The illegal immigrant accused of murdering 18-year-old college freshman Sheridan Gorman is illiterate and lacking parts of his brain and skull, his attorney claims.

Authorities charged Venezuelan national Jose Medina-Medina with first-degree murder after he allegedly shot Gorman on March 19, while she was at a Chicago park with friends hoping to see the Northern Lights. The illegal immigrant — who the Biden administration released into the country — was left developmentally disabled and unable to read or write after surviving a bullet to the head years before entering the U.S., his attorney reportedly said in court Friday.

NewsNation national correspondent Alex Caprariello wrote Friday on X that the suspected murderer “was robbed, beaten and shot in the head in 2018 in South America,” leaving him with “bullet fragments in his brain and a portion of a skull.”

“He is now developmentally delayed, has the education of a seven-year-old, and can’t read and write,” Caprariello continued. “Prosecutors say they have overwhelming evidence of his guilt: video that shows him in a mask, gloves, and dark clothes, hiding behind a lighthouse on Lake Michigan, and shooting Gorman in the back, killing her almost instantly.”

Medina-Medina had “no connection whatsoever” to the Loyola University Chicago student he murdered “in cold blood,” the NewsNation correspondent added.

Jose Medina-Medina, the 26-year-old Venezuelan man accused of killing 18-year-old Loyola student Sheridan Gorman in cold blood, was robbed, beaten and shot in the head in 2018 in South America. There’s bullet fragments in his brain and a portion of a skull is missing. He is now… pic.twitter.com/RqhT5SQUjO

— Alex Caprariello (@alcaprari23) March 27, 2026

Outlets have reported Medina-Medina’s current age as either 25 or 26, meaning he was still a teenager at the time he was shot, five years before he crossed the U.S.’s southern border. The suspect’s attorney also claimed in court that his client also has epilepsy and lost part of his brain after the 2018 shooting, Fox News reported.

Medina-Medina turned himself in to authorities at the Texas-Mexico border in 2023 and requested he be sent to Colombia, where his mother lives, his attorney said in court Friday, according to the outlet. He was instead bused to Chicago.

The illegal immigrant’s pretrial detention hearing was postponed after he was hospitalized for tuberculosis he caught while in a migrant shelter, multiple outlets reported. He was still being treated as of Friday when he appeared at his hearing virtually and with an interpreter.

So we imported an illiterate, developmentally disabled, diseased gang banger from the third world and allowed him to stay after he committed crimes?

I’m starting to think our immigration system has some flaws. https://t.co/WYKsBDJ6N3

— Gerry Callahan (@GerryCallahan) March 27, 2026

Authorities arrested Medina-Medina for shoplifting in Chicago but released him in June 2023, just one month after he was apprehended by Border Patrol, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release.

“So we imported an illiterate, developmentally disabled, diseased gang banger from the third world and allowed him to stay after he committed crimes?” Newsmax podcast host Gerry Callahan wrote on X in response to Caprariello’s post.

DHS did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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