By EFE
Aug 17, 2024, 2:21 PM EDT
Miami – A 60-year-old white woman was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter on Friday for shooting dead her African-American neighbor through the front door of her home in the presence of the victim’s children.
The six-member jury, all white, needed just over two hours to find Susan Lorincz guilty of killing Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens, a 35-year-old mother of four who argued with the defendant on June 2, 2023, the day of the events.
Lorincz, who complained to the victim about the noise her children made while playing in a common area of the complex where they lived, claimed during the investigation and the judicial process that she acted in self-defense, and that she fired her gun because she feared for her life.
Because this was a case of manslaughter and not murder, which could have led to life imprisonment or the death penalty, the woman faces a sentence of up to 30 years in prison.
Some family members present at the Ocala courtroom broke down in tears after hearing the jury’s verdict.
According to prosecutors, Owens went to Lorincz’s home to complain that he had insulted her children and even thrown a scooter and an umbrella at them. Moments later, Owens was shot from inside the house and in the presence of her children.
The defendant invoked the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, which allows a person who believes they are at risk of death or serious physical harm to use “deadly force” instead of fleeing the scene.
The prosecution, however, stresses that the victim was not armed and that the door of the house from which the shot was fired was locked.
The case was marred by suspicions of racism from the start, as Lorincz, who did not testify in her own defense during the trial, was not arrested or charged until five days after the shooting that killed her neighbor.
Owens’ family also disagreed with the prosecutor’s decision to pursue the charge of involuntary manslaughter rather than second-degree murder, which they believed was the appropriate one.