The family of Sheridan Gorman on Monday demanded that defense attorneys “stop pretending” her alleged killer has the brain development of a child after he was caught with a makeshift knife in jail.
Jose Medina, the 26-year-old Venezuelan immigrant accused of fatally shooting the first year Loyola University Chicago student, was found with a six-inch shank last week at the Cook County Jail, according to the county sheriff’s office.
The issue was not addressed during a brief hearing Monday in the murder case, but Gorman’s family expressed their outrage through tearful remarks after Medina’s court appearance.
“Correctional officers recovered the sharpened metal weapon from him after receiving information that other inmates feared for their safety,” Gorman’s father, Thomas Gorman, said Monday.
“So let’s stop pretending this man is harmless and has the mentality of a child. He was a danger outside and he is apparently a danger inside.”
Medina’s public defenders have said he has a developmental disability from an earlier gunshot wound to his head suffered during a robbery in Colombia. They have argued he currently has the “brain development of a child.”
Medina was charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges in the deadly March 19 attack. He pleaded not guilty last month.
Sheridan Gorman and her friends were walking toward the end of the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach when they spotted Medina hiding in the shadows, according to Cook County prosecutors.
He allegedly fired once as the group tried to run away, striking Gorman in her back and killing her, prosecutors said.
“Forty feet — that’s how far my daughter ran for her life before evil caught her,” her mother, Jessica Gorman, said Monday. “Did she know that death was behind her? Was she crying out for me?”
She added: “I will never know, but I know that my baby died scared.”
Medina has remained in custody since March 23. The sheriff’s office reported he will now face an additional charge for possessing contraband in jail.
Medina made his way to Colombia after fleeing violence in Venezuela, according to his public defenders.
He ended up in Chicago in 2023 after being detained at the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. Although he asked to be deported back to Colombia, officials in Texas bussed him to Chicago, according to his public defenders.
At the time of Gorman’s killing, Medina had an active warrant for a 2023 shoplifting case.
Gorman’s killing had thrust Chicago back into the center of the country’s bitter fight over immigration. President Donald Trump, fellow conservative critics and the Gorman family have placed blame on the city’s sanctuary policies.
“Jose Medina is responsible for what he did to Sheridan, but he did not get to Sheridan himself,” Thomas Gorman told reporters. “He got there through a broken system, through failed voter enforcement, failed removal policies, failed local cooperation, and sanctuary policies that put ideology before safety.
“Let me be very clear about something: We love immigrants,” he added. “We deeply respect legal immigration. … But criminal illegal immigration is different, and American families deserve to be protected in their own country.”
Medina is due back in court on July 7.