A neighborhood feud ends with a mother of four dead
Florida woman charged days after fatal shooting
OCALA, Fla. — A Florida woman accused of fatally shooting her neighbor last week in the violent culmination of what the sheriff described as a 2½-year feud was arrested Tuesday, the Marion County Sheriff ’s Office said.
Susan Louise Lorincz, 58, who is white, was arrested on charges of manslaughter with a firearm, culpable negligence, battery, and two counts of assault in the death of Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four, Sheriff Billy Woods said in a statement.
Authorities came under pressure Tuesday to arrest and charge Lorincz, who fired the gun and killed Owens in a case that has put Florida’s stand your ground law back into the spotlight.
In a video posted on Facebook late Tuesday night, the sheriff said this was not a stand your ground case but 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.”
The video shared by the sheriff ’s office shows two detectives and a deputy leading Lorincz down a hallway with her hands behind her back.
Jail records show she was booked but did not list a lawyer who could speak on her behalf. It wasn’t immediately clear when she would make her first court appearance.
During a news conference at New St. John Missionary Baptist Church on Wednesday afternoon, the victim’s family, friends, and community leaders joined civil rights lawyer Ben Crump in thanking the sheriff for making the arrest, while calling for justice for Owens.
“This is not a difficult case,” Crump said. He called on the state attorney’s office to “zealously prosecute” the shooter.
Crump, along with Owens’s mother and a number of neighbors, noted during the news conference that the “feud” the sheriff spoke of was between Lorincz and neighborhood children, who often played in a lot outside her home. Neighbors said Lorincz frequently called the children vile names and antagonized them.
That was the case on Friday night, they said. Sheriff ’s deputies responded to a trespassing call and found Owens with gunshot wounds.
The neighborhood of singlestory duplexes and quadruplexes is in the rolling hills outside of Ocala. The area is known for its thoroughbred horse farms, which surround the workingclass neighborhood.
Lorincz told investigators that she acted in self-defense, and that Owens, 35, had been trying to break down her door before she fired the gun, the sheriff said. She also told them that Owens had come after her in the past and had previously attacked her.
Sheriff Woods said the investigation, which included eyewitness statements, established that Lorincz’s actions were not justifiable under Florida law.
Earlier the sheriff had said that because of the stand your ground law he couldn’t make an arrest unless he could prove the shooter did not act in self-defense.
According to the sheriff ’s account, Owens was shot moments after going to Lorincz’s apartment because she had yelled at Owens’s children as they played outside. He said Lorincz had thrown a pair of skates that hit one of the children. The sheriff ’s office hasn’t said whether race was a factor in the shooting.
Owens’ mother, Pamela Dias, said Wednesday that her two young grandsons, ages 12 and 9, are dealing with feelings of guilt — because they were with their mother outside Lorincz’s house and saw her get shot.
“Our 12-year-old blames himself for the death of his mother because he couldn’t save her,” Dias said. “He couldn’t give her CPR.”