A White Florida woman was convicted Friday of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a Black neighbor amid an ongoing dispute about children playing loudly outside her home.
An all-White jury in Ocala, Florida, found 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 with a .380-caliber handgun through her front door on June 2, 2023, killing 35-year-old Ajike “A.J.” Owens. Lorincz told detectives in a videotaped interview that she feared for her life as Owens yelled and pounded 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 over the latter’s children playing in a grassy area near both of their houses. Lorincz said in the interview she had been harassed for most of the three years she lived in the neighborhood.
Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said the self-defense claim was bogus.
“She set out to cause harm. She set out to kill. That’s exactly what she did,” Dias said at a news conference outside the courtroom. “She has no regard for any form of human life. Certainly, not my family.”