Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago freshman from Yorktown, New York, was shot and killed early Thursday near the school’s Lake Shore campus after a gunman wearing a face covering approached her group and opened fire, police and university officials said.
The killing quickly shook Loyola’s North Side campus because it happened near a beach and pier that students regularly use and because police said Gorman was walking with friends when she was struck in the head. By Saturday, investigators were still searching for the shooter. Chicago police had questioned a person of interest, but they had not announced an arrest, filed charges or publicly described a motive.
Police and school officials said the shooting happened around 1:30 a.m. Thursday in the 1000 block of West Pratt Boulevard, at or near the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach in Rogers Park, just north of Loyola’s Lake Shore campus. Gorman was with three friends when a man approached on foot and fired in the group’s direction, according to police accounts cited by local outlets and the university. She was shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene. No other injuries were reported. A Chicago Police Department report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times said witnesses told officers the gunman was dressed in black and wore a ski mask. The same report said the friends ran in different directions after a single shot was fired and later found Gorman face down on the pier. One nearby man told the Sun-Times he arrived shortly after the shooting and heard screams for help. “I thought someone was playing with firecrackers,” he said.
Loyola President Mark C. Reed identified Gorman in a message to the campus later Thursday morning and called her death “a tragic loss.” Reed said the university was in close contact with law enforcement and, based on the information available at the time, there was no ongoing threat to campus. The school followed with another message laying out grief support, ministry services and counseling options for students, especially those in Mertz Hall, where counselors and ministers were made available. Campus Safety urged anyone with information to call 773-508-SAFE, while the university also directed people to contact Chicago police. The first school alert went out before dawn, and by evening the killing had become the center of campus life. What had begun as a crime alert turned into a day of memorial plans, quiet hallway conversations and a heavy police presence around the lakefront area many students treat as part of their everyday routine.
Gorman’s family, speaking through an attorney, framed the loss in personal terms rather than procedural ones. “Our beloved daughter, Sheridan, was taken from us this morning in Chicago. There is no way to soften this — this was murder,” the family said in a statement reported by NBC Chicago. The statement described her as “the light of our lives,” adding that she made people feel “seen, safe, and loved” and lived her faith with “kindness, compassion, and joy.” Her father, Thomas Gorman, told the Chicago Sun-Times he was not ready to discuss the shooting in detail and instead offered a brief line that captured the family’s shock: “Tell everyone to go hug their kids.” Friends and classmates filled in the picture of who she had been in the months before her death. Local coverage described her as a first-year student who had recently returned from spring break, was active in the Christian student group Cru and had only recently begun building her college life in Chicago after moving from New York.
By Thursday night, the public response had shifted from emergency updates to mourning. Dozens of students, staff members, relatives and community members gathered inside Loyola’s Madonna della Strada Chapel for a vigil that began after Gorman’s parents arrived from New York. The Loyola Phoenix, the university’s student newspaper, reported that the chapel filled beyond its seats, with students standing in aisles and sitting on the floor near the altar. Some carried flowers. Many wore dark clothes, and some pinned small pink bows to their shirts. Reed opened the vigil with prayer. Speakers from Cru, the campus ministry group where Gorman had made close ties, remembered her as “over-the-top generous,” funny and deeply attentive to others. Jessica Gorman, her mother, told students that when she reached the chapel she finally understood why she had struggled to feel her daughter’s presence during the trip to Chicago. “She was still here with you,” she said. In his sermon, Fr. Thomas Neitzke said, “This kind of loss stops everything,” a line that captured the mood on a campus where classes continued but ordinary rhythms plainly did not.
The case also raised immediate questions about safety along a stretch of lakefront that students have long treated as familiar ground. Tobey Prinz Beach and the pier off West Pratt Boulevard sit close enough to Loyola that many students consider them part of campus life, even though the area falls under city policing as well as the university’s safety system. Students who spoke to local media said that is part of what made the shooting so jarring. One student told the Sun-Times the area felt safe because “a lot of people go there.” Another student told CBS Chicago that the screams after the gunfire kept him awake for the rest of the night. Loyola’s follow-up message tried to answer those fears without overstating what investigators knew. The school reminded students that it runs 24-hour patrols, escort services, emergency phones and a wide camera network on and near campus, but officials did not claim those measures could explain why the shooting happened. Police have said the attack appeared random, yet no public account has identified a clear motive, explained whether Gorman or anyone in her group was targeted, or detailed how the gunman reached and left the pier.
As the investigation moved into Saturday, the procedural picture remained limited. Area 3 detectives were handling the case, and Chicago police said officers were questioning a person of interest. Even so, police had not announced that anyone was in custody, and they had not publicly named a suspect or released a fuller description beyond the early reports of a face covering and dark clothing. That left the case in a familiar but frustrating stage for families and campus communities: enough facts to understand the basic outline of the crime, but not enough to answer why it happened or who will be charged. The next major developments are likely to come from police or prosecutors if investigators make an arrest, seek charges or release surveillance details. Until then, the official public record remains spare. It says an 18-year-old student was walking with friends near the lakefront in the early hours of March 19 when a gunman approached, fired and vanished, leaving a family in grief and a university community trying to absorb a loss that arrived in a place many students had considered ordinary and safe.
As of Saturday, March 21, Gorman’s killing remained under investigation, no charges had been announced and police were still asking for tips. The next clear milestone will be whether detectives identify and charge a suspect in the shooting near Loyola’s lakefront campus.
Author note: Last updated March 21, 2026.