Inset (left): Sarabi Medina (Facebook). Inset (right): Michael Goodman (Cook County Sheriff’s Office). Background: News footage of the scene in Chicago, Ill., where Sarabi Medina was killed (WLS).
An Illinois man who claimed that a drug-induced hallucination drove him to shoot a 9-year-old girl in the head has been sentenced to decades in prison.
Michael Goodman, 46, pleaded guilty to murder three years after fatally shooting 9-year-old Sarabi Medina. According to reporting on the case by local Fox affiliate WFLD, Sarabi had just returned to her home in Chicago’s Portage Park neighborhood on the evening of Aug. 5, 2023, after she bought two ice cream cones from an ice cream truck. She reportedly found her father and told him, “Here Daddy, I got you an ice cream.”
Minutes later, witnesses saw Goodman come out of his apartment nearby, carrying a gun. He started walking toward Sarabi as her family and neighbors watched in horror.
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Prosecutors said Sarabi’s father, Michael Medina, rushed toward Goodman to stop him, but Goodman ignored him and followed the girl into her apartment, where he shot her in the head. Medina tackled Goodman to the ground, causing his gun to go off again. The shot hit Goodman in the left eye, which cost him his sight.
Sarabi was brought to the hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries.
According to reporting by the Chicago Tribune, Goodman claimed that he had purchased ketamine on the dark web after antidepressants did not work for him. On the day of Sarabi’s murder, Goodman claimed that he had taken several doses of ketamine, each one much higher than the recommended dose.
In a statement read in court by his attorney during his sentencing on Thursday, Goodman said, “It was not the largest dose I had ever taken before, so I saw no reason that my experience would be any different than usual.” He said he began to have suicidal thoughts, then said, “The last part of the vague memory I have is walking through my front door.”
Goodman claimed that he did not remember shooting Sarabi.
Sarabi’s family members were unmoved by Goodman’s explanation. After the sentencing, Medina told local ABC affiliate WLS, “He talks. I was there that day. We were screaming at that man. That man wouldn’t look at us for nothing. He was focusing on killing my daughter.”
Judge Tyria Walton sentenced Goodman to 40 years in prison without the possibility of parole. He received credit for three years already served. When one of Sarabi’s cousins requested a longer sentence, Walton said Goodman would be “83 years old if he lives to see freedom. Statistically, that does not happen.”
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