The state of Florida protects homeowners who fatally shoot and kill people when they act in self-defense. On Friday, 58-year-old white woman Susan Lorincz was not acting in self-defense when she shot a Black woman through her front door following a confrontation about playing children. Now, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office has charged Lorincz with manslaughter with a firearm in addition to other charges in connection with the homicide of 35-year-old mother of four, Ajike Owens.
In the culmination of what authorities are calling a feud that lasted for two and a half years and ended in cold-blooded murder, Ajike Owens was killed in front of her children on Friday night by a white woman who wanted her dead. The homicide occurred in the hills south of Ocala in north Florida, which is home to the state’s best horseback riding.
While Florida protects homeowners who kill people on their property in self-defense, known as the “stand your ground” law, in a video posted to Facebook on Tuesday, the sheriff clarified that this incident did not apply and was “simply a killing.”
“Now, many of you were struggling to understand why there was not an immediate arrest,” the sheriff said. “The laws here in the state of Florida are clear. Now I may not like them. I may not agree with them. But however, those laws I will follow.”
In a video shared by the sheriff’s office, Lorincz was shown being walked down a hallway wearing shorts and a black top, and a jacket while her hands were held behind her back by authorities.
For a long time, Lorincz had become upset with Owens’s children because they would play in an empty field near the white woman’s apartment. She did not like hearing the joy of young Black children and continued to feed a feud between her and the young children’s mother.
On Friday, Lorincz got into a verbal argument with the young children, and she was overheard “yelling at them by a neighbor.”
Lorincz escalated the incident by throwing a roller skate at Owen’s 10-year-old son, injuring the boy in the process. That child, along with his 12-year-old brother, went to speak to Lorincz. She tried to attack them with an umbrella before getting her gun ready to shoot. The children told their mother that they had been attacked by the white woman.
The sheriff said, “Owens approached Lorincz’s home, knocked on the door multiple times, and demanded that Lorincz come outside. Lorincz then fired one shot through the door, striking Owens in her upper chest. At the time she was shot, Owens’ 10-year-old son was standing beside her.”
Officers responded to a trespassing call but arrived to find Owens suffering from a fatal gunshot wound. She died later in the hospital.
Lorincz claimed she murdered the mother in self-defense because the woman was knocking on her door.
“Lorincz also claimed that Owens had come after her in the past and had previously attacked her,” the office continued. But Lorincz was lying, and “detectives were able to establish that Lorincz’s actions were not justifiable under Florida law.”
