US woman jailed for fatally shooting neighbour through door
Watch: Susan Lorincz describes incident that led to shooting and hears 25-year sentence
- Published
A Florida woman who fatally shot her neighbour through her front door last year has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Susan Lorincz, 60, opened fire on 35-year-old Ajike "AJ" Owens as she knocked on Lorincz's locked door during a dispute about the victim's children playing outside in the city of Ocala.
According to Owens's family and an affidavit, external, Lorincz, who is white, had shouted racial epithets at the children of Owens, who was black, before the shooting on 2 June 2023.
A jury convicted Lorincz in August of one count of manslaughter with a firearm and one count of assault. The trial tested Florida's Stand Your Ground law, which permits use of deadly force in self-defence.
The fatal shooting followed a series of quarrels between Lorincz and Owens that resulted in police being called at least six times from January 2021.
The confrontation is believed to have stemmed from an altercation earlier in the day when Lorincz shouted at Owens's children and struck one of them with a roller skate.
Lorincz was inside her home when she opened fire with a handgun, striking single mother-of-four Owens in the chest.
She did not testify at her trial, but told investigators that she had feared for her life when Owens approached her door.
"I panicked and I thought, 'Oh my God, she's really going to kill me this time,' you know," Lorincz told Marion County Sheriff's investigators.
"And so I don't even actually remember picking up the gun, I just remember shooting."
Her lawyers told jurors she had "no choice".
But during Monday's sentencing, Judge Robert Hodges said that the shooting was prompted “more by anger than fear” and that “at the time she fired the gun through the door, she was safe”.
Judge Hodges acknowledged as mitigating factors abuse that Lorincz suffered as a child and her diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
But he ruled that this did not merit a substantial reduction in her maximum possible sentence of 30 years in prison.
Addressing the court on Monday, Lorincz denied calling Owens's children racial slurs and said the shooting was "not about race".
"I am so sorry that I took AJ’s life. I never intended to kill her. The night I shot that gun I was confused as to why she was screaming and pounding on my door," she told the court.
"Please accept my humble and sincere apology for this tragedy."
Susan Lorincz seen at the time of her initial arrest
At trial, prosecutor Rich Buxman argued that for Lorincz to have lawfully used force, the threat against her life had to be "imminent".
“If Ms Owens would somehow have managed to bust through this locked, dead bolted metal door, enter her house and start coming at her, the defendant may have had a right to shoot... but that’s not the situation we have here,” Mr Buxman said.
During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors also took issue with the defence's PTSD claim, saying that Lorincz had sought treatment for the condition twice in her life, most recently five years before the shooting.
Owens's family had originally asked for federal hate crimes charges in the case.
Florida introduced a "stand your ground" law in 2005 that gives individuals a right to protect themselves with reasonable force - including deadly force - to prevent death or bodily harm.
At least 28 states have versions of stand your ground laws.