💚 Just a Small-Town Girl

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Sheridan grew up in Yorktown Heights, New York — a little Westchester town where your teachers probably taught your sister, your coaches know your parents, and your chances of getting away with teenage mischief are severely compromised by approximately 11,000 other people’s mothers. Sheridan absolutely loved being a Husker. Go Big Green!
 

She was a goalie for field hockey and lacrosse. She bowled — and somehow became Captain, which we lovingly maintain had significantly more to do with her enthusiasm than her average. She cheered for eight years and eventually coached younger cheerleaders herself for another four years. Sheridan truly enjoyed sports, but what she really loved was everything that came with them: the teammates, the bus rides, the fabulous matching outfits, the fun chants and cheers, the traditions, the inside jokes, and most of all - belonging to something bigger than herself.

And then there were her friends. Oh, did our girl love her friends. Sheridan didn’t simply make friends. She collected them. Childhood friends. Sports friends. Cheer friends. School friends. College friends. Friends of friends who somehow wandered into Sheridan’s orbit and were immediately promoted to “my friend.” Everywhere she went, another little constellation of people seemed to gather around her. And Sheridan had this wonderful way of making each one feel like they were chosen, were special — because to Sheridan, they so were.

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Even as a little girl, she noticed who might be standing just outside the circle. One of her favorite teachers once told us Sheridan “stalked the buddy bench,” apparently having appointed herself Chief Friendship Officer of her Elementary School lol. No application. No interview. Sheridan simply assumed the position. She had a policy of 'leave no kid unfriended' lol.

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Honestly, that tracks.


🐻 Life With Our Bear

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Sheridan earned the nickname “The Bear” partly because of the enormous bear hugs she gave — the full-body, squeeze-the-air-out-of-you kind — and partly because waking her before she was ready to rise was roughly equivalent to poking an actual grizzly bear with a stick and then hoping you had made good enough cardio choices and could outrun her.

 

Let's just say that Morning Sheridan was not always Sunshine Sheridan. Morning Sheridan needed a minute. Or forty-five.

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But eventually she emerged — funny, sweet, sassy, tenderhearted, stubborn, slightly rumpled and completely Sheridan. She could make us absolutely crazy and somehow have us laughing halfway through being annoyed with her.

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And then there was driving with Sheridan. She was not a bad driver. She was a distracted driver. There is a difference.

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Driving with Sheridan often sounded something like, “Sheridan, road.” 

Then, “Sheridan... ROAD.”

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And finally, “SHERIIIIIDDDDAAAANNNNN! ROAAADDD!”

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Because there was always a friend to wave to, a song to change, a story she absolutely had to finish, someone walking a cute dog, something interesting over there and something even MORE interesting over here.

 

SQUIRREL!

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The challenge was never teaching Sheridan how to drive. It was occasionally reminding Sheridan that driving was, in fact, the activity currently taking place.

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Which makes it especially hilarious that she apparently decided she was qualified to teach her “little bro” Finn how to drive her Jeep around FDR Park — an independent driver’s education program neither family recalls authorizing.

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And the soundtrack was just as scattered and wonderful as she was: ’80s one-hit wonders, ’90s rap, Tyler Childers and then, without warning, worship music praising God at full volume. In the Gorman household, we throw our hands up for both Nelly and Jesus!

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That was Sheridan. A little bit of everything, all gloriously jumbled together. Sweet and sassy. Tough and tender. Goofy and thoughtful. Country and rap. Grizzly bear before breakfast, sparkling sunshine by lunch.

And somehow, every bit of it worked.


✨ Off To The Windy City

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In the fall of 2025, our small-town girl headed to the big city to Loyola University Chicago to study business and entrepreneurship. She loved Loyola and truly found herself and happiness there. And naturally, she immediately started collecting people there too, because Sheridan could apparently go nowhere without coming home with more friends.

