A white Florida woman was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a black neighbor amid an ongoing dispute over children playing noisily outside her home.
An all-white jury in Ocala, Florida, found the 60-year-old Susan Lorincz guilty after 2 1/2 hours of deliberation. Lorincz faces up to 30 years in prison at sentencing.
Doug Engle/Ocala Star-Banner via AP, Pool
Lorincz had claimed self-defense when she fired a single shot from a .380-caliber handgun through her front door on June 2, 2023, killing Ajike “AJ” Owens, 35. Lorincz told detectives in a videotaped interview that she feared for her life as Owens yelled and banged on her door.
“I thought I was in imminent danger,” she said in the interview.
The confrontation was the latest in a dispute between Lorincz and Owens on the latter’s children playing in a green space near their two homes. Lorincz said in the interview that she had been harassed for most of the three years she had lived in the neighborhood.
Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said the self-defense claim was false.
“She wanted to hurt. She wanted to kill. That’s exactly what she did,” Dias said at a news conference outside the courthouse. “She has no respect for human life of any kind. And certainly not for my family.”
