university campus, the group encountered a masked man brandishing a gun. When the assailant moved aggressively toward the friend group, Jessica Gorman told CBS News, her daughter "turned around and she warned her friends that there was a man with a gun and you need to run. And they ran."

Thomas Gorman, Sheridan's father, said his daughter made it about 40 feet before she was fatally shot in the back and neck, and was later pronounced dead at the scene. 

Sheridan Gorman.

Jose Medina, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela, who was 25 at the time of Gorman's killing and has since turned 26, was arrested and charged with first degree murder and illegal possession of a firearm. Medina is set to be arraigned next week, and his lawyer, a public defender, gave a preview to CBS News of what his defense might look like.

Julie Koehler, the attorney, said Medina was shot in the head during an armed robbery in Colombia eight years ago. "He survived but lost a portion of his brain and his skull, leaving him with the mental capacity of a child," she told the network in a statement.

Gorman's parents are skeptical of the claim.

"He had the mental capacity and the wherewithal to buy a gun, to have a mask on, and to be waiting," Jessica Gorman said. "The mask was on, and he had a gun pointed at my daughter when she passed him."

"A child does not do that," Thomas Gordon said.

Jose Medina mugshot.

"They say it was a senseless tragedy," Jessica Gorman went on to say in the interview. "It wasn't. It was a murder. It was a preventable murder."

Medina was apprehended in 2023 illegally crossing the southern border, but, under the Biden border policies at the time, was released into the U.S. -- despite the fact that border agents deemed him to be dangerous and a flight risk. More recently, Medina-Medina had been arrested for shoplifting in Chicago, but failed to show up in court to face charges. Chicago and Illinois, notably, are sanctuary jurisdictions, which refuse to work with federal immigration agents to capture and deport illegals like Medina-Medina. 

"When when someone commits a crime and they've been here illegally, there needs to be cooperation" between local law enforcement and federal officials, Thomas Gorman said in the interview. "He was, you know, he was arrested for, yes, a nonviolent crime, but he also was here illegally. He, in our mind, he should have been handed over to the feds at that point."

Watch the interview with the Gorman parents below.