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She was eighteen — that magical age when you are completely certain you are an independent grown woman, but still call your parents to ask how much laundry detergent to use, and whether “best by” is really more of a suggestion, and how long you can ignore the tire-pressure light before it becomes a real problem Dad can't fix from NY.
 

She had an entire bright, messy, wonderful life waiting for her... Sophomore year. A dorm by the lake. Internships. Graduation. Maybe her own business. Travel. Love. Marriage. Children. Christmas mornings. Family dinners. More eye rolls. More Bear hugs. More ridiculously long stories where we would eventually have to ask, “Wait — what happened to the original story?”

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We thought we had decades left to watch her shine.  Tragically, we only had six months of college.
 

🌙 The Fateful Early Morn of March 19, 2026

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Sheridan and several friends walked out of their dorm around 1 AM (which is early for college kids lol) and headed toward Lake Michigan to take pictures of the Chicago skyline and maybe catch a glimpse of the elusive Northern Lights as they had done so many times before. They were talking and laughing, just college kids enjoying each other and the first mild Midwest evening in what felt like forever.

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According to prosecutors, an armed, masked man stepped out near the end of the pier right by her campus. Sheridan saw the danger, warned her friends that he had a gun and told them to run. Then she ran too.

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She was hunted in the dark, running for her life in terror, only making it forty feet before being fatally shot in the back.

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A man has been charged with first-degree murder and other offenses in connection with Sheridan’s death. The criminal case remains pending, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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We intentionally do not name him here. He has already taken something from Sheridan that can never be returned. He does not get anything else.
 

He does not get her name beside his. He does not get to become the center of the story of her life.

He does not get her laughter, her memories, her friends, her light or one more inch of space that belongs to our girl.

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This page is Sheridan’s.


💔 The Failures That Claimed Her Life

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After Sheridan died, we learned that the man now charged in her death had entered the United States unlawfully under the Biden Administration in 2023, had been apprehended and released even though he did not have a valid asylum claim, was released into the interior US where he was later arrested in Chicago for shoplifting then released again, failed to appear in court, and had an outstanding warrant. That warrant was still active the night Sheridan encountered him.
 

There were SO MANY opportunities before March 19th when existing federal immigration law, basic enforcement, and cooperation between agencies could have interrupted that chain. Instead, reckless policies and the politicians who defended them allowed one failure to compound into another. Different choices at any one of those points might have meant that man was never on that pier with our daughter that night.

 

And knowing that is EXCRUCIATINGLY CRUEL.

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Parents can torture themselves with a thousand “what ifs.” But knowing there were actual moments when this chain might have been broken and she might have been spared is something else entirely.

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That knowledge is part of why this Foundation exists. We cannot go backward. We cannot change what happened to our sweet Sheridan. But we can fight like hell to make sure another family never has to bury a child because politicians put reckless ideology ahead of common-sense enforcement and the safety of the people they were elected to protect.
 

☀️ Focusing On Her Light, Love & Life

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But please don’t leave this page remembering only how Sheridan died.

 

That was only one terrible night out of eighteen years of PURE LIFE AND LOVE.

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Sheridan was sunshine and bear hugs, muddy cleats and HUGE rhinestone cheer bows. She was a little “SQUIRREL!” behind the wheel and a laugh you could hear from three rooms away. She was a story that took fifteen minutes to tell because Sheridan had remembered six other stories along the way. She was a girl who collected friends everywhere she went and somehow made each one feel like they had personally won the friendship lottery. She was a daughter who was our jubilant joy, a sister who was absolutely adored and a friend people wanted standing beside them for life.

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Sheridan had enough personality for three lifetimes and enough light and love to last for a hundred years. She simply wasn’t given them.

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So now we will take everything she gave us — that EXTRAVAGANT love — and pass it on.

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Because Sheridan’s light didn’t disappear on March 19th, it was simply transferred to all of us. And if Sheridan taught us anything, it is that a little extra sunshine should never be kept to yourself.
 

So we intend to spread hers everywhere...