{"id":178613,"date":"2026-03-29T02:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T02:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/178613\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T02:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T02:42:07","slug":"yorktown-n-y-community-celebrates-life-of-sheridan-gorman-college-student-killed-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/178613\/","title":{"rendered":"Yorktown, N.Y., community celebrates life of Sheridan Gorman, college student killed in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday, family and friends bid a final farewell to Sheridan Gorman, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/yorktown-ny-sheridan-gorman-loyola-university-student-killed-shooting\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the 18-year-old Loyola University student shot and killed last week in Chicago<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>After the private funeral and burial, the grieving family <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/newyork\/news\/yorktown-community-green-lights-sheridan-gorman\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">joined their Yorktown, New York, community<\/a>  to celebrate their daughter&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A beacon of light&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Several hundred gathered at Jack DeVito Memorial Field to pay tribute to Gorman&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n<p>From her high school field hockey coach to family friends, their stories ran on one common thread:\u00a0 the Yorktown native was beloved. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sheridan was a beacon of light. She was the heart of her team,&#8221; filed hockey coach Courtney Heimen said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whether it was a kind word, a laugh, or just her presence, she had a way of lifting people up,&#8221; said Maria O&#8217;Connell, with the Yorktown Athletic Club.<\/p>\n<p>Even complete strangers felt compelled enough by the loss to take part in Saturday&#8217;s vigil.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just beautiful that people that don&#8217;t even know each other just want to be there for each other and come out and just say, hey, we&#8217;re thinking of you,&#8221; Yorktown resident Lucy Bishena said.<\/p>\n<p>As the community continues to mourn, they made clear that they want justice.<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/ramos-11p-pkg-loyola-st-wcbshboz-hi-res-still.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"Hundreds gathered at a field in Yorktown \" height=\"349\" width=\"620\" class=\" lazyload\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  The Yorktown, New York, community gathered on March 28, 2026, to celebrate the life of Sheridan Gorman, who was shot and killed while attending college in Chicago.<\/p>\n<p>                CBS News New York<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;Thank you for loving her&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In what was their first public appearance since the shooting, the Gorman family took to the stage for an emotional tribute to their daughter, revealing the toll her loss has taken.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sheridan, she was our joy. Our collective joy, and now that joy is gone,&#8221; father Thomas Gorman said, &#8220;but standing here tonight, looking at you all &#8230; that joy didn&#8217;t just last in our home, it lives here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If there&#8217;s anything we can all do in her honor, it&#8217;s this \u2014 love people like Sheridan, loudly, freely, without holding back,&#8221; mother Jessica Gorman said.<\/p>\n<p>The family expressed their gratitude to the community that has rallied around them at a time it&#8217;s needed the most.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To everyone here, thank you for loving her. Thank you for knowing her the way we did,&#8221; sister Madelon Gorman said.<\/p>\n<p>The latest in the case<\/p>\n<p>Gorman was just six months into her college journey at Loyola University in Chicago when her life was cut short.<\/p>\n<p>The freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/woman-shot-lakefront-rogers-park\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">was gunned down on March 19<\/a> as she walked with her friends near a pier.<\/p>\n<p>Jose Medina, a 25-year-old Venezuelan migrant, has since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/charges-filed-fatal-shooting-loyola-university-student-sheridan-gorman\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">been charged in the murder<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/chicago\/news\/jose-medina-court-loyola-student-shooting\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">due back in court on April 15<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday, family and friends bid a final farewell to Sheridan Gorman, the 18-year-old Loyola University student shot and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72206,9,11,10,69190],"class_list":["post-178613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-loyola-university","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-yorktown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}