Ajike “AJ” Owens was a Black, single mother of four, doing the best she could, raising her children in Ocala, Florida, when she was fatally shot by her white neighbor, Susan Lorincz, in June 2023.
While her murder at the time made national news, the case has experienced a resurgence in interest thanks to Netflix’s new, award-winning documentary, The Perfect Neighbor, from Geeta Gandbhir.
Released October 17, the harrowing film is mostly an edited compilation of extensive police footage, captured during their exhaustive visits to the cul-de-sac, in response to Lorincz’s barrage of complaints against the neighborhood children.
Here’s a timeline of how tensions between Lorincz and Owens escalated, ultimately leading to the latter’s tragic death.
2021 – 2023: Two years of rising neighborhood tension
In 2021, less than a year after Lorincz moved into her rental property, situated across the street from Owens’ home, she began calling the police to complain about the neighborhood children, claiming they were trespassing on her property, playing too loudly, and taunting her.
During one police visit, Lorincz claimed she caught Owens’ son, Israel — who was about seven years old at the time — trying to put his dog in the bed of her parked truck. When pressed for details about the incident, she told authorities he was wearing a red shirt and his dog was small.
Authorities then went to speak to an adult witness, a neighbor, who was outside with the children at the time. The man laughed at Lorincz’s accusations, denying the plausibility of her story, saying that Israel’s dog was a large breed and it would’ve been impossible for him to lift.
Besides the numerous 911 calls, Lorincz would also allegedly approach the children herself, harassing them and shouting racial slurs at them. In her 2023 arrest affidavit, she admitted to having used the n-word toward the children and calling them other derogatory terms out of anger.
She became known as the neighborhood curmudgeon and was often seen filming or taking photos of the children, presumably to document their alleged behavior.
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At a 2023 press conference, per The New York Times, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods revealed that his deputies responded to “six to eight” reports between 2021 and 2023, about Lorincz’s ongoing feud with Owens.
In footage of one of Lorincz’s police station visits, where she sought to file a report, the officer asked if she wanted to see the children go to jail or do some sort of recourse. “Yes absolutely,” she replied, with the officer telling her honestly that he was only able to write up an official police document because she had no video proof of her claims.
2023: Neighborhood feud reaches a deadly boiling point
On June 2, 2023, Lorincz got into a dispute with Israel, in which she allegedly took his tablet and threw a pair of roller skates at him. Shortly afterward, she phoned 911. In a recording of the call, Lorincz claimed, “We got kids trespassing, standing there, leaving all the toys around, just screaming, yelling, just being absolutely obnoxious,” admitting that she “went and threw the roller skates over to the other side.”
She further alleged that Israel threatened to “beat [her] up” for throwing the roller skates.
When asked if he was still out there, Lorincz claimed, “Yeah, there are several kids out there right now, and I’m fearing for my life. I’m very scared.”
Owens’ children were between the ages of three and 12 at the time of the shooting, according to the Ocala Gazette.
While Lorincz told the dispatcher that there were no weapons involved in the altercation, she alleged the children threatened to “get someone else to kill” her.
“This is just ridiculous,” she added. “They just keep badgering me and badgering me. I’m just sick of these children.”
The operator told her to “avoid” Israel and to “keep your doors and windows locked” and that an officer would be dispatched as soon as possible.
According to several neighbor accounts, Owens angrily went over and banged on Lorincz’s doors prepared to confront her about her son’s tablet.
“As the thudding was going on, a woman was screaming like at the top of her lungs,” one person told detectives. “And then bang.”
Lorincz fired a bullet through her front door, hitting Owens in the upper chest area. In footage from a neighbor’s front door, Owens’ eldest child, Isaac, runs up frantically, begging the neighbor to call 911. “Please! She shot my mom,” he cries out.
In a separate phone call to the police, Lorincz is heard hyperventilating as she says through tears, “Oh my God, this lady just tried to break down my door. I shot through the door. Oh my God!”
She adds, “I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed my gun and I shot at the door. I thought she was going to kill me.”
When paramedics arrived at the scene, they tended to Owens’ wounds before rushing her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Where is Lorincz now?
Lorincz was initially taken in for questioning the night of Owens’ death, but was released hours later while detectives conducted an investigation. Her release was decried by Owens’ family and other community members, who demanded that Lorincz be arrested and charged.
Lorincz maintained that she shot through her door in self-defense out of fear that Owens was going to break down the door and kill her first, citing the state’s controverisal Stand Your Ground law. The law, recognized in several states, including Alabama, Iowa and Texas, permits the use of deadly force when someone reasonably believe it to be necessary, in order to defend themselves against certain violent crimes.
Lorincz, now 60, was eventually arrested and formally charged for the murder of Owens four days later. She stood trial, and was found guilty of manslaughter, with the judge ruling that Lorincz was motivated to shoot Owens “more by anger than fear” and that “at the time she fired the gun through the door, she was safe.”
She was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and is currently serving her sentence at the Homestead Correctional Institution in South Florida.
The Perfect Neighbor is available to stream on Netflix.
