Venezuelan Migrant Arrested After Fatal Shooting Of Teen In Chicago

A Venezuelan migrant is in custody after the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago freshman near the school’s lakefront campus.

Chicago police took the 25-year-old suspect into custody Friday evening at an apartment in the 6800 block of North Sheridan Road while executing a search warrant, CWB Chicago reported. Officers recovered a firearm during the search, which is now undergoing ballistic testing against a shell casing found at the scene. The building sits less than two blocks from where the shooting occurred. Someone associated with the complex identified the suspect after reviewing internal surveillance footage, according to the outlet.

The shooting took place shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday on the Loyola Beach Pier, the Chicago Tribune reported, citing an arrest report it obtained. Witnesses told investigators a masked man dressed in black aimed a firearm at Sheridan Gorman and fired a single round as she attempted to flee. Surveillance cameras recorded the suspect walking west toward Pratt Avenue minutes later. Investigators pinpointed him through a distinctive limp visible in the footage, and building cameras captured him without his face covering, according to the Tribune. (RELATED: ICE Nabs Illegal Migrant Trucker Let In By Biden For Allegedly Killing Amish Members During Crash)

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Gorman died from a gunshot wound to the torso, CWB Chicago reported, contradicting an earlier police statement that she had been shot in the head.

Parents of Loyola student executed by migrant in Chicago share heart-rending tribute: ‘A heart that made space for everyone’ https://t.co/h3ldXEdsF9 pic.twitter.com/YRZrLmzBSh

— New York Post (@nypost) March 22, 2026

Court records show the suspect’s only prior Cook County arrest was a shoplifting misdemeanor at the State Street Macy’s in June 2023, the Tribune reported. He skipped his court date, and a warrant remained active as of that September. No charges have been filed in Gorman’s killing.

Sources told CWB Chicago that nothing suggested any confrontation or provocation before the shooting.

Gorman, a business student from Yorktown Heights, N.Y., had gone to the lakefront with friends hoping to catch the Northern Lights, her family said in a statement obtained by the Tribune.

“What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to the idea of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the family said. “This is the loss of a daughter. The loss of a sister. The loss of a future filled with milestones that will now never come.”

Fox News identified the suspect as a Venezuelan migrant, citing its own sources. Loyola President Mark C. Reed acknowledged Gorman’s death in a letter to students Thursday, calling it “a tragic loss,” according to Fox News.