A woman who bullied her neighbours’ children with racial slurs and then shot dead a mother when she complained faces up to 30 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter.
Susan Louise Lorincz, 60, fired her Remington .380 pistol at Ajike Owens, 35, who was standing next to her 12-year-old son on the sidewalk in Ocala, Florida, last June.
Lorincz told police she was “scared for her life” when she shot the unarmed mother of four through the locked door, and that state “stand your ground” law allowed her to shoot the woman with her Remington .380 pistol.
It took police four days to arrest Lorincz and test her claims, but Owen’s mother Pamela Dias said she had found “some peace” after a jury rejected her claim of self-defense on Friday.
“My heart has become a little lighter and we are now on the path of true healing,” Dias added.
Susan Lorincz, 60, faces up to 30 years in prison for manslaughter after she was convicted of shooting Ajike Owens, 35, to death when the neighbor arrived at her doorstep last June.
Owens went to Lorincz’s home to confront her about allegations that earlier in the day she had thrown a roller skate at one of her children and broken a tablet before brandishing an umbrella
Owens went to Lorincz’s home on June 2 last year to confront her about allegations that she had thrown a roller skate at one of her children earlier that day and broken a tablet before brandishing an umbrella.
Lorincz, an insurance agent, told police during her interview that Owens’ children had trespassed on her property and one of them had threatened her with a beating.
But neighbours told her she had a “problem with children” and that she filmed them before she began insulting them and waving her weapons in their direction.
Phyllis Wills, 33, told NBC that Lorincz was “harassing” her children, adding, “Everyone in this neighborhood is at odds with this woman over our children.”
Other parents said they called her a “Karen” after she repeatedly filmed their children and called police about their antics.
“It’s an apartment complex. These are kids who, you know, they’re going to do things,” Willis said.
“Every time they even came onto that patch of grass, she would say, ‘Get off my lawn, you asshole, you retarded idiot, or you nigger.’ She would wave her guns at them.”
When questioned by police, one of Owens’ sons claimed that Lorincz had previously called them “sons of bitches” and “asses” and said, “This ain’t no Underground Railroad, slave.”
Lorincz claimed she was afraid for her life and that Florida’s “stand your ground” law allowed her to fire her Remington .380 caliber pistol through her locked front door at the woman.
The former insurance agent wore a suicide prevention vest when she appeared in court last year
The women lived across the street from each other and Lorincz had called 911 at 8:54 p.m. on June 2 to complain that the children were trespassing and screaming outside her door.
A sealed bullet hole, upper right, is seen in the front door of Lorincz’s home after she fired her Remington 380 rifle, fatally striking Owens, who was knocking on the door
Owens allegedly told her son, 12, to call 911 after she was struck by the bullet, with the young boy telling officers she was “just knocking on the door.” She was rushed to the hospital, where she later died.
Lorincz called 911 after the shooting to file a trespassing complaint, then said she had shot a woman in front of her door.
“I never intended to kill,” she later told police. “I was shaking. I was just so upset at that moment. I felt like my life was in danger.”
But Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods dismissed her version of events as “BS,” noting that the videos captured on security cameras from neighboring properties “were the final straw.”
According to Woods, Owens’ children’s stories are corroborated by the surveillance footage seen by police.
“There are things that people say that we can prove is a yellow flag — a ridiculous flag — and we say no, that’s wrong,” he told WFTV.
“She couldn’t see through the door, she couldn’t see the individual. So her comments about being scared for her life… it makes the hairs on our necks stand up.”
Investigators found two surveillance cameras in Lorincz’s home, one of which was aimed at the patio and the other was attached to the sliding door.
She told them that the cameras were working, but that they only recorded movement and sometimes at night they recorded nothing at all.
The cameras are accessible via her phone. After Lorincz initially refused to give the access code, she handed over her phone.
Officers were unable to view any recordings after 8:40 p.m. on the night of the incident, but Lorincz denies deleting the recordings.
It later emerged that she had been in possession of her phone for two hours after being put in a police car. Footage showed her briefly using it, but investigators were unable to determine what she had done with it.
Family members had called for the charge to be upgraded from manslaughter to murder, but one of them shouted, “Oh, God. Thank you, Jesus,” as the jury returned its verdict Friday.
Florida law allows the use of deadly force if someone “reasonably believes” that his or her life is in imminent danger.
But the jury found that Lorincz had no reason to believe she shot the unarmed mother standing outside her locked front door.
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods said Lorincz’s version of events was “BS” because Owens’ children’s stories matched surveillance footage from a neighbor’s house
An arrest warrant showed Lorincz told 911 a “woman tried to break down her door while screaming,” so she shot her
“It wasn’t just Susan Lorincz who was on trial today, it was ‘stand your ground’ and how that is defined,” attorney Anthony D. Thomas said afterward.
“I think we’ve come a step closer with case law and defining what ‘stand your ground’ actually means.
‘No, you can’t claim that you’re afraid for your life. No, you can’t provoke the police by telling them on the phone that you’re afraid for your life so that they can be there quickly.’
Dias said it had been “a long road to get to this day, to get to this verdict.”
“She wanted to harm. She wanted to kill. That’s exactly what she did,” Dias added.
“She has no respect for any form of human life.”
Judge Robert Hodges told Lorincz she would be held without bail in the Marion County Jail until her sentence is announced later.