Devastated Loyola Community Gathers To Honor Slain Freshman Sheridan Gorman: ‘It’s Shattering’

ROGERS PARK — Loyola students packed the pews of the university’s chapel to honor the life of Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old freshman who was shot and killed Thursday morning at a nearby beach.

About 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Gorman was with a group of friends on the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach when a masked man walked up to them and fired shots, officials said. The gunman was wearing a mask, said Thomas Murray, Loyola’s director of campus safety.

Just hours later, hundreds crowded the Madonna Della Strada Chapel, 6453 N. Kenmore Ave., nearly spilling out of the building. They remembered Gorman as a vibrant, generous person who was dedicated to her faith and always had a smile on her face.

Sheridan Gorman, 18, was a first-year student at Loyola University Chicago. Credit: Instagram

“She was always the first person who would hug me at a group, and she was always the last person, too,” said Kim Johnson, a faculty member who assisted Gorman in Bible study and the Christian organization Cru. “That’s the kind of person Sheridan was.”

Gorman was a freshman in Loyola’s business school from New York State. She was involved in religious campus groups and devoted herself to charity, friends and family said at the vigil.

During the vigil, Jessica Gorman stood at the altar, removed her maroon Loyola cap and joked that her daughter “would hate to see that my hair is a mess.”

“When I woke up this morning, I didn’t feel her presence,” Jessica Gorman said. “I didn’t feel her at all on the trip here from New York. But now I know she was here, with you all. She loved this place, and it didn’t take her long to find her people. … She was beautiful, inside and out.”

Jessica Gorman called on law enforcement and officials to get justice for her daughter.

Sheridan Gorman “was murdered,” she said. “I really hate saying this, but Chicago, we trusted you with our hearts and you betrayed us. … We need answers. We need accountability, and we will not stop until the person who did this is found and locked up.”

Students enter the Madonna della Strada Chapel on the Loyola University Chicago campus on Thursday, March 19, 2026, for a prayer service honoring Sheridan Gorman. The 18-year-old freshman was fatally shot earlier that morning while walking with friends at nearby Tobey Prinz Beach. Credit: Victor Hilitski for Block Club Chicago

Students filtered out of the chapel as the bells tolled at the end of the service, and campus officials directed students to university resources for support. In the hours since Gorman’s death was announced early Thursday in an email, a gloom had fallen over campus, said freshman Christopher Massingale.

“It’s been really somber,” he said. “I was eating breakfast this morning with my friend, and it was definitely quieter than usual in the dining hall. On the shuttle [to the Downtown campus], I could feel the silence. … Sheridan’s passing really made me think about how how valuable you are to your community.”

Massingale lived in Gorman’s dorm building and knew her through friends. They would greet each other often, he said.

But his last conversation with Gorman was on the night before she died, he said.

“I was studying with my friends,” Massingale said. “It was 1 a.m. and I was … working on music just out there in the lounge, and she came up and said ‘hi’ to me. She asked how I was doing, and we actually talked for the longest we ever had. That was my last time seeing her. Just that coincidence. It’s shattering. It’s shocking.”

A man walks past park benches toward the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach on Thursday, March 19, 2026. Chicago police and Area 3 detectives continue to investigate the shooting death of Sheridan Gorman, a Loyola University student killed at the lakefront location just after 1:00 a.m. that morning. Credit: Victor Hilitski for Block Club Chicago

White roses are tucked into the fence of a lighthouse on the Loyola Beach pier on Thursday, March 19, 2026. Sheridan Gorman, an 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago student was fatally shot at the location earlier that morning. Credit: Victor Hilitski for Block Club Chicago

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