Susan Lorincz, the Florida woman who fatally shot her neighbor Ajike “AJ” Owens through a closed door in June 2023, was found guilty Friday of first-degree felony manslaughter with a firearm.
The verdict came just before 3:00 p.m. ET. Judge Robert Hodges instructed Lorincz that she would be held in the Marion County jail without bond until her sentencing. Lorincz appeared to shrug her shoulders before she left the courtroom with correctional officers. She faces 30 years in prison.
“Oh, God! Thank you, Jesus!” Pamela Dias, Owens’ mother, yelled after Lorincz left the room.
“Today, our family can sleep a little better knowing that Susan Lorincz will no longer be a threat to our community, especially to my grandchildren,” Dias told ABC News. “While this verdict does not bring my daughter AJ back to us, it does bring a sense of peace that we have long sought,” she said.
“I am very pleased with the jury, the prosecution, the verdict of the guilty,” Dias said in a news conference outside of the Ocala, Florida, courthouse after the verdict. “I find some peace with that verdict. I feel that, although my daughter is gone forever, the children’s mom is gone forever, but we’ve achieved some justice for Ajike.”
Lorincz’s law team declined to comment to ABC News’ request for a statement.
The six-person, all-white panel was seated on Monday and began deliberating on Friday shortly after 12:00 p.m. ET after prosecutors and the defense presented their closing arguments in a case that gained national attention.
Lorincz shot Owens, a Black mother of four, through a closed door in the presence of her now 10-year-old son after she went to speak with Lorincz about a dispute over Owens’ children playing near her home, according to a June 6, 2023, statement from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).
Lorincz, who is white, was arrested on June 6, 2023, and charged with first-degree felony manslaughter for fatally shooting Owens on June 2, 2023, in Ocala, Florida. She pleaded not guilty on July 10, 2023, and was held on a $150,000 bond.
“This verdict is a critical step in securing justice for AJ and her family,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Owens’ family, said. “While nothing can erase the pain they’ve endured, today’s decision sends a clear message that senseless violence will be met with accountability.”
A host of neighbors, including two children, sheriff’s deputies, a 911 dispatcher and operator, crime scene investigators and forensic experts were among those who testified during the trial.
Prosecutors argued that Lorincz should be found guilty because she fatally shot an “unarmed” Owens through a “locked” door.
“Ms. Owens was banging on the door telling the defendant to come out,” state attorney Rich Buxman said in his closing argument. “Belief that there was an immediate or imminent danger, such that deadly force was necessary at that time, was simply unreasonable because there was no imminent danger. And that word imminent is very important. It’s included in the law for a reason… If Miss Owens would somehow have managed to bust through this locked, deadbolted metal door, entered her house and started coming at her, the defendant may have had a right to shoot because that danger would have then been imminent.”
The defense argued that Lorincz should be found not guilty because she was acting in self-defense because she feared for her life.
“The law says you should only convict someone if you’re convinced they’re guilty beyond a reasonable doubt…. If you’re back there and you’re deliberating and you’re thinking, ‘Man, she had some medical issues. She did live alone. She had these prior run-ins with Ajike, I could see how she could be scared of her,'” Amanda Sizemore, Lorincz’s attorney, said in her closing argument. “And if you have reasonable doubt, you should find Ms. Lorincz not guilty because that is what the law says. And each and every one of you took an oath to follow the law.”
A focus of the state’s argument was on the first 911 call that Lorincz made to report “trespassing” on June 2, 2023 – minutes before she ended up shooting Owens.
According to witnesses, including the sheriff’s deputies who responded to the shooting, law enforcement was already on their way to Lorincz’s home when the shooting occurred because she had called 911 to report three children – one Latino and two Black – were “trespassing” on her property.
During the trial the locked door became a focus of the state’s argument and the subject of cross examination during the testimony of various witnesses.
The defense claimed that Owens told Lorincz that she was going to “kill” her and was trying to “break” in Lorincz’s front door that they argued was “damaged.”
The state zeroed in on this claim during the testimony on Tuesday of Lorincz’s former landlord Charles Gabbard.
Gabbard testified that, prior to the shooting, he had repaired a jam on Lorincz’s front door. He said that her door was “structurally sound” after he repaired it, despite some cosmetic damage. He said that the door was sturdy and had a chain, a deadbolt and a lock.
During cross-examination, Gabbard said that Lorincz did not tell him how the door was damaged but that “it was clear that someone slammed” the door. He said that after repairing it, he was planning to replace Lorincz’s door at some point. Asked by Lorincz’s attorney if the crack in the door was “substantial,” Gabbard said, “Yes.”
“Susan Lorincz told detectives, ‘I really thought she was going to break my door down,'” Sizemore said. “‘I really thought that I saw the door moving.’ And I really believe that. I honest to God believe that is what she said. She reasonably believed that. We heard Susan tell the detectives, ‘I heard Ms. Owens say, ‘I’m going to [expletive] kill you.’ … I heard the door crack, and when I heard that door crack, I fired.'”
Hodges instructed that he will order a pre-sentence investigation per the defense’s request and will schedule a sentencing at a later date. The judge stated that he believed the sentencing will happen well before November.
