Jury convicts white Florida woman in fatal shooting of her black neighbor – NBC 6 South Florida

A white Florida woman was convicted of manslaughter on Friday in connection with the fatal shooting of a black neighbor during an argument over loudly playing children outside her home.

An all-white jury in Ocala, Florida, found 60-year-old Susan Lorincz guilty after two and a half hours of deliberation. Lorincz faces up to 30 years in prison when the verdict is announced. Lorincz had claimed self-defense when she fired a single shot through her front door with a .380-caliber pistol on June 2, 2023, killing 35-year-old Ajike “AJ” Owens.

In a videotaped interview, she told investigators that she feared for her life as Owens screamed and banged on her door.

“I thought I was in immediate danger,” she said in the interview.

The altercation was the latest in a dispute between Lorincz and Owens over the latter's children playing on a lawn near their two homes. Lorincz said in the interview that she had been bullied almost the entire time during the three years she lived in the neighborhood.

The victim's family members burst into tears after Lorincz left the courtroom with the officers.

Lorincz showed no reaction or emotion when the verdict was announced.

District Judge Robert W. Hodges did not set an immediate sentencing date, but ordered a background report on Lorincz.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Rich Buxman said there was no evidence that Owens posed an immediate physical threat to Lorincz, but he came to the defendants' home after her children complained that Lorincz had allegedly thrown roller skates and an umbrella at them during a sustained harassment caused by their boisterous outdoor play.

“It's not a crime to bang on someone's door. It's not a crime to scream,” Buxman told jurors. “There was no immediate danger when she fired the gun.”

A lawyer for Lorincz countered that she was frightened by Owens' aggressive behavior and was legally justified in firing her weapon under Florida's “stand your ground” law. An autopsy found that Owens weighed about 300 pounds, making her much larger and younger than Lorincz, and the two had previously clashed.

“She is capable of defending herself,” said Amanda Sizemore, an assistant public defender. “She only had a split second to decide whether or not to fire her weapon.”

Lorincz did not testify in her own defense, but said in an interview with investigators that was played to the jury that she never intended to harm Owens. Still, in a 911 call, Lorincz told a dispatcher, “I'm just sick of these kids.”

“She wasn't afraid. She was angry,” Buxman said.

Phyllis Wills lived in the neighborhood for 15 years and described Lorincz as someone who had a problem with kids being kids, NBC News reported. She noted that many of the neighbors had problems with Lorincz.

Lorincz insulted the children and used the N-word and a derogatory word for people with mental disabilities, Wills said.

The six-person jury is all white, and Owens' family has expressed surprise that no black jurors were selected, given the racially sensitive nature of the case. There were protests in the black community when prosecutors took weeks to charge Lorincz with manslaughter, a lesser offense than second-degree murder that carries a possible life sentence.

The county clerk's office said in an email that of the 70 jurors in the original pool, eight were black. Compared to that, 49 were white and 10 were listed as Hispanic, two as Asian and one as “other,” the clerk's office said, based on records from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Ocala is located about 80 miles northwest of Orlando in central Florida. According to the census, the black population in Marion County is about 12%.