MARION COUNTY, Fla. – Video released Monday shows deputies interrogating a Marion County woman accused of shooting through a door and killing her neighbor last year.
Susan Lorincz was arrested last June in the fatal shooting of Ajike “AJ” Owens, 35, a mother of four.
According to deputies, Owens had confronted Lorincz about throwing a pair of roller skates at her children, leading to Owens being shot shot through the front door of Lorincz’s home.
Owens’ children — ages 12, 9, 7, and 2 at the time — were at the scene of the shooting when deputies arrived.
In the newly-released video, Lorincz claims her neighbor threatened to kill her during the confrontation and that she fired the gun in self-defense.
“There was banging, there was yelling. I thought she was just going to break down the door,” Lorincz said.
She claims she told Owens to go away, but the confrontation continued and escalated to the point where she said she was in fear for her life.
“She was just banging and banging and screaming at me, telling me, ‘I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you,’” she said.
Lorincz told investigators that’s when she grabbed her gun and shot Owens through the locked front door.
“Was your goal to shoot and kill her?” a detective asked.
“No,” she replied.
“What was your goal?”
“To shoot and hopefully, you know, she’ll hear the shot and dissipate,” she said.
Lorincz claimed the shooting was in self-defense, but deputies didn’t believe there was reasonable fear that her life was in danger and arrested her.
“I feel horrible, I can’t do this,” she said.
“OK, well, we’re going to the jail. There’s no changing this, there’s no stopping it,” a detective said.
“I don’t care, kill me,” she said.
Lorincz faces charges of manslaughter with a firearm and assault. Her trial has been pushed back a couple times, with jury selection now set for August.
Attorneys on both sides have argued which evidence should be heard during the upcoming trial. Lorincz’s lawyers argued that the state shouldn’t be allowed to bring up past law enforcement calls that didn’t involve Owens.
Leading up to the shooting, deputies responded more than 10 times to the area since January 2021 for a “neighborhood feud” between Owens and Lorincz, according to Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods. The sheriff’s office said it had about a dozen calls over the course of a year from Lorincz regarding the neighborhood children being loud and trespassing on her property, but deputies said the children actually were playing in a common area.
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