OCALA, Florida — A jury in Florida will decide whether a 60 year old white woman rightly so when she shot through the door of her downtown Florida apartment a year ago, fatally shooting a black mother during an ongoing dispute over the neighborhood children.
In opening statements Tuesday, the jury was told that shortly before Ajike “AJ” Owens was murdered on June 2, 2023, the children were playing in a small field outside the apartment where Susan Lorincz lived in Ocala, which is 80 miles northwest of Orlando in central Florida.
Lorincz told investigators that the children were running and screaming outside her apartment. She went outside, saw some skates on the ground and threw them to the children.
She went back inside her apartment, defense attorney Morris Carranza told the jury.
Owens, who was the mother of several children and lived across the street, went to Lorincz’s apartment to confront her. Owens was apparently angry about the way Lorincz was treating the children, attorneys said in their opening statements.
Owens banged hard on her door, Carranza said.
“AJ was banging and cursing,” Carranza said during opening statements. He said Owens had threatened his client and that she was afraid the woman would kick in the door.
He said Lorincz was standing a few feet from the front door, next to her table, as someone was banging on the door.
Prosecutors said the door was locked and told the jury Owens was not armed.
Carranza argued that Lorincz feared Owens would harm her.
She believed “in her mind, in her soul and in her core that she had no choice” but to fire a single bullet from her .380-caliber pistol, her attorney told the jury.
Yvonne Costa, who lived in the apartment that shared a wall with Lorincz, testified Tuesday that she heard loud voices shortly before the shooting but couldn’t make out what was being said.
Then the banging started. It was loud, she testified.
“The wall between our two apartments started shaking,” Costa said. “It was very loud. And it scared me.”
She testified that she then heard a loud bang, followed by more screaming, and she ran to her bedroom to call 911.
Witnesses said Owens tripped off the porch and screamed for someone to call 911 before falling to the ground.
District Attorney William Gladson has said his office considered filing a second-degree murder charge, but prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence Lorincz had “hatred, resentment, ill will or malicious intent” toward Owens.
